Sonara swallowed her shock and focused on Markam. “We have a Wanderer turned Shadowblood, and you’re worried about who touched your things?”
Markam shrugged. “Steal a man’s wineskin, and you may as well ask to borrow his blade, too, so you can stab him in the heart.”
Sonara sighed and knelt before her own things. She flipped open her saddlebag and began searching. Over her shoulder, she added, “Azariah, find something to bind him with.”
“The boy is one of us.” Thali returned from the shadows, an old pail full to the brim with water and strips of cloth in her gauntleted hands. She set them before the Wanderer, then turned her Canis gaze up at Sonara. “We will do no such thing.”
“We will tie him up, unless we want to risk losing him when he wakes to find himself in a blasted cave, surrounded by a pack of outlaws, one of which wears a corpse for a face and another being the one who killed him in the first place,” Sonara practically growled at the cleric. She didn’t have time for Thali’s games, her strange belief in magic and miracles. There was only good and bad, darkness and light. Everything else was happenstance. “We needed a prize to ransom. We got it. Bind him.”
“A Child of Shadow is not a prize,” Thali said. “The Great Mother—”
“Can kiss my outlawing ass for all I care,” Sonara said. “Bind him.”
She turned back around, not waiting for the others to answer, for she knew Markam would eventually take her order and see it done. At least he knew the way of jobs such as these. Feelings weren’t allowed in the mix.
Though, perhaps he’d let that rule slide, judging by whatever had happened between him and the princess in the past.
Sonara continued to dig through her pack, rummaging for that ever-present form of Soahm’s journal.
She had to find it, had to make sure that she didn’t lose the scent she’d picked up on when…
“Sonara.”
She turned, and there was Markam. Holding her journal in his outstretched hands, a look of compliance on his face. “Don’t kick me in the balls, please. I do rather like their current form.”
Leave it to Markam to make her laugh, despite herself. Sonara chuckled softly, then took the journal from his hands, pressing it to her chest.
When she caught Markam’s gaze, that little spark of pride in his eyes, she relaxed her grip and placed the journal into her inner duster pocket. It was all she had left of Soahm.
“Look who’s rummaging around others’ belongings now,” Sonara said, swallowing and turning away as she repacked her bag, shielding her face with her blue curls.
“You dropped it. In the attack. A simple thanks would suffice.”
“I’m all out of thanks,” Sonara said, glancing past Markam to the Wanderer’s unconscious form. He was now tied against one of the spiraling rock pillars, his head slumped forward in sleep. That strange suit still covered the rest of his body, but without his helmet…
He looked like a Dohrsaran wearing a Wanderer’s skin.
She hated the very sight of him.
Azariah and Thali cleaned him up, using the cloths to wipe the dried blood from his forehead. They’d wrapped and bound the cut tightly. Thali held her bone-covered hands before her, murmuring softly as if she were praying over him.
A Wanderer, right here in the flesh, turned Shadowblood.
“You haven’t spoken much since we saw what he was,” Markam said as he sat down beside her.
Sonara sighed, and placed Jaxon’s hat back over her head, the scent of him now long gone. A sickening ache twisted in her stomach.
Goddesses, she was so tired. There was a weariness in her bones that just wouldn’t quit. “I never speak until I have words worth doing so,” Sonara said.
“What did you sense when we captured him?” Markam asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He raised a dark brow, and she knew he saw right through her lies. He always had, for how could anyone trick a Trickster? This was Markam’s game she was playing, not hers. “We were partners for years, Sonara. Lovers, too.”
She wanted to retch at that thought.
He chuckled as if he understood. But then he narrowed his eyes. “I know that look when I see it. It means something dark. Something dangerous.”
“It was nothing,” she said.
He reached out, lifting the brim of Jaxon’s hat with one finger, so he could better look into her eyes. “It wasn’t nothing.”
Sonara stood, tired of holding it back. She grabbed Markam’s sleeve and pulled him closer as she lowered her voice.
“Soahm,” she whispered. She pulled the journal from her pocket and flipped open the worn pages. Sketches of Wanderer loot flickered past as she went page after page, flashes of words sketched by hers and Soahm’s hands. But it wasn’t the drawings she’d needed. It was the scent, tangled up in the pages. “The Wanderer’s blood,” Sonara said, angling her chin at the unconscious boy. “The moment I drew it from his skin, it was like… like I could sense Soahm all over it. Like he was right there with me.”
“But you never knew Soahm’s aura,” Markam said, and for a moment they were their old selves again, no lies between them, and certainly no lust. Just two new Shadowbloods trying to make sense of their second chance in the world. “You didn’t have your magic when you were together in Soreia.”
“No, I didn’t,” Sonara said. “And stop using that word.”
“Sorry,” Markam glanced over his shoulder, where Thali still tended to the Wanderer like a mother beast. “The she-wolf won’t shut up about it.”
“She won’t shut up about a lot of things.” Sonara lifted the journal again, the aura of charcoal and dust, memories and dreams filtering into her senses. “But when he bled, I sensed this. That same aura, every time I open the pages. It’s like…” She breathed deep now, but the scent hadn’t lingered this time. It never did for long. “Like he’s here with me, talking about doing so much more. Dreaming of being the leader our mother never was; someone kind and gentle and different from the warrior mold Soreia has always known. This journal was Soahm’s before it was mine, and I like to think it carries a piece of him with it. Like his soul is inside.”
Like the Antheon that can turn a regular man into a Shadowblood, Sonara reminded herself. That would turn a king into a conqueror, should Jira get his hands on it.
She was beginning to wonder where the line was, between fact and fancy. Lately, it had been blurring more and more. And now that a Wanderer had been chosen by the planet?
Blast, she couldn’t be sure.
“So you’re saying… what, exactly?” Markam asked.
His brow was scrunched, the very same way it always was when she asked him questions about math. Or modesty.
The two things Markam was not very well versed in.
“I don’t know what I’m saying,” Sonara said. Her head ached, heavy with exhaustion. And now she doubted she’d sleep tonight again, though she longed to lay down her head. For this wasn’t a part of the plan, a dead Wanderer come back to life to be just like her… and to carry with him Soahm’s scent? “Soahm must be in that ship, Markam. He’s close. I can sense it all over him. And whatever that Wanderer knows… I’m going to find out.”
“By what sort of means?”
She gave him a smile worthy of her outlawing name. “The usual. Maiming. Dismemberment. Whatever is necessary, but you’ll need to keep Thali and Azariah busy. They’ve developed a fondness for their new friend.”
Even now, Sonara could taste their wonder as they sat off to the side, watching the unconscious Wanderer. Or perhaps not a Wanderer any longer? Strange, that his helmet was missing. Stranger still, that he no longer seemed to need it, unless that was the reason for his still-unconscious form.
“I’ll be pleased to do so,” Markam said. He lifted his hand, and a set of playing cards appeared. “Azariah needs to be brought down a notch or two.”
“Keep pushing her, Markam, and you’ll lo
se her forever,” Sonara said. “Don’t mess it up, when you only just got her back.”
She turned, but Markam caught her wrist and spun her gently around.
“Promise me one thing, Sunny,” he whispered as their eyes met, and her curse latched onto his aura. For a moment, she allowed herself to breathe it in. To remember the good times they’d shared, when they were only comrades. When she’d learned that he harbored a darkness that she harbored, too. A darkness that Jaxon and his sunshine smile would never quite get.
“I don’t make promises anymore,” Sonara said.
Markam smiled. “All I ask is that you don’t kill him in the process. We don’t yet know his curse. He hasn’t been a Shadowblood for long. You don’t know what he might do in return, once you begin to question him.”
“Is that worry I hear in your voice, Markam of Wildeweb?”
“Yes,” he breathed. He dropped her hand. “But it’s not you I’m worried about. It’s him.”
Sonara wasn’t sure when she’d fallen asleep.
But she awoke in a sudden panic, sliding Lazaris into her palm with an effortless motion—only to find the fire melted down to mere embers, Markam’s rumbling snores filling the cavern. She’d forgotten how soundly he slept.
Sonara sat up, unsurprised to find the Wanderer was still unconscious, his bindings in place, though she could see the rise and fall of his chest. She watched him for a moment, wondering if perhaps he was faking it, waiting for his chance to escape. But his breathing was long and even, as if he truly hadn’t yet woken.
She’d already been waiting for what felt like hours, but it was no use, trying to interrogate someone in that state. She’d wait as long as it took.
She yawned, stretching her aching shoulders. As she breathed in, an aura flickered to life in her senses. Her curse was often hardest to harness upon waking.
Curiosity. That ripe zing that begged for her attention. And mixed with it…
The aura she’d sensed before, when the Wanderer ship soared across the skies over the Bloodhorns. Fear.
Not coming from within Sonara, but without. Around her.
Sonara stood, swiping cavern grit from her palms.
Some auras were simple, easy to manage as they skated across her tongue. She could swallow them away like a bit of cool water, forget that they were ever there. Others were more insistent, like an embarassing memory that constantly tried to re-form in her mind. Sonara couldn’t quite decide which category this aura fell into now. For on the journey to the Garden of the Goddess, at the Gathering, and facing the Hadru, it had overcome her like a monstrous thing. But tonight… it beckoned.
Like a song she longed to draw nearer to, if only to hear the melody a bit more.
This way, the aura sang. It pulled at the threads of her curse, dragging it deeper into the cave. This way.
Sonara wondered if she was making it up herself, or if perhaps the voice was somehow hers.
The aura was like a ripple in the current of the air, far past the rock formations that surrounded this open entry space. Deep, deep, into the shadowed edges of the cavern, and the stars only knew just how far it went.
Foolish, to walk into the darkness alone.
Sonara knew this as well as she knew that the red suns always rose and set.
But she still found her feet turning towards the darkness. Taking one step, and then another, as the aura beckoned her forth. She scooped Lazaris up, along with a small, still-smoldering stick that she pulled from the fire, the light just enough to cast a tiny glow ahead of her. She was only a few steps into the dark when footsteps sounded just behind her.
“Where are you going?”
Sonara turned to find Azariah awake and rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“Nowhere,” Sonara said.
It wasn’t a lie, exactly.
“Then I’m going nowhere with you,” Azariah said. She crossed her arms as if daring Sonara to defy her.
“Don’t fall behind,” Sonara said. She turned on her heel, not checking to see if the princess followed.
Onwards, she walked, past the spiraling rocks, further into the outskirts of the cavern. Water trickled past her boots, that tiny little stream, and she realized it was flowing downwards. Following a pattern it had driven into the red mountain rock, likely from years and years of running the same route. In the barest light of her fire, the water across the red rocks looked like fresh-flowing blood.
“My father would be shocked to find me here, crawling through a cave with the night beasties,” Azariah said softly. “He didn’t let me wander often.”
Sonara held the torch a bit closer to her, Azariah’s collar scar just visible in the dim light as she glanced back. “Did he keep you locked up?” Perhaps it was pushing, but they’d spent enough time together by now that the awkward walls were beginning to crumble.
Azariah tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, revealing the scar even more.
“I used to wander the castle grounds as a child,” she said softly. “Always under watch, of course. But after Markam… my father worried I’d gotten too brave. He said it was foolish for a demon like me to ever hope for love.” She spat the word like it was laced with poison. “He chained me up after that. Said I’d never leave his side, for he was the one who’d given me life, and if I wished to keep it, I’d never dream of escaping again.” She reached up and ran her fingertips across the collar scar. “Three years, he kept it around my throat. And every night, I went to bed dreaming of the day I’d wake up and finally find a way to break free. I didn’t have the means to until I met Thali.”
“Duck,” Sonara said suddenly.
A flock of wyvern pups soared past their heads just after, little black bullets in the darkness that she’d sensed just before they arrived.
“She could teach you how to hone your magic,” Azariah said with wonder, as she stood straight again. “It’s how I broke free, after I discovered my father’s plan with the Wanderers.”
“How did you do it?” Sonara asked. “How did you escape him, after all those years?”
Her curse picked up on a gust of hunger, spiraling around another rock formation, from the winged creatures that perched upon it. Azariah followed her when she ducked, or sidestepped left or right, her curse showing her a map of sorts, pulling at whatever living or breathing beast it could find to help guide the way.
Right now, it felt normal to use the curse.
Almost gentle, like she was fully in control.
“We started little by little, learning how to light a candle with a single spark, learning how to simply warm my hands without burning anything at all. Eventually I was able to control it enough to melt the chains that bound me. Thali and I had a plan to meet a group of riders in the city that night. We’d nearly made it out of the castle grounds when my father realized I was missing. He sent fifty of his guards after me and… I lost control.”
She paused, and Sonara turned to face her, sensing the princess’ sudden aura of sadness. It was a muted scent, one that reminded her of the time just before the setting suns, or before a long-awaited goodbye. Azariah’s bottom lip quivered as she spoke.
Sonara had always hated emotions, hated the way they overcame her. She hadn’t cried, hadn’t allowed herself to feel them, since the day Soahm was stolen. Since the night her mother forced her and Duran to make the Leaping.
But tonight, she wanted to listen.
She wanted to stand beside the princess in the darkness and hear a story that was just as sad as her own.
Somehow, it made her feel less alone.
“I killed them all,” Azariah whispered suddenly, as if she were revealing a secret she’d kept buried for too long. She started walking again, as if she needed the motion to keep herself talking. “We made it to the courtyard. I could see the road into the city, just down the hill. I could see freedom, and then they swarmed us, all around. I’ve never been so afraid, so desperate. I knew he was going to chain me up again, perhaps lock me beneath t
he castle walls, where I’d never feel the sun on my face. My magic exploded from me. I couldn’t hold it back. The courtyard… it became a pile of ashes.”
Sonara could see it all in her mind, the same place where she’d been taken captive by Jira’s guards not long ago.
Azariah looked down at her hands, gloved once more. “I’ve been afraid of myself ever since.” She blinked, as if she’d surprised herself by speaking her truth.
The torch was slowly beginning to dim, but they’d reached the end of the cave.
The space they stood in was still large, though not quite as wide as the entrance where their companions slept. Here it looked untouched, not rounded walls like in most of the Bloodhorn tunnels, but just the natural, rocky ceiling of a wide cave.
No skulls of the dead.
No bones, waiting to be buried.
Nothing except for the large pile of rubble, the disturbed rock. It was far, far larger than she’d realized, stretching into the darkness left and right.
“Maybe the entrance to another old cave,” Sonara said aloud. “The miners often close up the places where too many have died. I came here because…” She wasn’t sure why she was telling the princess, but she felt like now there was an opening between them. A comfortable place in which to speak freely. “My curse was calling me here.”
“What do you sense?” Azariah asked.
Sonara shook her head, frustrated that the aura had deserted her. “Nothing.”
And that struck her, again, as strange.
“Thali says that the planet lives and breathes,” Azariah said. She knelt to look at the rubble. The rocks were carved, from the looks of it, by ancient hands. Azariah held one to the light, illuminating symbols that Sonara didn’t think she’d seen before, though she felt a little tug of memory. “Maybe it’s calling you here to send you a message.”
Sonara snorted. “You truly believe the planet lives?”
“Of course I do,” Azariah said. She passed the rock to Sonara, who took it in her hands to get a closer look at the markings etched within. Swirling lines, with hash marks driving through them like blades. “I had the same disbelief as you when Thali first came to the castle. Clerics are either deeply relatable, or terribly misunderstood. It seems there is no in-between. But I’m not ashamed of what I believe in now, because Thali taught me the truth. Your magic holds power over you, enough to control you and command you, and you are bowing to it. I once did, too. And once I can forgive myself for killing those men…” She nodded to herself. “I will be able to unleash it once again.”
Blood Metal Bone: An epic new fantasy novel, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo Page 22