Flame's Shadow

by Anna Eluvae

  "I don't know," Wealdwood said quickly, as soon as the last bit of glass was out of his mouth. He was bleeding slightly, where Nemm had dragged the edge of her dagger across his lip. "He wore a cloak, he wouldn't tell us his name."

  "What were you told to do?" asked Nemm.

  "Come with you," said Wealdwood. The words were spilling out quickly. "Cling to the bottom of the ship, wait until it was out in the Calypso, then kill everyone aboard. I was going to make chambers for us, bulbs beneath the hull like barnacles. The two of us could sink you easily, then mop up whoever was left. That's what he said. After Lexari was attacked, he came to us and said that the plan had changed. We didn't even know he'd followed us to Genthric, but we agreed to it. Cerulean was supposed to distract you, and I was … I was supposed to kill Wenaru, and then the Sunhawk, and flee."

  "What were you offered for this idiocy?" asked Nemm. Her knuckles were white around the handle of her dagger, and she was trembling slightly.

  "Money," said Wealdwood. "Fame. Stories spread around the world, though this wasn't going to be one of them."

  "Ask about the third," said Wenaru. He was looking around anxiously and squeezing his hands.

  "There was never any third," said Nemm. "They wouldn't hold back like that." She glared down at the man beneath her. "He knows there's nothing to hope for."

  "If you didn't know who he was, why did you think he could deliver on his promises?" asked Dravus. Nemm looked up at him, and narrowed her eyes before nodding.

  "Answer," she said to Wealdwood.

  "He had a ring," said Wealdwood. "Forged by the Harbingers."

  "You went to war with us over a bauble?" asked Nemm. She positioned her dagger above his face.

  "You said you would let me live!" cried Wealdwood. He tried to turn his head, but the only result was that the muscles in his neck twisted and crawled beneath his skin.

  "Wait," said a rich, mellow voice from the bed. Wenaru was standing by Lexari's side.

  "How much of that did you catch?" asked Nemm.

  "Enough," replied Lexari. His arm was in a splint that was wrapped up against his chest, but he used his ruined hand and Wenaru's help to sit up. "Wealdwood, the Forest Knight, formerly of the Flower Queen's court and now adrift in the world. You hew to the old stories. You saw that you were falling from grace, and thought that perhaps this stranger had a power you knew not." He was slow and tired. "There was an aspect of story to him, a theatrical compulsion that you couldn't resist. He had a face he kept in the shadows, and your eyes were drawn to the ring, and the unmistakable presence it exuded. He told you stories about me, stories that you had no way to verify but which sounded right to your ears because of how they tore me down, and with his promises to propel you back to greatness, that was enough to push you in the direction he wanted."

  Wealdwood was staring up at Nemm's dagger, though he didn't have much choice in where to look. "It's true," he said.

  "Tell me of the ring," said Lexari.

  "It was made of a hard metal, dull grey, with a thousand facets," said Wealdwood. "And I felt it, like a feather landing on the skin of my mind. It was a real and true artifact."

  "Set him free," said Lexari.

  "He put a hole in the side of our ship," said Nemm. Dravus looked at her hand holding the dagger. He knew that she followed Lexari, but he had no idea how closely. If she wanted to murder Wealdwood right here and now, there was nothing that anyone could do about it. For a moment it seemed as though it was inevitable that she was going to drive her dagger down and destroy him, and Dravus wondered what would happen after that. Would Lexari have her removed from the ship? Or would he be complicit in the crime? But Nemm got up instead, and nodded to the hull where the wood was warped. "We need to have him fix it, before anything else."

  "You promised me that you would let me live," said Wealdwood. He struggled fruitlessly.

  "Promises to dead men don't mean much," said Nemm.

  "We can't kill him," said Lexari. "There's no justice in taking the life of someone in your mercy."

  "So we take him to the Bone Warden?" asked Nemm. "We somehow weather a voyage far out of our circuit with a man that can sink our ship at any time? We let him go and hope that he keeps his word? We're done with Genthric, we don't need an extended coda."

  "The path of goodness is sometimes a difficult one," said Lexari.

  "Please," said Wealdwood. "I won't speak a word of this to anyone, I'll slink off into the night and never see any of you again."

  "Close the hole in the ship," said Nemm. She grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him over to the side of the ship, then placed his hand against the wood. He stared at her, and then his eyes swivelled down to her dagger. "Don't get any ideas," said Nemm. Dravus stepped closer to watch her. If it had been him, he would have tried to sink the ship, in the hopes of finding some leverage as it threatened to capsize. Once the ship was repaired by Wealdwood's touch, Nemm would have no reason to leave him alive, and he had to know that.

  Wealdwood closed his eyes and concentrated. The wood grew slowly, shaping itself back into straight timbers. It took five minutes in total, all of it in tense silence. Lexari had gone back to resting, and Gael stood beside him, staring at the hull of the ship sealing up.

  "There were people on the dock," said Dravus. "I don't know what it is that they saw, but if we want to keep this quiet we'll have to make sure that they're saying the right things. And we'll need to deal with Cerulean." One of Dravus's tricks for getting through stressful situations was to focus on what needed to be done. Sitting there and waiting would have been more nerve-wracking than putting plans into motion. "We can weigh the body down and dump it at sea after we've gone."

  "Good thinking," said Nemm. She looked down at the mostly dried blood that was caking itself to her forearm. "You're going to have to deal with the locals. Tell them a story, any story. I set someone up to ambush you as part of your training, a hazing ritual. Check to see how much they saw first. We need to get everything straightened here. I don't think the deck of the ship would be fully visible from the shore, but they might have heard something."

  Dravus looked to Lexari. He had expected an objection, but Lexari said nothing. Perhaps this was the way it went between him and Nemm, when these things needed to be done. The stories had said that he had reigned her in, and turned a hardened killer to the side of good, but it didn't seem nearly so simple as that. When Dravus was sure that everything was well in hand, he strode back down the narrow corridor that separated the cabins and up onto the deck. The sailors were gathered together in their white and blue uniforms. Their low conversation stopped when Dravus came up. Cerulean Bane's body had been covered with a tarp. One of the sailors split off from the others and approached Dravus.

  "Is everything okay up here?" asked Dravus.

  "Yes," replied the sailor. "Is everything okay down there?"

  "We have a prisoner," said Dravus. "And we need to get the body into storage. We'll be doing a burial at sea." That sounded better than saying that they'd dump the corpse overboard. "Do it quietly." He had no authority over these men, and they'd just seen him have his ass handed to him by Nemm, but the sailor nodded. "What's your name?"

  "We're paid not to have names," said the sailor with a grim smile. "And for the hazards of being around illustrati." He looked to the tarp, and the long shape that the folds marked the edges of. "But it's Michael, if you ever need me for anything. I think we'll all be happy to be back at sea." He went back to the other sailors, and they resumed their conversation in low voices. Dravus watched until they began drawing straws to see who was going to move the body, and walked down the plank and onto the dock. He double-checked himself to make sure that he didn't have any blood on him, then looked back to the ship to see if he could tell what the crowd could see. It was as clear as daylight to him, but through their eyes, it would just be a confusion of shapes. He made his way down the dock to where the sailors with swords stood guard, and put a smile on his face
.

  "What was going on there?" asked an older man with a decanter of wine in one hand.

  "Lady Nemm was instructing me on the finer points of single combat," said Dravus. "Apparently she thought I needed to be taken down a peg, and ended up taking me down three instead."

  "We heard some yelling," said one of the others.

  "I got a lucky hit in," said Dravus. "I agreed to settle our differences over a bottle of wine, one last taste of home before we set sail tomorrow. Does anyone have a suggestion?"

  That seemed to be just the trick, and the men and women began to argue loudly among themselves. Dravus hadn't intended to leave the safety of the dock, not with Korata still out there and unknown parties who might want to take a piece of his hide just for the meager fame it would get them, but he couldn't very well ask about wine and then not go to get it. If he couldn't have seen what was within the shadows, he was sure that he would have been straining his eyes looking for a hidden assailant. The wine was given to him gratis, and he walked out with a cask that he had to hold awkwardly beneath one arm. All the way back, people peppered him with questions. They wanted to know how badly Lexari was hurt, why the Zenith was leaving tomorrow, what Nemm was really like, and whether he knew anything about Wenaru's time in the Iron King's service. Dravus tried his best to answer in diplomatic ways, but he was dog tired and didn't even remember half the things he said the moment they were past his lips.

  Wealdwood was bound, gagged, and unconscious in Nemm's room when he got back. The door to Lexari's cabin was firmly closed, and Wenaru was nowhere to be seen. Nemm was at a small desk that folded out of the wall with a quill and parchment, which she set aside as he came in.

  "Wine?" asked Nemm. Her armor had relaxed somewhat, leaving her face uncovered and her hands completely free. She had retracted most of the sharp edges.

  "They don't expect anything, I don't think," said Dravus. "The wine was free."

  "Don't leave the ship again," said Nemm. "These two were sent alone, but we have another enemy. One with an artifact, or the ability to convince people he has an artifact, and a seeming penchant for proxies. Until Lexari has healed, I'm the only one with the will and the ability to save you if there's trouble. Lexari can't, Gael won't."

  "Wenaru doesn't need to touch flesh to kill a man," said Dravus. That was one of the things that had been moving around at the back of his mind. "Wealdwood was sealed up tight when we came in."

  "Gael's power extends three inches from the surface of his skin," said Nemm. "Him and the Bone Warden both. They're the only ones with enough standing for it. Keep that secret close."

  "He'd be unstoppable if he decided to fight," said Dravus. Not strictly unstoppable though. It would be possible to kill him from a distance, with a pistol or an incredibly lucky cannon shot, or even a crossbow that hit him in the right place. Maybe it would work with a very long blade of some kind, but there were a whole host of injuries that Wenaru could simply heal himself of in the midst of combat, so you'd have to go straight for the head. You couldn't let him touch you though, even through layers of armor.

  "He wouldn't protect you," said Nemm. "He wouldn't even protect me. Only Lexari, and then only with a minimum of violence. He's not a murderer anymore. He hit his limit." She ran her fingers through her hair, which was damp with sweat. "And if you believe that … well, I can tell that you don't. You said that he was unstoppable, and then you began thinking of ways to stop him." She sat down on her bed, next to Wealdwood's unmoving form. "That secret getting out is one of the risks of letting this one go." She tapped at the papers. "And now I have to write letters of instruction to our bards, so that when the story of this assassination attempt inevitably gets out we can stay in control of it. We leave with fanfare, and it comes out weeks later, when we're not so immediately in the minds of the public. We make up our reasons for not telling anyone, but we technically have the authority of the senatori. It's something of a mess no matter what we do." She turned to the bed. "I have half a mind to kill him right now."

  "But you won't," said Dravus.

  "No," said Nemm. "Good girls don't murder their captives, however inconvenient letting them live would be. Look, I have to stand guard - Wenaru's tricks aren't all that reliable in the long term, not if he's trying to ensure that a person is going to live through it. So long as a man has his power he's a threat, even bound and gagged, even paralyzed. You should go get some sleep, because you're going to have to watch him tomorrow while I'm resting."

  "Okay," said Dravus. He turned to go, but Nemm rested her hand on his elbow.

  "I'm not going to say that I was wrong about you," she said. "But I will admit that you have some redeeming qualities. Try not to let me down."

  "I won't," said Dravus.

  He laid down in the small cabin they'd given over to him, and though he thought that sleep would be impossible, he was unconscious only minutes later.

  Chapter 4

  Dravus's body was stiff and sore when he awoke in the morning. He was momentarily confused about where he was, until he saw the thick beams of the ship and felt its movement in water. The events of the day before came flooding back; the race he'd lost, the fight he'd ended, being threatened by Korata and saved by Nemm, and the two assassins that had come aboard the ship. It felt like it had happened over the course of weeks, instead of in the span of a single day.

  He gave a start when he turned his head and saw Wenaru standing in the small room.

  "I knocked," said Wenaru. He held a plate of pastries and fruit in one hand and neatly folded purple clothes in the other. His red hair had been slicked down and tucked behind his ears.

  "Sorry," said Dravus. "Waking up in unfamiliar places gets to me."

  "We do a lot of it," said Wenaru. "We don't always sleep on the ship when we're in port, but even my cabin can seem like a strange place when the air smells different and the noises of the city have changed." He handed the food over, and Dravus ate greedily. "Nemm got you some clothes for the send-off. We're not making a big production of it this time, but she said what you're currently wearing is unacceptable. I think some tailor must have been woken up in the middle of the night to get something altered for you." He set the clothes on the bed. "Get dressed as soon as you're finished, it won't be long now. There are people who want an introduction."

  They were noble's clothing. There were garishly purple knee-breeches, black tights, and sleeves that were five times wider than they needed to be. It included a cape with golden thread and a floppy hat that seemed to sit slightly askew no matter how he tugged at it.

  When he slid aside the door to his cabin, he saw Nemm in full battle regalia. It wasn't the sleek and functional armor of the night before; it had a look of elegant style, with sweeping lines and filigree flourishes. The sunlight glinted off it, enough that it would draw attention from across the docks. In certain places the glass was frosted instead of clear, creating an elaborate pattern that was suggestive of flowers. Nemm was wearing more makeup now; she had red lips and blush on her cheeks. Her hair sat in an elaborate circular braid on top of her head, pinned into place with small glass birds. Dravus felt his heart start to beat faster. He had seen her stab a man to death, arm bloodied up to the elbow, breathing heavily and ready to let loose a primal scream at the world. She was dark, and cruel, and dangerous beyond all reason, the kind of woman that you'd cut yourself to ribbons on if you tried to get close. There were dozen of stories about Nemm that ended that way, merchant-princes and holy men that ruined themselves in pursuit of her. The vertical scar that ran from her brow to her cheek was supposed to have been the result of one of those liaisons. Yet in the morning light, it was easy to forget all that and feel the tug of infatuation all the same.

  Nemm took one look at him, sighed, and began to fix his outfit.

  "It was the best I could do on short notice," she said as she pulled down the fabric of his tights. Her hands were firm and businesslike. "We'll have to get you to a proper tailor once we reach Torland
, I know just the woman, but for now … gods this looks terrible. It will have to do though." She did up some buttons on his shirt that he hadn't even known were there, and pulled his hat off to one side, so that it flopped down to touch the top of one of his ears. Apparently that was how it was meant to be worn. "Now, I don't have the time to run you through who anyone is beyond what I'll say in introduction, nor do I have the time to make sure that you know the proper forms of address, and you're not going to see these people again for a long time anyway, so just for the next hour or so, you're the naive newcomer, startled by the world that you've been thrust into and not sure what to make of it. You're overawed by all these people, these legends of your city that you've been hearing about since you were a little boy. They'll like that. And I think it should go without saying, but do not mention anything about our inept assassins, especially not the prisoner in my cabin."