Shadows of Asphodel Box Set: The Complete Trilogy

by Karen Kincy

  “There are only six of them,” Wendel said softly.

  Ardis stared down the ridge. He was right. Half a dozen men carrying flashlights, all of them bundled in wool and furs.

  “The Order?” Ardis said.

  Wendel shook his head. “I don’t think so. They still think I’m dead.”

  “Bulgarians, then?”

  “Possibly.”

  Wendel still stood against the snow, his black clothes and black hair a stark contrast. Such an obvious target. Gritting her teeth, Ardis lunged to her feet, grabbed his arm, and dragged him down to hide beneath the pine.

  “Why would the Bulgarians be looking for us?” Ardis said.

  Wendel paused. “We are both fugitives.”

  The six strangers climbed the ridge, their flashlights growing brighter.

  “But we never did anything illegal in Bulgaria,” Ardis said.

  “Well…”

  She shot a glance at Wendel. “Really?”

  “It wasn’t my idea.”

  Which meant the Order of the Asphodel had commanded him to kill.

  Wendel raised his finger to his lips and flattened himself to the ground. He grabbed Ardis’s shoulder and pushed her down. She huddled against him, her heartbeat thudding, and held her breath so it wouldn’t cloud the air.

  Boots crunched the snow. A man halted inches from Ardis’s hand.

  All they had to do was look down. All they had to do was see the footprints in the snow.

  The man shone his flashlight up the ridge, then twisted around and beckoned his comrades onward. He still stood close enough to Ardis that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted. Her lungs burned as she forced herself not to exhale. Finally, the man clomped away, kicking flecks of snow into her face.

  Ardis let her breath escape in a puff of white.

  Wendel stiffened, his shoulder pressing hard against hers. She glanced at him and saw him flare his nostrils, but she didn’t see why.

  “Grok!”

  The hoarse croak startled Ardis. Her head snapped toward the noise. A bough in the pine tree bounced, shedding a flurry of snow.

  “Grok!”

  A black bird landed with a thump on a fallen tree. It was too big to be a crow, with a wicked beak and glittering eyes. The raven cocked its head and stared at Wendel. Expectantly. Ardis knew what it wanted.

  “Wendel,” she whispered. “Hide your necromancy.”

  “What?” he whispered. “I am!”

  Ardis jerked her head toward the raven, like Wendel wasn’t already staring. Wendel’s eyebrows angled into a frown. He looked like he wanted to incinerate the bird with his stare. The raven ruffled its feathers and hopped nearer.

  This was bad. If the Bulgarians noticed—

  A flashlight swung in their direction and spotlighted the raven. Glossy black feathers gleamed as the bird pumped its wings. The raven swooped low over the snow and landed on the lowest bough of the pine tree.

  Right over the necromancer.

  “Grok!”

  The Bulgarians stared at the bird. One of the strangers pointed his flashlight into Ardis’s eyes. Blinded, she crawled backwards.

  “Halt!” said the stranger.

  In German or English?

  Ardis froze with her hands flat on the snow. She could feel it melting beneath her palms.

  “On your feet,” said the stranger.

  That was definitely English.

  Ardis climbed to her feet with her hands above her head. She squinted at the flashlight. The stranger was still a silhouette. Slowly, Wendel also stood, though he spread his hands at his sides in an appeasing gesture.

  “Excuse me,” Wendel said. “Are you looking for us?”

  The stranger shone his flashlight in Wendel’s face. “No German.”

  Wendel sighed, as if he had a right to be peeved, and repeated himself in English.

  “Are you looking for us?”

  Make that flawless English. Ardis narrowed her eyes at Wendel for neglecting to mention his fluency earlier. He spoke with a subtle crispness that had to be the accent of a Prussian prince. Which, of course, he was.

  The stranger breathed out in a puff of white. “Perhaps.”

  “Who are you?” Ardis said.

  “Officer Zlatkov of the Bulgarian border patrol.”

  Wendel snapped his fingers. “I owe you, Ardis. This is Bulgaria.”

  Ardis glared sideways at him.

  Zlatkov lowered his flashlight, and Ardis glimpsed the nervous twitch of his mustache. He rattled off something in Bulgarian to his comrades. The smallest man among them stepped forward, his hood shadowing his face.

  The arrogant confidence on Wendel’s face faltered. Ardis didn’t know why.

  Nobody moved for a moment. Then somebody shoved the smallest man, stumbling, toward Wendel. His hood fell back from his face and revealed the truth—he wasn’t a man at all, but a woman. She had porcelain skin and cornsilk blonde hair, cobwebbed with white, though her face looked young and beautiful.

  Wendel stared at the woman. He closed his mouth, then opened it again.

  “You can’t be,” he said.

  The woman edged closer to Wendel. When the light caught her eyes, they flashed like those of a wolf. Wendel’s lips parted with what could be fascination or repulsion. The woman stopped only inches from the necromancer. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes, then lifted his hand as if he meant to stroke her cheek.

  “Yes,” the woman said, the word a little sigh.

  She closed her eyes, her face tight with longing, and leaned closer to Wendel.

  It looked as if they might kiss.

  Then two men jumped forward and grabbed the woman’s arms. They dragged her backward, yelling in Bulgarian, though she didn’t resist. Officer Zlatkov reached into his jacket, drew a pistol, and aimed between Wendel’s eyes.

  “Don’t move,” Zlatkov commanded.

  Out here on the border, they couldn’t count on the Hex to negate gunpowder.

  Ardis did as he said, her hand halfway to her sword, and glanced at Wendel. The necromancer seemed too shaken to react with his familiar bravado. He raised his hands and looked down the barrel of the pistol.

  “You found me.” Wendel licked his lips. “Where did you find her?”

  The woman stared at Wendel through the hair tumbling over her face. She looked as though she wanted to tell him, but didn’t dare.

  Officer Zlatkov shook his head with a grim smile.

  “You are under arrest,” Zlatkov said.

  At least the Bulgarians didn’t want to kill them on the spot.

  Ardis attempted to sound innocent. “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  Zlatkov’s men patted down Wendel, who clenched his jaw but let them do it. They handcuffed him without further ceremony, then turned to Ardis. Her hand jerked involuntarily toward her sword. Zlatkov trained the pistol on her head. Swallowing hard, Ardis forced herself not to fight. Another man unbuckled her scabbard from her belt and confiscated her sword, then cuffed her arms behind her back. He reached under her jacket and ran his hands along her waist, lingering longer than necessary.

  Ardis’s face burned. She distracted herself by imagining revenge.

  “Come with us,” Zlatkov said.

  “It isn’t like we have a choice,” Wendel muttered.

  He was rewarded for his sarcasm with a rough shove between the shoulders.

  They hiked down the ridge toward the village. The raven flew from tree to tree overhead, never letting the necromancer out of its sight. Wendel kept glancing at the raven, a crease between his eyebrows, but Ardis was more worried by the woman with the wolfish eyes, who listed toward Wendel like she was lovesick.

  Who or what was she, and why did the necromancer want to touch her?

  Candlelight flickered behind frosted windows in the village. It would have been quaint if Ardis and Wendel weren’t being marched through its streets. They crossed a cobblestoned town square and enter
ed a brick building under construction. The foyer was dark and dank, with a hallway that branched both left and right.

  “Ardis,” Wendel said.

  She craned her neck and saw the border patrol steering him to the right. They shoved her down the opposite hallway.

  “Wendel!” Ardis said. “Don’t—”

  A man shoved a hood of rough burlap over Ardis’s head. She had never been arrested before, and panic clawed inside her ribs like a rat trapped in a cage. She tried to force down the feeling, tried to count their steps.

  A turn to the left. A turn to the right. A rusty screech of a door opening.

  Someone shoved Ardis into what must have been a chair. The cold steel of the handcuffs bit into her wrists as they chained her to the chair. She held perfectly still, her breathing muffled, the moldy stink of the burlap in her mouth.

  The door groaned shut. Footsteps retreated down the hallway.

  Ardis was alone.

  Her heartbeat pounded in her ears. As she sat there in the darkness, her heartbeat slowed to the steady drumming of dread.

  Ardis yanked against the handcuffs. They were just a little looser than they should be. One size fits all, no doubt, and they likely hadn’t been designed with the smaller bones of a woman in mind. She flexed her fingers, then folded them together tight and strained against the handcuffs. The steel dug into her skin.

  “Come on,” Ardis said through clenched teeth.

  Damn it, this would be easier if she could see. Maybe she could—

  The door screeched open. Footsteps clicked across the floor. They stopped in front of Ardis. She tensed, her shoulders rigid, and stopped trying to escape the handcuffs. The burlap sack was yanked from her head.

  Officer Zlatkov stood holding a lantern that cast ghoulish light on his face. He set the lantern on a table, then dragged another chair closer and sat down. He crossed his legs, flicked a match on the table, and lit a cigarette.

  Zlatkov blew smoke toward the ceiling. “Ardis.”

  She swallowed and tried not to cough.

  “What do you know about Yu Lan?” Zlatkov said.

  Ardis’s heartbeat stumbled and came back galloping. Her name—her old name—sounded odd in his voice. In this dark room.

  “Yu Lan killed a man in America,” Zlatkov said. “Didn’t she?”

  Ardis said nothing. She didn’t see how speaking would help her.

  Zlatkov dragged on his cigarette. The end glowed red. Ardis stared at it, thinking of how her sword smoldered with magic.

  Where had they taken Chun Yi? She needed to find it.

  “Answer the question,” Zlatkov said.

  She bit the inside of her cheek. “Yu Lan killed a man in self-defense.”

  “Self-defense?” Zlatkov had a gravelly laugh. “If she was innocent, why did she flee? Why did she hide as a fugitive here?”

  Ardis stared at the space between his eyes. “She knew they wouldn’t believe her.”

  Zlatkov scooted his chair closer and leaned into her face. He tapped the ash from the end of his cigarette. It drifted into her lap.

  “Is that the truth?” he said, almost smiling.

  “Yes,” she said, looking anywhere but him.

  “Then tell me the truth about the Russians,” Zlatkov said.

  Ardis frowned. “The Russians?”

  Zlatkov slapped her across the face, hard enough to knock a gasp out of her. The stinging was followed by heat in the shape of his hand.

  “Isn’t Yu Lan innocent?” he said mockingly. “Isn’t Yu Lan honest?”

  Ardis bared her teeth. “Yu Lan is dead.”

  “Not yet,” Zlatkov said.

  “I’m Ardis now.”

  Zlatkov sucked on his cigarette and blew the smoke into her mouth. She coughed and squinted, unwilling to break eye contact.

  “I know,” Zlatkov said. “I know that Yu Lan was a little whore, just like her mother.”

  Ardis laughed bitterly. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Zlatkov shook his head and smiled. He waved his cigarette in her face as he talked, the smoke curling through the air.

  “This little whore,” he said, “killed a man when she should have just done her job. Then she ran away and pretended to be a mercenary. But she did a piss poor job of that, too, didn’t she? She whored herself out again to the Russians when they paid more money than the archmages. Because she was a greedy little bitch.”

  Blood rushed through Ardis’s ears so loud she could hardly think.

  “I didn’t betray the archmages,” she said.

  Zlatkov slapped Ardis again. Her eyes watered at the pain.

  “What happened in Constantinople?” he said.

  Ardis doubted he would believe the truth. But she had nothing else.

  “The Grandmaster,” she said. “He betrayed the archmages. He sold their secrets to the Russians. We tried to stop him.”

  Zlatkov stared at her like he couldn’t believe what a pathetic liar she was. He leaned close enough that his smoker’s breath fanned across her face. He grabbed her chin, his fingers bruising, and stared into her eyes.

  “Liar,” he said.

  Ardis sneered at him. “As if you could tell.”

  Zlatkov didn’t slap her again. He bent her over, roughly, and unchained her from the chair. Then he dragged her upright. He groped her breast, his fingers bruising, then grabbed his belt and fumbled to unbuckle it. Acid rose in Ardis’s throat. She pretended to fall to her knees, forcing him to stumble away.

  “Bitch,” Zlatkov panted.

  Ardis felt the weight of the handcuffs at her wrists. She narrowed her eyes.

  “I’ve heard it all before,” she said. “Can’t think of anything creative?”

  Ardis wrenched against the handcuffs and twisted her left hand loose. She surged to her feet and punched Zlatkov in the jaw. His head snapped back. She kneed him in the groin and dropped him to the floor, then savagely kicked him in the stomach. He curled like a worm. Breathing hard, Ardis glanced at the door.

  She could run away, or she could incapacitate him.

  Obviously the second option was the superior one.

  Ardis waited for Zlatkov to uncurl, then kicked him in the face. Her boot connected with his nose. His eyes rolled back. Blood trickled across his cheek. She stared at him until she was sure he was out cold, then crouched and searched his pockets for the key to her handcuffs. She freed herself and grabbed his pistol.

  Only then did she realize she was shaking all over. From adrenaline. From memories.

  Ardis leaned against the wall and forced herself to inhale. She had escaped what had happened in America. But she didn’t think she could ever escape the fear. A sour taste lingered on her tongue, and for a second she thought she might vomit. She coughed and pressed her hand to her mouth, then swallowed hard.

  She had to get out of here. She had to find Wendel.

  TWO

  Ardis didn’t look at Zlatkov as she left the room. She unlatched the door and nudged it open with her toe, then peeked around the corner. No sign of anyone in the hallway. She retraced her steps to the foyer, then headed down the hallway where she had last seen Wendel. She followed several disorienting twists and turns, hoping she wouldn’t lose her way. Her breathing sounded too loud in the silence.

  A door stood slightly ajar. Muffled voices leaked through the crack. Ardis couldn’t identify the words, but she could identify Wendel’s voice anywhere. She sucked in a breath, cocked her pistol, and kicked the door open.

  A man stood with his back to Ardis. He whirled around and reached into his jacket.

  Ardis squeezed the trigger. She shot him in the shoulder, and the bullet staggered him. But he was still reaching for a weapon. Without thinking, she aimed for his head and shot him between the eyes. He hit the floor.

  Shaking, Ardis lowered her gun. She glanced at the man as he lay dying at her feet.

  “Ardis,” Wendel said.

  He sat chained to a chair, bruises on his
cheekbones, bleeding from his lip. Otherwise he didn’t look worse for the wear.

  Wendel smiled, then winced and licked his split lip. “My savior.”

  Ardis shook her head and crouched over the man she had shot. His limp hand lay near his jacket. She searched his pockets until she found a hunter’s knife. She still had the key to her handcuffs, and she used it to free Wendel.

  “Take this.” Ardis held out the knife. “But remember, they have guns in Bulgaria.”

  “I noticed.”

  Wendel climbed to his feet and took the knife from her. He glanced at her face, then touched her on the shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  “I’m okay.” Ardis shrugged off his hand. “You?”

  He nodded. “Let’s end this chat before our friends join the conversation.”

  Ardis left the room first, since she was the one with the gun. The hallway was still empty, though she knew they had only eliminated two of the six men who had brought them here. And certainly not the entire border patrol.

  “This way,” Ardis said, trying to sound confident.

  Wendel held the knife ready and followed her lead. They skulked down the hallway. Ardis peeked around the corner.

  “Ardis,” Wendel hissed. “Stop.”

  She glanced back at him. “The coast is clear.”

  He shook his head, his face pale beneath the blood and the bruises. She didn’t like the look in his eyes. That gleam awfully like fear.

  “What is it?” she said.

  Wendel gripped her arm and dragged her into a run. They swung around the corner and rushed down the hallway. Ardis didn’t know why he was running, but the sooner they got out of this godforsaken place, the better.

  Wendel skidded to a stop. “Ah, damn.”

  A pair of gaunt figures lingered at the end of the hallway. They shuffled nearer, as if hesitant, their faces shadowed. One was the woman with wolfish eyes. The other was a man with the same strange eyes and deathly skin.

  Ardis stared down her pistol’s sights. “Don’t move.”

  When they ignored her, she shot the man square in the kneecap. He barely stumbled, then turned on her and bared his teeth.