“Is that what you saw in the spire?”
“I don’t know how it got in there or why it’s there now, but I saw something I can’t explain. Something as large as the dark filling that place. I saw its eyes; they were exactly like the jewel I stole, the Eye. I don’t know what to believe.” I smiled a tight, nervous smile that instantly fell away. “We’ve forgotten the past, and now it rises from the shadow and dust.” I turned and jogged down the stairs, telling Fallford over my shoulder, “Tassen will believe me. He saw the tomb; he already knows. He’s seen as much as I have, but the others will never believe me until it’s too late. Tell them what you will. It hardly matters. We have no defense against the past.”
I didn’t care to see the expression on his face. He should be afraid. I was.
I found Molly in the kitchen and asked for something potent and liable to make me forget. She poured me a syrupy, sweet concoction of her own making. A grape liquor, she called it. It warmed my throat and went a long way in filling the emptiness fear had carved out of me.
“Not too much, mind, or you’ll be regretting it,” she warned, her smile telling me she was speaking from experience.
“Molly, I have many regrets, but your fine liquor could never be one of them.”
“Ah, a smooth talker too. I can see I’ll have to warn the other maids as well as count the crockery, if you’ll be staying with us, sir.”
“I am. Fallford has offered me board while I am … in his employ. And don’t call me sir. Tell me something of your life with Fallford. Distract me, please, while the well-to-doers and the captain argue over the impossible.”
“You’re not with them?”
“I’m not with anyone, Molly. Alone is how I like it.” I wiped the back of my hand across my lips before their quiver could give me away.
She tossed her drying cloth aside and brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Well, sir thief, seems to me you got yourself some trouble. Is it lady trouble? You got that jilted look about you.”
I swallowed a large gulp of her drink and winced. “It’s more like the I don’t want to die kind of trouble, but I suppose you could say there’s a woman involved. A beautiful, complicated woman possibly capable of monstrous things, if I am to believe the facts.”
“Sounds like most women.” Molly sat opposite me and poured herself a drink. “I don’t s’pose milord will begrudge me a sip if I am to console his newest employee.”
I chinked my glass with hers. “To ignorance.”
A soft, unassuming smile warmed her face. “That’s a broken heart talking.”
“You can’t break a stone heart.” Like Shaianna’s. Fallford thought me afraid for my life. He thought he was saving me from my own cowardice. What he didn’t know, what even I wasn’t sure of, was that I wasn’t afraid for me. I was afraid for Shaianna, for what she might be and for the choice I feared she had already made. The wrong choice.
I just wanted to know if she was safe and that, if the beast in the spire got free, Shaianna would survive it. She deserved to live, but first she had to keep the dark at bay.
Fallford joined me some time later and ushered Molly away while he poured himself a drink. By then I was slumped in the chair, and I had lost count of the number of times I’d refilled my glass.
“Where are your intrepid explorers?” I didn’t sound drunk, at least not to my ears, but my thoughts weren’t entirely grounded and I wasn’t sure how well I’d be walking.
“Tassen has returned to his ship. He’s reconsidering his involvement,” Fallford said, leaning back in his chair. He loosened his collar and took a generous mouthful of grape liquor. “The others have left, for now. It is late and nobody seems inclined to move forward.”
I wasn’t entirely surprised. It was one thing to pledge your support of an idea, and an entirely different thing to lose two lives to that idea.
“You should have told me Tassen was on your payroll.”
“He protected my identity, as you have in the past. I didn’t feel it necessary to tell you before now.”
“He came to my house, said you wanted to meet?”
“Ah, yes. You must understand. The Eye is—was everything. I asked Tassen to keep you occupied. I was to search for the Eye myself, but the mages had already done so.”
I almost choked on my drink. “You were going to steal it—from me—despite our deal?”
“Vance, time is short. I feared what might become of the Eye. As it happens, I was right.” Fallford chuckled. “Come now, a thief by trade and you’re offended by my actions?”
“I... you do not seem the sort.”
He nodded. “I made my fortune from the mines. My title is an earned one, not inherited. I’m not adverse to getting my hands dirty.”
I respected him more for that. “And now?”
“I retired after my son’s death and pursued antiquities. But it was the mines that sparked my curiosity.” He gazed at the kitchen window but wasn’t seeing the snowflakes patting gently against the glass. “The workers had a tradition. Every morning, before their day began, they would offer up a stone to the restless gods. Just a stone, something they’d picked up from the road. Nothing more. They called it payment for safe passage through the earth.”
I wet my lips from the glass before speaking. “There’s a similar tradition on the moors.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “I considered it nonsense. The mine captain at the time told me they offered a stone because we were taking from the earth, and so we should give back.” Fallford tapped his fingers on the side of his glass. “Over time, the pile of tributes grew into a shrine of sorts. But the mine grew and the shrine had to be demolished to make way for expansion. The next day, a lode collapsed, crushing two hundred men.” His expression tightened. “I was reminded of this when researching Arach. The people there had embraced the visitors, with one warning: not to steal anything from their city.”
The earth had power—a latent energy most Brean folk had never been aware of. Shaianna knew of it. I’d seen her weave it around her on that moorland night.
“We are facing something we do not understand,” I said. Fallford met my eye. “I do not like our chances.”
“I’m not a religious man, nor am I prone to believe in fantastical tales, as much as I adore hearing them. But you are right, Vance. I don’t think we can rely on our existing knowledge. We need to look into the myth and search for the truth.”
The truth in the lies. I tipped my drink in agreement. “That is easier said than done.”
“Your lady friend?”
I am no lady. Despite the weight of my discoveries, my lips lifted into a small smile. “I’ve no idea where she is.” Or what she is, I added silently.
“And what of you, Vance? You were born inside the Inner Circle. That makes you one of them. Do you have the same potential in you?”
“Are you asking if I can harvest magic from gems, or if I’m about to turn mage?”
“Both.”
“The only magic I know is sleight of hand. As for turning mage? I’m just a thief.”
“You heal. You told me you should have died on several occasions.”
“That was her doing.”
“Was it?”
I downed the rest of my drink and stood, swaying a little, but the table helped steady me. “You know everything I know.”
“Tell me why you’re really afraid.”
I was about to say the obvious—mages were hunting me—but it wasn’t that. I dragged a hand down my face and cleared my throat. “Inside the spire, when Tassen and his men ran—” I gripped my chair, holding myself steady while the room blurred at the edges. “I should have been afraid, like they were, but I wasn’t. Not really. That beast inside, whatever it is, knew I was there, and it watched … It watched like the thing in my dreams. It knew me.” I sighed. “I’m afraid of what that means.”
“You’re part of this, at the heart of it even?”
I didn’t answer, but I didn’t need
to, and left the room to find solace in my bed. I hoped I’d drunk enough not to dream of falling.
She came to me, in my dreams, where I had no desire to stop her, a blur of dark hair and the glitter of jewels against her pale skin. I heard her laughter, rich and bright, and I watched her from afar. She danced in the summer meadow outside the ruins of her home and lifted her face to the sun. I had never wanted someone more. I wanted to steal her away, but the darkness came. Growls rumbled from the trees and wargs breached the tree line, teeth dripping, yellow eyes bright. A shadow fell over me, blocking out the sun and plunging the ruins into darkness. Cold rushed in. I turned to warn her and saw my sister. Shaianna had my sister hugged against her, the jeweled dagger at her throat. My sister’s eyes said sorry.
“I knew …” she said. “I always knew.”
“Curtis.”
I bolted upright, breathing hard, the sound of my sister’s name still echoing through my head. Cold air blasted in through the open window and around the hooded figure. Shaianna crouched in the window, poised and unsure, her face hidden in shadow.
“Shaianna? By the gods, princess.” The dream still stalked my thoughts, and my lightheadedness had me wondering whether she was here at all, or if my memories had brought her to life.
She dropped from the sill and quietly closed the window. I propped my head up on a hand and watched her turn toward me. She unclipped her cloak and let it fall. She looked the same now as when she appeared in the dockside alley, something untamed and unforgiving, cold and raw. Her dagger glinted at her thigh. Its twin was tucked away inside my bedside drawer. I didn’t think I’d need it, but her smile wasn’t the slight, subtle smiles I’d seen from her before. This new smile had an edge to it.
“How did you find me? You shouldn’t be here. If Fallford …” My voice and thoughts trailed off as she strode forward, her steps so light I barely heard them.
“Shh.” She placed a knee on her edge of the bed and climbed over me, straddling my legs. It was a good thing the dream had left me breathless else she may have noticed how my breaths quickened. “Don’t talk,” she commanded.
“But—”
She pressed a cool finger to my lips. Her lashes fluttered, but there was no pretense of humility about her. When she brushed her lips against mine, my denials unraveled. Before long, I would lose myself to her, and I couldn’t. I needed to know the truth.
I touched her face—she felt real, this woman of light and dark—and pulled back while searching her eyes. There was a plea in those eyes, nothing like the commands she spoke. “What is this? Why are you here?”
She slid her fingers down my chest, over my nightshirt, and slipped her hand beneath the fabric. Her touch was smooth and painfully light, testing me in the same way I had touched her face, wondering if this was real.
“I need to feel,” she whispered, and this time her kiss wasn’t nearly as fleeting. She pushed me down, and I let her. Dream or not, I didn’t care. She tasted too sweet and felt too good to stop.
Her fingers teased open the buttons and buckles of her leather waistcoat. All the while, she never took her eyes off mine. Rolling her shoulders, she dropped her waistcoat and then lifted off her blouse. Without thinking, I reached out to touch the curve of her waist. Jewels winked across her body, from her left shoulder, across one breast, and down her midriff, wrapping out of sight around her hip. I trailed my fingers along them. Some gems were no larger than dust, whereas others were the size of marbles. At my touch, her breath caught and the jewels shimmered. She closed her eyes and arched back, her body a terrible invitation. The moonlight spilling in through the window filtered through her braid of dark hair and poured its milky glow over her. I had never seen anything as beautiful.
She caught my hand and directed it to her thigh. “Touch me.”
“Shaianna—”
“Don’t speak, thief. Do as I command.”
Oh, by the gods. She was killing me. I pushed up, tore my nightshirt free, and captured her face in my hands, but there I froze, holding her still and peering into her eyes. How could she be so fierce, so terrible, and look at me with fear in her eyes?
“Agatha and her people?” Desire had wrecked my voice.
Her hands slid down my back, and when she touched my side, a spark of pleasurable pain jolted through me. The brand.
I sank my hand into her hair and held her still, teeth gritted in restraint. “Tell me their slaughter wasn’t you,” I hissed, holding myself in check as much as her. “Tell me it was the mages.”
Her eyes widened, and her disappointment was clear. “The mages came. I had no weapons in that ridiculous dress. I tried to reach my room, my blade … but it was too late.”
That was all I needed. I kissed her hard, groaning into her as she pushed into me. Her nails sank in, raking over my back. I flipped her under me and tasted her as I had wanted to since seeing her in the river. At the swirl of my tongue over a nipple, she rose, my name—Curtis, not thief— a whisper on her lips.
“Show me what it is to feel.” She breathed the words against my neck and a tumble of shivers rolled through me. “Before I am lost.”
She was too precious a thing for me, but I’d take her all the same. And as we lost ourselves in each other, she came alive beneath my touch. I knew the real her—a woman of passion, of light and life. She smiled, she laughed, she nipped and teased. She pinned me down and exposed all that I was, all that I could be. She was the woman in the waterfall, raising her hands to the sky, and the dancer in the crowd, carefree and lighthearted.
Impossibly, she had stolen my heart.
I was hers.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As Shaianna lay tucked against my chest, I trailed my fingers lazily up and down her bare arm and knew I would never understand her. Her words—and her glances—hid meaning upon meaning. But her touch, her desire, her need—those things had been clear. And for that, I was grateful.
Candlelight warmed her skin, turning it caramel. I would never tire of touching her, for every time I did, her softness surprised me.
A headache left over from the alcohol threatened to spoil my mood, but for now, I was content to hold her and forget.
“You saw the beast in the spire,” she murmured.
I didn’t want to think about the beast in the spire—or the mages, or magic, or anything that had become a part of my life during the last few months. Just her. In my arms. Warm and soft and real.
“What you saw … it is all-consuming,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes and clung to the moment, but her words were already chasing it away.
I gathered her hair back, exposing her bare shoulder, and kissed her smooth skin. It seemed, with her pulled close, that all was right in the world. I had been alone too long, focusing only on the next client, the next artifact, and how I could squander my gems in taverns, taunting death. But since Shaianna, since the alley and the cup, I’d gained purpose. I should probably ask how she knew I’d been back to the spire, or how she had known where to find me, but I didn’t care. She would answer with riddles, and I’d much rather she just lay in my arms. I didn’t want to know the truth. I feared, I already did.
She threw back the blanket and collected her clothing. I watched, soaking up the delicious sight of her draped in flickering candlelight. She knew my thoughts, her secret smile said so. She found my day shirt and threw it at me.
“The beast in the spire,” I began, snatching up my shirt. “Can you stop it?”
She had tamed a warg in the Draynes. She had power enough to heal me and herself. From her glances, her stillness, her control, I suspected she could do more, so much more. There was a depth to her, but she feared treading too close.
“No,” she replied.
She layered on her attire, and with each buckle and strap, her smile died a little more, until all that remained was the stern-faced sorceress. But I knew more of her now. I’d run my tongue along the gems speckling her curves. Touched her in places
that made her come alive. I didn’t even try to understand her true motives for last night, but I knew the coldhearted sorceress was an act.
“Is it a dragon?” I asked.
She tilted her head with a frown. “A dragon?”
“Like the monument in the Arachian tomb?” I shrugged on my shirt, resigned to the fact the warmth was leaving us. We would soon revert to being the sorceress and thief, and that was how it would always be. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. But I’d take it while I could.
“They are called dearmad.” She rolled the r, giving the word reverence.
“What does it mean?”
“Why must it mean anything?” She snatched her sheathed dagger from the cabinet and attached it to her belt, then paused. Her glare, when she turned it back on me, softened. “It means, the mistake.”
“Are there more?” I asked, aware she might shut down at any moment and cease answering my questions.
“No.”
At least she was answering my questions, albeit with short, sharp replies. “Where did it come from? From what I saw in the spire, it’s no small beast. The size of a house, at least. Something like that doesn’t appear overnight unnoticed.”
Unless Anuska and her mages had summoned it. Was that what they’d been doing with the Dragon’s Eye? The Eye controlled earth magic. Was that thing of the earth? Over and over questions tumbled in my mind.
“It’s always been here.” She strode to the window and would have vanished outside had I not caught her arm.
“Shaianna, wait.”
“Thief, I cannot give you what you want.” She pulled her arm free. “I am sorry for that.”
“Thief? I thought we’d at least progressed to names. Shall I call you sorceress or The Shadow?”
She bowed her head with a sigh. “I should not have come.”
“Why did you?” I waited while she hesitated, either lost for an explanation or unable to speak whatever was on her mind. “Let me help you. Show me what it is to feel before I am lost. Your words.”
The Heartstone Thief (Dragon Eye Chronicles Book 1) Page 21