Dark Skies

by Danielle L. Jensen

  And extracted a pair of spectacles.

  The lenses were miraculously intact, albeit slightly scratched, the frames delicate but well made. Turning them over in his hands, he remembered how the girl had squinted at anything distant, clearly nearsighted. These were hers.

  The spectacles placed safely on a rock, Killian eyed the opening in the hill from which the water flowed.

  Taking a deep breath, Killian grabbed the edge of the rock and pulled himself against the current. The pressure was incredible; his body shook with effort as he searched for handholds in the cave wall, his bare feet slipping on the slick stones of the stream bed.

  He was considering allowing the water to push him back out when his grasping fingers found a pocket of air. Pulling himself into it, he took several deep breaths, then braced himself against the cave wall and turned.

  It was a small cavern, but despite being entirely enclosed, Killian found that he could see. Glimmering faintly was the source of the flow. Not an underground stream, but a black stem of xenthier crystal.

  The girl had been telling the truth.

  22

  LYDIA

  Lydia walked through the streets, a shawl she’d found in the gutter wrapped around her head to obscure her face. The city—Mudaire—was laid out like a pinwheel, curved streets bisected by broad boulevards that ran between the towers at the center and the four main gates, all of which she was able to blearily make out with her flawed vision.

  Not having her spectacles made her edgy and uneasy. Up close, she was fine, but the faces of anyone more than a dozen paces away were foggy and unrecognizable, meaning she wouldn’t see a threat until it was far too late. There was no helping it, though. Even if she’d been able to find a lens maker, she couldn’t spare the coin to purchase them. She’d have to make do without.

  The city was overfull, and Lydia hardly took two steps without being jostled by women with their children in tow or having to step over soldiers who’d lost arms or legs in battle, the limbs apparently irreplaceable even with a healer’s touch. The situation was made worse by the fact that everyone was dragging all their worldly possessions with them, on their backs or in rickety carts. The smell of unwashed bodies rivaled the stench of rot in the air, and far too many appeared to be walking aimlessly, uprooted and with no place to go. It was impossible that they could all find shelter by nightfall.

  And if she had been blind to all the sights and numb to the smells, she would’ve needed to be deaf as well not to realize that this was a kingdom at war. Talk of battles past and battles to come was on everyone’s lips, names of commanders and places where skirmishes had been won or lost. Whispers of an enemy that seemed barely human and of creatures so terrible, they defied description. But one name was whispered more than all the rest.

  Rufina.

  They called her the Queen of Derin. The High Priestess of the Seventh god. Mostly, they called her the Corrupted One.

  It wasn’t long before Lydia felt a chill in her own spine when the enemy queen’s name was mentioned, and she tried to fight away the unease by listening to the sounds of their voices rather than to what they were saying. Keeping her head down, she quietly mimicked their accent. She had landed herself in a hornet’s nest, but if there was an advantage to the chaos, it was that it gave her opportunity to blend in.

  Following the salty breeze of the sea and the stink of fish led Lydia to a gate in the city wall leading to the harbor, where she picked her way through the crowd and down into the market. There were only two vessels in port—hardly any relative to the size of the harbor, and neither of them possessed the distinctive blue sails of a Maarin ship.

  “Excuse me,” she said, tapping a sailor on the arm. His skin was a dark mahogany shade, his ears pierced with a dozen golden rings, brown hair curly and thick. “Do the Maarin trade out of this harbor?”

  He shook his head. “Not seen one of their ships here in more than a month.” His voice carried a heavy accent different from any she’d heard before, lilting and beautiful. “The Crown has been seizing all cargos and paying below market rates, and the Maarin don’t have any time for such behavior.” He eyed her. “Why you looking for the Maarin?”

  “I’ve friends among them.”

  The sailor shrugged. “They’re still trading out of Serlania, if you can get there. Most captains are avoiding Mudaire for fear of losing their crews to conscription, never mind the vermin that haunt the skies. High Lord Hacken Calorian’s ships are constantly coming and going, but passage is more than most can afford. He’s touted as a hero for risking his ships and crews, but the filthy rich bastard is making a small fortune off others’ misery. Yet he pays my wage, so I can’t complain.”

  Lydia’s throat tightened at the familiar surname, and she glanced around at the blurry crowds, half-expecting to see Killian’s tall form striding in her direction. Booking passage on a vessel associated with him seemed like a risk, but she had to find a Maarin ship. It was the only chance she had of making it back to Celendrial, and that made it worth the gamble. “How much?” she asked.

  The price the sailor named in silver made her ill, but her ring was worth a small fortune in gold. “Where do I go to book passage?”

  “Ships sailing today are full to the brim,” he said. “But you come back in the morning at first light with coin in hand”—he eyed her dubiously—“then like as much someone will find a place for you.”

  The thought of remaining another night made Lydia’s stomach sink, so she ventured down to the docks, intent on finding a captain who could squeeze her aboard. But before each of the ships was a choke point, a lineup of people passing some sort of inspection before they were allowed to board.

  Unable to make out what was happening, Lydia crept closer, her heart beating violently in her chest. But she needed to see. Creeping up next to a stack of empty crates, she peered around them, watching as person after person rested their hands against the bare arm of a boy whose face was marred with a livid burn. Only after a nod from an official-looking woman in white robes were the individuals allowed to proceed down the docks.

  “Volunteer a broken bone or a bad burn for inspections, and one of the temple healers will fix everything that ails you as compensation at the end of the day.”

  The sailor had come up behind her, and she asked, “Have they caught anyone?”

  “Four, last I heard. So desperate to avoid their fate they cut off their own tattoos to try to sneak past, but Quindor’s nets are too fine and his rewards too lucrative. For their troubles, he rebranded them and then sent them off to join the King.” He spit on the ground. “It’s blasphemy, if you ask me. Mudamora treats its Marked Ones like chattel.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Gamdesh, miss.” He grinned. “If you find yourself a ship, bypass Serlania and head to Revat. It is a better place.” Then he strode past the lineup and up the gangplank of the ship.

  Lydia chewed on the inside of her cheeks, her fear demanding she focus on the prospect of being caught out as a healer, though she knew that was not her greatest obstacle. Testing aside, passage required coin, and if she had to remain in the city she would require the same. She needed to sell her ring so that she’d be prepared for either circumstance.

  * * *

  Selling a ring, unfortunately, proved to be a far greater challenge than she’d anticipated.

  No one in the city was buying luxury goods. No one was willing to even trade for it, recognizing instinctively what she hadn’t—that it was worth too much to be easily sold for currency. After hours of trying and failing, Lydia found a wall to lean against and slid down until she was seated at its base.

  “Blast it all,” she said, staring at the black grime caked under her lacquered toenails.

  “Listen all, and listen well!” A shrill voice reached her ears, demanding her attention. A young boy with tawny brown skin and a wild mop of dark curls stood on the edge of a public fountain, a small crowd gathered around him. “The sun se
ts tonight at half past the ninth hour. Those who linger on the streets past twilight do so at their own risk. For those who have no home of their own, the Crown offers shelter in all four quadrants of the city.”

  “They’re filthy and filled with vermin and plague,” someone shouted.

  The boy shrugged one shoulder. “If you’d rather risk the deimos than bed down with a few fleas, be my guest. I merely tell it as it has been told to me.”

  The crowd grumbled, but before any more comments were made the boy held up one hand to silence the noise. “Before you lot go making any rash decisions, let me tell you a tale that came to my ears this very morning. There were two casualties last night. Two!” he shouted. “A sorry fellow who dared to tarry on the streets after dark fell victim to the deimos. The creatures stripped the flesh from his body and gnawed his bones until all that remained was the echo of his screams on the wind.”

  Lydia raised one eyebrow at the boy’s dramatics, only then catching sight of two women dressed in elaborate gowns and fur-trimmed cloaks who’d stopped to watch the proceedings. Both of them wore them their hair up in elaborate coifs, and though their faces were a blur, Lydia caught a glint of jewels on their ears. An idea formed in her mind.

  The boy continued. “There was a second death.” He paused for a long moment, surveying his audience before shouting, “The death of a deimos!”

  The crowd gasped, many leaning closer to the boy, but Lydia immediately abandoned her plan in favor of retreat. She knew this story, and if the boy described her well enough she’d be recognized.

  “A man,” he stage-whispered. “A lone man, caught out past sunset. He walks swiftly, keeping to the shadows even as the skies fill with the shrieks of deimos on the hunt.”

  Lydia eased around a woman, stepping over the children sitting at her feet.

  “He reaches the door to his home—safety! The sweetest nectar to be had in the dark of night. The door handle is in his grasp, but he hesitates.”

  “Idiot,” the woman muttered, meeting Lydia’s gaze.

  “Clearly,” she replied, stepping over another pair of children.

  “Help! Help! Help!” The boy jumped from foot to foot, shouting in falsetto. Lydia’s heart sped faster.

  “He hears a crone’s voice split the air, begging for salvation from death on wings!”

  Crone’s voice? Lydia froze in her tracks, turning back to the performance.

  “With no regard for his own safety, he sprints through the streets, finding the crone hemmed in by a deimos. A lesser man would run, but not this warrior. Not Lord Killian Calorian.”

  The crowd stirred, but the boy ignored them, climbing to the top of the fountain, heedless of the spray. “He attacks, but not even the sharpest steel can pierce the creature’s hide, so he tears a door from a home with his bare hands, pummeling the creature until it flees. But more descend, circling, teeth snapping and wings flapping, so he leaps onto the back of the leader, riding it through the streets with the others on his heels.”

  “What?” Lydia muttered.

  “He herds them toward the gate, but the cowards on guard only hide behind the steel bars, watching on as he fights five, no, ten! deimos, never faltering despite the injuries they inflict upon him. One by one, he drives them off, until only the largest remains. Not content to allow the creature to flee into the sky, Lord Calorian wrests a torch from the gate and stabs the flaming brand into the creature’s heart!

  “Yet even as the deimos burns at his feet, Lord Calorian knows he is mortally wounded and his only chance of salvation rests in the hands of the crone—a healer so ancient that even in these desperate times Hegeria’s temple”—the boy gestured to one of the towers in the distance—“closed their doors in her face.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Lydia muttered to herself. Mistaking the source of her ire, several of the women near her nodded in agreement.

  “Old or not, she should have let him die!” one of the women in the fancy dresses called out. “It would’ve been no less than he deserved. This plight we all suffer—it is his doing.”

  The boy ignored the comments. “Woe to those who risk the shadows of our war-torn night,” he said, voice trembling loud and dramatic. “But greater woe to those who dare cross paths with the Dark Horse of House Calorian.”

  “Woe indeed,” Lydia grumbled, uncertain why she cared that the boy had gotten the story horridly wrong.

  Circling the crowd, she approached the two women who walked as though they were alone in the square, everyone else tripping over themselves to get out of their way. Lydia stepped directly in their path, and they nearly collided with her before stopping.

  “A moment of your time, my ladies.” Lydia dropped into the awkward dip of the knees she’d seen other women doing.

  Their eyes focused on her, and one of them—a girl about Lydia’s age with brown hair and the same dusky olive skin as Killian—said, “I’ve no time for street urchins.”

  She motioned for Lydia to move, but Lydia held her ground, one eye on the guards with them. Thankfully the ancient men looked too bored to intervene.

  “Not even for the opportunity to own a jewel from across the Endless Seas?” Lydia held up her ring, balanced on the palm of her hand. The black diamond caught the sun, sending bits of light dancing across her skin.

  “What nonsense is this? And why would someone like you have something of any value in your possession?”

  “It was a gift from my father,” Lydia replied, trying to imitate Teriana’s voice when she was telling a tale. “Given to him by a Maarin sea captain who found his way to lands unknown and only barely managed to find his way back. Having lost his wealth on the voyage, this was the only thing he had left, and even then, he was loath to part with it.”

  Which was all a lie. The stone was from mines in Celendor, and her father had bought it from a renowned jeweler in Celendrial who’d been more than happy to sell it to a senator.

  Eyes narrowing, the girl plucked up the ring, holding the diamond to the sun to examine the quality.

  “It’s probably just tin and glass, Helene,” the other girl said. “She’s swindling you.”

  “It’s not glass,” the girl—Helene—said. “You know I have an eye for these things.”

  “As you can see,” Lydia said, allowing her accent to grow thick, “I’ve fallen on hard times, and this is all I have to remember my father by.” That part was true. So painfully true. “But it would ease my parting with it to know it graced a finger as lovely as yours.”

  The girl gave a soft snort of amusement. “I’m sure the coins I’d pay you would ease it more.”

  “Only the pain in my stomach.”

  Helene’s eyes flicked from the diamond to Lydia. “All right. If nothing else, it’s a story to amuse Her Highness.”

  Lifting a jingling purse that matched her gown, the girl took out a handful of coins, eyeing them thoughtfully before plucking out the gold and offering Lydia the silver. “There’s only so much I’m willing to pay for a story. Take it or leave it.”

  It was a fraction of what the ring was worth, but what choice did she have? Lydia nodded, and the girl dropped the coins onto her palm before sliding the ring on one of her fingers. Without even a parting word, both girls walked away. Lydia’s heart twisted at the loss.

  “You must be either very brave or very stupid to have approached that harpy.”

  Lydia lifted her head to see the storytelling boy.

  “She swindled you,” he said. “I swear she’s a minion of the Seventh, but it looks like the other Six were watching out for you, because she’s been known to do far worse.”

  Lydia bristled. “I watch out for myself.”

  The boy held up two grubby hands. “If you say so.”

  She pushed past him, heading in the direction of one of the main roads, which held many of the city’s inns.

  “What you going to spend it on?” the boy asked, skipping along after her.

  “I need to get
to Serlania.”

  He laughed. “You and everyone else.”

  “I’ll make it happen,” she muttered. “I have to. For now, I’m going to find something to eat and a place to stay.”

  “Bit late for either.” The boy squinted up at the sky. “Won’t be naught left but stinking fish at the harbor market, and you’ll be paying a fortune for a bowl of rat soup at any common room. And you clearly aren’t a talented negotiator, so it’s going to cost you all you have for a space in an inn.”

  “I’ll manage.” She threw as much confidence into her voice as she could.

  “No you won’t.” He jumped up on a low wall, walking nimbly along it as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “What do you know?” she snapped, hating that he seemed so unconcerned while all she felt was fear eating at her gut.

  “It’s my business to know all the comings and goings-on,” he said. “It’s my job.”

  And then create wild stories that have nothing to do with the truth, she thought. He’d been playing with the crowd—who was to say he wasn’t playing with her now?

  “I can help you find a place to stay. I know people.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Finn, by the way. You?”

  She didn’t want to give her name. Killian was still looking for her. He had likely reported her, and they would know her name. “Nothing I care to share.”

  Finn shrugged. “Have it your way, girl-with-no-name. But trust me, no one’s going to find you a better place to stay than I am.” He held up a handful of shiny coins. “I can tell already that you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  Lydia’s eyes fixed on the silver. Then she shoved her hand in the pocket of her dress, finding it empty. “You little thief!” She grabbed his wrist and scraped her coins off his palm. “Is this what you’re up to? Getting me alone so you can steal everything I have?”