City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1)

by Steven Montano

  He walked to the door at the end of the downstairs hall and into the kitchen. The pleasant smells of fresh bread and stewed beef filled his nostrils and tugged at his stomach. The long window in the kitchen faced the alley, so Calestra kept a pair of oil-lamps on hooks in the ceiling to make sure the room was well-lit. Kath saw chopped onions, potatoes and celery on the counter, as well as two long loaves of bread, a block of yellow cheese and some yams.

  “Chop the yams,” Calestra said, “and then throw all of the vegetables into the stew.”

  Calestra was the spitting image of their mother. She was tall and slender but buxom and full, with her dark hair tied back in a bun. She wore a green dress with an apron the color of tea leaves. Calestra also had a thin scar on her jaw from a childhood accident, but Kath didn’t think it marred her good looks one bit, even if she thought otherwise. The Cardrezhej women had always been beautiful, and always would be.

  Kath picked up a long kitchen knife and set himself to the task of chopping the yams. The knife was ancient, the same blade his mother had used in the kitchen, and his grandmother before her. It was barely sharp enough to cut a tomato anymore, but despite Kath’s and Drogan’s repeated offers to replace it Calestra would use nothing else.

  “This old knife…” he said.

  “Don’t even start.”

  How Calestra responded to the subject of the knife was always the best way to gauge her mood. Based on how quickly she’d jumped on him just then, things looked grim.

  “What is it?” he asked. He heard her behind him at the stove, stirring and adding spices to the large stewpot.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “All right.” He took a breath. “So, what is it?”

  “You can’t keep doing this,” she said. Neither of them stopped what they were doing. “You come home like you’re going to stay, then you’re gone, and now all of a sudden you’re home again. Make up your mind. You’re confusing Julei.” Kath heard her stir for much longer than she needed to. “Are you still in the Watch, or not?”

  “Calestra,” he groaned, “I told you – I don’t know. First we’re being told the Watch has been dissolved, and that all of our duties are being taken over by the White Dragon Army. But then soldiers start dying because of some…plague…and they put us back on active duty, except half of the guys from the Watch don’t bother showing up. I don’t know what to do.” He finished with the yams, so he tore off a hunk of cheese and took a bite.

  “Yes, you do,” she said, “and yet you’re here, not with the Watch.” She turned and gave him a stern look. Kath may have been the eldest, but Calestra had been the one in charge ever since their mother had died. “You’re here with an Allaji Bloodspeaker.”

  “I explained that,” he said, hearing the uncertainty in his own voice.

  “Yes, you did,” Calestra said angrily. “So because she has you bewitched, I’m supposed to think that everything is just…okay?” Kath turned back around and stared at the counter. “You deserted again,” Calestra said, “and you brought an evil woman into this house…”

  “Calestra…”

  “You put Julei and father in danger, and I’m supposed to be happy to have you home?”

  Kath was going to say something, but no words would come. He wanted so badly to show Calestra she was wrong, but he couldn’t…and, worse, she wasn’t. He’d made such a habit of fouling things up he couldn’t even see his mistakes for what they were anymore.

  Calestra turned around and stirred the stew some more. The air was heavy with tension. Kath heard a wagon roll by in the street outside, and small animals and children scurried past the window down the alley. Bells tolled in the distance.

  I’m sorry, he wanted to say, and what he was sorry for most was the situation Calestra was in now. Drogan and Julei needed her there – they needed her steady hand, the strength of authority and decisiveness she provided in the absence of her mother. But that wasn’t good for Calestra, and Kath had done little to help. A bungled stint in the City Watch had almost landed him in prison, and when he’d received a second chance he’d gone and gotten himself diseased, then ran away with a wanted woman and hid her in his home.

  That wasn’t your fault, he told himself. You’re under some sort of spell. But it didn’t matter. It was a terrible mess that could end up costing them everything. It really is better when I’m not around, isn’t it?

  “Calestra,” he said. She didn’t answer – she was busy washing potatoes, or stirring, or doing anything but talk to him. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave soon. And I’ll take the woman with me.” He left her alone.

  Thirty-Two

  They ate dinner in near silence. The dining room was small and cramped and there was barely enough room for Kath to move his elbows, so he ate with his hands over the table and his arms tucked to his sides. A single lamp cast soft light on the Cardrezhej family’s faces. Small bookshelves lined the walls, and the sky beyond the window was red and black.

  Julei made random statements about friends she only occasionally played with or things she wanted to do or see, like going to the doll maker’s shop when it was time for her allowance or taking a walk in the woods east of the city once the new soldiers made it safe again. At one point she talked at length about a book she was reading called The Forgotten Star, which so far as Kath could tell was about a young magical mouse named Kristus and his journey to rescue his friend Patch (a cat) from the hands of an evil faerie. Kath tried to remember if he’d read that book, but if he had it had been so long ago he couldn’t remember anything about it.

  He made quiet talk with Julei. He was always impressed by her recollection of what she’d read and her insightful observations into what she thought would happen next or how she thought the characters felt. Unfortunately their discussion seemed uncomfortably out of place. Drogan and Calestra said nothing and kept their eyes on their meals. Both of them seemed to want things quiet, so after a while Kath tried to end the conversation tactfully. Julei figured it out – she was a remarkably bright girl – and the rest of the meal passed in silence.

  Kath’s father was the one most at unease. Drogan wasn’t as tall as Kath, nor as broad of shoulder. He’d served in the Ebonmark City Watch and had even fought in a campaign against the Tuscars, but that had been over two decades ago, and since leaving the Watch he’d enjoyed a soft and relatively quiet life filled with big meals and brandy. He was just over six feet tall, and his once brown hair had thinned and faded to grey. Kath had inherited his father’s piercing eyes, and a thin beard covered Drogan’s stony jaw.

  Drogan had never approved of Kath’s decision to join the Watch, especially now that it was under the direct control of the White Dragon Army, which he considered a barbaric and mindless institution. The fact that Kath insisted on serving in spite of his father’s misgivings was just the latest of many walls between them.

  Calestra was another story. She and Kath had been close once, very close, but all that had changed when their mother had died.

  “This is delicious,” Kath finally said. He was tired of the silence. “Thank you, Calestra.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her response was cold.

  “Yes,” Drogan said, as if he’d just shaken himself awake. They were all finished except for Julei, who usually took twice as long to eat as anyone else. The others sat and fiddled with their bowls and absently used shreds of bread to mop up the last remnants of meat and broth.

  “Do you need help cleaning up?” Kath asked Calestra, but she stood up faster than he could and waved for him to stay put.

  “No, Julei can help. Father, I’ll bring you some brandy.”

  “But I…” Julei protested, but Calestra took up her plate and herded her out of the room.

  Kath was alone with Drogan. The silence was awkward, but it only lasted a moment before they both started talking at once.

  “Go ahead,” Drogan laughed quietly. Kath was happy he smiled – it took a bit of the tension out of the air.

&n
bsp; “I …” Kath stammered. They’d never talked much, even when things had been better between them. Now it felt impossible. He lived a life his father didn’t want him to, he’d nearly died, and now he had a strange and magical woman sleeping in his room.

  All this after what happened to Mother. The situation was so bizarre and confounding that words seemed almost pointless.

  “Maybe I should begin,” Drogan said with an uneasy smile. “Kath…at the risk of sounding ‘Fatherly’, I have to…well…what are you doing?” It was such a simple question, but by Drogan’s tone it was the best he could come up with.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He was shaking. Kath had faced death and done battle with Tuscars, but he still trembled in the presence of his father. “I’m feeling better now, so I need to go report back to Captain Tyburn…”

  “Wait,” Drogan said. “You’re feeling ‘better’? You told me you’d almost died from whatever you’d been exposed to.”

  “Yes,” Kath nodded. His laced his fingers together nervously. “That’s right.”

  “What was it, again?”

  “A sickness,” Kath said. “I’m not exactly sure what kind. The Company surgeon told me I wasn’t far from death.”

  Drogan’s steely eyes watched Kath unflinching. “And that woman…saved you?” he asked quietly. His careful words told Kath how angry he was.

  “We talked about this…”

  “We’ll talk about it again,” Drogan insisted. “She’s a Bloodspeaker, Kath. Her being here is illegal. Her even being alive is illegal.”

  “She saved my life,” Kath said. His heart hammered. He was nearly nineteen years old, well trained by the city weapons masters, but here in front of his father he felt like a blithering child.

  “How do you know that?” Drogan asked quietly.

  “I just know.”

  “No, you said it was ‘magic’,” Drogan corrected. “Do you know about magic?” He didn’t give Kath a chance to answer. “They do things to your mind,” he said. “Make you believe things that aren’t true, make you do things you normally wouldn’t. Just like they did to your mother.” Drogan’s eyes were glassy with tears. Having that woman in the house had reopened wounds that had never fully healed. “They kill the world, and all of us, every time they use their ‘magic’, and you’ve brought one of them into my house. Do you have any idea what your Jlantrian friends would do if they discovered her here?”

  “Father, I know, I just…”

  “No,” Drogan said. His voice was stern, but he was shaking. “No, Kath. You listen to me. Please, for once, listen. I’m grateful this woman saved your life…but she has to leave.”

  Kath took a deep breath. “She will. As soon as she’s able. I already told you that.”

  “Yes you did,” Drogan said with an exhausted sigh. He looked so much older just then. “But you still haven’t answered my first question. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Kath said. His eyes hurt, his skin was grimy and he needed sleep, which he hadn’t had since he’d felt her touch. “I don’t know. All I know is I have to help her. I can save her.” He locked eyes with Drogan. “I can save her.” He didn’t know from what, but the strange bond they shared told him she needed him. Goddess, don’t do this, he told himself. Not after what happened before. But he knew he didn’t have any choice.

  “No,” Drogan said. “You can’t.” He looked away, trying to hide the tears in his eyes. “And you won’t. If you’re going to stay with the Watch, fine. But you have to tell them you found her. From what I’ve heard she was the cause of those fires in Colonel Blackhall’s camp the other night, so I’m sure they’re looking for her already…”

  “No, I…”

  “Just do it, Kath,” Drogan said sternly. “Please. Think of your sisters.”

  Drogan stood up. He gave Kath a long, sad look before leaving the room without another word. Calestra would bring him some brandy in his study, and later he’d go to sleep. The conversation was over.

  Kath sat alone. He never should have joined the Watch – he knew that now, and it was a wonder his frayed nerves had lasted him through training and what little combat he’d seen. It was his physique that kept him in, but he had neither the courage nor the resolve to match his imposing frame.

  His father was right. He already knew the woman had him under some sort of spell, and he was acting strange because of it. He was being consumed by a need to protect her…but she didn’t need the likes of him.

  Besides, she was evil. That was clear. Kath loved the One Goddess as much as any Jlantrian, and her priests insisted that Bloodspeakers were creatures of darkness and deceit, that they killed a little bit of the world every time they used their powers…like the Blood Queen, the worst of their kind to ever have lived. They bent people’s wills, corrupted their minds and took their lives.

  Just like that bastard had done to his mother.

  But then why is she here? Why did she save me?

  He missed his mother so much. They all did, Drogan most of all. There’d been no way to save her, yet the thought of what happened still haunted Kath’s dreams even three years after she’d gone.

  Kath felt like he was going crazy. He never should have brought the woman there. It wasn’t too late to report to Captain Tyburn.

  Damn it, it doesn’t have to be this complicated! He’d return to his duties…after he took the woman somewhere where she’d be safe. Repay his debt, so to speak.

  He wasn’t sure if she would even wake up, and he couldn’t wait much longer. He had to take her someplace and leave her there. She’d be gone, and that would be the end of it.

  And yet somehow he knew it wouldn’t be. He knew that whatever bond she’d forged between them wouldn’t let it be over.

  “Kath?”

  It was Calestra. Until she’d spoken he hadn’t even realized the room had gone dark. The sun was gone, and most of the sounds on the streets had died down. Calestra stood at the door to the dining room with a tall candle in her hand. She looked worried.

  “Sorry,” Kath said. “I think I dozed off.”

  Calestra watched him, but he just sat there. His eyes were weary.

  “Kath,” she said again, “I’m sorry about earlier.”

  “It’s all right.” He ran his hands through his thick mane of hair. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t want to feel like this.” He looked at her, and saw worry in her eyes. “I don’t want to feel this sad. But I can’t remember feeling any different.”

  Calestra walked over to him. He stood up and hugged her, and for a while they stood quietly together in the dark.

  Thirty-Three

  She swims in oily darkness. Her hands and feet push against the fleshy walls of her prison. Dismal fluid scalds her skin and burns her eyes. She turns end over end, tries to right herself, but no matter how much she struggles she can’t break free.

  Where am I?

  She knows she’s been here before. There was no escape then, and there’s no escape now. She is a prisoner in this black seed.

  No. I have to get out.

  She tears and kicks and suddenly falls forward. The orb bursts open and she tumbles into different darkness. Her skin feels like ice. She desperately scrapes the slime away from her eyes and vomits black mucus.

  The Black Tower looms over her, difficult to make out against the ebon earth and sky. The bladed apex of the citadel pushes against the belly of night as black lightning dances across the ground.

  Ijanna is naked, and her skin is blue from the cold. It takes her eyes a moment to adjust to the eye-numbing darkness, and when they do she realizes she was trapped in an engorged ebon egg the size of a horse. Thick drops of foul liquid pool at her feet, and trails of muck run towards the tower. She peers through layers of shadow and sees more orbs, dozens of them, a network of organic oubliettes.

  She shivers uncontrollably as she creeps towards another sphere. Its skin is i
mpossibly dark, a black bulb pulsing like a heartbeat. Wintry mist curls around her feet.

  A loud crack sounds through the air. She smells the bitter odor of a new storm. Black lightning forks between the eggs and blasts one open, revealing a human body held fast in the necrotic gel, naked and curled into a fetal position.

  She looks at the figure and screams, because it’s her.

  Ijanna slowly came to. She felt her own labored breaths and the soft down against her cheek, sensed the chill on her skin and the dull ache in her arms. Pain suddenly pulsed across her upper back, so sharp and fast she nearly cried out. Ijanna clenched her teeth and tensed, and after what felt like an eternity the hurt subsided.

  Her eyes brought the sideways world into focus. The small room had only a single window, through which she saw the yellow glaze of streetlamps and the distant glow of the orange moon. It was quiet save for the creaks and groans of the wooden building, made more pronounced by the occasional gust of wind outside. A lamp sat on the floor. The room was sparse and simple, furnished with only the bed, a chamber pot, a small table with a washbasin, and an old wardrobe. She saw her cloak, neatly folded and set on the floor next to her boots and clothes. There was no trace of her weapon, or of the thar’koon.

  Ijanna’s mind raced as she tried to piece together what had happened. Slowly, painfully, she reached her arm around behind her back, and that was when she realized she wore someone else’s clothes, a woolen nightgown that was slightly too big for her. She felt along her skin. The track of damaged flesh was tender beneath her fingers, but the wound had healed, a testament to her unique powers.

  Only two others possessed the same healing abilities as she. And she still had to find one of them.

  Ijanna dressed quickly, ignoring the pain in her back as best she could. Her body felt slow and cumbrous. Everything was spinning. She saw the shadows of Ebonmark’s buildings against the crimson horizon.

  Where am I…and where are the thar’koon?

  A myriad of unpleasant scenarios raced through Ijanna’s mind as she approached the window. The backs of short buildings stood on the other side of a trash-filled alley below. The small window ledges wouldn’t be of much use in a descent, but that didn’t matter, because she couldn’t leave without the blades she’d almost died trying to obtain.