The church bells struck three. In the distance, dusk crept down the moorlands toward Brea. I admired the spire in the fading daylight and wondered what darkness waited inside.
I strode toward the two guards on sentry duty while using my dagger to peel an apple. The lamplighters had finished their nightly patrols, and the few people left on the streets were hurrying home. In my stolen long coat and dark waistcoat, I passed for a gentleman at a distance, but as I moved closer, my insolent swagger left no doubt that I was looking for trouble.
The guards eyed me with their typical move-along glances.
I stopped in front of them and cut a slice of apple. The lamplight flickered above, briefly sparking in the dagger’s gem-encrusted handle. “I heard there’s a magic-using thief on the run from the city guard.”
They did their best to ignore me, but the dagger warranted closer inspection.
“You should move along,” the one on my right said, but his companion wasn’t as quick to dismiss me.
“Sentinel duty.” I grunted. “It’ll be cold tonight, and here you are. Did you pick the short straw?”
“Move along, sir.”
The guard to my left hadn’t spoken. He had watched me cut the apple, assessing the bejeweled dagger’s fine strokes, and now he was scrutinizing my clothing.
“So imagine the boon to your careers should you capture the thief. There are few opportunities to impress your superiors. You Inner Circle folk are just too obedient.”
My observant guard shifted his right hand, spreading his fingers in preparation to grab for his sword.
I smiled, popped the apple slice into my mouth, and crunched down. “Think you can catch me?”
He lunged and I bolted left, down a winding backstreet.
I checked that my guard was lumbering close behind and slowed my pace enough for him to think he was gaining on me. I veered around a corner and my foot slipped on the icy cobbles, snatching a few valuable seconds, but I had enough distance between me and the guard to slip inside a narrow alley and scale a scaffold. The guard couldn’t follow, not in armor designed to stop a short sword.
Dashing along the rooftops, I was back at the spire entrance, where the single guard remained. He stared down the street, watching for his companion. I came up on him fast and quiet and landed a kick to the back of his knee. He buckled, and I caught him by the shoulder, twisted him around, and slammed him hard to the ground. He managed to loose a bark of alarm before I rammed a rag in his mouth and tied his hands behind his back. He was gagged and tied before he knew what had hit him.
The sounds of our scuffle soon dissolved into the night.
I caught a handful of his hair—“Sorry”—and rammed my right fist into his nose. He grunted, spluttering blood. I moved his semi-conscious body down the steps and out of sight of any passersby. He wouldn’t stay down for long, and his companion would be back soon.
The lock picks I plucked from my pocket were crude and liable to break, but they were the best I could do with the discarded pieces of steel wire I’d found while scouring the city. I prodded the lock with both wire extensions and worked my way around its mechanism, feeling the play in the metal until it gave. The lock clunked over. I slipped quietly through the door and inside the spire.
The stench of something rancid and decayed burned my nose and clogged my throat. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. Rows of cells made even more foreboding by the flicker of torchlight? Yes. But it was the whispers drifting through the air that raised the fine hairs on my arms. A short passageway brought me into a vast vertical column—the spire’s innards. Cell upon cell lined the walls, intersected by jagged cantilevered staircases. Shadows moved behind the bars. The cell nearest me housed a single mage. It sat hunched in the tiny space, claws scratching at the stones as regularly as a ticking clock. Besides its vaguely human body, nothing else suggested it had once been a man or a woman. Its hairless skin quivered, and its tongue, when it licked its lips, was a split, blackened ribbon.
I noted an opposite passageway and peered up through the inside of the spire. Some ten stories above—just a fraction of the distance to the top—stone arches branched off from the stairs and held a platform aloft. I couldn’t see what that platform might hold, but with only the cells on the ground floor, I started up the steps.
Whispers brushed across my neck as they had in the Ruins of Arach. I’d dismissed the sensation then, but now I wasn’t so quick to brush it off. Despite the mark, I wasn’t a magic user, and yet even I could feel the wrongness swirling inside the spire—the kind of inhuman wrongness that told instincts to run.
The whispers grew louder until I could distinguish separate voices. I hesitated on the steps, pressing my back against the cool wall, and peered over the edge to the floor below. There wasn’t anywhere to hide. I could go up, to where the voices chanted, or back down to explore the opposite passageway and hope for an exit. But I hadn’t found the Eye, and Shaianna would soon come.
I pushed on upward.
With each step, the increasing sensation of wrongness plucked on my nerves. I gripped my dagger tighter and listened to the rhythmic beat of the voices.
As the platform came into view, I pushed back into the wall and shadows and absorbed what I could of the scene unfolding before me. I’d seen the mosaic pattern on the floor before, in the Arachian tomb. But here it was inverted so the spirals flowed from the center, not toward it. In its center, a pedestal held the Dragon’s Eye in a stone clasp, and four figures stood around the edges: a guard, a gentleman, a Brean woman—remarkable in her plainness—and Captain Anuska. Heads bowed and eyes closed, they chanted foreign words like those Shaianna had spoken in the tomb.
Green light spilled from the Eye, rippling over the edges of the pedestal to lap at the feet of the four people.
Anuska’s words had all been lies. Not only was she a magic user, but she had known about the Eye. She had probably sent the mages to retrieve it. Whatever she was attempting to do, given the Eye’s notoriety, it wasn’t good. I checked the four figures again. They were deep into their ritual, with their eyes squeezed shut.
None of the four appeared armed.
I crept up the last few steps, placing each footfall with deliberate care and keeping Anuska in my line of sight. Their chanting washed over me, and the transparent green light licked over my boots.
Just a few more steps …
Something spooked the mages below. All at once, their cackles and wails rose in a deafening crescendo. Anuska snapped open her eyes and reached for the Eye. I lunged, knocked the gem free of its clasp, and dashed forward as it skipped and skittered toward the platform’s edge. A few shouts joined the gods-awful noise from below. I dove for the gem. My fingers brushed its surface, and then the gem was gone, vanished over the edge.
At least it’s away from the four of them, I thought, right before one of them tackled me from behind. My chin hit the mosaic floor, slamming my teeth together.
A knee landed in my back, but my attacker didn’t anticipate the dagger in my hand. I swung it blindly behind me, heard the man hiss and swear, and bucked him off. I snatched his fine clothes, yanked him close, pushed the blade against his neck, then pinned Anuska in my sights. She froze, as did her two companions. The man beneath my blade was worth something to them.
The mages’ howls and yips echoed around us, whipping up a storm of noise too loud for me to consider asking Anuska what they had been conjuring with the Eye. It didn’t matter anyway. I was about to retrieve that gem for myself. Pulling the gentleman to his feet, I kept my blade to his throat and backed away. He muttered a string of “don’t hurt me’s” as we inched toward the stairs. Anuska had been my intended target—I had planned to use the valuable captain as leverage for the gem—but this man would do just as well. All I had to do was get down the stairs with him, find the gem, and be on my way.
Anuska’s stringent glare left no doubt that she’d like nothing better than to run me through with her sword.
<
br /> “Not today,” I mouthed.
My hostage didn’t fight. Having a blade pressed against one’s neck tended to dissuade even the bravest of men. We staggered down the steps, but Anuska and her two friends followed. The cacophony rattled around the inside of the spire and became almost too loud to bear once we reached the ground floor. I searched the dark for the gem but couldn’t see it. What if it had rolled into one of the cells?
Then silence rushed in on a hot blast of air, so sudden and complete that nobody moved. I could hear my thudding heart and the sawing breaths of the man in my arm. The mages had all fallen quiet at once. They were still there; their black bodies pushed against their bars, waiting—watching.
“She’s here,” my hostage muttered.
And indeed she was.
Shaianna strode down the passageway, eyes forward, cloak rippling behind her. The gems in her dagger glinted, just like those in her eyes.
“The Forgotten One,” my hostage whispered. A tremor quivered through him.
I dragged him back a few steps, keeping Anuska on my right and Shaianna ahead.
“The Eye,” I said, surprised at how calm I sounded. “It’s here.”
A curious curl of a smile played on Shaianna’s lips. She targeted each of us with a glance and then strode to a cell door, knelt, and reached her left hand inside. The mage inside growled low and flung itself at the bars, but Shaianna didn’t flinch. When she straightened, she held the massive Eye in the palm of her hand. She turned it over, admiring it this way and that, and then closed her fingers around it and squeezed. I heard the gem creak, and then it shattered, raining fragments around her feet.
She smiled, her teeth glinting in the flickering light, and lowered her hand. “It begins.”
Anuska and her two companions dropped to their knees and started chanting again.
Shaianna breathed in deep. The torches flickered. And the mages all stirred in their cages. The sense of wrongness amplified, pushing down on my shoulders. I shoved my hostage forward, and he immediately fell to his knees and bowed low, hands splayed on the floor, the chant spilling from his lips.
“Curtis.” Shaianna flicked her hand toward the opposite passage.
That was my cue to leave. I had turned toward it—thoughts reeling from the loss of the Eye—when Anuska sprang from her kneeling position and lunged for Shaianna.
“Don’t!” I shouted at Shaianna, already knowing how this would end.
Whatever the captain had intended, she didn’t get far. Shaianna plucked her out of the air as though she was nothing more than a leaf on the wind and pinned the guard against the cell bars. The dagger flashed, and another shout leaped to my lips, but it was already too late. Shaianna plunged the dagger home, deep into Anuska’s chest. The captain’s cry rattled the mages, stirring them into a frenzy.
“You and your kind believe you have the right to freedom, and I do not?” Shaianna yelled over the howling mages. “This is my land! My power. Who are you to judge me? You are nothing but the dust I crush in my hands.”
“Shaianna, please…?”
Shaianna turned her head toward me. She didn’t see Anuska’s hidden blade until the last second.
“No!”
The dagger flashed and sank deep into Shaianna’s side. A splash of pain burst through me. I let out an involuntary cry and reached for my waist, knowing there wouldn’t be a wound. Shaianna tugged her dagger free from the captain’s chest and drew it back to slash open Anuska’s throat.
I gripped Shaianna’s shoulder and yanked her back, skipping out of reach as the dagger flashed for me. “Leave her! She’s dead anyway. We need to go …”
Shaianna blinked, clearing the murderous rage from her eyes. Her fingers came away from her side wet.
“Now, Shaianna.” I shoved her ahead of me, toward the dark mouth of a passageway. “Move!”
We fled through the passage as it twisted and turned beneath the Inner Circle streets. It had to breach the street surface somewhere, anywhere. The mages would soon be on us. I could feel them coming.
The passage abruptly rose, ending in closed storm-cellar doors. I slammed a shoulder into the panels and burst out onto a street ripe with the smells of wood smoke and damp stone. Outer Brea. Shaianna stumbled out after me, clutching her side. I slammed the cellar doors closed and maneuvered nearby barrels against it, blocking it shut. Hopefully that would hold the mages back long enough for us to escape.
“I know where we can go.” I staggered to the edge of the street corner and peered around to get a feel for which part of the Outer Circle we were in. Nothing looked familiar. “Shaianna?”
“I will be well.” She fell against the wall. “I just need some time.”
Her eyes rolled back and her legs gave out. I caught her, almost falling with her from sudden dead weight.
“Shaianna?”
The cellar doors rattled, but the barrels held. I scooped Shaianna into my arms and walked away from the tunnel, away from the howls, away from the Inner Circle.
Chapter Nineteen
The speed at which Agatha took Shaianna from my arms and disappeared into the left wing of the coach house left me reeling. Shaianna was alive. I knew that as surely as I knew my heart beat in my chest, but the captain’s dagger had done more damage beyond the obvious. I could feel the ache and burn as though I were wounded. If I’d needed more evidence that we were still bonded, I had it. But until she came around from the attack, there was nothing I could do.
I peeled off my wet coat and drifted into the kitchens. A wood-burning stove radiated warmth, drawing me to it. I pulled out a chair from under the table and slumped in front of the stove. I hadn’t known the cold could sink its teeth so deep into bone. Numb fingers burned along with the ghostly wound in my side. I wasn’t sure how long I had wandered the city with Shaianna in my arms. Once the cold had set in, I’d had no choice but to cut through some of the worst parts of town. We were lucky the cold had driven everyone but the drunk and equally desperate inside.
Agatha would keep us safe for a day or two. After that … I wasn’t sure. I didn’t have any money, just the dagger and some makeshift lock picks. I owed Lyn, Agatha’s brother, gems I couldn’t pay. I had nowhere to go and nothing to my name, just the crazy sorceress and a whole lot of responsibility for magic and mages I didn’t want.
I buried my face in my trembling hands. There was too much to think about, too many unknowns. I couldn’t think on them. Not yet. All I needed was warmth and peace. My responsibilities would eventually catch up with me, but until then, I wasn’t moving from the stove.
A blanket settled around my shoulders.
Catherine held out a mug of steaming broth. “You need it.”
Her hair was pinned in a messy bundle, and her robes were plain and fraying at the edges. Catherine was rarely seen without her finery.
“Thank you.” I bracketed my hands around the mug and let the heat soak into my palms. “How is she?”
“Penny’s with her. She’ll be fine.”
Penny was a young maid and general nurse. She had patched me up once or twice after I’d fallen from a few roofs. Shaianna was safe with her.
“We thought you died. Someone talked about the mark on your back. Word got out—one of the clients, maybe—and then guards took you away. You were as gray as a corpse.” Catherine picked up a coal bucket, opened the fire hatch, and shook coal inside. “I er …” Her cheeks flushed. She wiped a hand across her face, smudging coal dust below her eye. “I admit I was relieved to see you.”
“Thank you for taking us in.”
“Thank Agatha. What was that creature?”
“I’m not sure I know. They were men and women, once.”
“They? The guards have mentioned similar attacks across the city for months now. They’re blaming it on vagrants, but what I saw—the creature you killed—that was no man, Vance.”
“No.” By the look on her face, she wanted me to say more, but what could I say? That the
people of the Inner Circle each had the potential to turn into those things, me included? It sounded mad.
Catherine let it go with a sympathetic smile. “Agatha was most distressed that she wouldn’t be getting her percentage of your latest venture.” She straightened and wiped her hands down on her apron. “She tried to hide her relief when Jake told her you were at the door. She doesn’t like us thinking she feels much of anything. I’m sure she’ll be down to see you soon.”
Hunched inside a blanket, broth in my hands, and the fire thawing the frost from my limbs, I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt this safe. Probably beneath the same roof with much the same people. “We won’t be here long.”
“Quite all right by me, but it is not me you have to impress.” Catherine set about clearing and stacking plates. “Who is your companion?”
Anyone who’d seen Shaianna couldn’t have missed her exotic appearance. I could imagine the gossip spreading through the house and smiled at the thought. “She’s complicated.”
“A friend?”
“Yes, but she’ll also kill you without blinking if she thinks you’re a threat to her. She is … sensitive.”
“I’m sure we can manage her.”
I smiled into my broth and took a drink. I wasn’t sure if anything short of a natural disaster could manage Shaianna.
“Once you’re warm and fed, there’s a room and some fresh clothes waiting. Get some rest. When you’re ready, join us in the sitting room?”
I nodded and thanked her again as she left the kitchens to continue her chores. As warm and safe as I felt, I knew it was temporary. I had stirred up a nest inside the Inner Circle, and they would come. Maybe in an hour, maybe in a day, but soon. I was ready. The boy who had been blinded by lies was gone. I saw all the ugliness now and knew it had to end. It looked as though, of all people, a gemless thief would be the one to end it.
The Heartstone Thief (Dragon Eye Chronicles Book 1) Page 17