She stepped forward. I tensed, stopping short of backing away, but she noticed and her smile stuttered. “You’ve not paid us a visit in some time.”
Living in a pleasure house had its advantages. I’d always returned, and they’d always welcomed me. Until Arach. Until Shaianna.
I looked around at the warm reds and golds, at the women and men escorting clients to and from their respective rooms, at the gilded niceties and the fake smiles pinned to rigid expressions. And I wasn’t sorry I’d left. Catherine’s expression told me she was.
“Was it you?” I asked.
Her lashes, blackened with coal, fluttered. “He came asking after a thief and described you well enough. He spoke of you as a friend, as though you’d been on some far adventures together. He’s not a subtle man.”
That sounded like Tassen. All muscle and clout. The man was proving more than a nuisance.
“I need to find him.”
“We thought you might, hence the message we left for you. He’s been enjoying our services. Any friend of yours is a friend of ours, or so he believes.” She lifted her hand, inviting me to take it. “I’ll take you to him.”
She escorted me to the landing outside one of the many rooms. Candlelight flickered, softening the edges of the wood paneling and hiding the threadbare carpet. “Vance, no trouble please.”
I pressed a hand to her face and kissed her forehead. She tasted of powder and pipe smoke. There was a time, not so long ago, when I’d have let her lead me to one of these rooms and I’d have lost myself in her, but now I was already pulling away.
“You seem … different. We won’t see you again, will we?”
I gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I hope not, in the nicest way possible.”
“Come, if you need us. We care for our own, and you were always our thief … and my friend.”
I nodded, then opened the door. Tassen lay sprawled, half-clothed, on the bed, clutching at his chest. Scarlet blood seeped through his shirt. He croaked a warning, “Mage!”
Bloody footprints led to a section of paneled wall. Every room had a concealed chamber where workers readied themselves before the entertainment began.
I removed my dagger. “Stay by the door,” I told Catherine. “If anything comes out, get out of its way. Don’t try to stop it.”
I tightened my grip on the dagger and approached the panel. There was every chance the creature had gone, but it could equally be waiting on the other side. Where better to get answers than from the mages? I hesitated, my left hand resting on the panel.
Don’t make the wrong choices, brother.
A fool, certainly, but not a coward. Not anymore.
I shoved the panel open. A blur of movement rushed out of the dark. It hit me like a steam train, but its momentum drove the creature into my dagger, and we tumbled to the floor. The stench of steaming, rancid meat rolled over me. My stomach heaved. The writhing, skittering mage snapped its teeth together, its stinking breath blasting across my face. I had a firm grip on the dagger in its gut, but the thing still lunged and snapped its jaws—again and again. Wedging my forearm under its chin, I twisted the blade, opening up its insides. It howled a drawn-out sound of agony.
A pistol shot rang out. I couldn’t tell from where, possibly from Tassen. The mage snapped its head up and crouched to lunge. If it got free, it would tear into the only family I knew. I snatched at one of its spindly limbs and twisted onto my front to yank it back. Then I had it under me, snarling and snapping. Its claws flashed on my right. I flinched way, slashed outward, and took its clawed hand right off, then I stabbed the blade deep into its arm, pinning it to the floor. It bucked and kicked like a scrawny mule, but with its limb pinned, it wasn’t going anywhere.
“What are you?” I shouted.
I thought it smiled, although it was difficult to know if the lips, yanked tight over rows of sharp teeth, could smile.
“We are you.” Its body twitched and it huffed as though it was laughing.
“Why are you here?”
“The shadow, the Eye, we need, we take.”
Catherine loomed to my left with her pistol aimed low at the mage’s head.
“Why do you need the Eye?”
“To see the dark.”
More riddles. More nonsense. “Is it over?”
“No … No-no-no! It’s just begun. Just begun! She comes. She comes. She is shadow and dust—shadow and dust.”
“What does that mean?”
A wet gurgle bubbled up its throat—more laughter. “She is the beginning of the end. The shadow will embrace all. The light will die. All that remains is dust.”
It bucked, hard and sudden. My grip around its wrist slipped. I felt the punch in my side, followed by a cool, seeping wetness. The pistol fired too close to my head. The shot blasted off half the mage’s face. It collapsed, pulling its claws from the wound in my side. I reared back, the room spinning, my head throbbing and ears ringing. Its claws had stabbed me deep, too deep.
I was falling again. And from the dark, she watched.
“Vance! Call the doctor … My voice—listen—towels …”
This can’t be the end. The moorland woman said when the end came, I’d make the wrong choice. There was no choice here.
Chapter Fifteen
The air smelled different inside the Inner Circle, or so the High Guard would have people believe. I knew where I was before I’d opened my eyes. I couldn’t hear the market traders or the clatter of carriages. No shouts arose, and no laughter bubbled from the taverns. I’d have thought there would be peace in the quiet, but this quiet was the smothering kind. The kind that begged to be disturbed.
The white- and red-clad Inner Circle guards had marched me from a windowless cell, through the narrow snow-softened streets, to the High Guard’s official quarters. The building was old Brean. High ceilings, ornate arches, and too much space filled with the bloated egos of the High Guard. But only one person awaited my arrival inside.
“A thief. A liar. A runaway. A coward. And if the knot painted into your skin on your lower back is anything to go by, an ocra—a magic user.”
I had a mark on my back? I kept the alarm from my expression and plastered on boredom instead. The woman standing in front of me was a high-ranking guard, if her white-and-gold attire was any indication. Easily as tall as me, she had broad shoulders and a solid stance, muscular in a way that declared she was familiar with swinging swords. Her blond hair was braided and fixed tightly against her head. Startling blue eyes looked right through me.
I cleared my throat and laid on the Outer Circle accent. “I ain’t no magic believer, ma’am. You don’ need to waste your precious time with me.”
She smiled a flat, humorless smile. “Oh, I think we do. I know who you are, Curtis Vance. I can see your mother in your eyes. Your father, before the sickness struck him, spoke highly of his beloved son, who would one day join the High Guard.”
I fixed my gaze on the table between us, fighting off the fluttering in my chest and the sudden bout of lightheadedness.
“You don’t look well, Curtis, which is hardly surprising considering your nearly dead body was left outside our gates.”
I couldn’t remember much after arriving at Agatha’s. I’d seen Catherine, and I remembered the warmth of her hand in mine and something about goodbyes. But then there was just the smell of blood and the flash of pain. And then I’d woken back here, inside the walls.
“Who are you?” I asked, dropping the fake accent.
“Captain Anuska of the Inner Circle High Guard, appointed and accredited by his Royal Highness King Jacobie.” She lifted her chin and waited for me to comment.
The only polite thing I could think to say was something about how she seemed too young to hold such a lofty position. The other comments balancing on my tongue wouldn’t be well received.
“I remember what you did all those years ago, Curtis. It was right and just. Your sacrifice for the Inner Circle showed the clear and admirable devoti
on of a true High Guard. Had you stayed, you might have been in my command now.”
I lifted my head. “Had I stayed, you would have killed my sister.”
“Only if she too is an ocra?”
“She’s dead.”
“Well then, you fled for nothing. How … tragic.”
I stayed quiet while anger bubbled around the edges of my control. If I let loose what I wanted to say, Anuska would probably lock me away until the end of my days—or worse. She had kept me alive up to this point, so perhaps there was a chance I could still survive this.
“Such a terrible waste of talent.” She sighed and made her away around her vast desk. She stayed standing, with her fingers pressed against the desktop. “I must know, Curtis, if you are an ocra, as the mark clearly proclaims, why give up your parents at all? I considered what you did to be brave, but now I wonder if you were trying to hide behind their guilt?”
I chuckled and winced as a twinge of pain skittered up my side and the healed cut in my palm throbbed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t know anything about magic.”
“The mark on your back proclaims otherwise.”
A branding, perhaps? Or something left over from the tomb with Shaianna, after she had severed the bond between us? Either way, it defied explanation. No excuse was going to save me. Anuska had already made her decision.
“How do you explain your miraculous recovery?” she asked.
“I wasn’t that badly hurt.”
She leaned forward. The desk creaked. “You were stabbed four times in the gut.”
I opened my mouth to explain and stalled. “They missed a bit?”
She shook her head and sighed. “And so the Vances’ son became a petty Brean thief.”
“Professional thief, if you please.”
“Curtis, you don’t seem to appreciate your situation.”
I smiled. “I may have run away from the delightful Inner Circle, but I certainly never forgot where I came from.” My accent was slipping, merging with the likes of hers. “I clearly didn’t run far enough.”
She looked down her nose at me and declared, “Curtis Vance, as an ocra, you’ll be burned from this life by fire at nightfall. May the fire cleanse your soul. Do you have anything to say for the records?”
“Only that I’m sorry I gave up the only people who ever loved me because of the Inner Circle’s ridiculous lies. Killing me won’t change anything. It won’t banish magic.” I heard my bravado, but a chilling numbness seeped into my veins, leaving shivers behind.
“Magic is a disease. There is no place in this world for your kind, Mister Vance.”
She walked to the door at the back of the chamber and opened it to beckon the guards inside. They collected me, eyes averted.
I was almost out the door when I twisted and asked, “What if, after you’ve burned all the magic users, the monsters return?”
Anuska paused in front of her desk, her back straight, and in those few seconds, between one breath and the next, I saw fear in her hesitation, in the rigidness of her shoulders. “You know, don’t you? You know something is changing. Do you know about the mages—do you?!”
“Return him to his cell.”
“I’ve seen them. They have the Eye. You can’t hide from this inside the city walls. The walls won’t keep you safe. You’re burning the wrong people! You should be finding the mages, not burning the people you should be protecting! I don’t know how I got the mark. I don’t know how to use magic, but I’ve seen it, and it’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” She spun. “No! It is an ugly, vicious poison! Get him out of my sight!”
The chamber door slammed shut between us, cutting off her shout and any hope that I might survive.
May the fire cleanse your soul.
I had to get out of this cell and away from the Inner Circle. I fought against the iron shackles around my wrists—tugging and twisting until my skin bled—but they didn’t give. The guards had taken my coat and all the picks hidden inside, leaving me in just my shirt and trousers.
I couldn’t get free.
These four walls would be my last sight before they marched me to the pyre.
I slid down the stone wall, pulled my knees up to my chest, and stared up at the one tiny letter slot of a window too high for me to reach and too narrow to crawl through. At least there was light.
I had spent too many hours and days of my life trapped in dank cells, alone with my memories and regrets.
In a few short hours, I’d be dead. At least my sister would have been pleased. She’d have seen the justice in a death by fire.
Maybe the fire wouldn’t kill me, like the mage’s claws hadn’t. Perhaps the mark had protected me? I didn’t have the answers, and now it was too late.
I wasn’t getting out of the cell without help, and there was no help for a magic user in the Inner Circle. A magic user could have conjured up something—anything—if they’d had gems. My thoughts strayed to the dagger—my last link to Shaianna. The guards probably had it.
Magic.
It had cursed my life from beginning to end.
I stared up at the little window and tried to swallow my rising panic. Tackling the mage at Agatha’s had been a mistake. I should have run. Then again, I should have run a thousand times before that, farther and faster.
I dropped my head back and closed my eyes, trying to recall what the mage had said. Something about dust and shadows. Riddles were all those things spoke. The same nonsense over and over. Perhaps Fallford knew more. I could hope he’d spoken with his scholarly acquaintances. But I’d never know. Even if he knew where I was, he couldn’t breach the wall. And why would he risk his reputation for the life of a thief? He would probably believe I’d fled with the gem. He’d never know the truth.
I would never know what had happened to Shaianna either, or who she really was. Was this how death always crept up on people, leaving so much unfinished and unanswered?
I got to my feet and paced the cell as far as my chains would allow—three strides back and four across the floor. I always imagined I’d die running from someone or something. It’s how I’d spent my life, so why not die like that too? But to die in the flames? Destiny had a cruel sense of humor.
The guard—Anuska—had known about the mages. Did everyone in the High Guard know? Had they hoped to eradicate them and cull their mass of magic users? Was that why the Inner Circle had banned magic? But what of the Outer Circle, the rest of Brea, the rest of Brean lands? Why did nobody know the truth? Why had magic been confined to children’s stories?
I sank my fingers into my hair. Too many questions. Too much left undone.
“You said the mages have the Eye,” Anuska said from behind the door.
I froze.
The woman who’d delivered my death sentence continued. “What did you mean by that?”
I moved to the door and pressed my hands against the cool metal. “Let me out and I’ll tell you.”
“I can’t let you go.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“The Eye. Tell me what you know.”
“Let me out.”
“The safety of the Inner Circle is at risk.” She paused for so long I wondered if she’d left. “Surely, that is more important than your life?”
“How long have you been a guard?” I asked.
“In my heart, since I was old enough to lift a sword. As employment, nine years.”
“And in all that time, you’ve never wondered why magic is forbidden?”
“I know why. Magic is poisonous. It corrupts.”
“Because you’ve been told it is, not because you’ve seen it?”
“I have seen it … the worst it can do. Your sentence is a mercy.”
“I’ve seen magic outside of Brea. It’s not a poison, and it’s not gone.” I thought of the stone dragon inside its tomb. “It’s slumbering. Waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“A better tim
e. How should I know? I think … I think we’ve been lied to for so long that we no longer recognize the truth. The best way to defeat an enemy is to annihilate them from history. Turn them into stories and myths. Something to be laughed at.”
“You know something?”
“I know many things, yes. I wish I knew more.”
A pause. A moment of quiet contemplation. “I was there the day the High Guard burned your parents. I was a guard in training then. I looked up to you, Vance. I admired your bravery. I’ve never forgotten your sacrifice, and I am not alone.”
“It wasn’t bravery that killed my parents,” I replied quietly. “It was fear. Fear instilled in me as a child. Fear of magic.”
“And now? You don’t fear magic?”
“There is no point in fearing something you cannot change. Far better to find a way to use it.” My words caught in my throat. Through all the years and the pain and the fear, I’d never understood my mother’s words. But facing the locked cell door and my own death, I understood them then. “Have you ever heard of the saying you can’t fight fire with fire?”
“I have.”
“This is wrong, and you feel it too.”
“I can’t let you go, Curtis, but I will hear your words. You will die at sundown. Unburden your soul before then. Tell me all you know.”
I wanted to, but my burden might become hers, and what could she do inside the Inner Circle walls? The High Guard would turn on her the moment they suspected she believed anything other than their sacred laws.
I pressed my forehead against the cool metal door. “What’s your first name?”
“Mylene.”
“Why did you join the guard, Mylene?”
“To protect the Inner Circle and keep the peace.”
“And what if protecting those people means breaking the laws you’ve sworn to enforce?”
She didn’t reply immediately, which I took to mean she wasn’t completely dismissing me. I couldn’t hear anything through the door, nor anything through the window but the occasional squawk of a crow, and inside my cell only the sound of my own ragged breaths comforted me.
“Anuska?”
The Heartstone Thief (Dragon Eye Chronicles Book 1) Page 14