Wielder's Curse

by Elle Cardy

  He believed everything he said, yet he was furthest from the truth. Finn had suffered. More than most. He’d been beaten, even tortured. And he’d been betrayed. Now someone had made an attempt on his life. If Aurelius thought that wasn’t a struggle, then he was sorely mistaken.

  Staring at the wall full of wanted posters, Aurelius stopped pacing and chuckled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “That person on the new poster look familiar?”

  The new poster stood out among the rest with its bright paper and crisp edges. The sketched eyes of a young man with a boyish face returned Jasmine’s stare. Finn.

  Jasmine launched from her hiding spot and ran to the wall. With one quick swipe, she ripped the poster from its place. It was the perfect likeness of Finn, except his hair was too short. It was an odd detail to get wrong when everything else was so right.

  Aurelius ambled up beside her and didn’t try to hide his amusement. “You can’t collect them all.”

  “Watch me.” A warm coal of anger burned in Jasmine’s heart. It was all too much — the attack on Finn, the intruder, the visions, the return of the Beast. Even this town was too much. A town that treated wielders like slaves. A town that put Finn in danger.

  Jasmine pressed her hand against the wall. Focusing her power through her temporary talismans — the swivel, the bolt, the canvas — she wielded. Every poster on the entire wall, as well as the one she clutched in her other hand, burst into flames that hungrily consumed the dry pages. Her power flared then vanished.

  Aurelius stared wide-eyed at the blackened ash that fell from her hands and the emptied wall. “What did you do?”

  “Untagged wielders!” a woman screamed.

  Jasmine spun. A well-dressed woman pointed to them. Two burly men ran past her, death and determination in their expressions. More people appeared in doorways and around corners. A tagged wielder lifted his arm and gathered his power. It pulsed like a fanned flame.

  Aurelius backed into Jasmine. “Hide us, hide us, hide us.”

  Jasmine grabbed his shoulder and wielded.

  Nothing.

  She swore. Her temporary talismans were close to empty. She could push the power through them, but it was a sure way of reaching her limit and threatening her life. In the least, it would make her so weak she wouldn’t be able to defend herself or Aurelius.

  The tagged wielder threw his magic at them.

  Jasmine wielded again. A simpler wield. The attacking power bounced off them. There was nothing she could do about the burly men advancing on them. They drew swords as they approached. Long, shiny, and sharp.

  “Can you do anything?” she asked Aurelius. A stupid question. He wasn’t strong enough.

  He shook his head.

  They were surrounded. More slave wielders had appeared. They advanced with caution, gathering their power. Even the guards with swords approached slowly.

  Jasmine drew the dagger she kept in her belt. It was a small paring knife. Something was better than nothing. There wasn’t a lot she could do with it against men brandishing swords, but at least it felt good in her hand. There was little she could do about the wielders.

  This couldn’t end well.

  A soft whistle came from a jagged hole in the fence previously hidden by the posters. A small hand poked through in the moonlight and beckoned them. On the other side of the fence, a shadowed form crouched in the narrow gap between buildings. A way to escape.

  Jasmine grabbed the kid and pushed him through. When his sleeve caught on a rusty nail, he cried out as if a holy relic had been ruined. It was just a lousy shirt. There was no need to delicately free himself. She pushed harder and was rewarded by the sound of tearing cloth. The kid vanished into the darkness beyond, and she squeezed through to follow him.

  Their helper didn’t wait for their thanks. He ran down the passageway, his cloak billowing behind him. The hand had looked no bigger than a child’s, yet he didn’t move like a child. He moved with the grace and agility of a dancer.

  Glad to be away from the mob and a life of slavery, Jasmine ran to keep up. It would be easy to get lost through the maze of narrow passages, cluttered alleyways, and dark back streets.

  In a tight squeeze between buildings, the child stopped. This would be where he would want payment for his help, no doubt. Rather than saying anything, though, he pulled aside an old board that leaned against the building. A dark hole gaped in the wall, big enough to crawl through. The cloaked figure made a sharp gesture. He wanted them to go in.

  It could be a trap.

  Aurelius dove in and disappeared into the darkness. Of course, he did.

  “Who are you?” Jasmine whispered. “Why are you helping us?” No one helped anyone without reason.

  The stranger hissed and gestured with short sharp motions for Jasmine to follow the kid into the hole.

  A heavy-footed local ran past. It was a choice between slavery or this unknown child. Jasmine chose the child. She crouched and crawled in. The stranger followed, expertly replacing the board to hide the hole.

  The crawlspace was long and narrow with hard-packed dirt to scrape elbows and knees. Ahead glowed a faint light past the kid’s form. He was muttering under his breath, getting tangled in his cloak as he tried to crawl forward. When he got to the end of the tunnel, he crawled out and stepped aside.

  Jasmine clambered to her feet in a low-ceiled room aglow with the muted light of a single candle. As she brushed herself off, she looked around and winced at the tightness of the space, made smaller by Aurelius’ nervous presence. The already-low ceiling bowed lower in the center as if a great weight above threatened to cave it in. The close walls gave off the faint smell of mildew. There were no windows and no other exits. A single bed of threadbare blankets took up most of the space even though it was pushed against one wall, and an old rucksack sat on top of moldy boxes.

  The stranger crawled from the tunnel with the ease of someone who’d done it a thousand times. The child rested a silver-tipped stick against the wall near the opening then shook off his hood. Her. It was a girl. With long silver hair that flowed past her shoulders in a tangled plait. She was short but not as young as Jasmine had first thought. At a guess, she would’ve been close to seventeen, Jasmine’s age.

  And she was Finn’s would-be assassin.

  Chapter 8

  Fear, frustration, and fury clustered into a tight knot in Jasmine’s chest. Yet the emotion that burned the hottest, in all its ugliness, was humiliation. This stranger had stolen aboard her ship. Not once, but twice. Worse than that: she’d tried to kill Finn. All on Jasmine’s watch.

  With a swing of her paring knife, she charged the assassin. To protect Finn. To protect herself. To let her anger burn. To find satisfaction in revenge. This girl had tried to take Finn’s life. She had to pay.

  The assassin danced aside, a slight movement that took little effort. Jasmine found herself running for the wall. She stopped and turned herself around. The girl had been quick. Had she used magic to move so fast? Or was she just skilled? It was clear Jasmine couldn’t reach the assassin with her blade, but she could with her magic. She searched for her power. It was there, and it was ready to fly.

  “Don’t,” Aurelius cried.

  She wasn’t going to be told by a snip of a kid whose solution to everything was to run away. This was her chance to make a difference for Finn. He’d be safe again.

  Maybe.

  In the back of her mind she heard Finn’s disapproval. Even Brusan’s scowl got in the way. They were reminders that if she hurt this silver-haired stranger, Jasmine would never get answers.

  “Please don’t,” Aurelius said.

  Finn’s objection spoke louder.

  She contained her magic and fought down her warring emotions. Still they bubbled and burned. Jasmine concentrated on what Finn would do. He wouldn’t charge in like a maniac with no plan. He’d find out more. He’d assess the situation. He�
�d be smart.

  “You attacked Finn,” Jasmine said, wiping sweat from her brow. The closeness of the cramped space wasn’t helping.

  “You’ve mistaken me for someone else.” The stranger’s voice was young and light. She kept her hands open and empty at shoulder height. A show of peace. Peace Jasmine didn’t trust.

  “I saw you on the Prize. You trespassed.”

  “I don’t deny I was there,” the girl said, “but I didn’t hurt the boy.”

  Despite what her magic said, Jasmine was certain she was lying. Nothing and no one else was there. She would’ve felt it. Finn didn’t get stabbed by thin air. It was the girl using magic to hide. Like an assassin.

  “What’s your explanation then? The sea nymphs tried to kill him?”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous. Sea nymphs don’t board ships.” She seemed way too amused by her jest about the make-believe creatures.

  Jasmine wanted to wipe that grin off her face.

  Aurelius stirred. “Who are you?”

  “I am Gley,” she said to Jasmine.

  “A lie.” Another ability Jasmine had picked up from Kahld was to make people speak the truth. She refused to go there. She wasn’t her father. She would never be her father. Either one.

  “I am Gley.” The girl lowered her hands. “And I am many others.”

  Not a lie. A lie. Not a lie. Jasmine couldn’t work it out. She returned Gley’s stare. She couldn’t see any of the girl’s magic like she could with most wielders, yet it was clear the girl could wield. A name formed around her like a silver web drifting on a breath. “Andryl.”

  “No,” Gley snapped in a loud voice. “Not that name. Never that name.” She wielded.

  Jasmine couldn’t see the power, but it tingled like static across her skin. Neither could she tell what had been done.

  “Why not—” She couldn’t say the name aloud. When she tried, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. “What have you done?”

  “Never that name.”

  Jasmine tried to shake off the magic. Not being able to see or feel it, meant she couldn’t do a thing about it. No matter how hard she tried, she could not speak the name Andryl aloud.

  Gley ran a hand through her silver hair, making the tangled strands messier.

  Jasmine decided her first assessment of the assassin’s age had been wrong. She was older than she first looked, though how much older was hard to tell. In the candlelight, she looked young, but there was something in her eyes that didn’t belong to a seventeen-year-old. The girl had seen too much.

  Planting her feet apart, Jasmine crossed her arms. “What were you doing on the Prize?”

  The girl continued to study Jasmine with those knowing eyes of hers, revealing nothing in return.

  “Answer me.” Choosing not to use Kahld’s power to squeeze out the truth took more effort than she liked.

  “Tell me about Finn,” Gley said. “Is he a powerful wielder?”

  Aurelius snorted.

  Gley kept her eyes on Jasmine. “Very well, do you know much about the old man on the ship?”

  “Marcelo?” Aurelius asked. “He’s a—”

  “Not much,” Jasmine answered before the kid could give away every card they had. “You want to know about Finn and Marcelo, why?”

  Gley looked from one to the other but said nothing.

  “So, you are a spy, then?” Jasmine said, partly to rile the calm girl, partly to see if she would lie again.

  Gley smiled that strange half smile of hers and reached for a water skin hanging on a hook. “Drink?”

  Jasmine turned it down.

  “I mean you no harm.”

  Oddly, that wasn’t a lie. The girl did not mean them harm. Jasmine had to remind herself that Gley could still mean harm to Finn. Or Marcelo.

  When Jasmine still refused the offer of water, Gley shrugged. Without taking her gaze from Jasmine’s, she drank, wiped her mouth with the back of her delicate hand and returned the skin to its hook.

  “I wouldn’t mind a drink,” the kid said.

  “There’s a darkness around you,” Gley said to Jasmine.

  Jasmine straightened, wary. Could she see the visions that haunted her? Even as they stood in the confined room, the thought of the visions made the darkness shimmer on the edges of her sight. How could this girl know? Maybe that was one of her abilities as a wielder — to catch a glimpse of another person’s visions. Maybe the girl could tell Jasmine was an abomination just by looking at her. Or maybe it was more mundane than that. Maybe the girl had been on the ship to eavesdrop when Jasmine told Finn about it.

  “Why did you help us?” Jasmine asked to pull the attention away from the vision that crowded and surged and plumed in the dark corners.

  “Would you have preferred to become a slave for the rest of your life?”

  The girl was infuriating. There was a strong possibility she was avoiding straight answers so Jasmine couldn’t call her out on a lie. She was no closer to learning anything about her.

  Jasmine took a deep breath, and the dark vision cleared. The corners were just corners again. Nothing shifted in them. “Who do you work for?”

  Aurelius frowned. She didn’t know what his problem was this time.

  “I work for no one.”

  “What about the scholars in town?” Aurelius asked. “You part of them?”

  Gley’s gaze slid to him. “The ones who would call themselves Guardians?” She snorted. “Let me say it again. I work for no one. Did you understand that time?”

  “You know of the Guardians?” Aurelius asked.

  “You’re not good at assimilating information, are you?”

  This was wasting time. “What do you want?” Jasmine asked. Everyone wanted something. Gley would be no different.

  “I want to board your ship,” Gley said without hesitation. “Will you allow it? I mean no harm to you, your vessel, or your crew.”

  Again, she hadn’t lied. Jasmine’s magic screamed it was so, and she hated that she knew. She wanted the girl to be a liar. She needed a clear target to direct her anger toward, an obvious path to take to ensure Finn’s safety.

  Just because the girl hadn’t lied, though, didn’t mean Jasmine could trust her. While Finn was one of the crew, Marcelo was not. There were always ways around half truths. Plus, there was still the question of what interest Gley had with the Wielder’s Prize.

  The candlelight flickered against a stray breeze from the only exit in the room. “You had no trouble boarding before.”

  “The stocky one. Durne?”

  “Captain Durne to you.”

  “Durne can see me. An interesting man. Will you help me?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “You haven’t explained why you need this help, or who you are, or anything. I don’t know you, and I don’t trust you.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “What if I offered you gold in exchange for passage on the Prize?”

  “No. That would make no difference.”

  “How much gold?” Aurelius asked.

  A slow smile crept over Gley’s face. She got the kid to move aside, and from a corner, she retrieved a small wooden box. She brought it to Jasmine and opened the lid. More gold coins than Jasmine had ever seen sat in that box.

  Aurelius gasped and drew closer.

  “This box and its entire contents could be yours,” Gley said to Jasmine.

  Jasmine closed the lid. “Keep your gold.”

  Gley scowled. “Then tell me how I can convince you to trust me.”

  As if she could trust a spy who refused to give her answers. “Tell me what you were doing on my ship.”

  The pull to return to her ship had grown strong, and from the faint tremble in her limbs, she had grown dangerously weak. The Prize called to her like a mother calls a stray child. Jasmine needed to return soon, but she wanted to keep Finn safe too. She couldn’t do both.
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  “You’re not going to say anything?” That was fine by Jasmine. If the girl wasn’t going to give her answers, then she’d need to find them elsewhere. Jasmine moved to leave Gley’s stifling place of safety with Aurelius close behind.

  “I didn’t see anything until the boy was attacked,” the girl said with a weary tone and a sigh.

  Her words stayed Jasmine.

  The girl was frowning, an expression that settled on her like the weight of the ages. “It was an unformed aberration in the fabric of the air around the boy.”

  “A what?”

  Gley pressed at her temples and shook her head. “A phantom.”

  She’d spoken the truth, or at least the truth as she knew it.

  “And the reason you were on the Prize?”

  “I was looking for something,” she said. “I sensed ... a great power in the harbor. It was centered on the ship. I wanted to know what it was.”

  The girl might’ve sensed Jasmine’s uncontrolled magic. Marcelo had told her enough times she was a beacon.

  She kept her expression neutral. “You think this phantom was the source of that power?”

  “Maybe. I didn’t get a chance to find out.” She gave her a pointed look.

  Jasmine wasn’t about to apologize for protecting Finn. “Any theories on who the phantom was?”

  “The boy upset a few people while he was in town.”

  The air shimmered around her as if she’d lied, yet she’d spoken a truth. Perhaps she suspected something.

  “You think the Guardians were behind it?”

  “That nest of rats would tear themselves apart in their eagerness to own such a power. If they knew about it. No, the Guardians were not behind it.”

  It had been the most straightforward statement Gley had yet uttered. That certainty killed Jasmine’s hope of protecting Finn though. If Gley wasn’t behind the attack, nor the Guardians, then who?

  “You’ll let me on your ship now?”

  “No.”

  Gley nodded. She didn’t look surprised or bothered. “He’ll betray you, you know?” She gave Aurelius a pointed look. “I see it in his eyes.”

  “Hey,” the kid said, his blond eyebrows pulling together.