The Mark of Gold

by A. S. Etaski

  I sighed inwardly. I didn’t understand most of these customs. I’d picked up behaviors from the Ma’ab and the Witch Hunters faster, which certainly spoke something of me.

  There are better ways, the half-blood had said, but they take time and patience.

  We followed two caits dressed not quite as well as their elder upstairs to the second floor. The wood creaked beneath the larger males’ footsteps, though I stepped lighter than the two females who wore slippers and made less noise. We were each introduced to our own room barely large enough for a decent bed, table, washstand, and tiny closet. The mat for our shoes was right by the door. There was a window in each, covered in what looked to be the same parchment that made the streetlamps, letting in light but affording visual privacy, if not soundproofing.

  “They will bring hot water and soap,” Mourn said. “We should freshen up before we meet my contact here.”

  “Your contact will be offended?” Gavin grumbled.

  The mercenary looked at him. “We should bathe.”

  The death mage sighed as we stood out in the hall; the girls had gone to get the water and supplies. “You say they won’t speak to outsiders, only each other?”

  Mourn nodded. “Yong-wen is a place not easy to learn what happens inside if you don’t belong. The rest of Augran is quite different; starting rumors or panic is much easier among the merchants and workers, which can draw the attention of the guard or officials. In most places, I am likely to be taken for a demon—”

  “Ah, there we are,” I interjected.

  He arched a brow at me. “—but I have safe places all around Augran. Stay with me to avoid stumbling into the dangerous areas for non-Humans, and you will be fine.”

  Gavin and I didn’t really have much choice about that.

  We each took our separate rooms—Gavin and I next to each other and Mourn right across the hall—and took our time to freshen up and spend some time alone with our thoughts.

  CHAPTER 15

  The moment the serving girl arrived with the heated portion intended for washing, I asked her for drinking water.

  “Drink,” I said in Trade, pantomiming the act and pointing to her steaming bucket. It was difficult to get her to look at me, but she watched my hands, at least. She was rather pretty with those dark eyes, her smooth skin, her round ears covered by her glossy black hair curved into a practical but elegant up-do.

  “Ai! Ci’qin!” she cried, nodding with anxious exuberance, setting down the bucket, and fleeing downstairs.

  I stared at the hot water and the open door, deciding I wouldn’t strip down until I had something to drink and some security. The girl returned more quietly than she left, quick-stepping and balancing a full metal pitcher of water and matching cup in both hands. She set it down without spilling any, bowed in a formal fashion fast becoming familiar, and stepped backward toward the door.

  “Name?” I asked.

  She froze.

  I tried not to grin and pointed to her. “You. Name?”

  She shook her head and looked about to faint.

  Pfft, I haven’t seen a youth this jumpy since finding Grelio under the table.

  Then again, looking at it from that perspective, I tried harder, first putting both my hands where she could see them. My fingertips touched my chest.

  “Sirana,” I said.

  She gasped in fright, covered her ears, then did collapse, no doubt bumping her head on the floor. I grimaced.

  Fuck.

  I needed to leave this stuff to Mourn. Not one girl or boy had passed out around him, yet. I poured and guzzled two cups of water before approaching the Yungian servant, kneeling down to check her pulse and her head for any cuts. Seems fine.

  “Mai? Ching shyuoh, Mai?”

  Uh-oh.

  The door wasn’t shut all the way, and the matronly elder who’d greeted us earlier poked her head in the same moment I stood up and took a step back, showing my hands as Mourn had. Her look of concern was no surprise to me.

  “Um…misunderstanding,” I tried.

  The matron peered down at the girl then up at me, considering something as I tried to seem nonthreatening. Slowly, she entered the room, left the door open a crack, and kneeled to check the girl herself with a low hum in her throat. Mourn must have heard the thump; I waited for him to come in and tell me I’d mortally insulted someone.

  He didn’t appear, and the matron sounded satisfied. “Is okay.”

  I blinked.

  “You touch her, nirjwai?”

  She speaks Trade? Excellent.

  “No,” I answered. “I asked her name, told her mine. She fainted.”

  The matron’s thin eyebrows lifted high, several creases appearing on her forehead. “Ohhhh, gyina shu.”

  She chuckled, removed her shawl to roll up as a makeshift pillow to put beneath the girl’s head, rearranging her limbs so she would not wake cramped. Using the wall, the elder woman pushed herself to her feet with a breath out.

  “Pardon for disturb, spirit guest,” she said. “Any I obtain for you while we await Mai to wake? I too old to carry and not ask guest.”

  Mai, huh?

  I waved my hand above my water and my bag of village gifts. “I have plenty, thank you.”

  The elder woman stood against the wall near the girl upon the floor, watching as I dug in to enjoy what there was while it was fresh. Like the rest of the Humans on the Surface, she seemed fascinated by how much food I could pack away in one sitting.

  Then she lifted both hands to press to her chest as I’d done. “You can call me Ai-ling, spirit.”

  “Sirana, not ‘spirit’,” I said, peeling a piece of stubborn fruit. “Greetings, Ai-ling.”

  Her eyebrows lifted high again, but she did not faint from hearing my name. “Hm. You are warrior. Been gone long time?”

  That was rather insightful for a Human. I glanced at her. “I have no enjoyment being formal.”

  She shook her head. “Few in Yong-wen wish to hear true spirit name. It will follow them, for well or ill.”

  I sighed. “Do you have a suggestion, Ai-ling?”

  The older woman considered. “In Yungian?”

  No, in Manalari. I took a drink of water, which wasn’t snowmelt but it was clean. “Yes. A name not to frighten excessively. As long as it does not demean or insult me in return.”

  Ai-ling smiled without showing her teeth. “Hm. Your eyes like clear sky, warrior. Like this? Lantiu-janshi.”

  I considered. “Lonteeyu janshi?”

  The woman nodded. “Meaning warrior from clear blue sky.”

  Fun. Especially as I was from the opposite.

  “It is kind of long. Which part means ‘warrior’?”

  “Janshi.”

  Ah. I like that.

  “Very good. Thank you, Ai-ling.”

  She bowed and kneeled to check on the girl as well. Mai finally stirred, and Ai-ling tugged her wrist, sing-songing something in Yungian. The girl scrambled to her feet with a bow to the bed that almost sent her head over feet again. The matron sighed with patience, took the girl’s arm to steady her, and steered her toward the door, giving her further instructions on her way down the hall.

  Then Ai-ling closed the door and remained inside my room.

  I arched my brow. “Something else?”

  “Yes. The Dragon Spirit asked me to speak with you, if you are not too tired, Lantiu-janshi?”

  Her Trade had grown noticeably better as she looked at my face, bold and expectant, different from every woman in Yong-wen so far.

  Ah.

  This was Mourn’s contact he wanted to address his concerns? She seemed to catch me at a disadvantage. I must leave for Manalar with Gavin, but the geas could stop me despite my promises to him and to Jael. This was the first step toward getting the half-blood to voluntarily come as well. Clever of him to choose an older woman from a completely foreign set of customs.

  Yet I mus
t try to impress her, somehow.

  I glanced at the bucket losing its steam, motioning to it. “He suggested I bathe before meeting you. I have not done so, and it seems a waste to not use the water Mai brought, heated especially for me.”

  Ai-ling contemplated that. “You do not offend as you are, Janshi. Apologies for rushing this.”

  That answer leaned toward keeping my clothes on but wasn’t direct enough for my liking. If she was indeed “rushing” this, my desire to bathe using luxurious hot water remained.

  “Would bathing as we talk offend?”

  Her answer took some deliberate thought. “No, warrior.”

  I began stripping as I would in the Cloister, until I wore only Shyntre’s pendant, with my clothing and gear ordered on the bed for inspection. The elder woman did not stare at my body, not in lust or distaste, and kept her face placid, watching what my hands were doing.

  I gently removed my spiders from their pouch, placing them atop the table to make their way onto the walls. Ai-Ling’s dark brown eyes widened, and her face paled.

  “They are magic-touched and obey me,” I told her. “Their purpose is to guard me. I do not use them to attack first.”

  The woman said absolutely nothing to this, and I shrugged and continued my task.

  Two clean and dry cloths had come with the hot water, as did a small jar of soap too fragrant for my preference, but I would use it anyway. The scentless bar I had brought with me from the underground was long gone. I scrubbed and rinsed in small sections, keeping things in order from top to bottom helping me think since the Yungian had gone quiet. Mourn’s concerns resounded in my head.

  “The Deathless following you. Your unusually vivid dreams linked with your aura when you are aroused. The relic that the death mage keeps for you which wants to own you. Whatever you have not said about your mission and why that false sapphire is more valuable to you than it would be to any I have ever known.”

  Where to start?

  “You are of some status in the Guild?” I asked.

  “I am. An archivist and scholar.”

  “Hm. Will you be among those to listen to what the death mage in the next room has to say?”

  Ai-Ling paused but said slowly, “I will. I am curious of this.”

  I nodded, satisfied, soaping up my pits after cleansing my face and neck. “What of a Dwarf named Osgrid? She lived outside Troshin Bend.”

  The Yungian again seemed surprised. She considered lying to me but sighed. “I have heard of her, and of the sorcerer in the same town. Osgrid is a wise friend.”

  Claiming friendship of the Dwarf, and her Trade was fluent. I listened to Mourn’s contact rethinking her presentation, how deep a deception was necessary. Apparently, the matron of an empty, Yungian inn wasn’t her top choice.

  “By what name do you know that sorcerer?” I asked, rinsing my torso and leaving a subtle scent of blossoms.

  She answered readily. “Brom Troshin.”

  “Any others?”

  Ai-Ling considered while I kept dunking and squeezing the cloth before wiping briskly over my abdomen and hips.

  “None that matter,” she answered. “By what names do you know him?”

  I breathed out, feeling nauseated to recollect. I waited for it to pass then refocused on her face. “Cris-ri-phon, a former Zauyrian leader from the Red Desert. My death mage ally knows him as the Deathless. From the Greylands. It seems he has existed for a few thousand years in some form.”

  This concerned her immensely, but I could not determine if they had been known to her before now until she spoke.

  “Can you explain how you came to know of these…?”

  “Personas?” I asked. “Or souls?”

  Ai-Ling’s face was a paler shade than before. “Yes.”

  Maybe.

  “I can try,” I said, gingerly soaping up my crotch and between my buttocks, “but only with Gavin present. He is a scholar as well.”

  She offered me a nod and let that rest, though she proved she had spoken with Mourn somehow with what she asked next. “Gavin safeguards a …relic which you stole from the sorcerer, now attuned to you. What are your intentions for this cursed blade?”

  She did not sound Yungian anymore. Her Trade was better than mine, but a familiar lilt caused a rush in my chest.

  “You know its name?” I asked bluntly, reaching awkwardly to rub my lower back and spine. “Anything about its past?”

  “Not its real name. I have heard legends of the Soul Dagger of the Dark Queen. It was a gift given upon her union with a Human man. It vanished in a war but has resurfaced.”

  I stopped washing with only my legs and feet to go, narrowing my eyes at her. “Will you show me with whom I speak, Guilder? This is my face, and my name is Sirana. Using it will not make one such as you faint.” I smirked. “What is your face and name, that the ‘Dragon Spirit’ trusts you to deal with me?”

  The elder female bowed her head in a somewhat different way than Yungian. “Fair to parley in the open, Davrin. You are as forward as my sister described.”

  Although I’d begun to suspect, even hope, I was nevertheless struck by the foreign beauty revealed to me as the short, Yungian elder vanished, and a tall, pale-skinned Elf stood in her place against the wall.

  Shit. She’s almost as tall as Gavin.

  She was also slender and long-limbed the way Tamuril was. Her large eyes were dark, silvery grey, her gaze calm, experienced, peaceful; she seemed old as an experienced Matron although I spotted no fine age lines at all around her eyes.

  Her skin was as white and her hair as dark as the Ma’ab, while her cheeks and ears were touched by the same pink blush as the blonde Druid. Not a touch of age-white showed in the easy wave of tresses. Her tapered, upswept ears were longer and narrow, where mine flared wider off the lobe.

  She wore a cream-colored, long-sleeved shirt beneath a functional dress armor of black leather with blue and silver trim. Her pants were a deep blue that matched her cloak. She possessed a decorated blade at her belt but no weapon which looked hard used. Her feet were clad in pale, sheer stockings; her boots were elsewhere in this inn.

  “The Humans can’t hear us,” she said, touching her chest. “My name is Krithannia. I am a Naulor. The only one in Augran. A pleasure to meet the assassin who would kill my sister with three venomous bites.”

  The delivery was dry as sun-bleached bone.

  I kept scrubbing, selecting my left leg, and bracing my arm against the table. “That went poorly. I say true, I did not want to fight. I needed water from her well, but her falcon flushed me out before we could negotiate, her constricting vines trapped me, their thorns punctured me, and my guardians did as they were enchanted to do: stop the mage using the magic. I… used a… venom-cooler to save her. I do not have many to spare, but I did not want your sister’s death, Naulor.”

  Her fine, dark eyebrow was raised, but she listened. I gradually worked on my right leg as I watched some anger pass over her face as she looked away from me. Pass over and leave. In her contemplation, she was easily the most regal face and carriage I’d seen on the Surface.

  She must be a Noble, or whatever the Naulor equivalent is. Maybe higher.

  “I understand first meetings going badly,” she murmured. “What happens after often shows the truth, not the fight itself. You tended her and yourself afterward for three days, allowed you both a healing and second chance despite the insult and threat to your unborn.”

  So, they had spoken. Mourn hadn’t been following me before she and I reached the Ley Tower, it could not have been him.

  “Where is Tamuril right now?” I asked. “She made the offer to take me to Manalar to look for my sister.”

  Krithannia looked at me. “And you could not accept her brave offer. I hope you can imagine how much courage that took her to extend it.”

  I focused on the cloth rubbing between my toes. “I was not part of the squad who found the t
respassers belowground.”

  “Fortunately for you, she says the same.”

  When next I looked up, I saw the shimmer of tears in the Naulor’s eyes.

  “I take ultimate responsibility, Sirana, as much as I find what was done abhorrent. I arranged for the travel and sent her where Morixxyleth told me he’d escaped the Deepearth, knowing from his stories that what she sought grew there.” Krithannia swallowed. “I never wanted her to get hurt, but she was desperate to help a sick boy in a remote village. I did not think the men I sent with her would let her go so deep.”

  “They didn’t,” I said. “My sisters were on the Surface then, a different mission. It was… bad timing they crossed paths in the same tunnels so near to the outside.”

  “You heard about it, then.”

  “The squad leader is my superior.”

  The Naulor’s tears withdrew some and her expression hardened. “Why did your superior not kill or enslave Tamuril if she felt the drive to violate and humiliate her? Why force the helplessness and pain, finish with her, and throw her out like crumpled waste?”

  I wasn’t sure I could explain that, despite that Jaunda had described it to me in bed while stretching my netherhole in demonstration. The memory conflated with the peek I had of Tamuril’s pink skin and caused my labia to tingle.

  Stop it, slit, pay attention.

  “My sergeant disobeyed the clerics’ desires,” I said. “The next step after breaking the Druid’s will through pain would have been to bring her bound to the clerics of Braqth.”

  Somehow, Krithannia’s face shifted whiter, and her silvery eyes looked haunted. I could not take insult, only shrug with my cloth in one hand. “My sergeant changed her mind, that is all I know. She threw the Druid out beneath the Sun, knowing she needed it, and warned her not to trespass again.” I paused. “She was punished for this choice.”

  “That makes it no better,” Krithannia said.

  “But it is more than you knew before today. I am being truthful and generous.”