by Carol A Park
She whirled to face him. “I don’t have time to waste lying around convalescing. You want to stay here, be my guest.”
“At least let me look at your leg again—”
He stopped talking when she glared at him. Instead, he held up his hands in surrender and turned to the bundles. He tied them up into a roughshod bag that looked like it used to be his formal tunic and slung the whole device over his shoulder, along with his bow and quiver. “All right. No reason to wait around longer then.”
Three hours later, whatever Vaughn’s aether-infused salve had done to help with the pain was wearing off: Ivana’s leg was killing her. She could feel the stitches pulling with every step, and her entire thigh both ached and burned, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Vaughn. Since it was becoming difficult to walk, she started watching the foliage more closely as they picked their way through the woods and, finally, found what she was looking for.
She stopped and plucked all of the leaves off a star-shaped plant growing at the base of a tree and popped one of them in her mouth.
Ugh. It was disgusting, but it worked wonders as a painkiller. It was a shame her father had never been able to publish his findings before he died.
She tucked the rest of the leaves into her bosom, drawing Vaughn’s gaze.
“Star-leaf?” he asked.
“Painkiller,” she said. She started walking again, fighting the limp.
“I’ve never heard of that,” he said.
“You wouldn’t have,” she said.
He glanced at her as they walked. She could almost feel the curiosity beating from him, but she refused to indulge him.
“Is your leg hurting that badly again?”
“When mixed with the root of a dennil, it also makes a fantastic poison,” she said. Conveniently, they were passing a patch of the aforementioned flower. She leaned down, collected a sample, and tucked it also into the bosom of her dress.
He didn’t ask again.
Vaughn and Ivana crouched in the negligible shade of three trees, the last bit of cover before they would approach Weylyn City. The orange glow of the sun sinking below the horizon almost made the derelict tangle of buildings spilling beyond the outer walls look livable.
They had reached the city after they had already closed the gates for the night. Ivana had been unconcerned, assuring him there was a way in other than the gates; but entering through the outer city made him nervous. It wasn’t exactly a place he relished wandering around at night, even invisible and with an assassin at his side.
They still hadn’t seen any sign of patrols on their approach, and it was making Vaughn uneasy. He found it hard to believe that his father had given up, knowing he was in the area. Then again, his father also probably didn’t think him stupid enough to return to the city.
But what of Ivana? Would they guess she would return to her inn? He half expected a trap, but when he had suggested the idea to her, she had merely rolled her eyes.
Of course it’s a trap, she had said. But a trap only works if you get caught in it.
That was one of the longest speeches she had given to him today, choosing mostly to favor him with silence, speaking only when he spoke to her first. He continued to curse himself for losing control last night. It might have been his imagination, but she had started to seem like a normal person for a little while. So much for that.
He glanced at her as she pulled another star-leaf out of her bosom, ripped half off with her teeth, chewed, grimaced, and swallowed. It was the only indication he had that her leg was giving her pain again. He didn’t know whether to admire her fortitude or the plant she was using as a drug. In an ideal situation, even with aether, she would be off that leg completely for at least a few days. As it was, she had withstood miles more of hiking today with no complaint and hadn’t slowed them down much either.
If anything, he was the one who was slowing them down. He had used his extra supply of his own aether and had been forced to rely on burning the blood in his own body to turn them invisible—which occurred with increasing frequency once the cover of woods had petered out and they had approached more populated lands. He was tired, mentally and physically, and he didn’t know how much longer he would be able to keep it up—especially with the added drain of extending his invisibility to encompass Ivana.
“Are you ready?” Ivana asked.
He gave the outer city a dubious look. “You sure about this?”
She didn’t favor him with a response. Instead, she stood up, and he was forced to move to keep her invisible as well.
She skirted most of the outer city itself, until the buildings dwindled almost to an end against the city wall. There, a ramshackle old house—if it could be called that—sat pressed up against the wall. In fact, like many of the buildings here, it was most likely using the wall itself as its own backside.
It looked even less lived in than the surrounding buildings. The front door had a splintered cavity in the middle, as though someone had tried to kick it down. Lopsided shutters hung at the single window in the front, and the chimney was half-fallen in.
With a single glance around them, Ivana forced the front door open—without kicking it in.
Vaughn finally moved away from her once they were inside, which was as rundown as the outside. A three-legged table sat in the middle of what used to be the kitchen, and a rusted woodstove no longer had its vent pipe attached to the ceiling.
Most pleasantly, a foul stench emanated from a pile of rags in one corner, which hosted the remains of a feral dog’s latest meal—though the dogs themselves were nowhere in sight.
“Nice place you have here,” he said. “Summer home?”
She gave him a look and moved away from him to kick aside a rumpled, faded rug, revealing a trap door underneath.
She heaved it opened and jerked her head toward it. “You first.”
He hesitated, a sudden thought striking him. What if the reason there had been no patrols was because she was working with his father to dupe him into being captured?
Perhaps that was why he hadn’t died; maybe she hadn’t actually killed him. Maybe it was all an act.
She raised an eyebrow at him and then shrugged. “Have it your way.” She swung herself down through the trap door, not bothering with a ladder. She grunted as she hit the floor, probably because of her leg.
He took a deep breath. He had come this far.
He lowered himself down onto the ladder and shut the trap door above his head. It was pitch black for a split second before his eyes adjusted to whatever minimal light was filtering in.
They were in the cellar; broken shelves hung on the wall, and a few smashed barrels and boxes littered the floor. Ivana felt for a lantern; she obviously knew where it was, but he moved over to help her find and light it.
She grunted by way of thanks, and they moved on—to the back of the cellar. She shoved aside a stone—in the wall?—and ducked through the opening.
Again, he followed.
They stood in a small cavern. Mushrooms and moss dotted the damp, overgrown ground and walls. He stepped a little farther in while he waited for her to put the stone back, and then whirled around, sure he felt someone tickling his neck. It turned out to be a length of lichen hanging from the ceiling.
Ivana picked her way along the ground, and he followed. As they walked, he saw signs that they weren’t the first to travel this way. A discarded tin can here, a chicken bone there, the remains of a fire tucked against a wall.
“Where are we?” he whispered to Ivana. He didn’t know why he had whispered—only that it seemed appropriate given the circumstances. The cavern was so quiet, aside from a distant sound of rushing water.
She didn’t whisper back, but her voice was low. “Under the walls,” she said.
“I didn’t know this was down here.”
“You’re not supposed to.”
Not long after, she stopped in front of a mat of hanging lichen. She pushed aside the lichen, revealing
a small grate. She pulled at it, and it came off easily in her hands. She jerked her head at him again, looked behind them as he ducked through first, and then replaced the grate.
They stepped out into a man-made passage. The sound of the water was nearby, now, though he couldn’t see it, and the pervasive scent of rotting garbage made him wrinkle his nose. This time, he took a guess. “Sewers?”
“Upper level,” she said. “We don’t have to go far.”
Indeed, they only walked for a minute before they came across an iron ladder attached to the wall.
He held the lantern while she ascended, and then he followed. They exited through a maintenance access point—which was conveniently unlocked—into a dark alley Vaughn would have been nervous about traversing alone and visible.
However, the city wall stretched above them, and they were now on the side of it they wanted to be. Ivana doused the lantern and left it on the inside of the grate leading to the sewers. They slipped down the alley, invisible once more, Ivana leading the way.
She wound through so many alleys and side streets that Vaughn would never have been able to retrace their steps, until finally, he recognized the quarter of the city in which her inn was located.
Before long, they emerged onto the other side of the same square.
She arrived first and halted so abruptly that he ran into her. “What…?” he asked, and then looked for himself.
All that remained of her inn was a skeleton of charred timbers.
Chapter Sixteen
Message in Blood
Ivana stared at the place where her inn had been, unwilling to believe her eyes. “No,” she whispered. It was gone. Burned to ash so thoroughly, it couldn’t have been an accident. Not here in Weylyn City, which was praised for its highly effective fire brigade.
Despair, anxiety, the pain of loss—they washed over her, and then at last…blessed numbness.
“Burning skies,” Vaughn muttered.
She knew a catastrophe like this was a possibility, depending on how angry she had made the Conclave. But she had hoped merely to find guards swarming the inn, questioning or perhaps detaining her girls. Had hoped to be able to communicate with Aleena, get her feeling on the situation, let her know that the inn was hers, now, as they had planned, now that her identity had been compromised.
Instead, the square was dark—every street light, every window—and empty, which she found odd. Where were the curious onlookers, gaping at the terrible sight? Clucking their tongues, shaking their heads, whispering that they had known something was off about the innkeeper—even though they had thought nothing of the sort before today.
She felt Vaughn’s eyes on her, and she pressed her lips together, refusing to look at him, lest he strip her protections again.
She stared at the inn until Vaughn looked away. “Ivana—”
“You’ve done what you said. You helped me get here undetected, and I’m not ungrateful. I think it’s time you went your own way.”
“But—”
“There is absolutely no reason for you to remain here further,” she said. Perhaps she could finally be rid of him.
“I’m trying to tell you something.”
She reluctantly turned her head to look at him.
“This wasn’t only directed at you. It was directed at me.”
She paused, parsing that assumption. “I don’t follow your logic. It’s my inn. How could that hurt you?”
He looked back at the remains of the inn, silent for a moment, and then spoke softly. “He once burned down an entire village because one family took me in.” He paused, and his voice lowered another level. “They didn’t even know I was a Banebringer.”
“I don’t think—”
“He likes to send me messages. If it weren’t for me, your inn would still be there. He might have made an example out of one or two of your women, certainly would have ruined you and made sure you could never go back, but this is extreme even for the Conclave, if not for him.”
Ivana shook her head. “I think, in this case, you may be seeing things that aren’t there.”
“No,” he said.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because I’m seeing something that is there.” He pointed. “The wall of the building next to yours, to be precise.”
She squinted in the darkness, and all she saw was the looming shape of the wall of the bakery, in contrast to the yawning spot where her inn once was. “I don’t see anything.”
“Of course,” he muttered. “I forget.” He glanced around. “Let’s move closer.”
She hesitated. This had to be a trap. But as long as they stayed invisible…
So she moved with him to skirt the square, his hand lightly on the small of her back, until they came to the aforementioned wall.
He pointed with his free hand, and she stared—there, painted on the wall in dark paint, was the symbol of the Conclave.
“All right,” she whispered. “So the Conclave wants to make sure I know this is punishment for tangling in their business. I still don’t see—”
“Look closer.”
She shook her head, but obligingly reached out and touched the paint. Actually, on closer inspection, it didn’t look like paint. She scratched a bit off, touched it to her tongue, and then froze.
It was blood.
Her head started spinning. No. No. Surely, this wasn’t some message that they had not only burned her inn down, but had hurt or killed her girls.
“It might be a message to you,” Vaughn said, “but it’s also for me. This is what my father does, for my benefit.”
The numbness was starting to give way, and now anger filled the space. The bastard. As if he hadn’t already done enough to ruin her life. She wouldn’t let him ruin the lives of those girls too, not this time. This time, she wasn’t running.
The sound of footsteps running in their direction snapped their attention elsewhere, and they pressed back against the wall.
A moment later a man came into view. He skidded into the ash, mouth hanging open. He spun around. “No,” he whispered. “No, not now. I was so close. Where are you? Kayden, you’ve been such a fool…”
Ivana frowned. Kayden? She had heard that name before, from Caira’s lips, and it couldn’t be coincidence.
“Acquaintance?” Vaughn whispered in her ear.
She shook her head. But if he was looking for Caira…
“If you want to be useful one last time,” she said to Vaughn, “cause a distraction at the right moment.”
She stalked toward the man, who was now facing away from her, leaving Vaughn’s invisibility behind.
“Ivana!” Vaughn breathed urgently after her.
She knew what he was thinking. It was crazy to reveal herself, when people could still be watching the deceptively empty square. In fact, she was quite sure they were. But she wouldn’t be the marionette in Gildas’ plan.
So without a noise, she slid her dagger out of its sheath, slipped up directly behind the man, and put the blade to his throat.
He gasped and started to fight back. In response, she pressed the dagger closer.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” she whispered in his ear. “Not if you stop moving. I just want to talk. There are likely people watching, and this is just for show. I know you have no reason to trust me, so trust that I could slit your throat with one flick of my hand.”
He went limp, but she could still feel him trembling.
“Are you looking for Caira?” she asked.
The man started to nod, but no doubt feeling the cool metal against his skin, stopped, and answered instead. “Yes. Do you know where she is? What happened here?”
“I know Caira,” she said, without answering his second question, “but I don’t know where she is now.”
Even in his fear, his shoulders slumped.
“What business do you have with her?”
“We were…friends.” The word sounded hollow in his mouth, and Ivana doubt
ed that was the extent of the relationship. “I…did something foolish to hurt her. She left home, and I lost track of her. I’ve been trying to find her ever since. To tell her I’m sorry. To make it up to her.”
Ivana was satisfied. He was either an excellent actor, or he was telling the truth.
“I know of a way you might obtain information,” she said, “but it may be dangerous.”
“Anything. I’ll do anything,” he said hoarsely.
“You help me, I’ll help you. There is a woman I know. She might know where Caira is, but I don’t dare find her myself.” If Aleena was alive and waiting, she couldn’t risk putting her in danger again by being seen with her. She didn’t know how extensive the Conclave spies and traps might be.
The man opened his mouth, but she shook her head. “It would be best if I didn’t explain.” She released the clasp of the chain she wore around her neck with one hand. At the end dangled a pendant—one Aleena would know well. “If the woman is alive and free, she’ll be waiting at The Quay inn near the docks tomorrow night near midnight. Don’t talk to anyone, just go to the back table. Her name is Aleena, but she won’t respond to that unless you first ask for Tara.” She pressed the necklace into one of his hands. “Give her this. She’ll know what it means. Tell her you’re looking for Caira. If she can help you, she will, but might require your help in return.”
She felt the man swallow hard against her blade, as if debating who this strange woman was and why she was instructing him to go to clandestine meetings with another woman he didn’t know. But he nodded slightly.
“Now,” Ivana said. “I need you to follow some very precise instructions. In a moment, I believe there will be some unhappy guards who start this way. Use the opportunity while they are otherwise engaged to slip away. Circle this quarter, head to the next quarter over, and stop at The Bay Stallion Inn. Rent a room for the night under the name Edwyn Bitters. The innkeeper will ensure you can leave undetected. Only then, go to the docks. Do you understand?”
