As the moon and stars came out and swirled about the night sky, Aeryn began wondering if she should come back another day. Her legs ached from her strenuous walk. She longed to lie down and sleep. After sleeping on a soft featherbed for so long, the rutted, hard-packed dirt offered little in the way of comfort. All in all, she had not gotten more than a handful of hours of sleep each night.
With a sigh that turned to a yawn midway through, Aeryn discarded the idea. The deeper the night became, the more of an advantage she would have against Jins’ superior numbers. That and she hoped that as the night progressed, they would drink more of their coin.
Aeryn would not hesitate to seize any advantage that presented itself. It was not honorable to kill a night-blind drunk, but Aeryn was not a hero from a book that fought and lived by a code of honor. Life on the streets quickly dispatched any such foolish notions or unceremoniously dispatched their holder. Life was life, and death was death, no matter how they were come by.
The door creaked open. Jins’ familiar voice echoed out into the street. “You can’t do this to me. Do you have any idea how much gold I’ve spent here?”
Aeryn watched as a shove from behind sent Jins stumbling to the ground. Brys was right behind. Hal too, only he could not get his feet placed firmly beneath himself and sprawled into a pile of refuse.
“Oh yeah?” said a towering brute holding what looked like a table pedestal in his hand. “Then I’m sure Marilyn will let you back in once you have more.”
Jins stepped up and put his face an inch from the strongarm’s. “I’m not leaving without her,” he growled.
“Oh, I think you are.” The strongarm slapped the thick wood cudgel against his palm.
A second strongarm appeared next to the first. He made up for his lack in size by sporting a nasty burn that ran along his face and had claimed his right eye and a good amount of his hair.
Sneering, Jins pulled out a well-rusted knife. He brandished it before him as though he was a master swordsman. Weaving back and forth slightly from too much drink ruined the effect.
“Come on, Jins,” Brys said, tugging on his leader’s sleeve. Hal, meanwhile, had managed to stand and was wiping off his tunic. “I know this girl that is so small you can pick her up and set—“
Jins spun around to face Brys. “I don’t want one of your little girls, I want—“
“—more gold!” Hal bellowed. “Red, bloody, warm, sticky gold.” He finished by drawing a knife from his belt.
“Oh Jinies,” said a seductively sweet voice.
Jins looked up. Appearing in an open stained glass window ten feet above his head was the most voluptuously endowed, baby-faced women Aeryn had ever seen. Jins’ pants instantly grew tight.
“Marilyn, there you are. They won’t let me back in to see you,” he said with a glare to the strongarms.
“That was not my doing, my love. I want to see you, I really do,” Marilyn said. The strongarms played their part well and scowled at Jins without so much as a stray glance at Marilyn hanging out the window above their heads.
“I told you bloody bastards,” Jins growled at the strongarms. “She wants to see me. Now let me by!”
“I’m tired Jinies. It was such a long night and you had so much energy that I’m positively worn out,” Marilyn said, pressing the back of her hand against her forehead as if she was about to faint. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow night when I’m all rested and you’ve had a chance to refill your purse and buy me that shawl you promised?” She gave Jins a wink that only a drunk would appreciate.
Jins gave Marilyn’s cleavage a long stare. “Anything for you, Marilyn.” Jins then fixed his gaze on the thick-armed pair blocking the door to The Gilded Lady. “I’ll be back with so much bloody gold Marilyn will have you thrown out,” he shouted before stalking off.
“Wait up Jins,” Hal said, slurring his words as he stumbled after. “Getting gold was my idea.”
Brys added his voice to the clamor. “Hey I want some too. There’s this girl that I’ve seen working down by the harbor. . .”
As the trio stumbled down the streets, the strongarms looked up at Marilyn, who rolled her eyes and tossed a silver to each of the men.
“Don’t let him back in unless his purse is full. And not with copper or silver,” Marilyn said. With that, she shuttered the window.
The men disappeared inside a moment later, laughing about “bloody fool drunks.”
“Jynx,” Aeryn whispered. The draven perked up. “Let’s go.”
Between their raucous hoots at passing women and back and forth boasts of previous fights that typically started with a slurred, “That’s nothing! Why this one time, I. . .,” following the trio was child’s play. Though she and Jynx had yet to Drift—Aeryn did not want to raise a shout of “Shadows!” and alert the gang—she might as well have been completely immersed in the Etheric Plane for all they noticed her. Apparently following Gerald around through the woods for weeks on end had paid off.
“Her. I want her,” Brys exclaimed, finger pointing at a slim figure that could have been Aeryn a few months ago.
“Too skinny,” Jins said. “I want Marilyn.”
“When are you going to wise up Jins? She just likes you for your coin,” Hal said.
Jins stomped his foot like an indignant child and raised his knife. “She does not.”
Hal stood firm for a moment, then backed down with a shrug. He turned his attention to the street urchin Brys was eyeing and squinted. “That ain’t no girl, Brys.”
“Yes it is. I’ll prove it.” With a hungry grin, Brys snatched up the street urchin by the neck with one hand while the other darted under threadbare clothing.
“Let me go mister,” croaked the street urchin with an unmistakably male voice. “I’ll do whatever you want, just let me go.”
Brys’ grin turned sour in an instant. He shoved the boy to the ground and wiped his hands off on his pants. Both Hal and Jins hooted in laughter and walked away. Brys backhanded the boy for good measure, kicked him in the side when he fell to the ground, then rushed to catch up.
A minute later and the trio found a homely girl that was so top heavy it was a wonder she could stand. With a strip of cloth tied around her head to keep her from screaming for help—not that anyone would help a girl at this time of night with the looming threat of Shadows lurking in the dark—they dragged her to the nearest alley. Hal hauled a boy that had been at the girl’s side along with.
Jins raised an eyebrow. “You like boys now too?” he asked.
“I do not like—“ Brys began.
“To make him watch,” Hal explained. “Plus I bet he has a few silver tucked up his sleeves. Don’t you, boy?” Brys’ eyes widened in delight at the prospect of easy coin. Jins’ were so intently focus on the girl’s chest he did not seem to notice.
“I’ll give you everything I have, I promise,” the boy said. “Just let my sister and me go.”
“Do I look like I’m going to let you go?” Hal asked, puffing out his chest. “Now shut up.” He bashed the boy’s head with the hilt of his knife hard enough to slump him down but not knock him out.
Aeryn Drifted. The world spun into muted tones of grey. Her red-hot rage made Drifting completely downright impossible; not that it would help in this situation, since Jins and his gang would appear to her as she appeared to them—invisible. How would she be able to do anything if she could not see her quarry?
Jynx at her side and silent as death itself, Aeryn dashed forward and followed them into the alley. She arrived just as a knife flashed in the moonlight, slicing off the girl’s clothing. Another flickered, coming down hard against the boy’s skull.
“Stay here and don’t move,” Hal said.
The way the boy’s eyes glazed over and spittle dripped from his mouth, he would not be moving anytime soon, if ever again.
Hal’s hands clamped down on her thrashing legs. Wide-eyed, the girl screamed into a cloth binding held in place by Brys. A muffled
whine that barely reached the alley’s mouth was all that came out.
Aeryn decided to start with Hal.
Little more than a dull black form against the twinkling stars, she crept forward, utterly silent, until she loomed over Hal’s bent back. The girl stopped struggling and went completely silent. Aeryn did not think it possible, but the girl’s eyes widened until they blazed white like a pair of full moons.
“See? I told you you’d enjoy this,” Jins said with a thrust and grunt.
In one fluid motion, Aeryn wrapped her arm around Hal’s throat, and pressing hard as she could, ripped the blade of her knife from one ear to the other.
Hal jerked his hands to his neck. It was no use. An arcing spurt of blood and he spasmed, then slumped forward to the cobbles.
The girl let out a wild scream, at Hal’s twitching body lying next to her.
Brys spun from where he had been holding the girl’s other leg. “What the—“
Jynx pounced. The draven soared past Aeryn, his claws flashing in the moonlight as they sunk into Brys’ chest. Jynx’s powerful jaws snapped closed on Brys’ throat before the boy had a chance to cry out. Head thrashing back and forth, Jynx ripped away a chunk of muscle and flesh so large the thug’s spine showed beneath.
Knife held warily in front of him, pants around his ankles, Jins rose into a tense stance. He looked from Hal to Brys, took in Jynx, whose fur was now matted in blood, then met Aeryn’s eyes—or at least where her eyes would have been had they not been formless grey orbs to his vision.
“Why?” Jins asked.
Aeryn took a step forward.
Jins began to slink away. Tripping on his pants, he fell onto his back. He started scooting backward. “I’ve told you everything I know. I swear.” His eyes flickered to his dead cronies. “The one that died wasn’t my fault. He asked where to find that little thieving street rat and I told him. How was I supposed to know the bloody rat would send him into an ambush?”
Aeryn froze. What was he talking about?
Sensing her hesitation, Jins’ voice picked up speed. “If you let me go, I’ll double the attacked. I’ll work the shopkeeps and street vendors until they are scared of their own Shadows. I’ll give you all the gold I find. I’ll do anything you want. Anything. Just don’t kill me.”
Aeryn decided to put an end to this. She raised her knife. Every moment standing here listening to Jins blather was another moment a Shade could find her. She could puzzle out his words and their meaning later.
Jins took it as a dismissal. He pulled up his pants, jumped to his feet, and sprinted toward the alley mouth.
“Get him,” Aeryn said.
Jynx sprung away. A quickly cut off scream followed.
Aeryn strode back to the pair of bodies, wiped her blade and resheathed it. Rocking her brother in her arms, the girl looked up, stark terror written across her face. Aeryn Drifted back into the Physical Plane far enough so the girl could see her features.
The girl gasped. Though the Shades, Voices, and even Nameless himself would learn of what happened here with the rising of the sun, they would not hear about it from this girl. Telling anyone a Shadow had saved her was blasphemy worthy of a long and painful death in the eyes of Nameless and his disciples.
Aeryn turned to leave.
“Who are you?” came a hoarse whisper.
Aeryn turned back. “Salvation.” She looked at the boy. He would survive, but at what cost? She turned back to the girl. If Jins and his gang had had their way with her and she had survived, she would likely become nothing more than a glassy-eyed husk of a girl, a ghost of her former self. “Sometimes it isn’t enough to simply survive. Sometimes surviving is worse than fighting and dying. I’m going to change that.”
The girl cocked her head to the side, confused. Aeryn could almost read the girl’s thoughts; almost see her working against the apparent contradiction of how anything could trump survival. It was an uncomfortable mirror of the struggle Aeryn had faced not too long ago.
Untying Merek’s purse at her belt, Aeryn lofted it to the girl. The moment it left her hand, it snapped fully into the Physical Plane. Aeryn left the alley without slowing or even looking back when the girl let out a loud gasp at its glittering contents.
There was only one thing to do now. Jynx at her side, Aeryn strode toward the Lord’s Gate.
15
A Serving Girl
The gate coming into sight, Aeryn made her way down a side street that paralleled the wall long before it reared overhead. Not only was the gate closed at this time of night, but she would not be getting past the guards anytime soon with her clothing splattered in blood. Jynx at her side least of all. Now triple his former size, he looked like he had bathed in a pool of blood.
Passing the stable that Rickon had worked at, pausing only long enough to wonder what he was up to now, Aeryn hunted along the ground, hoping the old makeshift walkway was still there. By the time she found it and had it atop the wall, Jynx was waiting for her, having sprung off the side of the barn and across the gap.
Lowering herself to the other side, she continued towards the three-story estate in the distance. More than once her stomach panged at the thought of Will and the twins, Bran and Brin, paying for her mistakes. If she had not been caught in Merek’s house, whose low curtain wall was just now visible, none of them would be dead. She almost expected to see blood permanently staining her hands as she passed beneath a lantern lit window.
“There you are,” a voice hissed from further down the street.
Aeryn whipped out her knife and ducked around the nearest corner. Crouching and reading herself to spring forward, her mind raced every bit as quickly as her heartbeat. Who was out there? Who had followed her? Who could have followed her? Drifted and with so many blocks between her and the three thugs’ bodies, she had thought herself in the clear.
After a minute had passed and no one had set on her, the blood rushing in her ears died down enough for her to make out faint, unintelligible whispers. She turned to Jynx. She lowered her voice until even she had trouble making it out.
“Stay here,” she said.
If those people were after her, she would need a better hiding spot. If they were not, she would need to find a way around them without alerting them to her presence. Either way, she had to know. Creeping forward with all the stealth she could muster, Aeryn poked her head around the corner.
“. . .raised more than a few suspicions. Luckily for you, they sent me to investigate. I found nothing, of course,” said a disembodied voice.
The exhale of a deep breath long held came in response.
The voice continued. “Still, I think it would be best if you are seen and quell any rumors. She will no doubt be able to help on that front. Though I am still incised that you told her; we still don’t know if we can trust her and now she is out of our reach. Who knows what she is doing, and with whom.”
Aeryn Drifted further, hoping for a better glimpse. Two men, one facing her, another with his back to her, stood together, both dressed in plain woolens from head to toe. Dressed like that, they were not Lords or street urchins or soldiers. That left servants, highly unlikely given the circumstances, or—
A click, click, click echoed down the street between her and the pair. Both men Drifted fully into the Etheric Plane. Aeryn sucked in a breath and ducked back into her hiding spot.
“What was that?” asked the first voice. Feet scuffed the cobbles as they turned about, searching for the source of the clicking.
Aeryn’s heart skipped a beat. Holding her breath, she released her Drift, hoping to be as invisible to them as they to her. Of course, that would only work if she did not make a sound. Ever so carefully, she backed up around the corner. Her lungs screamed for air by the time she drew a breath at Jynx’s side.
“Must have been a rat or something,” the Shade said. “Now, as I was saying, you need to rein her in or—“
Not trusting her voice, Aeryn motioned the draven to follow
. Together, they quietly and slowly crept away. She led them on a widely circuitous route around the roadblock to Merek’s house. Freezing at the slightest hint of a footstep or whispered word, it was nearly an hour before she jumped the wall in the same place Will and her had so many months ago. Before she had gone three paces into the yard, cold steel pressed up against her throat.
Jynx growled. Aeryn held out her hand to keep him put. The blade was a hairsbreadth from drawing out her lifeblood; a stiff breeze would complete its stroke.
Just as quickly as it had appeared, the knife vanished. “Oh, it’s you.” Merek said and breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought you were a Shade.”
Aeryn touched her throat to make sure it was still intact. “It’s good to see you too.”
“What are you doing out at this time of night?”
“I just got to Maerilin.” No need to tell him about her little run in with Jins and gang, nor almost getting caught by a pair of Shades. “I was coming to tell you I’m in. At least I was until a moment ago when you tried to kill me. . .” Aeryn let the words hang in the air before adding, “What are you doing out at this time of night? And don’t say you’re ‘taking in the air.’”
“And if it’s true?” Merek asked.
“What kind of a fool do you take me for? It must be four in the morning. No one except cutthroats, thieves, and street urchins are out at this time.” Belatedly she realized that after what she had done to Jins and his gang a few hours earlier, she was each of those.
Merek arched an eyebrow, barely visible in the light that seeped through shuttered windows in his house. “In short, the perfect time for a leisurely stroll through the streets on sore legs, a draven at your side, and,” he sniffed the air, “both reeking of blood.”
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