“You’re Brea’s best-known thief. Would you turn away from such a challenge?”
A smile tucked into my cheek. “Flattery will get you everywhere, princess.”
I wanted to ask about the queen’s shadow on the hill. Shaianna had said she was no princess, that she was an advisor and a warrior. But I wouldn’t ask yet. We were here for the Eye.
“We need the Eye to break the bond,” she reminded me, believing my hesitation from uncertainty.
“If I do this, I want you to explain who you are.”
“I am shadow and dust.”
“No riddles.” I held her stare but pointed back to the painting. “Tell me about the queen’s shadow.”
She didn’t blink or falter. “Once we have the Eye and I have severed the bond, I will tell you everything you deserve to know, Curtis.”
Well, that sounded like a promise, but it also had a hint of a threat. Her smile said I had nothing to fear, but my gut had been telling me to fear her since she dropped me to my knees in a Brean alleyway, demanding I drink from her cup.
“This chamber is hundreds of years old …” I began.
“Hundreds, yes.”
I held her stare. “When we’re done here, when the bond is no more, will you share an ale with me, somewhere where we won’t be disturbed? Somewhere you can tell me the truth of this place and you? And tell me about magic and your queen?”
Her gaze skipped away, but her smile stayed. “I would like that, I think. Very much.”
“Good.” I shrugged off my coat, tied the arms together, and tossed it around my neck, creating a sack. After kicking off my boots and brushing my hands with dust, I stood back and visualized a path up the rump of the beast and over its back, neck, and head.
“Do not fall, thief. Your death, and subsequently mine, would be unfortunate.”
“I’ll try not to disappoint.”
I’d broken into many supposedly impenetrable places, usually by taking an unconventional route. In Brea, that was from the top down—overhanging rooftops, protruding store signs, and dock cranes. But this stone dragon had no overhangs above it, just the carved cavern ceiling.
I gripped the first few scales, wedged my toe into a hold point, took a deep breath, and began the climb. After testing my weight in various footholds and a few false starts, I eventually found my stride and cared only for the next scale, the next grip point. With my heart beating steadily, I fell into a rhythmic focus and reached the beast’s back in good time. The climb down would be more difficult, especially if that emerald proved as heavy as it looked, but I would worry about that once I had the gem in my hands.
Crouched on the dragon’s back to catch my breath and rub grit from my hands, I cast a gaze all around at the panorama of dramatic scenes, sparkling gems, and proud statues. The sight was something to behold. Had Brea been kinder, I might have considered sharing the discovery with its people, but they didn’t deserve this treasure. In truth, neither did I, but by some design of chance, it was me climbing a dragon’s back in a forgotten tomb and not a worthier man.
I walked up the dragon’s back, between is bunched wings.
“Thief?” Shaianna called up.
“I’m fine.”
She had backed up against the painted wall, giving her a spot from which to watch me climb the neck and head. From my angle, I could see both her and the shadow in the painting: there was no doubt.
I gripped the dragon’s upright neck spikes and climbed higher.
The rational part of me—the part still buried in denial—sought out excuses. Perhaps Shaianna had modeled her attire after the shadow-woman. She knew the tomb, she had been here before, so she could have been pretending. But I was reaching. Her strange words, her stranger ways, and her aptitude for killing—she had told me everything I needed to know about her queen and her people. She was all that remained. All I had to do was believe. But if I did believe she was the shadow-woman, and with that the fact she had to be as ancient as this tomb, what was I supposed to do with that knowledge? Magic existed, and so did she. What did that truly mean? If the Inner City guard knew, they would burn her alive—and me along with her.
I clambered over the dragon’s crest of horns and sprawled onto my front. The mosaic floor blurred in the torchlight far below. A fall from this height would kill me. I shuffled forward on my belly, freed my dagger, and clamped the blade between my teeth. Let the fun begin.
“Careful,” Shaianna barked.
She wasn’t helping, but with the dagger between my teeth, I couldn’t tell her so. I locked my feet around one of the many small spikes jutting from the dragon’s brow and eased my weight over what would have been its eyebrow, if it had had one. Sorry, dragon. Those eyes are just too pretty …
Dangling head down, I admired the huge emerald. The Eye had been cut with the same precision as the carvings. Flamelight caressed its facets. No wonder the restless gods had coveted such workmanship. Such a shame it had been hidden for so long. It deserved to be seen, admired.
I plucked the dagger free from between my teeth and began picking away at the clasps holding the Eye in place.
“Do you have it, thief? I cannot see you.”
Sweat tickled my back. I chipped away at the gem, dislodging enough of the clasps and cement to consider wiggling it free. Dagger back between my teeth, I clasped the Eye in both hands and shifted it side to side. Dust and grit rained from the socket. Each push and pull freed the gem a little more.
One of the spikes I’d clamped my right foot around gave out. Ice-cold terror gripped me as I lurched forward. I shot my arm out, bracing myself against the dragon’s substantial snout, and wedged my body still. My heart galloped. Sweat crawled up my neck and into my hairline. By the Halls of Arach, don’t let me fall.
“Curtis?”
I wasn’t sure whether I preferred thief better.
My breaths hissed around the dagger.
Wedging an elbow against the empty eye socket, I plucked the dagger free. “If I drop the dagger, will you find it?”
“Yes.”
I let go and listened—one, two, three, four seconds before it clattered on the floor somewhere far below. Gulping hard, I prayed I didn’t follow it anytime soon.
“Do you have the Eye?”
“There are some … complications.”
“What kind of complications?”
I searched for some purchase with my right foot. My whole body shifted forward, freezing me still. “The complicated kind.”
“Oh, I see you … Move your foot back.”
Back … That was easier said than done. Heat resonated through my shoulder muscles and trembled down my arm. “I can’t.”
“It’s right there. Just move back a little.”
“I can’t,” I growled again.
Back wasn’t an option. But forward was. I craned my neck up and saw several spiky whiskers protruding from the breast’s snout. If I could reach those, I could swing myself around, haul myself back up, and work the gem free from the beast’s nose. Possibly.
“You’re slipping.”
I hadn’t believed she could be more frustrating. I’d been wrong. “Would you keep the commentary to yourself so I can think?”
“I would like to live.”
“So would I!” I slipped. My heart lodged in my throat. Panic choked me, and then instinct kicked in. Inside a single breath, I shoved off the brow and sprang for the snout. Between falling and reaching, I feared I might have angled myself wrong. I was sure I was falling too far, too fast.
I snagged the nose spike and dangled freely for a few seconds, not yet breathing. Then, with one be-all or end-all push, I threw my right arm up, caught onto a whisker, and heaved myself onto the snout. Spikes dug into my hip and chest, but I didn’t care.
I hugged the dragon’s snout. “Thank the gods.”
“Curtis?” Her haughty voice echoed around the tomb.
“Yes?”
“I would prefer it if you did not ta
ke such chances with your life.”
“You know what I’d prefer right now?” I got my knees under me and inched forward.
“What?”
“For you to stop talking and let me get on with stealing your gem.”
To my surprise, she fell quiet. I reached over the gap between the nose and eye and braced one hand on the dragon’s brow while working my other hand around the gem. At last I was upright, although the view under my arm of the drop to certain death did little to calm my racing heart.
The Eye finally released. It fell into my cupped hand, its weight enough to strain my arm muscles. “Got it!”
Getting the Eye back was equally troublesome. Its weight in my coat, slung across my back, threw off my balance and caused me to slip across several scales, but I eventually made it down without breaking a limb.
Shaianna’s smile when I pulled the Eye free of the makeshift sack was almost reward enough. Her smiles were rare, but when they did come, they shone as brightly as any treasure. She clasped the Eye in her hands and peered into its facets. The green glow touched her face and sparkled in her equally green eyes.
She turned away, enthralled by the gem.
We had accomplished our goal. I smiled to myself as I untangled my coat and shrugged it back on. I had my foot in my second boot and was tying up the laces when she rushed forward. I braced for an attack, my hand going for the dagger that wasn’t there, and froze as her warm hand cupped my cheek and her soft tantalizing lips met mine. She tasted of sweetness and something crisp and fresh. In a blur, it was over. She jogged back to where she had laid the Eye, with no notion of how her kiss tingled on my lips, or how that fleeting moment had sparked something violently alive inside.
With one boot still undone, I crossed the mosaic floor, caught her hand, and drew her around. I didn’t wait for her to speak and say something that would stop me. I slipped my hand into her hair, drew her forward, and kissed her like I had wanted to since seeing her in the waterfall. When her lips parted and she let me in, the doubts I’d harbored broke apart. The taste of her, so sweet and soft—I needed more. It wasn’t enough. Need was too tame a word. Like the rush of stealing a coveted artifact, she sparked something alive in me—a ravenous hunger for more.
I slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her tight against me, alarmed and delighted by how she arched close, spurring my need higher. I had expected her to be hard and cold, but the feel of her against me was quite the opposite. I spread my hand over the small of her back, reveling in her warmth and the supple way she responded. Her hand rode up my chest and over my shoulder, drawing me down and deepening the kiss. Lust, driven high by the rush of retrieving the Eye, had me tangled in physical needs and wants. But I sensed her pulling away as much in my mind as with her body. We slowed, bodies parting, our lips the last to separate. Sadness returned to her eyes, and all at once I wished I hadn’t shown her how much I wanted her.
“I don’t normally prefer older women.”
It had been the wrong thing to say. She instantly pulled out of my arms, cast a glance at the wall painting, and turned her back on me once more. I had a talent for ruining perfect moments.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—” I didn’t know what I had meant. This place, this madness, her. I couldn’t clear my head enough to think clearly.
She held out my dagger, and a hint of a smile brightened her face, so not all was lost. “Here. For this to succeed, you must hold on to the blade as I do.”
After I’d taken the blade in my right hand—hoping she didn’t see how it trembled—she moved around behind the Eye and knelt, beckoning me to do the same opposite her. I did, noticing she’d set the cup down in the center of a mosaic pattern of spirals and wedged the Eye inside.
“Are we doing magic?” I asked.
“Yes, thief, we are doing magic.” She took my hand in hers.
I was so caught up in her eyes that I almost missed the sting of the blade. She did the same to her hand and clasped mine in hers, holding it over the Eye. Our mingled blood dripped onto the emerald, slid over its slick surface, and began to fill the cup.
“Listen to my words. Do not break my grip, no matter what you feel. Trust me. I have yet to steer you wrong.”
“I do trust you.” I wished I didn’t; it would have made stealing the Eye from her so much easier.
She smiled and bowed her head. Her dark hair spilled forward, framing her pale face. “Touch your blade to the Eye.”
I copied her, so both our daggers touched the Eye while blood swelled in our joined hands.
She began whispering words I had little hope of understanding. Her voice blurred into one stream of whispers with barely a breath breaking the flow.
It began as a small pressure in my chest, a tiny point of pain that grew like the firelight had grown from the dark. A sense of something powerful loomed over me, but Shaianna’s grip on my hand stopped me from looking. The pressure built, the weight pushed down, and fear flickered at the corners of my thoughts. Her voice streamed on, beckoning me with it until my eyes fluttered closed and I lost all sense of the tomb, the taste of the dust in the air, and the impression of time. On and on her words tumbled and down the weight pushed, crushing all around.
I tightened my hand on hers and felt her squeeze back, but she didn’t let up with the words. I was drowning and being pulled apart, all at once. Fear demanded I pull away, break the bond, and run—run as far as I could. Running was all I was good for. I once ran from the Inner City guards, from the sounds of the screams in my head and the smell of the pyre.
The Eye stopped my thoughts dead. It blazed ahead in the dark, just a single green glow. It watched … Like the presence in my dream, it watched me fall farther and farther into nothingness, where death would surely devour me. I reached out, pleading for it to show me the truth of my fear. It did. Not one, but two eyes speared me, and out of the dark a beast rose, embracing the world with its wings.
A pistol shot punctured the dream. I jerked awake and blinked up at the tomb’s ceiling high above and watched with detached numbness as a crack snapped and twitched its way through the rock.
“Get up, thief.”
I wasn’t sure if she had spoken in my head or out loud and didn’t care. Other lightning cracks in the ceiling joined the first, snapping and arching across the entire cavern. It was only when a rumble shook the floor that my body filled out and became mine again.
I rolled onto my side and blinked through my blurry vision at the man with the wide-brimmed hat approaching. His long riding coat flared.
“Where is she?” he hollered. Why was he shouting? Why did the ground shake?
“Vance, for the sake of the gods, man! Get up before this place falls down around us.” Tassen hauled me to my feet.
“Your laughing woman?” I swung a glance about me and swayed on my feet. To my right, a chunk of ceiling slammed into one of the statues, shattering the head and shoulder. “She was here.”
“The mages … Come now or die here.”
Mages…? I saw them then, like huge black spiders swarming across the wall art, turning it black beneath them. I scooped up the Eye and my dagger and looked for Shaianna, but there was no sign of the sorceress. “Shaianna!”
Tassen fired into the mages. We made it up the steps to the passageway in time to see a huge section of ceiling break away. It shattered against the dragon’s snout and rained onto the floor, obliterating the elaborate mosaics.
“Go!” Tassen caught my coat and shoved me into the mouth of the passageway. “Run, fool!”
I retraced my steps from hours before, running my hands along the dark walls. There was only one way out, but I feared the walls would close in and trap me in the dark forever. A shaft of light flowed ahead. I heaved myself from the hole, coughed up grit, and fell to my knees in the cool, damp grass.
Hot dust blasted up from the hole with a deafening boom and then silence fell.
She hadn’t been inside. I hadn’t just left he
r to die … had I?
“Where is she, Vance?” Tassen snapped from a few strides away as he pulled off his hat and patted it free of dirt. A small dust cloud floated into the early morning light. Behind him, through the towering ruins, a pale blue sky taunted. “I saw you both go in. Did you kill her?”
“What?”
“Did you kill her? Huh? You got your emerald. Maybe you didn’t need her anymore? Am I right, thief?” He snarled the last word like an accusation and strode to where he had tied my two stolen Calwyton horses.
“She was there. She was with me.” Fragments of a dream flitted through my thoughts but slipped beyond my reach when I tried to recall them.
I didn’t understand … anything. Why would she leave the gem? Why would she leave me?
The cup, the daggers. I clutched at my chest, right over my heart. The bond was gone, replaced by an emptiness I knew all too well.
“Well, my journey is a wasted one without the woman to trade for payment.” He hooked his boot into a stirrup and swung himself onto the horse.
“What did you see?” I mumbled, wetting my hands in the dewy grass and running them over my face. The bite of cool water roused some of my senses, but I still felt numb. Part of me was missing.
Tassen turned his horse side-on. “I saw you, on your knees, staring at that gem like it had all the answers. You were about to be set upon by those creatures. I shot one, scattering the rest. Had I not arrived when I did, you would be a dead man now, be it crushed or killed. You owe me, Vance. And as payment, you’re returning to Brea as my witness. You can explain how the woman vanished. Maybe the man who hired me will believe the both of us.”
“I can’t leave her,” I muttered.
He sighed, thumbed his hat up an inch, and wiped dust from his forehead with the back of his hand. “If she was inside, she’s as dead as the rest of this place. Think of it as a blessing, Vance. That one was more trouble than she was worth. There are plenty other folks to keep a thief in business.”
The Heartstone Thief (Dragon Eye Chronicles Book 1) Page 11