“I love it,” said Henka. “Though I do feel we may have overpaid.”
“Are you sure you want to stay here?’ I asked in a whisper. Should I invite her to the floating mountain? I’d lied, told her no one was there, and that shamed me.
“Insects don’t bother me,” she said.
I imagined returning to find her rotting, crawling with maggots, and crushed the thought.
The boy coughed. “I’ll bring blankets and water and something to eat. The Captain says it’s best if you remain below decks until we leave.”
When had he talked to the Captain?
“I need to refresh my store of blood before we leave,” Henka whispered into my ear.
I saw an opportunity: One last quick look around the city. Maybe ask a few questions, see if anyone knew which way Tien travelled. And the longer we could stave off murdering and harvesting the crew, the better.
“How long before we reach the islands?” I asked the boy.
“Once we depart, three weeks if the weather holds. A month or more if the winds change.”
“When do we depart?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“We have things to do in town first,” I said. “We’ll be back before he sets sail.” I considered the Captain. “And tell the Captain if he leaves without us, I’ll send something after him.”
“Right,” said the boy.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
He dipped a sloppy bow. “Brenwick Sofame, at your service.”
“Brenwick.” I tossed him a coin. “Clean this place up while we’re gone. New mattress. Fresh sheets.”
He nodded and departed.
I turned to Henka. “No point in staying in this dump any longer than we have to. We’ll get a room in town, one last night of luxury, and return first thing in the morning.”
She gave me a cold peck on the cheek, but her eyes promised warmth. “Let’s go.”
We walked back up the hill, away from the brown folks of the ships and docks, and back into the world of pink-skinned blonds. Where did I fit in? The pale people loathed me and, apparently, the brown feared me.
“What does the colour of my skin mean?” I asked Henka as we strolled crowded streets. They watched us, hate in their eyes. Hate for my black skin. Hate for the fact we were clearly together. “Why did the Captain call me a stained-soul?”
“Superstitious nonsense. Islanders believe consorting with demons stains a person physically.”
“Are there others like me?”
“Farther south, in the centre of the world. After the war, the wizards all but wiped out your people. The survivors fled to the archipelagos around PalTaq. There are thousands of islands, many places to hide. I doubt anyone this far north has seen skin like yours in two thousand years.”
My people. What would it feel like to fit in? What would it feel like to walk into a room and not be loathed?
Selecting an upscale inn that looked out over the ocean called Hawk’s Landing, Henka led me inside. The interior was finished entirely in white marble veined with gold. The floor, the walls, the pillars, the desk behind which sat a sneering old man, all were immaculately carved from cold stone. A dozen pink-skinned fair-haired men and women lounged on huge chairs of soft leather, smoking cigars and drinking coffee from tiny cups. Narrowed eyes followed us. Seeing the coffee cups, I scanned the room for Tien. She wasn’t here. Either the place was too nice, or the coffee not good enough.
Approaching the desk, Henka smiled sweetly at the old man. Most people melted at her smiles, she was gorgeous and young. The old man’s sneer sank deeper into the crags of his ancient features.
“We’d like a room, please,” she said.
“We’re booked.”
“The sign outside says otherwise.”
He stared at her, not answering.
Placing a gold coin on the counter, enough to buy us a room for a month, she said, “We have money.”
He eyed the coin with clear distaste. “We do not accommodate ebony souls and we certainly don’t serve whores.” He eyed her slinky dress. “Even expensive ones.”
Henka stopped me reaching for my sword with a hand. “Then good day to you, sir,” she said, collecting the coin and leading me back out into the street.
I bottled my rage, shoved it down deep, swore vengeance. Someday I would return to that inn and paint the white stone red.
It took three more attempts before we found a place willing to take us. I knew that when I returned to repay these people for their rudeness, I would be busy indeed.
The Sleeping Inn wasn’t much compared to Hawk’s Landing, but it was still palatial in comparison to our berth aboard the Habnikaav. With the room secured, Henka and I did some shopping. We collected a supply of preserved foods, vegetables and dried meats, as much as we could carry. Every shopkeeper we interacted with made no attempt to hide their loathing. Darker. Ebony Soul. Stained. All the hurtful words muttered just loud enough to know I heard. They wanted our coin, but wanted me to know I was not welcome, would never be welcome. Someday I would return, I would repay them in kind.
Once we had enough to keep me alive, if not well-fed, for several weeks in the floating mountain, we returned to leave our purchases in our room. With the bound water elemental beneath the castle, water wouldn’t be a problem. In the morning we’d lug the supplies down to the Habnikaav.
Unbuckling my sword, I tossed it onto a chair. Hate exhausted me, theirs and mine. It was a constant weight on my soul. Placing a pillow against the headboard, I collapsed onto the bed. I sat, watching Henka.
Crawling across the bed like a lithe cat, Henka sprawled out beside me, back arched slightly, nipples showing through the thin silk of her dress. Obsidian eyes, filled with promise, watched me. I cupped a breast, found it cold, and released it.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
I shook my head. “No need to apologise.”
“Do you want to eat first, or shall we procure ourselves a supply of blood?” She lifted a suggestive eyebrow.
Lust, revulsion, and excitement warred within me. Kill someone. Drain them of blood. I couldn’t eat. At least, unlike the harvesting for parts, the blood didn’t have to come from beautiful young women. Henka didn’t care what the source was, as long as it was human.
I hoped I might get a chance, if Henka and I separated briefly, to ask around after Tien. Maybe I could come up with an excuse.
“Blood first,” I said.
The hint of a smile ghosted her lips. She slid from the bed, smoothing the dress and examining herself in the mirror.
“You’re perfect,” I said to forestall any additional butchery. And she was. Every curve and contour, flawless, as if custom built to my every desire, my every want and need.
“We’ll find an old whore,” she said. “Get a second room in a hotel down by the docks, the kind of place that doesn’t ask questions. We’ll drain her there.”
“One will do?” I asked, knowing the answer, but hoping.
“Three would be better.”
Three more murders. I’d add their souls to the stone. The thought reminded me of the butcheries I’d seen in Taramlae, how nothing was left by the end. Every organ, bone, muscle, and sinew, every drop of blood, was turned to some purpose.
Like somehow, by not wasting our victims, I might be less evil.
“What we do,” I said, “you and I. Killing. Murdering. Draining people of blood, harvesting them. Stealing their souls to feed demons. Is that evil?” Such a stupid question. “Are we evil?”
I knew the answer, but wanted to be proven wrong.
“Evil,” said Henka, with a slight shrug. “If a wolf eats a rabbit, it is evil?”
“Wolves are carnivores. If they don’t eat meat, they die.”
“Think of me as a carnivore. I might not eat my prey, but it’s the same in the end. Dead is dead.” She turned away, suddenly shy, eyes downcast, perfect brow crumpling, retreating from my questions. A pang of guilt stabbed
me at hurting her like this. At forcing her to defend her very existence. “I need blood to maintain myself. And for us.”
Us. I wanted her to have the blood. Perhaps I’d asked the wrong question. What I really wanted to know was if I was evil.
“Without the blood,” she said, “I must exist outside, hidden away from civilization. Like you found me. More animal than human. The longer I go the worse it gets. I become feral. I forget what I was.” Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to be that.” Reaching out she touched my chest with cold fingers. “I want to be real.”
She needed the blood, and surely need must separate evil from necessity.
“What about me?” I asked. “I don’t need to spend souls.”
“You do if you’re going to protect yourself from the wizards. You do if you’re going to reclaim what was yours. You do if you are going to rebuild your empire, the greatest empire the world ever knew. This,” she gestured at the window and the city beyond. “This is pathetic. A mockery of what we had. The wizards think small. They don’t dream. They’re content to rule this filthy hovel of a civilization.”
A mockery of what we had? Somehow it felt like she meant us, rather than civilization. She was too angry at what was lost. I remembered the wistful way she stared at the abandoned village.
“How old are you?”
She looked away. “Not as old as you,” she answered, voice soft. “If you are doing something grand, building something more than yourself, if you better the state of all humanity, how can you be evil?” She turned back to me, eyes intense. “Surely the end justifies the means.”
Was that why I was doing this? Was I going to bring down the wizards to make people’s lives better?
I closed my eyes. I might be willing to lie to myself, but I would not lie to her. Which was, of course, a lie. I hadn’t told her of Nhil.
“Henka, my love, that’s not why I’m doing this. The wizards took what was mine. Maybe they didn’t scatter my heart, but I have no doubt they broke it. If they find out I’m alive, they’ll hunt me. They’ll destroy me again. Power is the only way I can protect myself.”
“I know.” I felt her cold hand in mine. “It’s you and me against all the world.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Evening claimed Nachi as the sun sank and lit the clouds from beneath in a gorgeous swirl of red, yellow, purple, and orange. The western sky burned like it was on fire. A full moon grew in brightness as night fell.
The docks, I discovered, weren’t the only part of Nachi populated by those of darker complexion. Even among the mansions of the upper town, narrow alleys lurked behind ostentatious wealth. A hidden no-man’s land of whores and thieves and cutthroats existed in the shadows cast by marble and gold. A slurred blend of skin and hair colours suggested centuries of interbreeding.
It didn’t take long to find a rundown hotel where no one asked questions and rooms could be rented by the hour. Enough other patrons came and went, whores of varying age and appeal on their arms, that no one would notice us returning with one. Or that we would do so several times throughout the course of the evening. That wasn’t quite true. People noticed us—my midnight skin and Henka’s unearthly beauty—but gold purchased inattentive eyes and failing memories.
At least that was the plan.
After taking a room of stained sheets and cockroach-killing spiders for the entire evening, Henka and I descended to the streets to begin our own hunt. About to exit the front door, I stopped, half in, half out of our decrepit tavern. There, exiting an equally seedy establishment across the street, was Tien. The wizard—thief, whatever the hell she was—glanced up and down the street, eyes sliding past the inset door in which I stood without pausing. Nodding to herself, she selected a direction and set out. Though short, she walked fast, hips swinging in a confident strut. She looked just as she had, even wearing the same unassuming clothes.
My god, whoever, whatever, wherever she was, smiled down on me.
“What is it?” asked Henka from behind me. I felt her hand, a gentle touch on the small of my back. “You saw something?”
How to explain? I turned to face her. “Someone. A wizard.”
“A wizard? From before? Someone you remember from a long time ago?”
I shook my head. “I met her in Taramlae. She’s a thief.”
“She?” Henka’s eyes narrowed.
I couldn’t explain Shalayn and I, our weeks in the wizard’s tower, or her death and the part this wizard played. Back then I hadn’t known Henka beyond our very brief first meeting, and yet my time with Shalayn made me feel like I’d somehow been unfaithful. The knot of warring emotions confused me. In a time when I was lost and alone, Shalayn showed me kindness. God it hurt.
“I hired her to help me get into the wizard’s tower where the shard of my heart was.” Not a lie, not the whole truth.
“It shouldn’t have been there,” said Henka. I saw in doubt her eyes.
Her words sunk in. “It shouldn’t have been there?”
She looked annoyed at the change in topic. “None of the others are in towers. How did they find that one?”
Good question, but it felt like an evasion.
Henka watched Tien. “The wizard you hired—the thief—she’s cute. Petite.”
Cute. True, Tien was extremely cute, though not at all my type. At least Henka wasn’t digging deeper into what happened at the tower.
“Not my type,” I said. “And you know that. You have no reason to be jealous.” Not of Tien.
“Jealous?” She hmphed.
“We should follow her.”
“Really?” She gave me a hard look. “Why?”
“Why is she here? What if she’s somehow followed us? What if she’s here on behalf of the Guild?”
“And kill her?” Henka asked.
“And kill her,” I agreed.
I reminded myself not to be stupid. Though I had no idea of her power, Tien was a wizard and not to be underestimated. There’d be no time for questions. No time for all the torments I dreamed up for her. But there would be time for a fast and brutal vengeance.
“I want her,” said Henka. “An enslaved wizard will come in handy. How else will you get her to answer your questions?” She examined me. “You don’t mind? She doesn’t mean anything to you, does she?”
Oh hell. She might learn of Shalayn.
I grinned at Henka. “I could never deny you anything.”
“You never could,” she agreed.
We followed the diminutive wizard at a safe distance. She weaved through knots of people, her confident strut never changing. When she ducked into a narrow alley, I hesitated, wondering if she spotted us. She hadn’t glanced over her shoulder at any time, but I had no idea what wizards might be capable of. Arriving at the corner, I peeked around to see her, still strutting, turn another corner. If she was worried or aware of us, she hid it masterfully.
Remembering the cafe hidden in the warrens of Taramlae, I wondered if there was something similar here. I had no doubt Tien either knew where it was or had some means of finding it.
After the second corner, the alleys were empty of people but littered with trash. I followed Tien, and Henka remained a few steps behind me. Where I was quiet, the necromancer was silent as the grave.
The sun disappeared and the world fell dark, these narrow back streets lit only by the light struggling past stained windows and gauzy curtains, and the bright moon above. Nachi became a city of ashen slate.
Carefree, the wizard whistled a jaunty tune. Drawing my crude sword, I closed the distance. If Tien had some kind of magical shield, all this would end very badly indeed. I found I didn’t care. The thief stole from me. She stole Shalayn and she stole my chance at happiness, at a different life. I knew in my blood that if Shalayn and I had remained together, I would be a different person than I now was. I could have been someone Shalayn loved instead of loathed.
The thought gave me some pause, though
I didn’t allow it to slow my approach. The person I’d become, this man who loved Henka, who helped her kill and harvest, who was to blame for him? I knew killing was evil, even if there were reasons. Even if there were good reasons. Yet here I was, a murderer several times over, planning on killing again. And I was definitely going to kill Tien. Nothing would stay my hand. Shalayn was dead because of her. Tien tricked me, manipulated me. No one does that. But this man I’d become, this murderer, could I lay that on Henka? Had she somehow shaped me?
I remembered how she said we had to collect the shards of my heart in a certain order, how it mattered that I was the one to take in the other pieces, the constant personality.
It felt like ducking responsibility, a cowardly escape. But it also felt true. To be fair, however, she made no attempt to hide her plan. She wanted me to be someone different than the Demon Emperor who failed, who died, betrayed by the wizards.
But why? Was it love?
My own wash of torn emotions—love for Henka, rage at Tien and the wizards, pain at Shalayn’s death—left me unbalanced, confused.
I closed the distance.
Tien spotted someone ahead and raised a hand in greeting. Seeing my chance, I dashed forward, drove my sword into her back. It entered near her liver, to the right of her spine. Angled up, it punched out between two of her lower ribs in the front.
Vengeance!
My horribly beautiful god it was glorious!
She stood, transfixed.
Behind her, so close, almost a lover’s embrace, I whispered in her ear, “I got you.”
Tien coughed blood, twitching. Twisting the sword, savaging her insides, I ripped it free. Gore came with it, spattering the earth and my boots. I’d gutted her.
Tien said something, her knees folding, and she fell dead. Just like that. So simple. Done.
Triumph and glee filled me. I did it! I killed the—
“No!”
The shout, voice cracking with agony, shattered my victory. I finally saw who Tien waved at.
Shalayn stood at the front step of yet another dingy coffee shop. She was as I remembered, wearing her armour, sword at her side, as always. Beautiful and strong in the moonlight.
Black Stone Heart (The Obsidian Path Book 1) Page 30