I swept a gaze about the plaza, but in the dizzying heat, the bright colors blurred. Was this man alone, or were there more like him? An itching sensation crawled up my neck. I was being watched.
“When you are ready, we will be waiting.” He rose from the bench, his movements awkward and jagged as though he didn’t quite fit together or might break apart. Leaning heavily on his cane, he hobbled away, and the meandering crowd swallowed him whole.
I bowed my head and concentrated on breathing. It was getting easier. In a few more minutes, I could head back to the inn and the sorceress would never know I’d tested her theory—
“Thief, are you now convinced of the bond?”
I looked up, startled to find her so close. She lifted her chin and glared down her regal nose at me.
I looked again for the old man, but there was no sign of him and nothing to suggest he’d ever been here. Dangerous, he’d called her. She had said the same about herself. I could believe that.
“Yes, I am convinced,” I replied quietly.
She held out a hand. “Then let us begin our journey.”
Chapter Five
“What’s so special about this jewel?” I asked, meeting the sorceress’s gaze. She looked back at me, head cocked, half frowning. “Besides it being valuable,” I added.
The high sun poured through the rustling leaves as we rode our horses side by side along the forest path. We’d hardly spoken since hiring the horses and leaving the city some miles back, and only then to confirm we were packed with supplies and ready to start the trek to Arach.
“When magic was abundant, those with the talent could harvest it from precious gems, like rubies and emeralds. Various gems hold reservoirs of power. Rubies contain blood magic, emeralds earth magic, topaz water, and diamond air. The mage I killed had been about to draw blood magic from the rubies. You would have bled from your eyes, mouth, and genitals, as well as from your very pores. It is a horrid death and not one I would wish on any creature, even a thief.”
“Well, then, I suppose I should thank you for saving me.”
“I didn’t save you. Without our bond, I am nothing.”
I rolled my eyes. She couldn’t accept my gratitude. No. She had to turn it into an insult. “So, this jewel, it has power to magic users?”
She walked her horse on, rocking gently with the animal’s movement. The horses liked her. Hers had quietened the moment she’d laid her hands on its nose, whereas mine was still skittish, its ears flicking back and forth and its head constantly shying.
“Much power. It is called the Dragon’s Eye, and it commands a great reservoir of earth magic. There was a time, long ago, I suppose, when the Eye was feared, for if any mage should harness it, they would have the power to shift continents, move mountains, create rivers, or destroy cities.” She let her words settle around us like fallen leaves before favoring me with a humorless smile. “But you do not believe in magic, therefore this means nothing to you.”
“It means something. I might not believe it, but that doesn’t mean the jewel is a fake. I’m a thief. Artifacts often come with elaborate tales to inflate their value. The glove of the phantom, for example. Coveted by actors who believe that, should they wear the glove, they’ll become that city’s most famous artist overnight.”
“Did you steal it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“It was just an old riding glove. But I was paid well enough to procure it. Then there was the bronze bull sculpture. People say if you cup its scrotum it will bring you more riches than you can possibly spend.”
Her lips twitched. “You stole that as well?”
“Yes. And yes, I did”—I briefly dropped my reins and cupped my hands—“cup its scrotum.”
“Did it make you rich, thief?” she asked, a hint of humor lifting her voice beyond its normal dry tone.
“You saw where I lived. It didn’t make me rich, but my client paid a handsome price for it and I lived like a king that week. So, I suppose, some might say it worked, briefly.”
“You squandered your payment?”
“Squandered? No. Life is short, princess. I spend what I have. Tomorrow I may not be alive to enjoy it.”
She fell quiet. The forest swallowed the clip-clop of our horses’ hooves while a breeze hissed through the leaves.
“You’ve lost people,” she said. “It seems those who have loved and lost appreciate what they are given with more fervor than those who do not know loss.”
I considered her words. There was loss, and then there was also regret and so much more. “Do you know loss?”
Her hand tightened on the reins. “I have lost much. I have lost … everything.”
I faced ahead, hiding how her words had struck at the heart of me. Anyone who lived in Brea’s Outer Circle had lost someone. It was the way of life outside the inner wall. But not everyone had lost everything. I had. And so had she. It went some way in explaining her coldness, but it didn’t excuse it.
I didn’t feel inclined to speak, and she too stayed quiet. But it was an easy, gentle quiet that didn’t ask to be filled.
After a few more miles beneath us, she said, “My name is Shaianna. You may stop calling me princess.”
“But it suits you.”
“No.”
“No?”
“My blood is not royal. I am a warrior, sometimes an advisor, but never a princess.” The way she spoke, with that haughty resonance back in her voice, and kept her gaze ahead told me this distinction, like the cup, was important to her.
“I thought you were a sorceress. You don’t seem to know what you are, Shaianna.” I copied her pronunciation, Shy-ah-nah. It sounded like an Ellenbridge name, definitely from the far east and through enough treacherous land to make hearing the accent a rare occurrence.
“I am many things and nothing. I am shadow and dust.”
The shadow I could believe. But dust? I’d have asked her what she meant, but her somber tone kept me quiet. Besides, I wasn’t supposed to be mining for information. This was a job, like any other. Find the jewel, break the bond, and maybe sell the jewel and live off the payment in a new city, far away from Brea, its many ghosts, and the riddle of Shaianna.
“Why are we here?”
“Shh.” I dismounted and loosely tied my skittish ride to a tree branch. The horse pawed at the earth, ears pricked. Overhead, scattered among the canopy, hand-carved decorations chimed and clanged in the breeze. Sometimes, even skeptics like me paid their respects for safe passage.
“What is this place?” Shaianna twisted in her saddle and admired the decorations spinning in the canopy.
Ignoring her question, I approached the shrine. Over the years, the pile of stones at the roadside had grown to twice the height of a man, and it glittered and gleamed in the dappled sunlight. I added a simple pebble to the stack, just one I’d picked up on the road, and tucked it neatly between a rock inscribed with initials and another painted blue and red.
“This is nonsense,” she uttered.
“Oh, this is nonsense? But it’s acceptable to magically bind a stranger without his permission?” I slung a look over my shoulder and paused, watching her tip her face to the sunlight. Some of the wind spinners caught the light and fractured it, spilling small rainbows about the road and across her dark cloak and attire. It wasn’t difficult to believe in magic in a place like this. I kicked at a loose bit of dirt, unearthed a stone, and handed it out to her.
She frowned at it resting in my palm as if I was presenting her with a dead animal. “What are these stones?”
“Payment.”
“For what?”
“Safe passage through the Draynes.”
“But they are not gems, just stones. Nothing more. I thought you didn’t believe in magic?”
When she didn’t take it, I tossed the stone in the air, caught it, and tucked it safely among the pile. She might not believe in tradition, but she also didn’t know the lands we were about to travel through. I d
id, and I wasn’t taking any chances.
Returning to my horse, I gathered the reins in one hand, hooked my foot into the stirrup, and heaved myself back into the saddle.
“This isn’t magic, it’s faith,” I said, steering the horse back onto the path. “A traveler’s tradition.”
“I don’t understand.”
For someone who appeared to be well educated, she didn’t understand much of anything.
I kicked my horse on and let the sorceress catch up.
Dead blossoms rained from the canopy, their delicate petals curled and cracked with age.
“Tell me what the stones mean.” She settled her horse into an easy stride beside mine.
“Don’t you have faith where you come from?”
Blossoms settled in her dark hair. She brushed a petal from her shoulder, then another from her thigh, but the third she picked up and lifted close to her eyes. “No.”
“You don’t believe in anything besides magic?”
“I believe in many things. I believe in what I see.” She continued to examine the petal, turning it over and tilting her head side to side. “The truth of my senses. Touch, taste, smell. I know, for example, that you fear me. Your body tells me as much.”
I huffed a laugh. “I fear many things. Especially things that can kill me without flinching.”
If she caught my reference to the cool way she’d dispatched of the mage, she didn’t show it; she just cupped the petal in her hand and poked at it with a fingernail. I was beginning to think she truly didn’t care about anything besides her precious cup.
“I believed in my queen,” she said, closing her hand into a fist around the petal. Then she tossed it into the air. The wind caught the blossom and tore it away from us. “I suppose you might call that faith. Despite not witnessing her feats myself, I believed in her.”
I knew of no queen. The last of King Jacobie’s wives had died in childbirth. Perhaps Shaianna’s queen was overseas? Cultural differences might explain her oddness, but not how smoothly she spoke the Ellenglaze language.
“This queen of yours, does she have magic too?”
She speared me with her gaze as though I’d said something hurtful, and then, just as quickly, she lifted her chin and kicked her horse into a trot. I watched her go with no intention of chasing her. The bond would ensure she didn’t get far.
I should stop asking questions. I didn’t need to know her, especially when the thought of stealing the Dragon’s Eye was becoming more and more appealing. A jewel with a history like that one would be worth a lord’s fortune. I already had several buyers in mind. With the proceeds from such a treasure, I could board a ship and leave Brea, the land of Ellenglaze, and my past behind for good.
A cool breeze whipped the tree blossoms into a frenzy, sweeping them down the trail and whirling them about me. My horse shied, stamped its hooves, and danced on the spot.
“Steady …” Hunkering down, I attempted to reel the animal back in. She reared, bucked, and twisted, and in the next violent jerk, she threw me from the saddle. I landed hard on my back, slamming my teeth together, and air whooshed from my lungs. Pain jarred through bones I didn’t even know I had. I had never been very good with animals.
The sounds of hammering hooves thundered away. The breeze hissed and the trees groaned, or that may have been me. Great. I was never going to hear the end of it. I could imagine Shaianna’s dry look once she discovered I had lost my ride.
I rolled onto my side and shielded my eyes from the wind-tossed grit. Shaianna was there, way ahead, her horse turned side-on. Her cloak and hair flailed in the wind. I couldn’t see if she was smiling or frowning, but I could guess which. She geed her horse on and trotted out of sight, over the brow of a hill. Looked like I was walking the rest of the way.
A growl rumbled nearby. I almost missed it, such was the howl of the wind, and might have missed the beast’s glare altogether had I not glimpsed its yellow eyes burning bright among the windswept undergrowth. Groping the jeweled free dagger from my belt, I scrambled to my feet. The chaotic wind whipped my hair about my face and tugged on my clothes. I staggered against its push and lost sight of the beast’s eyes.
Wolves. Or worse. Wargs—trained attack dogs set loose in the Draynes by highwaymen. They shouldn’t be this deep into the forest, or this close to Brea.
Shit. I whirled, checking the tree line. A glance down the track confirmed Shaianna wasn’t coming to my rescue anytime soon. Dagger gripped, I pushed forward on foot, squinting into the squall.
Easily half the height of a grown man, the warg emerged from the bushes ahead, close enough to take me in one leap. Sharp, man-made steel spikes glittered inside the dark fur of its back. Its lips pulled back over teeth crowding a jaw the size of my forearm. I had only seen wargs once before. Two pups had been brought into the workhouse. I’d watched from the laundry room window as the guards bet gems on the ensuing match. Those pups had torn into each other, giving no mercy and showing no weakness. The gory onslaught hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes. Both pups had died. This warg was easily five times the size of those pups. It looked at me as though it could see what I had seen, and it would tear out my throat the first chance it got.
Where were Shaianna’s whispers now? Where was her so-called magic when I needed it?
I lifted the dagger and tried to swallow around the bitter fear burning my throat. If I broke eye contact with the warg to search for Shaianna, it would strike. But it would strike any second anyway.
A gust of wind drove into me from behind and brought with it the smell of wet meat, right before a second beast slammed into my shoulder. I hit the ground before I knew I’d been hunted. My cheek struck stone and split open. Fiery pain surged up my shoulder. I slashed behind me—or tried to. The warg’s teeth sank through my coat and dug deep into my arm, crushing skin and muscle. Panic and heat washed through me. The warg shook its head, tearing deeper into my flesh. Its growl rumbled from deep inside. I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t shake it off. Another beast stalked closer, lips rippling and silvery drool spilling from its black tongue.
“Back. Get back …” a man barked.
A figure loomed in my blurred vision, but before I could open my mouth to ask for help, the boot came down, silencing everything.
Chapter Six
I woke heaving around the filthy rag shoved in my mouth. Blazing pain lapped at my body, everywhere at once. I had been beaten before—once to within moments of my last breaths. After a while, a cool numbness had taken over, but not this time. This time my battered body throbbed all over, but my shoulder beat with the heat of sickening agony. The metallic stench of stale blood, wet leather, and disturbed earth burned my nose, while the taste of the rag, and whatever filth it had been used to clean, burned my tongue, spilling tears into my eyes. I almost didn’t care that my hands were tied behind me. Couldn’t care much about anything beyond the pain.
“He’s not dead then,” a deep voice grumbled, the Calwyton drawl slow and thick to the ear.
“With that bite, he will be soon.”
A well-aimed kick to my kidneys sparked a new array of pain. My sore gut heaved. Had I eaten, I would have choked on my vomit. Thank the restless gods for the inn’s unappetizing food. Although, with my hands tied and my body broken, my chances of getting out of this alive weren’t looking favorable.
A man with dirt-caked boots stepped over me and sauntered toward a low-burning fire, where a second man—his hair a matted rat’s nest—was sitting, hunched over, admiring the dagger I’d stolen from Shaianna. They both wore patched-up rags and mismatched animal pelts, the perfect camouflage for the Draynes valley. Caught between civilized Brea and the wild Thorn mountains, certain folk who had no place to go found themselves wandering the Draynes: highwaymen. Living out here did things to the mind. The wargs, the land of the restless gods, mists that didn’t lift for weeks—it was enough to drive men insane.
Ratsnest—as I’d named him— turned the curved blade
in his hand. Firelight licked off the gems and slid down the tempered edge.
“His sticker will feed us well.” Dirty Boots grumbled, toeing some half-burned logs closer to the fire. “I ain’t never seen nuffin’ like it, has you?”
“No.” Ratsnest grunted. “It ain’t his.” The dagger’s luminous glint held the men captive. They were lucky they hadn’t met its owner. “Clothes are ragged. He ain’t no well-to-doer. He stole this sticker.” Ratsnest turned his head and rolled his lips together. He trawled his bloodshot eyes over me. “He was alone?”
“Wargs hunted just one,” Boots replied. “Nearly killed ’im on the road. They’re gettin’ wilder.”
“Jodelle says they’s sensin’ a storm …”
The men’s voices rumbled on as I rolled my gaze about the camp, flinching whenever pain bloomed behind my eyes. I couldn’t see much beyond the firelight, but the wargs weren’t here. Evidence of their attack throbbed down my entire right side. Rumors claimed a bite from a warg could turn the victim into one. Just tales to keep wayward children from venturing too far into the Draynes, I hoped.
Where was she? She had to be close, or else I’d be bond-sick on top of everything else. Or maybe I was and couldn’t tell. She couldn’t leave me, though. She believed that. She would be nearby. Kill me and you kill yourself, she’d threatened. That worked both ways. She wouldn’t let me die.
She had better be quick.
Unless this was all a twisted fantasy. All I knew for certain about Shaianna was that she was insane, and she killed with unnerving flippancy.
The all-over heat had begun to go numb. The cold would come next, and then I would no longer care about the pain, the jewel, or the mystery of Shaianna. Death had to come for me eventually.
My sister had said she was cold, at the end, right before death stole her away. But she had smiled. She was going home, she had said. I had no home to go to, not in life or death. I wasn’t ready …
“Hey,” I said, or tried to. It came out as a muffled grunt around the rag. “Hey-hey.”
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 48