“They already knew it was here?”
“No. There’s people doing similar things in cities all around the region.”
“Just how powerful is this group?”
“I don’t know about power, but they are rich. Which I guess amounts to the same.”
“Sometimes.” Whoever this group was, they were being cautious to have this much separation between them and their employees. And Breakers wouldn't come cheap. Though if you needed to get something somewhere safely, there was hardly a better choice of mage, other than perhaps a wizard. “If you knew all that, why did you enthrall the vendor?”
“To see if he knew anything else I didn’t.”
“Did he?”
She shook her head. “He bought the spell several days back from the son of another spell vendor who died. It had been in their family for a long time, and he thought it might be worth something, so bought it.”
“You said Greagor told you where he was going.”
She nodded.
“Then why’d you need my help?”
She looked away.
“What?”
“I… Once I found out you were a Dark…”
“You lied.”
“I’m sorry! Showing me what you are helped, but I’ve been on my own for so long, never being able to rely on anyone but myself. It’s hard to let anyone in.”
“And now?”
“I trust you,” she said without hesitation. “I really need your help. It feels so good not to be alone for once.” She pointed at Sienna. “She can tell you. I’ll open myself up to her.” She looked at the dryad. “Go ahead.”
“She’s telling the truth,” Sienna confirmed.
I sighed. “So your plan was to follow that spell, and hope it led you to the people who killed your parents.”
“Yes. And now that Breaker has it. So I have to follow her until she delivers it to them.”
“And then what?”
She looked up at me, the guilt melting from her face, her expression turning hard and determined. “And then I kill them.”
28
We followed after the Breaker.
I couldn’t deny Trin my assistance. I knew how she felt.
Still, what was I getting myself into? I’d set out to avenge my wife, kill Orathar to dissolve this mark, and take back my kingdom. Now not only was I a delivery boy for a divine, but I was in pursuit of a Breaker on behalf of a Whisperer whose family was slaughtered by some mysterious group which said Breaker was employed by.
It wasn’t just out of compassion that I agreed to help her, even though I understood all too well what it was like to have everything you knew and cared about taken from you.
It was also because after I helped her exact her revenge, she could help me take mine.
Having a Whisperer to pull from, hell, even having one on my side, would be a great boon, and would increase my odds of defeating Orathar that much more.
And besides, even if Trin hadn’t been a useful addition to the party, my interest was still piqued at the sheer amount of magic emanating from that spell the vendor had sold the spellsword for two bags of crowns.
It was possible that that spell would lead to something greater. Something that would further aid me in taking back my kingdom. And I needed all the help I could get.
We followed the Breaker all the way to the city gates, except they weren’t exactly gates. Instead there were multiple white-stone archways just big enough for a carriage to fit through, perhaps two if each was small.
There were two human guards, one on either side of the archways. They were helmed, and had large swords sheathed on their belts.
Another pair stood just outside, facing out into the wilderness. One of these was an orc, the other one looked to be a very large human.
There was much carriage and foot traffic, and so we slipped between it, trying to stay inconspicuous.
Outside were several troughs and tie-offs for horses and other non-violent mounts.
The Breaker was mounting one of these horses, a small but stocky white and tan spotted mare.
There were a few other horses, two carriages, and four mounted guards to watch over them.
Silaris was apparently a city of quick getaways.
One of the guards was actually a silaren. I was surprised they stooped so low to guarding their own city.
“Damn,” Trin said, seeing the Breaker mounting up.
“You have any idea where she’s going?” I asked.
She shook her head, watching as the Breaker trotted away on her horse. “Greagor didn’t know.”
And Silaris didn’t keep track of the comings and goings of visitors. The guards at the gate didn’t ask questions on where you were coming from or why.
That wasn’t the kind of city Silaris was.
That meant we’d have to follow the trail the spell left.
“How many crowns do you have?” I asked Trin.
She looked at me. “Why?”
“If we’re going to follow her, we won’t be able to keep up on foot.”
“I have a carriage.” She pointed at one of the two carriages.
It was a simple one, but looked in good repair, as did the horses. There were two, and both were hardy, with feathering around the hooves.
“That’s quite a nice wagon for one young girl.”
“The problem is she’ll hear us following in it.”
“Don’t worry about that. I can follow her at a distance.”
“Right. You’re sure? We won’t lose her?”
“You let me worry about that. Come on. Let’s get loaded up. We can stay behind her, but not too far.”
We all got in her carriage, Trin and I sat out front on the perch, Trin taking the reins, while Vi, Sienna, and Alva rode in the cab.
“Finally no more sun,” I heard Alva say from inside.
Vi growled something in response, though I couldn’t make it out.
“How far away can we let her get?” Trin asked, worrying anyway despite my telling her not to.
I pulled off the satchel the angel had given me and set it in my lap so I could lean back comfortably. “Let’s wait till she’s out of sight. Then give it a little bit longer.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For helping me follow her.”
“It’s not just out of the kindness of my heart.”
She sighed. “I figured. You’re a Dark. You want to Pull from me.”
“You don’t seem particularly surprised or upset.”
She shook her head. “I’m not. As I said, I know what Darks are. Help me with this, and I’ll gladly let you Pull from me all you like.”
“You should be careful with the promises you make.”
She shook her head. “Nah. You seem like just the right amount of untrustworthy to make me trust you.”
“Uh… thanks?”
We waited for the Breaker to get a sufficient distance away to follow safely.
I checked again that the spell she carried left a residue.
It did, clear and bright. It would last for quite a while.
People entered and exited as we waited, and an orc and elf got into a fight. I wasn’t entirely clear on what they were fighting about, but it sounded like it was something about ears.
The guards looked on, though through their helms I couldn’t read their faces.
Their postures were relaxed, and they made no move to step in to stop the scuffle.
If anything, they looked amused, or at the very least entertained.
It took a human female to break them up. “Keep behaving like children and I won’t pick either of you!” she scolded, then stormed off.
The two men looked at each other in confusion, then rushed after her.
“Hyla!” the orc shouted.
“Don’t be like this!” the elf called.
I looked at the road, saw the Breaker was gone now. “Better get going.”
Trin nodded, th
en waited for a clearing in the traffic. “Ha!” She flicked the reins and her two horses pulled us out into the busy road.
Unlike the one on the east side of the city that we’d entered in on, this road was well-worn, ensuring a smooth ride.
It branched off several times, and each time I told Trin which way to go.
With each branch we took, the traffic decreased, until we were the only ones out.
I couldn’t tell where the Breaker was heading, as I wasn’t familiar with this area of the world.
The signposts were no help. The ones that weren’t faded beyond recognition had names I’d never heard before, or if I had, they’d long been lost to memory.
I would have learned them as a child studying the geography of the world outside what would become my kingdom. And being a child, I’d had more interest in what would eventually be mine than that which wouldn’t.
So for me, between here and Este was mostly a blank.
I only even knew of Silaris because of its reputation, and something so salacious appealed to the prurient interests of a young boy.
I knew there were other cities and towns along the way to Este, but I couldn’t recall any of their names, or even their approximate locations.
It was not to a city or town the trail of magic led us, however, but to a stand of trees beside the road, beyond which lay a river, a boat waiting at a small dock set into its bank.
“The six?” Trin muttered. “How are we going to follow a boat.”
We’d stopped well back from the river, our current position screened by the trees so the Breaker couldn’t casually look our way and see us.
But this close to the trees, we could see through a small gap as she dismounted her horse, removed a small sack which she slung over a shoulder, then slapped the beast’s flank.
It ran off towards us and up the trail she had taken down to the dock.
We watched it nervously as it ran by us.
But it was a horse, not a hound. It ran away and back the direction we’d come.
I wondered if it would run all the way back to Silaris.
Beastmasters could train animals to do things like that, and horses were one of the smarter animals.
“I’m guessing this doesn’t float?” I said.
“No. My horses don’t turn into seahorses either.”
That was a problem.
There was a man waiting at the dock. He nodded at her as she stepped aboard, but if they exchanged words, we couldn’t hear it. Vi might have been able to, but I didn’t want to move just now.
Though we were hidden, movement or noise might draw attention. The river wasn’t so loud that I was certain a horse’s braying wouldn’t be heard, and while Trin’s horses had been silent so far, there was no reason to take a chance, especially with a lycanthrope on board.
The boat the Breaker boarded was medium-sized, perhaps the size of four carriages stuck together in two rows of two.
It had no sails, and so was either rowed, or powered by magic.
Either way, unless they were going upstream, we would have a hard time keeping up with them on land.
But it appeared to be our only option.
“Can you still follow if she’s on the water?” Trin asked. “Track her however you’re tracking her?”
“Sure, as long as we don’t let them get too far away.”
She sighed and looked at the horses. “I hope I don’t have to leave them.”
“Spend a lot on them, did you?”
“It‘s not that. I like them. I’d hate to abandon them.”
“They’re just horses.”
She scowled at me. “And you’re just a human.”
“Yes. I don’t think the horses would care if you left them. Someone else will find and take them. Put them to work in the same way you are.”
She shook her head, pressing her lips together, but didn’t say anything.
Once the boat disembarked and was a good distance away, she flicked the reins and got us moving after it.
The road was lined with trees between us and the river, and so we were shrouded by them. But it wasn’t perfect cover, there were gaps, so we had to stay well behind if we were to avoid being detected.
Hopefully neither of them would look through a spyglass back in our direction.
I got up and crawled to the side of the carriage as we were moving.
“What are you doing?” Trin asked worriedly.
“Checking on the others.”
I knocked on the door once, then swung it open. “Everyone okay?”
Sienna gave me a bright smile.
Vi growled at me. “A bumpy ride back here.”
“She seemed to like it,” Sienna said, nodding at a sleeping Alva, whose head was resting on her leg. “Rocked her right to sleep.”
“The sun rocked her to sleep,” Vi corrected. “They don’t like the daylight. Almost as much as they don’t like water.”
“Well,” I said, “bad news for her then. Our quarry got on a boat.”
“I’ve never seen a boat,” Sienna said, a tinge of excitement and wistfulness in her voice. “My sisters told me stories of them.”
“You’re in luck. You’ll see one pretty soon. For now, stay back here.” I didn’t know how dangerous these roads were, and didn’t want to have a bunch of women up top with us. It would draw attention.
Especially with ones as beautiful as Sienna and Vi.
Trin was attractive as well, but she had her hood up and it shaded much of her face.
I closed the door and got back up on the perch next to Trin. “No idea at all where she might be headed?” I asked.
Trin shook her head.
“What about the spell?”
“I’ve told you all I know about it. It has Erisi in its name, but the vendor couldn’t read the rest since it’s in the old language. I don’t know what it’s supposed to do.”
Erisi, the highest goddess. Something being named after her didn’t mean much. It was like naming something dragon’s breath—so common and popular as to be meaningless. A name a child with an Inclination gives when she discovers she can flick her fingers and create a spark.
But this was no child’s spell, not with that much magic in it.
The countryside passed by, trees to our right, varying scenery to our left. We passed small woods, farms, empty fields.
But we encountered no one else on this road, neither fellow travelers nor bandits.
I sat and thought as we rode along, Trin’s two sturdy horses oblivious to the danger they pulled us toward.
There wasn’t much direction to give as the river hadn’t split off yet, and the road continued along beside it.
I checked that we were going the right direction anyway, in case the Breaker had jumped off the boat, but she hadn’t. The trail left by that intriguing spell was still there.
I kept a low constant Pull from Sienna, to keep myself balanced.
But I was getting more comfortable using my magic. Too comfortable, maybe. It was a dangerous thing.
But seeing the colors of magic took so little power from me that I could keep it up for quite a while, even without someone to Pull from.
And with someone like Sienna? A dryad? I might be able to keep it up forever.
From what I remembered from Krann’s Bestiary, her own magical energy replenished from the trees. From the earth itself.
So unless we were in an airship or high in a building or otherwise separated from nature, she had a practically limitless amount. The only consideration being that I didn’t Pull from her faster than she could replenish. If I did that… well, it wouldn’t be only my own safety I’d need to worry about.
I thought about our goals, Trin’s and mine, as we followed the Breaker and the mysterious spell she held. They were so similar.
I wanted to kill someone for taking my wife, my crown. For taking my kingdom.
But the ones Trin wanted to kill had taken her family when she was just a child. Effect
ively stolen her life from her.
While my heart ached for my murdered wife, and for my dead father, I’d been an adult when I’d lost them.
But there weren’t the only ones I’d lost, and I knew how much it hurt to lose even one person as a child. How lost and hopeless and alone it made you feel, even when you weren’t, when you still had others left.
Trin had lost everyone. She really had been alone. Had had no father to comfort her, and later no spouse when that father was gone.
And so I chose to take this risk, to help her. Not just because I needed her help, but because I needed to help her.
29
A bit later the river broke off into its first tributary.
“The trail goes that way,” I said.
“Crap,” Trin responded, slowing us to a stop.
The road we were on continued straight, while the tributary branched off to the side, moving away from us nearly perpendicularly.
“Maybe there’s a way around it. A road.”
“Maybe,” Trin said uncertainly. “But I don’t know how we’d get there. I don’t know this area. Do you?”
I shook my head.
But maybe someone else did.
I climbed down and opened the door into the carriage.
I found all three now asleep.
“Vi,” I whispered.
Her ears perked up and she jerked awake, eyes instantly locking onto me. “What?” She looked ready to pounce.
“It’s okay. I just want to know if you know this area.”
She looked around the cabin of the carriage, as though that were the area I was asking her about.
“Come outside and have a look.”
She did, but shook her head. “Sorry,” she said, her ears flattening slightly. “Never been here.”
“Damn.”
“Maybe the vampire knows,” she suggested.
“Right. She said she’d been to Silaris before.”
I went to the cabin and picked up the sleeping Alva.
As soon as I did she went insane and started clawing me. Luckily she didn’t bite.
I dropped her and she landed in Sienna’s lap, waking her up.
“Alva! It’s okay.”
She sighed heavily, her eyes locking on mine. “It’s you.”
Curse of Magic Page 11
