Myths and Mortals (Numina Book 2)

by Charlie N. Holmberg

  “Rist, right?” Rone tried.

  The man stepped back, surprised, but said, “My name is Dar.”

  Dar. If Rist was the turtle crab, then Dar was . . . Rone hid a shudder. That wolfy thing that had been there the day he’d turned in Sandis. Huge, snarling, long clawed.

  Rone checked their surroundings before speaking. “Like I said, I’m a friend of Sandis’s. She’s looking for you guys.”

  Dar softened a fraction. A very small, barely noticeable fraction. “She freed us. But Kazen—”

  “Kazen is the reason she’s looking for you. She wants to gather you, act as summoner.” Rone still didn’t like Sandis blatantly putting herself in harm’s way, but if Sandis wanted to try it, and Dar was right in front of him . . . he might as well help. “She thinks you could take a stand—”

  Dar held up a hand, stopping him. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Nearly whispering, Rone added, “There’s a numen named Kolosos—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Dar insisted. He snorted. “Summoner. If any of us could manage it, she could. But I’m useless to her. I cut my script the moment I got out of that place.”

  Rone paused a moment, then slowly, mechanically, nodded. Of course he had. Perhaps that was the reason for the earlier falter—an incision not yet healed. From what Rone understood, it didn’t have to be particularly large to do the job, but it also never hurt to be thorough. It’s what Rone would have done—made himself useless to Kazen. Made it so he couldn’t be used that way ever again.

  It’s what he wished Sandis would do, even if it only saved her from one of the men trying so desperately to hurt her.

  Just as Rone had hurt her.

  “We split up, but my guess is the others have done the same.” Dar’s eyes bolted to the right, checking for listeners. “They’d be stupid not to.” He rubbed sweat from his forehead. “I should move on. If they fire me, I’m a dead man. Don’t look for me again.”

  And with that, Dar stepped away from the storage unit and jogged toward the temporary fence, where his companion stood beside a pile of wooden beams. They were too far for Rone to hear what they said, but it didn’t matter. Dar’s script was cut. He was useless as a vessel, though the golden brands printed into his back would forever mark his enslavement.

  Pushing off the storage unit, Rone headed toward the construction, then climbed over another fence toward a sad-looking building of flats. He needed to get back.

  When he told Sandis the news, he hoped she wouldn’t blame the messenger.

  Chapter 16

  Sandis sat on the floor of Rone’s mother’s flat, legs tucked under her. A single candle burned against the growing darkness outside; she didn’t want to waste resources by lighting more. She also didn’t want to disrupt the strange reverence that drifted through the room—or risk that someone outside the curtained windows might catch a glimpse of the flames burning on the other side of the glass.

  She and Ireth had not been able to communicate in words; he couldn’t speak, and Sandis could only assume he understood her.

  Regardless, they had been together once again, and though they were not bound, Sandis had never felt closer to her numen. She’d stayed with Ireth a long while, murmuring her apologies and stroking his leathery nose. Ireth had let her tears sizzle against his dark skin and pressed warmth into the coldest recesses of her soul.

  Bastien now lay supine on the floor, the blanket covering him from chin to toe. It was singed on one edge. The Godobian would likely be unconscious until morning. Sandis smoothed loose tendrils of hair from his face as she watched his chest rise and fall.

  Oh, how she envied the name tattooed into the base of his neck, and yet gratitude filled her to bursting. How could she ever repay him? How could he have let her, practically a stranger, elicit such pain from his body, just so she could see a numen she had a completely bizarre attachment to?

  The lock in the door clicked. A coil of relief rose in Sandis’s chest when Rone stepped inside. He’d been gone awhile. Despite the joy she’d taken in her meeting with Ireth, worry had been steadily building in her chest, more each hour, almost to the point of pain.

  Rone’s brow was tight, his movements distracted. Something was bothering him. But the expression dropped from his face the moment he turned and saw her beside Bastien. His eyes rounded, almost childlike, his forehead creased, his breathing hitched, his shoulders drooped.

  Why?

  Sandis pulled her fingers from Bastien’s hair. “What happened?”

  His umber eyes shifted from Sandis to Bastien. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  Licking her lips, Sandis stood and settled herself on the edge of the sofa. “I summoned.”

  Rone’s eyes narrowed.

  She smiled. She’d summoned. “He let me. I . . . I met Ireth.”

  A faint whistle passed Rone’s lips. He walked into the small sitting room and sat on the sofa’s armrest, close to her. “I’m shocked the flat isn’t burned to a crisp.”

  “A numen can control its abilities.”

  “Or you can, anyway.” He nodded to the scabbed-over cut on her arm.

  Placing a hand over the shallow wound, Sandis nodded. “He was beautiful, Rone.”

  Rone eyed Bastien. “He’s terrifying.”

  She blinked. “When did you . . . ?” Oh. The weight in her chest doubled. After she’d been traded back to Kazen, the summoner had invoked Ireth to control her. Rone must have seen the numen then. Shortly before Ireth was taken away.

  They were quiet for a long moment. Sandis watched the candlelight dance across the wall behind it.

  “Do you know what remedial gold is?”

  Sandis straightened. “No. Why? What is it?”

  Rone set his jaw. Was this what was bothering him? “I visited Kurtz.”

  Shivers ran down Sandis’s legs. “You can’t, Rone. He told us not to.”

  Rone rolled his eyes. “I asked him about the man who tried to nab you.”

  “The stranger.” It was as suitable a nickname as any.

  “The stranger. Sure.” He rubbed the scruff lining his jaw. “Supposedly remedial gold is taken from vessels’ brands and sold on the dark market. Some believe it has mystical health benefits and other garbage. Sound familiar?”

  Sandis felt the blood leach from her skin.

  They’d never found Alys.

  No. Kazen took such good care of his vessels. Alys hadn’t been severely injured. Her arm easily could have healed. And Kazen had possessed the amarinth! It would have been easy to . . . to . . .

  “Sandis?”

  Her thoughts turned to smoke. “N-No. I haven’t heard of it.”

  She reached back until her fingers brushed the first brand in her extensive script. Silence layered itself like sand around them, suffocating, until Rone broke it with a sigh and said, “I also found Dar.”

  Whipping her hand from her back, Sandis turned to him, the hollowness in her bones evaporating into moths that fluttered under her skin. “Really? Where?” And why had Rone come back alone?

  She peered toward the window, as if her fellow vessel might be standing on the other side of the pane. She wasn’t particularly close to Dar—of all the vessels, he’d been the most distant. He was always so silent, so stoic, so unfeeling. He’d often made Sandis uncomfortable with his mere presence.

  But that didn’t matter now. He was free, and Rone had found him.

  She asked again, “Where is he?”

  “Working construction in District Three, close to the smoke ring,” he answered. Not one smidgeon of her excitement was mirrored in his words or countenance. “He’s broken his script, Sandis.”

  Sandis deflated like pressed bellows. “Oh.” Of course . . . Dar had always hated being a vessel, and he didn’t know Drang the way Sandis knew Ireth. Of course he’d break his script.

  “Friendly fellow,” Rone quipped.

  Sandis lowered herself back to the sofa. “It’s okay. We’ll find the others. We c
an still—”

  “The others have probably cut their scripts, too.”

  She shook her head. “We don’t know that.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” he said with a groan. “Even Dar said as much. That they’d be stupid not to.”

  Her gaze flashed to him, her eyelids hot. “Am I stupid, then?”

  “God’s tower, Sandis. His words, not mine. But he has a point. I get it. Ireth.” He gestured to Bastien. “But Ireth is gone.”

  Because of you, she thought, but held her tongue.

  “And keeping your script intact will only encourage Kazen to continue hunting you.”

  Sandis clamped her fingers tighter until her knuckles whitened. “They might not have broken theirs. Not yet.” But Kaili and Rist . . . without Kazen’s rules . . . the way they looked at each other. A numen had to be summoned into a virginal body. Even if their scripts were unharmed . . .

  But there was still Alys. They didn’t know anything. Couldn’t make assumptions. She might be out there somewhere, scared and starving in the city, waiting for Sandis to find her . . .

  “I have to try.” She released the pressure in her fingers, letting the blood return to their joints.

  “Black ashes, you are stubborn.” Rone stood and ran a hand back through his hair, then growled when a finger snagged on a knot. “Finding Dar was pure luck. How on earth are you going to find the others? They don’t have a summoner; you can’t just stroll around the city, waiting to sense a numen.”

  “No, but I—” She paused. Considered. Grinned.

  Jumping up from the sofa, she nearly embraced Rone, then stopped herself and awkwardly backed away. Rone gave her that childlike look again . . . mixed with confusion.

  “They can sense a numen, Rone,” she explained, bouncing on her toes.

  Rone stared at her for a few seconds before his countenance slackened. “No, Sandis. Please no.”

  But she nodded and smiled. “I can stroll around the city and find them. Or better yet, they’ll find me.”

  She need only wait until Bastien woke up. Ireth would never do for the plan—he was too large, too bright. They needed a smaller numen, and Sandis knew just the one. But she’d need Bastien to help her.

  She couldn’t summon a new numen into him—once a vessel was bound, the bound numen was the only creature that could inhabit the person’s body. But Bastien had done all the summoner meditations alongside her, and possibly with his old master, too. He could summon the numen into her.

  Kneeling beside Bastien, Sandis listened to the sounds of his slumber, hoping its rhythm would change and he’d wake up. It didn’t, but Sandis held on to hope.

  “Give me one day, Sandis.”

  Confused, Sandis turned to him. “For what?”

  Rone allowed himself a deep breath before answering, “I have one more person I can ask. One more . . . means of getting information. Just give me tomorrow.”

  She slowly rose to her feet. “How?” A cold feeling creeped into her chest, like someone pressed a ramrod between her breasts.

  “Jurris Hadmar,” he said. “A contact of mine. I’ll go just before dawn. I doubt he’s still in the same place, but I can figure out where he went. He might know where Kazen snuck off to.”

  “You don’t sound sure.”

  He straightened then, like he recognized the slump of his shoulders and hunch to his back and meant to hide them away. “I am sure. I just . . .”

  Sandis frowned. “You’re not telling me something.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He stood, stretched. “But I’m going alone. Not just to protect you, and him”—he nodded toward Bastien—“but because if I go anywhere near Hadmar with a vessel, he’ll kill me without question.”

  That ramrod began to pierce her skin, despite its metaphorically blunt end. She took a step toward him. “Rone, don’t. I can find the vessels, and we’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” he interrupted. “Sit here until Kazen finds you? Until the stranger does?” He moved toward her and placed his too-warm hands on her shoulders. Shivers of heat and ice zapped through her skin at the contact. Leveling his face with hers, Rone murmured, “I’m going to fix this, Sandis. One way or another, I’m going to fix this.”

  And as she felt a hot, unearthly claw stroke the back of her neck, Sandis found herself desperately hoping he could.

  Rone stifled a cough as he plowed his way through the listless crowds in the smoke ring. Between the haze overhead and the shadows draping the buildings surrounding him, the streets looked gray and dreary. He passed a manhole, and the ripe smells of waste fingered his nostrils. He bumped into a man in order to avoid knocking over two kids with dirt-streaked faces. His unfelt apology was muffled against his sleeve as he fruitlessly tried to filter the dirty air entering his lungs.

  His destination was ahead. He couldn’t see it from the main road, so he took a tight path between two factories and slipped behind a third, getting yelled at by a security guard with a half-finished jug of ale in his hand. It had been some time since Rone passed by this way, and it hadn’t been in daylight.

  If this was a dead end, so be it. They’d move on with Sandis’s plan. But Rone hated not knowing. He hated being useless.

  The warehouse he sought looked like a squished sandwich left out in the gutter for a couple of days. Its concrete walls were a sickly sort of gray, and its rows of windows were all boarded up, some broken. It was an out-of-the-way place, one that could be difficult to sneak into.

  Rone rounded his way to the back door and pulled out his lockpicks. It took a few tries to get the pins where he wanted them. The door opened about an inch before hitting a bar. Taking the knife from his boot, Rone stuck the blade under the bar and, grabbing the hilt with both hands, managed to lift the thing.

  He tried to slip in quickly enough to grab the bar before it hit the ground, but didn’t make it. He winced as the sound echoed up the interior stairwell. Sheathing his knife, Rone continued on carefully, slipping one hand into his jacket pocket so he could cradle the amarinth.

  It gave him little comfort. His pulse pounded in his neck.

  He tried to move as nonthreateningly as he could. He reached another door, picked it, and opened it carefully. Released his amarinth, regrettably, so he could hold out both empty hands to indicate he was harmless. The place seemed abandoned, but he needed to be sure.

  He found a third door, unlocked. Beyond that was the body of the warehouse, with metal shelves stacked up to the ceiling. The lighting was spotty and gray where it peeked around the boards on the windows. Rone combed his memory for details of his first job with Hadmar—his second hadn’t involved him coming here. It looked different now, didn’t it? It had seemed more comfortable before.

  He passed the first set of shelves. Peered down a dusty aisle. Cursed. They had moved on—

  Footsteps behind him. Rone spun just in time for a club to hit the side of his head.

  Pain radiated across his skull and down his neck as he fell to the hard, filthy floor, catching himself on an elbow. A sticky trickle ran down the side of his ear. Despite his disorientation, he could feel his assailant moving for another blow—

  “Hadmar,” he rasped, holding up an arm to block even as the room spun. “I’m looking for Hadmar.”

  Another blow didn’t come, thank the heavens, but his attacker grabbed the front of his shirt and hauled him upward. Kolin man, similar in size and build to Rone. “Hadmar moved,” he spat, his breath smelling like onion. A second set of footsteps announced another man. Rone wanted to say, Then why are you guarding this place? But he sensed it would be best not to challenge him.

  “I need an exchange of information,” Rone said, meeting the man’s eyes, forcing his body to remain limp, weak. He didn’t think he had anything Hadmar needed or wanted to know, but he had to try. “Hadmar’s hired me before.”

  “But he didn’t hire you this time,” snapped Onion.

  The man behind Rone said, “What should we do with him?�
�

  “Take me to Hadmar. He’ll want to see me,” Rone tried. “He knows me. Engel Verlad. Our business has been good.”

  Onion snarled. Scowled at his companion. Something unspoken passed between them. Onion released his collar at the same moment the unseen lackey tugged fabric around Rone’s eyes, blinding him. He followed it up with a belt cinched too tight. The pressure made Rone’s headache skyrocket, but on the plus side, maybe it would staunch the bleeding.

  The unseen man helped him up.

  Onion made sure to land a solid punch to Rone’s gut before they walked him away.

  Rone knew he was in a basement before they took off the blindfold. A very deep basement. He’d tripped over dozens of stairs, and not one of them had led up.

  His captors shoved him into a chair that creaked with his weight, then bound his wrists behind him with rope. Tied his ankles. Searched his person. Rone went rigid when he felt them pull the amarinth out of his pocket, but they snickered to each other and shoved it back in.

  “How’s a girl supposta wear dat, mm?” asked a new voice. “Dis, onda other hand,” and he removed the knife from Rone’s boot, letting it kiss his chin before hiding it away.

  This had been a bad idea. Rone focused on his breathing. On remaining relaxed. He had no qualms with Hadmar. His men had no reason to harm him.

  When they finally unbound his eyes, Rone winced, both at the bright kerosene lights and at the blood rushing to his crown. The world around him was blurry for a full minute as Rone tried to blink himself to clarity.

  A man in an off-white suit stood before him, well fed with an unfashionable mustache. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut close and thoroughly oiled.

  Hadmar.

  “Well! It is you,” the man said, the faintest trace of a southern accent on his tongue. Rone knew the man had been in Dresberg a long time, but perhaps he kept the lilt for nostalgia’s sake. Hadmar stepped closer until he was almost in kicking distance, were Rone’s feet not restrained. “Engel Verlad. I haven’t seen you in a good while.” His eyes narrowed. “I have reasons for that.”