The Queen's Opal: A Stone Bearers Novel (Book One)

by Jacque Stevens

  Energy boiled within Kol, and a breeze trickling through the trees. The elf hadn’t moved all day and they still chained it up. Next time, it probably would chew its own foot off.

  The Lord blinked, his expression bored. “I’ve seen redheaded boys a time or two before.”

  The guard pulled off the elf’s hat and cloth band. Its ears stretched out as long as a deer’s.

  “Well, that makes a difference,” The Lord said, but his tone remained neutral. “Though its magical prowess seems to be greatly exaggerated. Even if I were inclined to deal with the robes, I doubt they’d have any use for it. We’d get more from a brothel or menagerie. Or the real slavers in Saban.” All terrible fates, all better than the robes.

  “You should see it move when it’s awake. That’s when it really seems magic,” the guard responded. “Wot should we do with it?”

  The Lord frowned, silent for a moment. “Get rid of it, I suppose.”

  The guard shrugged again and pulled out a knife.

  Bell looked away, but she was one of the few. Others gathered closer.

  Kol stared down the blade, marked for the elf’s blood and just as easily his own if he moved. A blade ordered by a man who didn’t need a hot temper or a crazy mistress to spur him on, deliberate in each blow. A man who ordered murder as others commented about the weather.

  Every self-preserving instinct Kol had told him to follow Bell’s example. Look away. Picture the flames, and become the bandit, a complete copy of the man who had raised him. A man who struck first, who never felt anything as crippling as pity. Take some solace in the fact that he still wasn’t like Picc—the ones who enjoyed the endless violence.

  They couldn’t all live in trees with smiling kings who did nothing to demand the title.

  The kid shouldn’t be here at all.

  Kol turned, but the thought burned inside him as a mass of energy. The knife flew from the man’s hand. Kol had to jump then, just to make it look like he had knocked it down with his hand instead of his thoughts.

  Whatever happened next, it couldn’t be magic. The Lord would get him worse for that.

  The guard swung at him. “Wot are you on, boy?”

  Bell turned to The Lord, her head bowed to plead on their behalf. “Kol and the elf, well, he tamed it somehow. It follows ’im and hides from everyone else.”

  The Lord jerked his hand back. “I’ll handle this.”

  Kol grinned as the guard backed up, savoring the minor victory. Maybe his last.

  The Lord sighed. “Like I said, you call too much attention to yourself. You couldn’t pick yourself a less exotic pet?”

  “I didn’t pick it,” Kol said, “but I don’t wanta see it killed for nothin’.”

  “Cain’s actions are regrettable, but you have to see it has become a liability. We don’t know where its loyalties lie, and it’s been here too long not to know some things.”

  “It won’t say nothin’. It don’t care ’bout us or the robes. It just wants to leave.”

  “I fail to see how that helps us.”

  Kol paused. Bargaining with Cain was one thing. Doing it with The Lord never ended well, but there was no backing out now. “Well, if we offer to help it, it’ll steal for us. Pay its own way. I’ll tell it to, and it’ll do it. And it got magic like no other.”

  “Does it?” The Lord’s eyes narrowed. “And how would you know that?”

  Kol shrugged. “I just do.”

  The Lord nodded like Kol’s answer actually made sense. “Right. Keep it then. But if it causes me any trouble, it will be on you.” He walked away.

  Kol could breathe again. It was the same deal Kol had with Cain—his head for the elf’s—but Kol didn’t take a moment to regret it this time. It was the best he could have asked for in this case. He knelt to untie the elf and re-cover its ears.

  It wasn’t going back in the cart again, even if he had to carry it to Wildred himself.

  CHAPTER 19

  “IS DRYNN GONNA be all right?” Bell asked as she knelt on the wooden floor next to the elf.

  “Sure,” Kol said. “He’s already gettin’ up.” Its aura was stronger too, if that meant anything.

  Kol had sounded casual, but he had been worried. The elf hadn’t stirred at all in the trip over. He had to carry it through the tavern’s back alley so none of the Dragon’s regular customers would see him walking in with a body as responsive as a corpse.

  The Lord owned most of the guards here, but that kind of attention was still frowned upon.

  The elf jerked against the wall, blinking. Its wild green eyes rested on Kol, and it settled down. Its sudden stillness caught Kol off guard. The Lord had called the elf Kol’s pet. Picc and Bell had said similar things. Maybe it was true, maybe the elf didn’t have any intelligence besides that—the elf said it would trust him and now it did.

  It was only going to get itself killed that way.

  Bell got up. “I’ll get some food and some stuff for his foot.” She pushed through the swinging door to the common room, letting in a wave of scattered voices.

  “Where are we?” The elf eyed the cutting boards and potato smasher on the counter as if it thought they had entered some kind of torture chamber.

  “Wildred,” Kol said. “We own the bar.”

  The elf looked at him blankly.

  “A place where humans eat and socialize. You fell asleep, so I brought you into the kitchen. Where we make the food.”

  The elf nodded and pulled its legs to its chest. “Are we here so you can do your pretend magic?”

  “Not this time.” Kol ducked closer. Most of the kitchen staff were out serving already and too far to hear, but he had to be sure. “Don’t get too excited, but Cain’s gone. I might be able to get you out. We just ’ave to do a few things first. Then I can give you the stone and help you figure out where you’re goin’.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  The elf grinned. That settled it. The elf was completely stupid. Though Kol was starting to like it—like the idea that he could be trusted without question. Protecting the elf, getting it back to its smiling forest, had become some sort of cause. A self-destructive, stupid cause that Kol couldn’t seem to shake. More binding than any of the threats his leaders made over the years.

  Foreign and self-destructive, like the elf itself.

  Bell strolled in, Picc carrying a tray after her. Kol sighed. The girl couldn’t pick up a thing without getting ten such offers. Kol turned, then startled.

  The mat was empty. The elf was gone.

  Kol’s eyes darting across the kitchen. A hat fell near his feet, and he looked up. The elf crouched, its legs against an upper cabinet as it gripped one of the rafters.

  “Drynn, get down from there.”

  Picc slid the tray on the counter, glancing at the elf. “Why do you still got that thing around? Ain’t right for it to be out with normal folks.”

  “If you don’t like it, you can leave.” Then maybe the elf would come back down.

  Bell shoved Picc’s arm, smiling as if all Picc had ever done was shake a few plates on his way in, acting tough. “You’re just a bully. I think he’s cute, and you scared him.” She looked at the elf. “Will you come down?”

  “Yeah, before the cook throws his ladle at you.” Kol never tried climbing the rafters himself, but the cook had a good aim whenever one of the boys displeased him.

  “Or his knife.” Picc eyed one on the counter.

  The elf swung its feet higher onto the rafter.

  Wind swirled around Kol as the energy built inside his chest, flaring too hot to completely contain. “Curse it, Picc. I’m tryin’ to get it to come down.”

  The elf frowned, and Picc laughed at Kol’s slip. “And you’re doin’ such a good job with it, too.”

  The shutters shook. A glass tipped over.

  That shouldn’t be happening. Kol wasn’t that worked up. He did his best never to get that worked up. He tried to fight back the energy
in his chest, but there seemed to be too much of it again. It had to come out. He tried to funnel it through the wind like a steady breeze instead of a gale. Bell looked from him to the window, white-faced.

  A door to one of the back rooms opened, footsteps coming from behind. “Can you control it or not?” a deeper voice asked.

  Kol took a deep breath, settling the wind before facing The Lord. “I can get him to come down. Picc just needs to leave.” At least he hoped that would be enough to calm the kid down. There was no telling why The Lord had allowed the elf to live in the first place, but this was just the sort of thing that could make him reconsider.

  Picc smirked, arms crossed, leaning against the counter like he intended to stay all day.

  The Lord nodded. “You heard him. Move along.”

  Picc shrugged and left as if nothing would make him happier.

  Kol looked to the rafters, trying to sound as collected as possible, settling the restless energy in his gut. “Drynn, I’m sorry, but if you decide to come down, no one will hurt’cha. I’ll stop ’em if they try.” It had to come down—believe the lie, just like it had believed all the others.

  Another silent moment stretched between them. The elf hung and let itself fall to the counter, then the floor. It pulled its foot back, wincing slightly, but it still didn’t make a sound.

  Kol handed it the hat, slipping his hand across his waist as if he were bowing on stage. Let them think it had been that certain, that easy. “Great. Now get that on and stay with Bell. I’ll be right back. After I’m done talkin’ to my friend about . . . wot we were talkin’ about earlier. Don’t go with no one else and don’t climb nothin’.”

  The elf tensed, but it didn’t jump. Kol followed The Lord into the next room, straightening his shoulders with the same feigned confidence, pulling on his own hat before The Lord could yell at him for showing off again. His next assignment would probably require him to dye his hair darker again, but he wanted to hold off as long as possible.

  “Wot’d I tell you?” Kol asked as soon as the door was closed. “It moves like that all the time. It’ll more than pay for itself before we send it home. We could take a few houses for you tonight if you wanted.”

  The Lord leaned against his desk, sitting on the top. “It probably could, but so could a lot of my men. There’s one place they can’t go, though. Why don’t you try that?”

  Kol’s heart skipped. “Sorren? He’s a robe. We can’t go in there. It’s all spelled shut.” The only way to rob a wizard was to get in as staff. That took months to set up, barely worth the risk.

  The Lord shrugged as though it had just been a passing thought. “Oh well. Forget I mentioned it. I just thought, if the elf is magic, like you said, then it really might be worth the risk of keeping it alive. But if it can’t even get into an empty house . . .”

  Yeah, Sorren was rarely at home, but that was because he was a battle sage, a general in the prince’s army. Renowned for ripping people to pieces with his magic on a daily basis. His long absences led to lax control of his holding and allowed The Lord to set his headquarters here, but it did not make entering his fortress any more appealing.

  But Kol had to agree—his fault for selling the elf’s powers so heavily. One of his lies had been bound to catch up with him eventually, and with all the extra risks he had taken lately, it was almost a relief to know what his final punishment would be. Almost.

  Someone knocked on the door, rushing Kol into a quick response. “Yeah, we can do it. No problem.” And if he somehow managed to pull it off, the elf would be gone. Kol would be done with this whole business before sunrise. One way or another.

  Kitti entered the room when Kol left, looking up briefly to glare at Kol through her greasy eyeliner. He had seen her on the street with Cain as well.

  She might be trying to play both sides now—Cain and The Lord. The girls here were hardly the blushing damsels they appeared, and Kitti had never appeared that way. She would put herself where the power was, get in with The Lord or find a way to return power to Cain, but Kol had no time to worry about whatever that woman was scheming.

  He gathered some rope and other supplies before heading back to the kitchen.

  Bell knelt on the floor, holding out food and an ale bottle, but the elf had backed against the wall. She got to her feet with a sigh. “I can’t get ’im to drink or eat any more than that.”

  “He’s not an infant. He’ll eat when he’s hungry.” The thick scabs on the elf’s foot hardly needed to be wrapped anymore. No reason to get it drunk if it didn’t want to, especially now that they had a job to do.

  Bell frowned. “But he was asleep for more than a day.”

  “I was?”

  Bell jerked around at the sound of the elf’s voice, catching her skirt like a rat had snuck up on her. “He talks.”

  “’Course he does.” Kol brushed past Bell, holding his hand out to the elf. “We gotta go. Just take somethin’ so Bell won’t worry so much.”

  The elf got up without taking his hand, grabbed a piece of bread, and ducked away.

  Kol shook his head, leading the way through the kitchen. He paused at the door. Muffled sounds from the common room greeted them. “Look, I get it with Picc, but you don’t need to be scared of Bell. I think she’d adopt you if she could.”

  The elf’s cheeks blazed red. “I’m not scared. It’s just—elven girls never dress like that.”

  Kol laughed. He would have to apologize to Bell. The kid was an infant.

  Kol tilted his head at the door. “There are a lot more people in ’ere, but try not to jump. Most of ’em don’t know you’re an elf and wouldn’t want to hurt you, even if they did know. We’ll be in and out in a sec.”

  Kol swung the door open. The elf tensed behind him, but followed, passing several servers and round tables. Picc sat at one, playing cards with boys from Cain’s old troop.

  Picc smiled when they got close. “You got your shadow off the ceilin’. Congratulations. I hate to think the two of you were fightin’. See, personally, I prefer Bell, but he’s pretty, too. If you like that kind of thing.” He put down a card like he had just scored a point.

  Maybe there was time to knife Picc. No one would miss him. But then the elf would jump again, and there was no telling if Kol could get it to come back down.

  The kitchen door swung open again and Kol thought of a much better solution. “Hey, Bell. Can you come ’ere a sec?”

  Bell nodded after bending down to set her tray at the next table. She did have a nice figure.

  Kol pulled her around so Picc would see. “For luck.” He kissed her, hard and fast.

  She laughed and shoved him away.

  Picc glared, crumbling the cards in his hands. Kol turned back to the elf. Its eyes went wide, but it stayed on the ground. Kol smiled. “All right, we can go now.”

  * * *

  Drynn followed Kol out of the bar with a dragon symbol in the window, shying from the humans on the street. Any one of them could try to grab him. The crowd here was larger than the one in Sheargreen, even in the waning light.

  Where were they now? Stacked hay made up the rooftops, and horses did their business on the road. Wooden walls connected the houses together with tight alleyways. Another city, another prison of suffocating smells and sounds. It might not matter what its name was, but what about the date? Time blended together in the cart, and if he slept a whole day . . . why would he sleep a whole day? Did someone hit him so hard he forgot the whole thing? Was that possible?

  Hundreds of questions popped into his head, but only one burst out. “Where are we going?”

  Kol looked left and right, tight-lipped and serious. “We’re gonna play a game.”

  “What kind of game?” Lamp and starlight pierced the darkened skyline. Did humans stay up all night playing games instead of sleeping?

  Kol ducked into an alley by a large wall—stone instead of wood. “Well, people take stuff and hide it up in there. We ’ave to get it witho
ut gettin’ caught.”

  “What happens if we get caught?”

  Kol sized up the wall. “Don’t worry ’bout it. It’s just a game, and I’m pretty good at it. And if we do it well enough, I’ll be able to let you go like I said.”

  “And you won’t get hit for it?”

  Kol nodded. “And I won’t get hit for it.”

  Drynn nodded back, slowly. Cain was gone. If Drynn left with the humans’ permission, Kol was sure to give the opal back, maybe even help him find Tayvin or the forest again. Much better than trying to run off on his own. “What do we do first?”

  “Well, first we need to decide how to get past this.” Kol uncoiled his rope, staring down the wall. “We could—”

  “Why don’t we just climb it?” Drynn felt out the stone, searching for the creases.

  It couldn’t be that hard. No harder than a tree trunk. He pulled himself onto the first slab.

  “You can’t climb that,” Kol continued without pause. “It’s too slick and . . .”

  Drynn stood on the top of the wall, looking down.

  Kol blinked, startled. “Do you see anyone up there?”

  Drynn glanced behind his shoulder. A large stone building with turrets sat in a garden, torches glowing near the windows and doors. “No. Wait, maybe.” Movement flashed through the hedges. Not humans, but dogs.

  “Duck down,” Kol said. “Make sure no one sees you.”

  “Why?”

  Kol scowled. “It’s part of the game. Do you have to question everythin’?”

  Drynn ducked. If it made the human happy. “Do you need help getting up here?” The human hadn’t even tried to climb the wall yet and it had been his idea in the first place.

  “Yeah, come back down ’ere and take the rope with you this time.” Kol nodded as Drynn followed his instructions. “Tie it on to somethin’ up there . . . good, I’m comin’ up.”

  Kol scaled the wall, holding on to the rope. Drynn scratched at his covered ears, waiting. The human was slow. He probably wasn’t nearly as good at this game as he had said.