“We can help there,” Vic chimed in eagerly.
“No,” Ravi said, but Vic waved a hand at him.
“It’s not putting us in danger to walk the streets and look and listen. Most people ignore us unless we get in their way.”
“I don’t want you to come back here,” Ravi said, though his expression said the opposite. “If we’re caught, I don’t want you anywhere near us.”
The two young men seemed to hold a silent conversation for a few beats before Vic sighed and looked away. “I can meet her somewhere else, then,” Vic huffed, pointing to Shura.
Shura raised an eyebrow at Daks, and he shrugged in answer. He didn’t exactly know what was between Vic and Ravi, but he wasn’t above making use of whatever help they could get, and Vic seemed sincere.
“We can meet at the Dog and Duck,” Shura said finally. “Faret will keep you safe until I can get to you.” She turned back to Daks. “We still have that meeting with Maran we were supposed to attend.”
Daks winced and stepped out of range, in case Shura decided not to wait to express her displeasure at the whole situation. “Oops,” he said meekly.
She let out a disgusted sound. “I’ll try to get to her for at least a quick meeting. She might have some advice or information on our current situation, if her daughter’s claims are to be believed.” She put a hand to her forehead and rubbed her temples. “Just stay here and try not to get into any more trouble until I can get back.” She held her hand out. “Give me the coin and I’ll do what I can.”
After Daks handed over the purse, Shura turned to the others. “If you want to gather what information you can, that’s up to you. I’ll return to the Dog and Duck an hour before sunset bells. If you are not there, I’ll go on without you.”
She turned to leave without another word, and Daks wisely kept his mouth shut. He didn’t like leaving all of this to her, but no one was looking for her. She should be able to move about the city with only the usual amount of attention thrown her way.
The other three in the room stood blinking at her sudden departure. Then Vic seemed to gather himself. He dragged a startled Ravi into the briefest of hugs before shoving him roughly away again. “Be safe, Ravi. Be happy.”
He scurried out of their hiding place with Sparrow on his heels. Sparrow paused in the opening just long enough to throw a sorrowful look at Ravi before she too disappeared. The silence after their departure was so thick, Daks could almost feel it squeezing the fetid air out of the space. Clearing his throat uncomfortably, he moved to the packs Shura had brought and smiled in relief at the small bundle of food she’d crammed inside.
She still loves me.
He tossed Ravi a wizened apple before grabbing one for himself, trying hard to ignore the bereft look on what he could see of Ravi’s hood-shadowed face. This wasn’t his business. His business involved getting Ravi safely out of Rassa, into Samebar, and up to the Scholomagi. That’s as far as he could or should go. He’d screwed up too much already not to remember that.
He’d finished his apple and had already begun rummaging for something else to eat by the time Ravi took his first bite. Satisfied the man had enough self-preservation to keep himself fed, Daks took up his position by the opening and tried to breathe in the slightly fresher air outside while he devoured a heel of dry, hard bread. He supposed he should be grateful the bread wasn’t moldy with the way Shura had been looking at him, but would it have killed her to put some butter on it or a bit of cheese to make it go down easier? The waterskin only held water, not ale, and he sighed morosely.
After a few minutes, Ravi joined him on the other side of the opening, but he didn’t seem interested in any more food or conversation, so they sat in tense silence as the rest of the world got on with its day.
The inaction made Daks antsy, but his body was tired after the night he’d had, so he didn’t get up to prowl the room again. Who knew when his next chance to rest would come?
Instead of pacing to relieve his boredom, he took the time to really study his companion, cutting sideways glances at him so he wouldn’t get caught staring. Despite the dirt and worry and the tattered hood blocking much of his view, Ravi was definitely more pleasant to look at than the grimy alley or dusty street beyond. He had an almost delicate angular profile, with a pointed chin, slender, straight nose, and lips that weren’t full or thin but somewhere in between. The sharp slashes of his jaw and cheekbones saved him from being too pretty, but not by much. Still, it was his eyes that truly set him apart. Despite Ravi’s obvious efforts to hide them, his eyes occasionally caught the light from outside, glowing gold, like amber. Daks had never seen eyes that color before, and he had a hard time not staring.
Now that he thought about it, last night he could’ve sworn he’d seen those eyes lit from within by some otherworldly light while Ravi had spoken that prophecy. But that had to have been a trick of the moonlight. Glowing eyes were a sign of Riftspawn, and Daks knew Ravi wasn’t one of those. He would’ve sensed Spawn a mile away, and besides, Riftspawn eyes glowed red, and Ravi’s had seemed almost silver.
Daks didn’t usually go for the skinny, pretty ones—probably because the pretty ones never went for him either—but he could see the appeal, and he’d frankly always been more opportunistic than picky. The journey all the way up to Scholoveld would be a long one. Perhaps they could find a way to pass the time together, if Ravi ever got over that whole being-furious-with-him thing.
His stomach tightened as another thought occurred to him, and he turned his gaze back to the alley. Life probably hadn’t been easy for Ravi on the streets. The pretty ones didn’t last long outside the brothels. But gifted and pretty? Slavers like Tarek probably would have been frothing at the mouth to get their hands on him. Ravi had to have been either very smart or very lucky to make it this far and still be a little soft beneath his prickly exterior, or at least as soft as he’d been with Sparrow and that Vic guy. Maybe he hadn’t been out there long on his own. Curiosity gnawed at him, but he shoved it down. Not his business. The boredom was torture, but better that than getting any more involved.
SHURA RETURNED just as the brilliant oranges, pinks, and reds of dusk faded to pale violet in the small patch of sky above the alley. The streets and tannery had slowly emptied of bodies and noise by then, and Daks was practically crawling out of his skin with the need to be doing something. Ravi had seemed infuriatingly content to sit quietly the whole time, lost in his own thoughts, so Daks didn’t even have awkward conversation to distract him. The Seer would fit in great alongside the old farts at the Scholomagi, with their dusty old books and scribblings—a match made by the gods.
A shuffling in the alley caught his attention, and he sighed with relief. After he and Ravi stepped back to give her room, Shura squeezed through the opening and tossed two new packs on top of the others.
“As soon as the sun goes down and the rest of the streets clear, we need to move and move quickly,” she began without preamble. “Maran has agreed to smuggle us out of the city—”
“She did?” Daks cut in, surprised.
Shura narrowed her eyes. “In exchange for an introduction to the High Council for one of her lieutenants,” she continued pointedly. “This lieutenant will travel with us to Samebar.”
Daks groaned. “That’s all we need, more deadweight.” He caught Ravi’s outraged huff and shrugged. “No offense.”
Shura’s lips thinned as she took a step toward Daks, claiming all his attention again. “I’ll remind you that this situation is none of my making, Vaida. If you think you could have negotiated better on our behalf, feel free to do so when we meet up with her people.”
Finally sensing the danger he was in, Daks took a step back and threw up his hands. “No, no. I’m sure it was the best choice we had. Thank you, Shura, for taking care of everything.”
“You’re welcome,” she sniffed.
Ravi stepped forward. “And Vic and Sparrow? Did you see them?”
Shura nodded
. “They were at the Dog and Duck when I arrived. It is as we feared. The streets and docks are crawling with brothers and guards, plus there is talk of strangers bearing hidden weapons. Your descriptions are being spread, but it will be harder to catch up with us after dark. We need to leave tonight, though, before everyone in the city is looking for you.”
Daks winced, and Shura merely blinked slowly at him for a long time in silent judgment.
When she stayed silent a bit too long, Daks cleared his throat and asked meekly, “Will you tell me the rest now, please?”
Her scowl eased slightly, and he relaxed. “The rebels are a real, organized group now, if still a bit small and underfunded. Maran says she is only one leader in their ‘army.’ She says unrest is spreading like wildfire, as we’d heard. There are rumors the brothers have lost their magics, that the gods are punishing them for their abuses of power by cutting the Thirty-Six off from their holy talismans, and the king does not seem to be working very hard to quell such talk. Other rumors of a barbarian invasion to the north, led by a mysterious wizard and a renegade brother, have everyone on edge, including the rebels. The people are frightened, and it won’t take much for that fear to ignite into rebellion. She and her fellows are preparing for that moment.”
“What do they want with the High Council?” Daks asked.
“Magic,” Shura replied with a shrug. “They want to negotiate and bargain for potions and protections and the like, I assume. Rassans have been purposefully kept in ignorance about magic, and if the Thirty-Six have not lost their power, they’re going to have to face them at some point, so they need to know how to fight with magic. Enemy of my enemy, and all that.”
Daks snorted. “They won’t get far with the power-hungry old bastards in Scholoveld. They won’t share anything that isn’t pried out of their cold dead hands.” He shot a glance at Ravi and winced. “Except, you know, unless you’re one of them,” he amended.
“Not our problem,” Shura cut in impatiently. “They bargained for guides and an introduction. That is all.”
“True,” he conceded, pride making his lips curl at the corners as he gazed at his partner.
“We meet them at the ninth gate an hour after dark. We’ll hide you and this one in a wagon,” she continued, crooking a thumb at Ravi. “When we’re far enough away from the city, we split from the others. They could only afford to give us two horses, the one Maran’s lieutenant will have and one for us, so we will have to share or switch off walking, but it should only take us a day to get to Urmat. We head for our contact there and hope he can get us a boat across the river. Once we’re safely in Samebar, we’ll figure out the rest.”
With a grunt, Daks turned to Ravi and lifted his eyebrows. “Think you can hang on to your Visions for a day and a half?”
“I don’t know.”
“We take no chances at the gate,” Shura said curtly.
She pulled a small stoppered glass vial out of the inner pocket of her cloak and held it up to the pale shaft of bluish light coming from the opening.
“What’s that?” Ravi asked.
“Sleeping draught. When we get near the gate, you take it. You fall into a gentle, dreamless sleep, we stow you away in a trunk, and out you go, magic-sniffers none the wiser.”
Even inside the depths of his hood, the whites of Ravi’s eyes caught the light as he gaped at her and took a step back. “No way. What if something goes wrong? I’ll be helpless. I won’t be able to run. I won’t be able to do anything.”
“Young man,” Shura began, softening her voice and her expression, “Finders will be at the gates. Not all, maybe, but we don’t know how many or which. This is the only way to guarantee you won’t lose control and give us away.” She crooked a thumb at Daks. “This one carried you last night when you were out.”
“It was his fault in the first place, and I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter!” Ravi argued.
“You got a better idea?” Daks asked.
Ravi turned his glare on him, his hood falling back a bit. “Yeah, I stay conscious.”
“And we take our chances that all those new people you’re around, the gate guards, possibly a Finder or other member of the Brotherhood won’t trigger another Vision?”
Ravi closed his mouth with a loud click of his teeth coming together and stubbornly jutted out his chin. Daks raised his eyebrows to Shura, and she pursed her lips before turning to glance out the opening to the alley beyond. Barely a hint of light showed through the crack now.
“We are out of time for arguing,” she muttered.
In one smooth motion, she pulled her dagger from its hidden sheath along her forearm. Before Ravi could do anything but yelp and take a step backward, she was at his side. She tapped him on the temple with the butt of her knife, and he dropped to the dirt at her feet.
Daks wasn’t exactly shocked. He did grimace at her, though. “He won’t be out long, and then what?”
She knelt next to Ravi’s prone form, unstoppered the vial, and poured some into his mouth. He choked and spluttered, rousing enough to roll accusatory eyes in her direction before those eyes became unfocused and closed again.
“You carried him last night,” Shura replied, stoppering the vial and putting it back in her cloak. “You carry him tonight.”
“Are you kidding?” Daks whined. “Did I mention that I carried him for at least an hour last night? Do you know how heavy he is? A lot heavier than he looks, I’ll tell you that.”
She twisted her lips. “Poor, poor baby. You should be glad this is the only punishment you get for being so, so….” She let out a string of Cigani curses before visibly reining in her temper and smoothing out her features. “This is the plan. No one fights me on it unless it fails. You get him. I get the packs. Let us go.”
After stooping to grab all four packs, she shoved them out the small opening and then followed, leaving him alone with an unconscious Ravi yet again. With a heavy sigh, he grabbed Ravi under the arms and dragged him through the opening, scraping his shoulders and upper arms against the rough wood and knocking a board loose in the process. Shura waited at the head of the alley, loaded down with their gear. This time, Daks was smart enough to drape Ravi’s lumpy bag across his own chest before he hefted Ravi over his shoulders again.
He’d be lucky if he could move tomorrow.
“Lead the way,” he wheezed as he joined her.
She took another sweep of their surroundings before heading north at a fast walk, and Daks stifled a whine and followed. Time passed agonizingly slowly. Daks had to use every ounce of his energy to keep his legs moving while searching every side street and shadow for possible trouble. If anyone ever asked him how long they’d traveled or what route they’d taken, he wouldn’t be able to say, even at knifepoint. The entire journey was a blur of pain and dragging air into his lungs like a bellows. His throat hurt. His chest hurt. His thighs screamed alongside his shoulders and back.
So this is what the Seventh Hell feels like.
When they finally stopped in a dark alley, Daks unloaded his burden with a little less care than he probably should have and slumped to the ground next to him, gasping.
“I swear. That’s it. I’m never. Going. To carry. Him. Again. No more. You hear me?” he panted.
Shura didn’t bother to respond. She’d set their packs down too, and now she hovered at the head of the alley, focusing all her attention on the streets beyond. After a few minutes, the clop of hooves and the flicker of torchlight caught his attention. Shura’s silhouette straightened in the wavering light, and she stepped out of the alley. Ravi moaned quietly next to him and shifted a little, but settled again. He was waking up, which could prove problematic, since the whole point of all this wasn’t just to torture Daks, it was to get Ravi through the gate without any unfortunate magical incidents.
Gritting his teeth, Daks pulled himself to his feet and limped to the head of the alley. He spotted Shura easily amongst a small group around a cart. She looked hi
s way, as if she’d felt him watching, and then she headed back to him with two of the strangers in tow, one of whom towered over the rest by a good foot at least.
“Daks, this is Haruk and Vahal. They’ll be driving the cart,” she said by way of introduction.
Daks nodded to both men, and then Vahal, the larger man, lumbered past them toward Ravi. Daks followed him and hovered close by while the giant stooped to pick Ravi up like he weighed nothing.
“He’s waking up,” Daks said, shifting anxiously as an odd twinge constricted his chest.
He shouldn’t feel like he was somehow failing in his duty if he let someone else haul Ravi around for a bit. He was a practical man, after all. But his lips still twisted into a scowl as he sullenly followed them out of the alley.
At the wagon, Shura turned to him. “Haruk and Vahal will stow you two inside and leave by the ninth gate. We’ve decided I’m a little too, uh, distinctive, too memorable, so I’ll join Maran’s lieutenant and leave by the tenth gate. We’ll meet up again in the woods outside Haruk’s farm.”
“We’re separating?” Daks asked, eyeing the strangers uncomfortably. “Are you sure?”
She grimaced. “I’m not best pleased with the situation either, but they have a point. I draw too much attention just being who I am. We don’t want to pique anyone’s curiosity, and two small teams are less likely to be noticed.”
And less likely the King’s Guard or the Brotherhood will get all of the rebel’s men in one incident if something goes wrong.
She moved past him to where Ravi lay propped against one of the large wheels to the cart, pulled the vial from her pocket again, and poured a bit more into his mouth. He coughed again but didn’t rouse more than to crack his eyes for a second before closing them.
“Don’t give him too much,” Daks warned. “He may be heavy, but it’s mostly bones. We don’t want him out all night.”
Shura threw him a sour look, like he should know better, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably.
“You know he’s not going to let you anywhere near him again after he wakes up,” he murmured as he threw her a crooked smile.
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