Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series
Page 24
She ran a hand through her hair. She owed it to him to save him, but she couldn’t forget the people in the Temple District of Jingen that he’d slain. They’d been innocents. He had no reason to kill them. Had saving her made up for that? Should she really be fighting for his life?
The gondola hit something with a jarring bump and Marielle looked up. They’d reached the inside of the City of Xin. The Trade District was on one side of the canal, by the looks of things and they had landed against the Spice District. A steep wall of rock rose behind the District, climbing up to where another wall rose. The Temple and University Districts of Xin were up in those rocks. The city was laid out just like Jingen, but on a rocky, steep island instead of a broad muddy river plain.
People packed the edges of the canal like fish laid out for sale in a cart. There was barely room to press another body onto the canal ledge. Sounds filled the air, voices raised, people shouting to get each other’s attention. The other side of the canal looked even worse. Refugees huddled in clumps – their ruined clothing a sign of their new station in life. Marielle caught a glimpse of City Watch uniforms as Watch Officers pressed through the people, demanding order. She clutched awkwardly at her tattered silk dress. She felt undressed in the foolish thing. A single glance at the guards made her long for a uniform again, but she shook her head. A foolish thought in a moment like this.
She tried to wind the scarf Jhinn had given her around her face one more time. There wasn’t any more length left to wind around her face but the scents here were overwhelming and she needed to focus. Jhinn was already throwing a pair of jute bags onto the stone ledge. He hurried over to her, frowning at Tamerlan. After glancing around them he leaned in low.
“Watch out for the spirits that haunt him, okay? The one with the breastplate looks especially vengeful.”
“What?” Marielle gasped. The witness reports in the Temple District had mentioned a woman in a breastplate, too. Some of the witnesses had thought Tamerlan was two people – a maniacal woman in armor and a young apprentice.
“The spirits. They won’t leave him alone. They are here right now. They steal his choices and make him do things. Watch out for them.” She stared at him, her mouth open and he shook his head. “You’re going to help him, right? You’re not going to stop because of spirits, right? If he hadn’t brought you to me, you would be dead. You owe him.”
Marielle pressed her lips firmly together before answering. “I know.”
She leapt from the gondola to the stone ledge. She’d have to figure out what all of that meant later. Right now, she needed to find a healer.
With Jhinn’s help – him reaching from the boat, and her standing on the shore – she pulled Tamerlan from the boat to the stone ledge, propping him against one of the jute bags. Jhinn grabbed her hand and pressed two coins into it.
“Do what you can. I will look for your message on the tree.”
He pointed to a nearby pole, plastered with fluttering white missives, before turning his gondola and skimming away. Marielle stood up, slinging one of the bags over her shoulder, her eyes skimming the crowd looking for help as Tamerlan sagged against her knees.
For the first time in a long time, she felt lost.
3: Hooded Help
Marielle
“Can I get some help, moving my friend?” Marielle asked a man as he passed by. His arms were empty, but he didn’t even glance her way.
“I can pay!” she offered the next man, but he shoved her aside so roughly that she nearly fell into the canal. With a grimace, she hitched up her dress, glad she had fled Jingen in her City Watch boots instead of the slippers that Lord Mythos had given her.
The Spice District smelled of resentment – a mushroom and sepia smell that made her nose wrinkle – in fact, it smelled so strongly of smug resentment that she was barely catching whiffs of the thyme and saffron, lavender and cinnamon that she expected to smell. She sighed, turning to block the way of the next traveler, a woman in Spice Merchant clothing.
“Please, can you help me get my friend to a healer?” she asked. “I’m willing to pay.”
“Stop blocking my way,” the woman replied irritably. “Three days and I’ve had all the refugees that I can stomach already.”
She pushed past Mariella as the light on the street above them flared to life. The shadows were thickening as dark descended and Marielle had a bad feeling that sleeping on the cold stones of the edge of the canal would be worse than staying in the gondola. She was already standing over Tamerlan to keep people from stepping on him – how much worse would the press of the crowd be in the dark?
A group of Timekeepers walked on the street above the canal lip, close enough to the railing to be easily seen. They walked in a tight knot, their braziers held high, the incense wafting off of them tickling her nose with hints of ylang-ylang.
“Help, please!” she called to them.
“Your troubles mean nothing, supplicant. They are only temporary. Time is eternal. Remember, you are nothing and everything. You are one with the eternal, one with the all.”
“Could the all spare a moment to help me with my friend?” she asked, trying to keep the bite out of her tone.
“When you learn proper mindfulness, you will see no difference between your pain and joy, between want and plenty. And in that moment, you will no longer be desperate for anything,” the Timekeeper said, turning his back on her.
Easy for him to say with his healthy body, clean clothing, and perfumed brazier. Harder for the rest of them.
Desperation filled the refugees she saw. That, and the licorice black of despair. She’d hoped for a little generosity or at least a willingness to do business. Instead, she found hard hearts and self-righteousness.
She sighed, wiping her brow and tugging Tamerlan closer to the stone wall. He coughed again. Each cough tugging at her heart and complicating her emotions. Was he really plagued by spirits like Jhinn thought? Could his crimes have been their fault?
She leaned over him, checking his forehead with her hand. Was it a good thing or a bad thing that the rage of fever had cooled? Her emotions around her were already tangled into enough of a mess. The thought of his death tangled them further.
“I’ll help you.”
She looked up at the hooded figure in black standing in front of her. That voice ...
She froze. It couldn’t be.
He pulled the hood back, his expression grim where it showed from under a bandaged wound around his temples.
“Marielle,” he said.
“Lord Mythos,” she breathed. “You survived!”
“Despite your best efforts,” he agreed, but his tone wasn’t bitter, only factual.
“I just wanted to live.” Her voice was small in her ears. Could he even hear it in the middle of the jostling bodies pressing between them and all around them?
In the street above the march of soldier’s feet thudded past.
“Let’s talk about it after we get him to the healer you’ve been asking for. I know someone.”
Her mouth fell open. He was offering to help them? What was the catch? How was he going to trap them?
She looked around as if she’d be able to see it.
He chuckled, flicking his cape so that it flared with the expression. “No trust, Marielle? That seems unfair. I’m not the one who destroyed Jingen.”
She looked around desperately, hoping that no one had heard. Why was he on the canal ledge? And alone? There were no guard anywhere nearby. No Landholds. No one of station or power but him.
“Why would you help me?”
He leaned in close, his dark eyes glittering in the light of the street lamp. It made her breath catch and her heart beat faster – like a mouse in front of a serpent. “I told you, Marielle, I didn’t want you to die. I just wanted to keep Jingen safe. And it’s too late for that now, isn’t it?”
“What are you doing out here on the docks?” She was glad that this time her voice wasn’t shaking.
Marielle swallowed, slinging the second jute bag over her shoulder and then grabbing Tamerlan’s legs. Even with Lord Mythos carrying most of the weight, Tamerlan was heavy. His head lolled against Lord Mythos’ chest and the former ruler of Jingen frowned as he stalked backward along the canal.
“You haven’t been dipping into more magic, have you, Marielle? I’m getting a feeling of a strong residue.”
Her cheeks felt hot as she replied. “I think it’s left over from the other night.”
The Lord Mythos coughed uncomfortably and they walked in silence, each focused on their work as Lord Mythos led them up the steps to the streets above and then worked his way down the street and around a corner to a place where a stone building jutted out into the street, a wide sign hanging over it.
It was clearly an inn with a common room on the main floor, but it wasn’t to the inn that he took her but to a small door in the building just next to it. It smelled of herbs and worry – a rainbow of scents buffing out in multicolored clouds and swirls from behind the closed door.
The strongman stationed outside the inn door watched them suspiciously.
“No room inside,” he growled when he caught her eye. Her scarf slipped down to her chest as Lord Mythos shifted his grip on Tamerlan and she was forced to pivot to keep her grip on his legs. “And aren’t you the pretty one. There might be room for refugees in my apartments.”
“No need for a room – or your comments,” Lord Mythos said easily, shifting awkwardly to keep Tamerlan up while he knocked on the other door.
“What is this place?” Marielle asked.
“Spellspinner’s Cures. Belonging to Allegra Spellspinner. Trader of Spices. Dealer in Cures.” He winked at her. Winked! Like they weren’t mortal enemies. Like he hadn’t almost slit her throat and spilled her blood over the spine of a dragon just two days ago.
The door opened, framing a woman in bright light. She was younger than Marielle had expected – late thirties perhaps, with a brisk manner and a simply cut dress of expensive cloth.
“Back so soon, Etienne?” she asked, flipping her dark hair behind her shoulder.
Etienne?! She was a friend of the ruler of Jingen?
“We have need of one of your cures, Cure Mistress.” He pushed past her, and Marielle scrambled to follow without dropping Tamerlan’s legs.
“Collecting followers already, Etienne?” the Cure Mistress asked. “These two seem the worse for wear. Who put a sword in this guard of yours?”
“I did,” he replied crisply as they climbed the stairs.
Surprise puffed up from her in a startled raspberry cloud. Ha! She might be self-confident and the Mistress of Cures, but she hadn’t seen that coming, had she? Marielle wasn’t the only one that Etienne Velendark was blindsiding tonight.
The stairs were an iron framework over the store below. A long wooden counter spread across the main shop with paper bags and glass jars filled with herbs and spices along them. Salves and potions, creams and lotions – everything you would expect from an herbalist. Marielle could smell them all, threading through the air like a tapestry of scent color, painting a picture of a thriving business – and something else. Was that orrisleaf she smelled? And flagleaf? Flagleaf was contraband in all five cities. Allegra could lose this shop if she was caught by the authorities.
Marielle’s nose wrinkled as they kept climbing. There was tea brewing above and a man waiting at the top of the stairs. He was carrying iron – she could smell that much. A sword, perhaps, or other weapon.
“Do you have a guard here?” she said quietly, shooting her eyes toward the top of the stairs.
“Darlyn,” the Lord Mythos said with a nod.
“And one at the back door, too?” she asked. She could smell someone there smoking puffleaf. And she could smell suspicion floating off the Cure Mistress as she spoke. With the scarf down, maybe she hadn’t realized that Marielle was a Scenter.
“Who is this girl, Etienne?” the way the Cure Mistress said the words made Marielle’s back tinkle between her shoulder blades. Would the woman plant a knife there if she didn’t like the answer? “Why is she commenting on my ... associates?”
“One of my guards,” Lord Mythos said easily. Which was true in a way. Because Marielle had been a Jingen City Guard before the dragon rose from beneath the city. And the Lord Mythos was Jingen.
The top of the stairs opened to a big loft under a vaulted ceiling of raw beams. Marielle could see where the clay tiles were secured to crisscrossing wooden slats and huge windows overlooked the Cerulean River and the ocean. She froze. Far in the distance, trails of smoke rose into the sky, spreading a dark haze across the land. She stared, paralyzed by the sight.
Lord Mythos cleared his throat. “Recognize Jingen, Marielle?”
She’d known it was gone, but her belly knotted at the sight as it finally hit her – there would be no going back to Jingen. Not ever.
4: Cure Mistress
Marielle
“Put him in the back,” the Cure Mistress said briskly, tying a white apron over her silk dress. What a paradox. Was she a rich merchant or a hard-working cure-dealer? The eagle-eye she watched Etienne with suggested that there was more here than met the eye, though nothing in her scent spoke of anything other than sincerity.
Marielle followed Lord Mythos past the guard at the head of the stairs and through a tidy area filled with chairs and tables with small lamps and stacks of books to the back of the loft where four dark doors stood in a line. Lord Mythos chose the third door, leaning awkwardly with his shoulder to open it and they laid Tamerlan gently on the narrow bed. Marielle checked his forehead, running a hand across it, and trying to ignore the latent golden scent that hung over him, drawing her in with its hot honey scent.
“So, this is the one who caused all this trouble,” Lord Mythos said.
Marielle gasped.
“Did you think I’d forgotten his face?” his smell was intelligent and dangerous – celery and birch smoke and ... was that rose? Marielle barely bit back a gasp at that. “Or perhaps you Scent something more than I wanted to reveal.”
His jaw clenched, the small muscle in the corner of the jaw jumping as it flexed.
Marielle looked away from the intensity of his gaze, opened the tops of the sacks she’d been carrying on her back and then setting the one with male clothing against the small washstand.
“Both of you out,” the Cure Mistress said briskly as she entered the room.
“His name is Tamerlan,” Marielle said, feeling suddenly vulnerable at the look of Tamerlan laid out and defenseless. It was as if her own happiness was dependent on his safety. She shook herself. What a foolish thought. Best to dislodge it immediately.
“It won’t matter what his name is if I can’t find him the right cure,” the Cure Mistress said, pushing aside a small jar of flowers on the washstand and pulling herbs and powders from her apron pockets to replace them with. “I did say ‘out’, didn’t I? Both of you out before I decide your credit doesn’t extend this far.”
She shot a warning look at Lord Mythos and he grabbed Marielle by the upper arms, steering her out of the room, and shutting the door behind them.
She gasped as they entered the large loft again, shaking slightly.
“Don’t tell me I have so much effect over you, Marielle,” Lord Mythos whispered and his breath on the back of her neck was a caress that made goosebumps run along her flesh. Not the caress of a lover – the caress of a snake, sliding around its victim.
“Of course not.” She tried to scoff, but it was too hard. “It just feels familiar. The last time you held me this way you were about to slit my throat.”
“Oh.” He dropped her arms, clearing his throat. “Yes. Well, perhaps you’ve realized why that was so important.”
“Yes,” she breathed; her
voice gone with her confidence. From the wide-open window, the smoke still rose, glowing in the darkness.
“Perhaps now you can see why I needed to kill you – even if I didn’t want you dead.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you would like to know what you can do to make all of this right.”
A stab of excitement shot through her. Make it right? Was that even possible? She’d give almost anything to make that happen. Almost? That was a lie. She would hold nothing back, not even her life if it could undo her mistake.
And yet.
And yet he was playing her like a four-string vitara.
She swallowed and swiveled, moving quickly to pin him to the wall with her hands. He leaned back, not resisting, his eyes widening slightly.
“Is this why you helped us, Lord Mythos?”
“Etienne.”
“What?”
“Lord Mythos is a title – and one I no longer possess. You may call me what the rest of the world must know me as – Etienne Velendark.”
“Is this why you helped us, Etienne? You want to use us for something?” her voice was low. “How did you survive the fall of the city? How did you find your way to the house of a healer and not to a palace? Why did you help me bring Tamerlan here? What are you paying the Cure Mistress? And why should I trust you?”
He laughed. “I like the bolder spirit. It suits you, Marielle. Are those all your questions?”
“No.”
He quirked a single eyebrow.
“Why did you maneuver me into offering myself as a sacrifice on Summernight when you told me that you didn’t want to kill me, and you already had the sacrifice you needed?”
“And is that all?”
“For now.”