Gavin didn’t move, though he wasn’t sure that he really needed to move. Even though he had a knife to his belly, he doubted that Davel intended to use it. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time that he had a knife jabbed into his belly.
“There has been magical movement in the city,” Davel said. “Sorcery. I know you don’t care too much about that, but we have had stability within Yoran for decades.”
“Only because you betrayed those who align themselves with you,” Gavin reminded.
“You weren’t here,” Davel said.
Gavin smiled. “I wasn’t, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what happened.”
There was another slight movement along the street, and Gavin glanced down, trying to gauge what it was that he saw. At this point, with Davel holding the knife up to his belly, it didn’t really matter whether Gavin turned his attention to anything down below. If Davel wanted to attack him, he would do so.
Gavin knew better than to ignore things that caught his attention. He knew he’d seen some sort of movement. He stared for a moment before finally pulling his gaze away, and he looked over at the two constables.
They weren’t here because of the Fates. Not directly.
Which meant Wrenlow had reached out to him for another reason.
He turned his attention back to Davel. “I can get you access to the egg but not right now.”
“That also wasn’t the agreement.”
“The agreement wasn’t that you would get unlimited access,” Gavin said. “The agreement was that you would have access. I get to decide when and where, and I get to decide how it happens.” He started to stand.
Davel followed him, continuing to hold the knife up against Gavin’s stomach.
Gavin shot him a look. “Unless you intend to use that knife against me, I would place that back in your sheath.”
“The same way you haven’t replaced your dagger in your sheath?”
Gavin glanced down, smiling. “You mean this one?” He shoved it slightly forward, driving it toward Davel’s side. The El’aras dagger pressed up against his side enough for the point to bite into the flesh.
Davel winced, jerking away.
Gavin backed away, sliding the El’aras dagger into its sheath, grinning briefly at Davel. “Send word of when and where you want to meet.”
“You know where I want to meet.”
“I’m not coming to your barracks.”
“Do you really think I will do something to you there?”
Gavin shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
“You have been granted safe passage in the city. Isn’t that reassurance enough?”
Gavin glanced toward the other two constables. “No. Send word where you want to meet, and you’d better keep the number of constables down. Otherwise, you might find that the egg isn’t nearly as accessible as you hoped.”
Gavin slipped back, holding on to the dagger. The blade glowed softly.
How long had it been doing that?
Long enough.
The Fate.
Davel glared at him, but Gavin ignored it, reaching the edge of the rooftop and dropping down. He lingered for a moment on the street and looked for any sign of movement. Something was not quite right.
He glanced overhead. The constables—other than Davel—had moved toward the edge of the rooftop and watched him.
Let them.
There didn’t seem to be anything near the Dragon, though he had to be careful. Circling around, he reached the alley and slipped the El’aras dagger out of the sheath to see if it was still glowing. Unfortunately, it was.
It wouldn’t be because of the constables. They might have enchantments, but they weren’t enchanters. As far as Gavin knew, there shouldn’t be anyone here who used that kind of power.
Maybe he’d made a mistake not encouraging Davel to follow him in.
An idea started to come to him. Gavin darted forward, and he walked through the door leading into the kitchen of the Dragon. He paused a moment. The kitchen was empty and smelled of bread, though he saw no loaves anywhere. A single lantern glowed softly in the center of the kitchen, resting on one of the counters. The air was cool, evidence that the ovens had not been lit recently. He smelled no roasted meats, no vegetables, and no ale. All of it reminded him just how little the Dragon had been working as a tavern recently.
When he reached the door leading out into the tavern, he waited another moment, looking out. The Dragon was quiet. He didn’t see any sign of Wrenlow or Jessica or anyone else. The dagger still glowed.
He opened the door and slipped along the back wall. He didn’t see anything, but experience had shown him there were times when he might not see what was there. He crept toward the back staircase.
When he reached the door leading up to the rooms, he pressed his hand on it, then continued moving around the tavern. Reaching the fireplace, Gavin hesitated.
He tapped on the enchantment.
“If you’re there, give me some sort of alert,” he whispered.
He didn’t hear anything.
Could something have happened to Wrenlow?
The Dragon had been attacked too many times because of Gavin, and he knew he needed to be cautious and move carefully, but at this point, he had no idea whether there was anything to be concerned about. It might only be him overreacting.
He continued around the wall. “Wrenlow?” he whispered.
Gavin slipped the El’aras dagger into its sheath and switched over to the sword. When he unsheathed it, the blade blazed with a bright white light.
He turned slowly in place, looking all around. He hesitated a moment, then he took a step forward. Pressure built around him.
There it is.
He’d been waiting for a sign of magic. There was a faint shimmer at the corner of his vision, something that suggested the sorcerers had somehow shrouded the entire inside of the tavern in a way that prevented him from seeing what else was here.
Tricky.
Gavin took another step forward, shifting the sword so that it gradually cut through the power holding him. He didn’t want to use it too abruptly and play his hand too quickly, but he needed to use it in a way that allowed him to step forward so that the sorcerer couldn’t hold on to him.
Gavin dragged the sword with him.
Then he felt tension. The pressure around him was different, though he remembered that feeling. It came from the floor, wrapping around his feet, working its way up his legs, reminding him of what he had experienced the night that he’d been attacked by the Fates.
Which meant the Fate was here.
Chapter Eleven
Gavin took a moment to focus his breathing. He needed to gather himself to ensure the Fate didn’t use his power against him and prevent him from breaking free. He reached for that deep part of him. These days, he found himself reaching for the core reserves far more often than he ever had before. It was like a pool buried deep within him.
When he had trained while younger, learning how to access that power, it had been some distant part of him that he had understood to be there but only accessed when he needed it. Emergencies, essentially. These days, Gavin found that everything became an emergency.
What had happened to Wrenlow and Jessica?
There might have been others in the tavern that had been impacted by the Fate as well, and he would have to offer them protection. Gavin didn’t see anything here. The only thing he was aware of was a persistent sense of pressure slowly snaking around him.
The more he felt it, the clearer he was that the sensation twisting around his legs continued to build, working up around his chest, slowly easing into position, making it so he could barely move.
It started to constrict.
As he pushed against it, he could feel a strange barricade as it bulged, though didn’t break. He was the Chain Breaker, and that was the strength he needed to get free of the Fates. Invisible power continued to constrict, and a shadow separated from the
rest.
Gavin gripped the sword as the shadow came toward him.
“Where is it?” a voice asked.
Gavin couldn’t make out the source of the voice. Everything was shadowed around him. They were using some sort of concealment upon him, making it so that he couldn’t find what they were doing or where they were.
“Where is what?” Gavin found getting the words out to be more difficult than he would have expected.
The shadow came closer and stepped into his field of vision. It was the same bearded Fate he had seen the night before. “You made a mistake attacking me. I will have it.”
He had a strange voice and a deep, booming quality to it. Gavin almost smiled to himself. It had to be magically enhanced; something like an enchantment.
It made him wonder how this sorcerer’s voice would sound without the enchantment. Probably weak. A man who needed to enchant his voice would be afraid.
Gavin knew how to handle someone like that.
If only he could break free.
The strange sword was powerful enough that Gavin thought that it should carve through the magic. Only, as he attempted to push against whatever the Fates did to him, Gavin found the resistance more than what he could withstand.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re the one who took it from the Captain.” Gavin grew increasingly annoyed with the Fate. He still couldn’t make out much detail of the sorcerer, but he could feel him as he pressed against Gavin. There was a strange odor to him as well. “How much longer do you think you can hold me?”
“I have much experience holding others. You are no more challenge than anyone else.”
“I am Gavin Lorren, the Chain Breaker.”
The sorcerer chuckled as he stepped closer. “You have believed yourself to be the Chain Breaker, but this is no chain.” The power continued to constrict around him, feeling almost as if it were something alive. It slithered along his skin.
Gavin could no longer hold the sword out from him, rendering it useless. Any attempt to free himself from what he detected was pointless. There was nothing that he could do.
The sorcerer held him. “You will find that it hurts less when you stop struggling.”
“I’m not going to stop.”
“Then you will suffer. As your friends suffer.”
Much like the sorcerer had said, when Gavin stopped struggling, the constriction around him began to ease. He could still feel it writhing, almost as if it were trying to work its way around him and gain a better position, but it no longer hurt.
“What did you do to them?” Gavin said.
They must be here somewhere.
How had he found us?
It hadn’t taken him that long to get here when Wrenlow had called for him.
“They thought to fight. They made a mistake, and they will pay for it.”
“If you do anything to them—”
“What do you think you can do with these threats of yours, Gavin Lorren?” The sorcerer took a step toward him, and the energy coming from him persisted, building even more. “What do you think you are capable of doing? Anything you can do, I have already prepared for. Now. Where is it?”
Gavin realized that he didn’t really know anything about the Fates. Nothing other than what Zella had shared with him, and she had not known nearly enough. There were at least three, though he was dealing with only one. At least, that Gavin knew about.
What if there were others here?
He started to focus on his core reserves, trying to prepare for the possibility that he might have to use even more of that power that he had answers faded. If there were more than one of the Fates present in the city, Gavin wasn’t sure what it would take for him to break free.
The Fate leaned toward Gavin, pressing his face up against him. Darkness still shrouded him, making it difficult for Gavin to see anything, as if the sorcerer intended to keep him in the dark.
Gavin strained once more against the bindings. He called upon his core reserves, but that strength had already started to fade after everything he’d been through. As he pushed against the strange binding, it constricted even more tightly around him.
The sorcerer chuckled again. “I must admit that it is quite enjoyable to immobilize you in such a way. I will have what you have stolen from us.”
Gavin grunted. He tried to turn and shift the sword, but even that wasn’t going to work. The only thing that he could move was his head, and he could barely even twist toward the sorcerer.
“What makes you think I have anything?” Gavin asked.
The sorcerer chuckled once more, taking a slight step back as he watched Gavin. “You will share with me.”
Gavin prepared for the increased squeeze of power around him. He had to summon the core reserves within him—he was convinced that he could break free once he did. He pushed against what the sorcerer wrapped around him. As he did, Gavin could feel the barrier start to slip.
The sorcerer took a step toward him, now standing only a step away, and the power wrapped more tightly around him. Gavin could still move his head. He jerked it forward in a sharp movement, cracking his forehead against the sorcerer’s.
The sorcerer cried out, backing away.
The barrier around Gavin suddenly slipped. He darted forward, slicing through it, and he thrust his sword into the sorcerer’s belly. The shadows fell from around the sorcerer, and suddenly he became visible as he pulled away from Gavin.
He was a slim man, nothing like the first sorcerer Gavin had seen. His jet-black hair ran in waves down to his shoulders. His eyes were lined, the only evidence of age, and his thin lips pressed together in a tight frown. The dark robes he wore were similar to the other sorcerer’s.
Where are the others?
Wrenlow and Jessica had to be here.
Maybe even Gaspar.
Not Imogen. She wouldn’t have let a sorcerer hold them.
“You weren’t expecting that, were you?” Gavin said.
The sorcerer, no longer shrouded by shadows, glared at Gavin. He wrapped his hands around the sword and pushed, his strength forcing Gavin back much more easily than expected.
Gavin stumbled backward, still holding on to the sword, and blood dripped from the blade.
The sorcerer looked down. He tsked and waved his hand over his belly. The bleeding stopped. “No, I wasn’t expecting that, but you’re not the first person to stab me. I doubt you will be the last. It will be the only time you succeed, though.”
The sorcerer started to wind tendrils of power around Gavin again, which snaked up from the ground and worked around his legs. Gavin brought the sword down, carving at them. Each time, another strange invisible tendril started to crawl around him. The sorcerer worked more rapidly, and more and more of them continued to work around Gavin until he was once again trapped.
The sorcerer took a step toward him, smiling. He didn’t bother to shroud himself in shadows any longer, likely realizing that it was unnecessary now that Gavin had seen him.
“I will enjoy tormenting you,” the sorcerer said.
“Come too close, and you’re going to find my sword in your belly again,” Gavin said.
The sorcerer grinned. “I think not.” He twisted his hand, and the strange magic that held Gavin surged more tightly, wrapping around him.
Gavin could barely move. He could barely breathe. He focused on the energy deep within him and continued to call on it, trying to push outward. He felt it bulge again, but not nearly enough. The energy within him, his core reserve, started to fade.
The sorcerer watched him, almost as if he knew that Gavin had some way of accessing that power.
All he needed to do was to access that power again, and he hoped that he could shift the sword. He wasn’t going to give up. He’d been through too much to give up like that.
The power constricted again, squeezing him.
The sorcerer smiled. “Yes. You will make an interesting—”
The door to the
tavern thundered open. An explosion of light ripped through the room.
Gavin turned his head, the only part of him that still could move.
The sorcerer held on to the power around him as darkened figures darted into the room. They moved quickly—enchanted movement. Constables. Even enchanted, they’d be slaughtered.
“No!” Gavin yelled.
More shadows streaked into the room.
The sorcerer leaned forward toward Gavin, smiling at him. “How lovely.”
They were flickers of movement, dark shadows and nothing else. The constables were getting attacked; the force of it too much, too aggressive, and much more than they could withstand. Occasional explosions of light erupted.
The sorcerer remained near Gavin, and he held one hand out, turning it slowly in place. There was a buildup of power from him, but the sorcerer’s focus was distracted.
Gavin could use that and find a different way to surprise him. He pushed against the barrier.
Glancing in his direction, the sorcerer turned his hand and tried to twist his wrist, but something struck the sorcerer at the same time. The combination of Gavin pushing against him and the suddenness of the attack freed Gavin.
He could move.
He slashed, slicing through the sorcerer’s leg, and the sorcerer cried out. Gavin darted forward again, and he brought the sword around and stabbed the sorcerer through his belly. He jerked the blade upward.
The sorcerer glared at him. Once again, he grabbed the blade, gripping it on either side, and slid it out. He waved a hand at his chest, and the wounds knitted back together.
Gavin charged forward with the blade and carved at the sorcerer, but the sorcerer blocked him. Gavin lunged, sweeping the blade again.
The sorcerer held his hand up, and he simply caught it.
The blade cut through his palm, but then it stopped. He turned his attention to Gavin. “You are most troublesome.”
He grabbed the blade and threw it across the room. He took a step toward Gavin, and he drove a magically enhanced fist toward him. The punch landed in Gavin’s chest, knocking the wind out of him. He tried to take a gasping breath, but he couldn’t.
The sorcerer grabbed Gavin and dragged him toward the door. If the sorcerer pulled him out of the Dragon, Gavin doubted he could get back to find Wrenlow and Jessica.
The Fates of Yoran (The Chain Breaker Book 3) Page 12