Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  And had she really denied him?

  That part made sense. He wasn’t sure that there was anyone who could ever absolve him for what he’d done. Not sure that he’d want to meet a person who would. What kind of crimes would a person have had to have committed to be able to shrug at Tamerlan’s?

  And yet, that was all he wanted. It burned in him like a flame. He was going to find a way to redeem himself or die trying.

  Marielle’s shirt parted where she was slumped across the foot of the bed, showing the upper part of her chest where someone had tattooed a many-pointed star recently. It reminded him of a compass. Fitting. After all, she was like a moral compass, always pointing due-justice. He smiled as he watched her sleep, her snores filling the tiny room. She was too beautiful for that guard’s uniform. Too beautiful for the rough cloth and leather that she dressed in. Her long black hair had untangled from its braid and it wrapped around her like black ribbons. He felt a smile start to form but it slipped from his face when he tried to sit up.

  He bit back a moan. Someone had dressed and cared for his wound, but it hurt more now than it had yesterday. Bruising spread across his chest, black and splotchy. Everything hurt. And he was mostly naked. How had that happened? He felt his cheeks heating at the memory of a small pair of hands undressing him.

  Carefully, he pulled his feet from the bedclothes, trying not to disturb Marielle. She seemed unhurt beyond the tattoo – and they were safe here. At least there was that.

  His clothes hung from hooks, bloodstained and muddy. They were going to be awkward to dress in.

  He flinched as the door opened and Etienne walked in. He took one look at Marielle spread across the end of the bed, her legs still on the stool beside the bed and one look at Tamerlan frozen as he was about to stand. His eyebrow rose and he shook his head, his eyes narrowing for a moment as they caught on Marielle’s tattoo.

  He threw a bundle of cloth at Tamerlan, speaking quietly. “Today we’ll dress down and blend in. Leave the armor. Bring the sword.”

  Tamerlan nodded, grateful when the door closed behind the Lord Mythos and he could dress as slowly and painfully as he needed. The clothing was simple – tradesmen’s clothes. He was used to those. Even so, it was long minutes before he was dressed and pulling his sword belt on.

  He leaned down as he was leaving, laying a palm for a moment on Marielle’s sleeping head. She hated him. She could never forgive him. And yet, she’d sat here all night guarding him while he thrashed from nightmares and memories. What kind of golden heart cared for an enemy like that? She deserved the very best.

  “Ready?” Etienne asked the moment he stepped out of the room.

  Tamerlan nodded. He felt anything but ready. What he needed was rest and time to heal. What he wanted was to stop this dragon before it was too late to ever find his soul again.

  Dragon.

  Any mention of a dragon set Ram off again. He’d muttered to Tamerlan all night, an endless litany of obsession. No wonder no one spoke of him. If he was as obsessive in life as he was in his afterlife, he couldn’t have had many friends.

  Dragon. Dragon. Dragon.

  Etienne coughed. “I had to carry you back here last night.”

  Tamerlan felt his cheeks heat at the thought. Now he owed the Lord Mythos another debt he couldn’t repay.

  “Thank you.”

  “I can’t take Marielle with me. The city is ripping Scenters to pieces,” he said, shifting his weight uncomfortably, like he had something on his mind.

  Tamerlan adjusted his sword. It would be hard to wield with his wound, but he would do as he must.

  “So, I need you,” Etienne continued, clearly torn. After a moment he sighed and laid a hand on Tamerlan’s injured shoulder. Tamerlan flinched from the touch, but before he could even gasp in pain, fire scorched his flesh, followed by ice ripping through his body. He gasped, thinking he was dying as he collapsed to one knee, clutching at the wall for support. Everything hurt. Everything ached.

  He’s killing you! Fight back! He didn’t even know which Legend was screaming in his mind, but he agreed. He was going to die.

  And then, quick as a heartbeat, the pain was gone completely, leaving him sucking in deep lungfuls of air.

  “You still have magic,” he gasped. “Why didn’t you use that before?”

  “I’d hoped to avoid it. It’s not mine to use.”

  Magic belongs to no one but the one who takes it. Tamerlan wasn’t sure if that was his thought or one of the Legends. They were beginning to sound too familiar in his mind so that sometimes their thoughts felt like his. Did that mean he was going crazy?

  He worked his shoulder experimentally. It felt fine, the muscles moving easily. He drew in a breath – the first one in a long time that came easily.

  “Why do that for me?”

  His belly rumbled loudly, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in days. Etienne shoved a water flask toward him, and he drank deeply as the other man spoke before climbing back to his feet.

  “It’s Dawning – no food anywhere in the city. You could use some, but you’ll have to go without. Call it your part of the payment for the magic I stole.”

  “How does hunger pay for anything?” Tamerlan asked.

  Etienne gave him a burning look. “Suffering is a form of payment. You’ll find that out. Everyone does eventually. We all pay for what we want in time, energy, or health. Today, you pay in health. Now, come on. No time to waste. I have an idea of where we can look for the Eye.”

  Etienne’s idea was a bridge. Dragon Collar Bridge, to be exact.

  Which was how Tamerlan found himself in the rising dawn, looking over the side of the tallest bridge he’d ever seen. It spanned between the Library District of Xin and the outer wall of the city, rising up, up, up into the air. A canal and a set of locks worked under the bridge, and even in the early morning, it was packed with boats.

  Tamerlan felt a thrill of something close to apprehension. It left gooseflesh over his whole body. The last time he’d looked at a bridge it had been flying right for him as the dragon Jingen flicked his tail. He gritted his teeth. That wasn’t going to happen today.

  He scanned the sky looking for a dragon silhouette. Well, it might not happen today. If they were lucky. That dragon would return sometime. It had to.

  He shook himself back to reality.

  It made sense to check this bridge. It was built during the time of King Abelmeyer. And it was rumored to have a hidden room in the footings, though right now Lord Mythos was striding along the bridge, inspecting the rails.

  The amulet is not in the bridge, Lila Cherrylocks told him boldly.

  Tamerlan tried to shove her from his mind. The more he listened to the Legends, the more they felt real. But they weren’t real, were they? Not if he didn’t smoke.

  Oh, you’ll smoke again. You can’t stop now. Not when you have access to all of this.

  She didn’t know him.

  From the Dragon Collar Bridge, he could see the smoke still rising from the ruins of Jingen. Never again.

  You’ll have to. If you want to find this amulet. Only one of us can tell you where it is.

  A ruse. To trick him into evil. Lila was a trickster and he should never forget it.

  I’ll tell you what – what about if you go and find your hidden room just like you want to. But before you do, I’ll tell you what you find inside and if it’s what I say it is, then you’ll smoke the mixture and call on us and the right Legend will show you to where the amulet really is.

  No deal.

  Then you admit that it’s not here?

  It could be here. Etienne was right that this Bridge was built at the right time. And Tamerlan had read about the rumors of a hidden room. If anyone could find that room, it would be Tamerlan and Etienne. Etienne had brought the book with them, and he’d given it to Tamerlan before he started to inspect the railing.

  The book went into detail about the way the bridge had been constructed before moving on
to Abelmeyer’s mausoleum. Why detail the bridge if it wasn’t connected to that somehow?

  I look at you and I laugh.

  Laugh all you want, Lila. I’m going to find the amulet.

  No, that’s the clue about what you’ll see inside.

  A clue? It sounded like a taunt. Tamerlan rolled his eyes and looked again at the bridge diagram. Why would they put that beam offset in one of the piers but not the others? That seemed strange. And the brickwork on that one – while the same in the diagram – looked slightly different on the actual bridge. He squinted at it. It was hard to see from up here. He needed to get further down the pier to be sure.

  Down along the bridge, Etienne was trotting toward him. As the sun burnt the mist from the canals and the lower buildings, the people were pouring into the streets.

  Dawning had always been one of Tamerlan’s favorite holidays. He loved the feeling of setting your life in order, of cleaning out every part of it, of lighting your sins on fire to drift into the sky. They’d be doing that tonight, making little paper lights that drifted up into the air with their evil written on the balloons – setting it free, seeing it leave, cleaning out hearts and minds just as they cleaned buildings and streets. But this time during Dawning, that wouldn’t be enough for him. His sin had flown up in the air, alright – in the shape of a dragon bigger than a city and more deadly than anything he could imagine.

  And it seemed that Dawning was not the same this year in Xin, either. He didn’t see the lines of Smudgers who usually filled the streets. He frowned as he looked around. Where were they during this holiday? He would have expected them to be there in huge lines of worshippers, weaving through the city. He caught sight of knots of timekeeper priests, their mandalas hanging from belts and cords around their necks. Their bells rang at their hems just as the bells rang every hour all through the city. But where were the Smudgers?

  “We need ropes,” Etienne said as he arrived back to where Tamerlan was. “There’s nothing on the railings. The room must be somewhere below, and we’ll only see it if we scale down from the top of the bridge.”

  “Where are the Smudgers?” Tamerlan asked.

  Etienne ignored the question. “We can start with one pier and work our way down each of them to find where the secret room might be.”

  “It’s here,” Tamerlan said, tapping on the bridge diagram in the place where the architecture was just different enough to accommodate a small hidden room. The place he’d found by looking at the book, rather than the bridge. But that was his way, wasn’t it? He was a man of books, not of action. Or at least he had been before the Bridge of Legends opened.

  And now you are ours. He shivered. He’d never get used to Lady Chaos’ voice.

  “I think you’re right,” Etienne said, his eyes glowing as he looked at the map. “There’s room there. We need ropes.”

  “The Smudgers?” Tamerlan insisted. It didn’t feel right that they were missing. There was something worrying about that.

  “They left the city in droves, headed inland,” Etienne said, his eyes still on the book.

  “When?”

  “When they saw the dragon in the sky.” Etienne looked up and met Tamerlan’s eyes. “I bet you never guessed that your destruction spread to other cities, too, did you?”

  Tamerlan swallowed. “Why leave?”

  “We don’t know why. We just know that they did. Word is, they left all the cities that same night.”

  “I’ll get ropes, if you have the coin for them,” Tamerlan said in a defeated voice. He could burn all his sins in lanterns and never atone for them. He could rappel down high bridges and risk his life in foolish quests and none of it would ever be enough.

  “I think that would be best,” Etienne said, taking the book and handing him the coins he needed. “And maybe you should hurry before the rioting gets this far.

  “Rioting?”

  Etienne pointed toward the Trade District where the smallest pillar of smoke was beginning to rise.

  “You don’t know that’s what’s happening,” Tamerlan protested. “It might be an accidental fire.”

  “Trust me,” Etienne said. “It’s rioting. And there will be more riots until the dragon is dealt with and the threat to the city is over.” He looked Tamerlan in the eyes. “The threat you caused.”

  17: In Tune

  Marielle

  Marielle woke with a start.

  “He left something for you,” Allegra said with a wry look as she shoved Marielle off the foot of the bed. Condescension poured off of her like steam from a kettle, tinged a blush pink and stinking of day-old fish. “And you should stop falling asleep next to this man until you can decide how you feel about him.”

  “I feel pity,” Marielle said thickly.

  Allegra snorted, handing a note to Marielle. “Is that what people are calling it? In that case, you should bring a few refugees in from the cold. Dragon knows they need it.”

  Marielle blushed, looking at the note. It was folded carefully and had her name written on it in a swirling script. That wasn’t what she expected Tamerlan’s writing to look like.

  “Anything to report?” Allegra asked casually.

  “You saw Etienne more than I did,” Marielle protested, opening the note. Surprisingly, it was from Etienne, not Tamerlan.

  Marielle,

  I have need of your services today in keeping the Children of Queen Mer busy. Please give them my condolences. I will not be able to attend them today. And make a note of anything said or done. I will require a full report from you tonight.

  Etienne

  Another person demanding that she report on someone else. By the time this was done she would be Chief Spy of Xin. She swallowed down a feeling of discomfort. She didn’t want to spy on the Harbingers. She didn’t want to spy on Etienne. Her options were narrowing like a closing window.

  Allegra sniffed. “I need you out of the shop today. I have business to attend to.”

  “Do you mind if I spend that time in your inn?” Marielle asked. “The streets are too dangerous for Scenters right now.”

  “Spend it wherever you want, just not here,” Allegra said.

  Easy enough. With the Wind Rose aching over her heart, Marielle would have run to the Harbingers even without Allegra throwing her out, or Etienne assigning her to them. She needed to know about this magic that could amplify her gifts. She was thirsty for it.

  By the time she reached the door to the suites of the Harbingers in the inn, she was already second-guessing herself. What if they didn’t want to see her? What if they had left? What if they decided she wasn’t good enough to train – or worse, what if they took one look at her and knew she was a spy now?

  She lifted her hand and knocked.

  The door swung open so quickly that she nearly fell forward.

  “You’re late,” Anglarok said, pulling her inside the room.

  “Late? I- ”

  He shoved his big conch shell into her hands and guided her by the shoulder to one of the seats.

  Across from where she sat, Liandari was sparring with two of the harpoon men, all of them soaked in sweat. Marielle felt a pang of sadness as she remembered sparring like that as part of her Jingen City Watch training. Sometimes even Carnelian would spar with her. And now she’d never spar with any of them again.

  There was something different about this, too. The Harbingers didn’t move the way Marielle was used to. They chose attacks she’d never seen before and those flowed into defenses she didn’t know. Her eyes were glued to their movements. She could try that parry next time she had a sword in her hands. She could try that throw. The way Liandari had maneuvered under that harpoon was masterful. If she –

  Anglarok cleared his throat. “Attention.”

  Marielle’s eyes snapped to his face.

  “We’re not here to watch others work. We are here to work, too. Take the shell to your ear and tell me what you hear.” He smelled of anticipation – spring grass colored swirl
s of cilantro twirled around him.

  Marielle had heard of shells that made the sound of the ocean. She lifted this one to her ear as she voiced a question.

  “Why do the harpooners never speak?”

  There was a gasp from the two sparring with Liandari. Liandari flicked a finger and they froze in place.

  “These are the nameless. They do not speak,” she said.

  “How did they lose their names?” Marielle asked.

  The whole room was looking at her with shock. Eventually, Liandari swallowed and when she spoke, her mouth sounded dry.

  “You don’t have the nameless here?”

  “No.”

  “Then how did you earn your name?”

  Marielle felt her hands go clammy as she watched Liandari shift the grip on her weapon.

  “It was given to me.”

  The room was so quiet, the horror on each face growing, that when the first sound in the shell rang in her ear, she heard it as clearly as if it were in the room with her.

  The roar of a dragon filled her hearing, shooting straight into her brain and running like freezing water down her spine. She could feel her hands trembling as she held tightly to the shell, and then suddenly the room burst with rainbow colors – everything suddenly amplified in brightness as if the sound had caused them all to spring to fuller life. Liandari’s suspicion roared through the room with bursts of bronze hope from the nameless harpooners. There was excitement flaring from Anglarok mixed with a smug satisfaction. And as electric blue sizzled through ribbons of bronze and apricot, Marielle thought she could make out distant voices.

  “Hurry! Get out while he is resting. There’s time to flee!”

  “Dragon’s spit, he’ll see us!”

  “Legends have mercy! Have mercy on me!”

  She shook like a leaf in the wind, her heart reaching out to the voices ragged with terror. Who were those people? What were they fleeing from?

  The looks of horror around her disappeared and the harpooners dropped to their knees, quivering while Liandari swallowed, visibly composing herself.

  “I don’t think we need to question her name, Ki’squall,” Anglarok said quietly. “In all my years as Windsniffer, I’ve never seen such a powerful affinity.”