Death and the Merchant (River's End Book 1)

by C. H. Williams

  Or, at least, the old Sam would’ve been proud. The one who hadn’t written those letters. Who hadn’t played spy to Clark all these years.

  Not the one that betrayed her.

  Her eyes drifted to the note tacked above her bed, nailed there by a ten-year-old girl with a book full of too-long words.

  Don’t give up, just yet.

  Keep asking those questions, and you’ll get there.

  It’d been tucked in the cover of the book—her book, the book she’d never have been able to afford—and held at the counter, the day after she’d accosted the merchant boy in the back of the bookstore. The day after she’d met Sam.

  It was sort of funny, because she’d read through Sam’s letters time and time again, the ones handed over to Clark, by Clark, and not once, did he mention the bookstore. The damn things didn’t even start until she’d known Sam for the better part of a year. Until after she’d been arrested for stealing that roll.

  She’d first met Sam in the bookstore—had held him up, told him to stand and deliver whatever information he’d had, when she’d asked him to define the words she’d never even heard of before—and it hadn’t just been that. Ten years old, and he’d been fifteen, and he’d seen her for the child she was. He’d hardly known her for ten minutes, didn’t even know her name, and he’d seen her, waiting at the storefront window for Teddy. He must’ve known she was afraid of the dark. Afraid to walk the six blocks over to find her brother, alone, a child on the streets of Taylor Town.

  That had been the start of it all.

  The real start.

  Eight months later, when he’d pulled her out of the debtor’s cells, when the letters started—gods, it was difficult to be furious at those moments.

  Whatever else he’d done, Sam had looked after them both, after that.

  Eight months after they’d met, and by all rights, he hardly knew them, beyond the afternoons in the bookstore, or else the afternoons that morphed into hanging out the general store, Sam tossing the occasional half-copper in the till so Elsie could have a stick of candy, talking all the while with Teddy about books and the weather and what it was like, living on a farm, and parties and dresses and anything else that those two could possibly think of.

  But those months had proved enough, because he’d pulled her out of the debtor’s cells, and he must’ve realized, then, they’d been starving, because there was always food, after that.

  And Clark…

  You’ve known my son for nine years, and not once did you question why the charge of the Commissioner—the heir to the district, heir to the Guild, even—would befriend a poor little farm girl. You never stopped to wonder, and now, in your hands, you hold the answer to a question you were too naive to even ask.

  He assumed it was Sam, who approached Elsie. He assumed that even for her uncouth naivete, she’d know better than to reach beyond her station.

  He assumed wrong.

  Then, too, there was the matter of the gap. Why withhold eight months’ worth of letters? If the aim was to guard her, to gather a steady stream of information about the one who’d inherit the city beyond imagining, it seemed ill-advised to willingly forego additional intelligence. And Sam—he’d never been the heir to the district. Rumors flew viciously, but he was a bastard.

  This district was Cele’s.

  There was only one reasonable explanation.

  Sam hadn’t told Clark.

  It’d been Clark, keeping tabs on Elsie—and by default, Sam, after he’d started hanging about. Clark, who saw his ward was perfectly poised to play the courier-spy.

  Either he’d seen a chance for Sam to befriend a child of powerful potential—for what could better bond two people than the rescuing of one by the other, she thought bitterly—or he’d known that Sam had been hanging about.

  The latter was more likely.

  Whispers swept after Sam wherever he went.

  Which meant that, for reasons she could not understand, Sam had cordoned off those eight months.

  Kept them, not for himself, but for her.

  A small slice of privacy.

  Or, another thought edged, Clark already had those eight months.

  And the realization dawned on her.

  Sam probably hadn’t been the first.

  If she truly was the heir to a city beyond imagining…

  Sam had simply been an opportunity.

  An easier line, direct to her narrative.

  He’d been used, too.

  A means to an end.

  And that made it so much harder to be angry, which was frustrating, because she prided herself on being well-practiced at the feeling.

  Elsie let the satchel sink off her shoulder and onto the bed, and closing her eyes, she sighed.

  Perhaps this…this wasn’t the moment to run.

  “What are you doing?”

  The pernicious tone of a little girl cut through the air, and Elsie started violently, whirling.

  Atop the desk, the kobalde.

  “You,” Elsie hissed, darting forward on instinct, grabbing for the little she-demon.

  But Chim disappeared, and Elsie was left grasping at air, a memory of an inky black column the only evidence she hadn’t been alone.

  “You can’t get me,” the little voice simpered. Elsie’s head snapped to the shadow stepping into the moonlight beneath the window, and the kobalde was giggling as she smoothed out her smock. “Not unless I want to get got.”

  You can’t and Elsie lunged again, Chim was nothing but smoke in the dark. “This isn’t a gods-damned game—”

  “It is always a game,” the kobalde challenged, lingering by the bedroom door, finger trailing at the handle. “Going somewhere?”

  “None of your gods-damned business—”

  “It is always my business, the comings and goings of a girl like you.” Her eyes were inked-out, shining wells of black. “You shouldn’t be out, on a night like this.”

  “Leave—”

  But the kobalde snapped her fingers, and the words were cut off.

  Coiling up her arms, down her legs, around her middle, twisting, twisting, rope curled like morning glory vines, binding her tight. Elsie was squirming, fighting them off, muffled cries for help rendered useless by the rough gag worked between her biting teeth, and panic was rising, deep and insidious.

  She was trapped.

  AUGUSTUS

  “Morality is dreadfully exhausting. For once, wouldn’t it be fun to be wicked and well-rested?”

  ~Alva Praequintelya

  Dark had fallen, and Augustus paced the Western Gate, vial clenched in his fist.

  Collected as the Master had instructed.

  Ruby Tears. Called so, because that was where they bled first. From the eyes. Little red droplets, trailing down cheeks, potent and fresh.

  And after it’d been collected, he’d sought solace in the gods.

  They gave their blood, through the vessel, and Augustus repaid them with sweat and prayers. He had hiked the Watcher, the great looming peak that pierced the sky, refusing food and water as he cleansed himself through the exertion. He had bathed in the font of the temple, had anointed himself in oil and ice. He had prayed, prayed until his knees were stinging on the alter steps, prayed until his bones were locked in the form of penance, and then, he had prayed some more.

  He’d prayed to the Ender. To the Trickster. To Winter, and to Wisdom. To the Healer. To Order, to Summer, to the Sun itself.

  Now, forgiven, he waited.

  The Master moved silently down the border, the only sound the padding beast panting and growling at his side. Cloaked, no face was to be seen—but that was to be expected. Such magics as the Master knew were forbidden, and even a transient practitioner had to be wary.

  The silver threads of Augustus’s own insignia gleamed in the moonlight.

  A reluctant partnership, the Master and the General.

  Loyalty before amity.

  And make no mistake, it was loyalty that
drove him here. He had watched good men and women and ro die at the hands of a ruthless enemy hoping to bleed the Drada dry.

  Well, the humans had an expression.

  Fight fire with fire.

  Or, in this case, blood with blood.

  This was the only answer.

  “You have it,” the Master drawled, joining Augustus by the gate.

  Augustus gave a curt nod, uncurling his fingers to offer the vial.

  The Master took it, uncorking the stopper with an easy flick of his thumb, and holding it before his darkened face, he inhaled deeply. “Oh, very good,” he murmured, voice intoxicated, “very good indeed, love. This will do.” Turning, a single finger beckoned Augustus through the dark. “Come.”

  TEDDY

  “There are days, anymore, where it would take very little to surprise me. This was not one of those days.”

  ~Theodore Alderton

  It was a loud thud from the hallway beyond that drew Teddy’s attention.

  Of course, the neighbors upstairs were unmercifully heavy-footed, and across the hall, they’d just had a baby, and gods, the screaming—but this, this was the sound of someone hitting the landing below with the weight of a body behind them.

  With an exasperated scoff, he closed his eyes, and leaning his head back against the tile, he let himself sink down into the steaming water of the bath.

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  Teddy pried open his eyes, glaring at Sam as he stood before the sink, a tiny jar of what looked like orange jelly balanced precariously on the edge. Sam’s eyes were fixed intensely on his own reflection as he scrubbed the jelly into his face with his fingertips, the movements painstaking, his concentration palpable. “What the hell is that?”

  “Sugar scrub. Marjorie’s recommendation, from the shop—course, she says it’ll take ten years off—”

  “Oh, gods above, Sam, you’re twenty-four, you take ten years off—”

  “It’s just something to get this gods-damned ash off my face,” he snipped, shooting Teddy a look in the mirror. “Pardon me for not wanting to finish the evening with the essence of burned woman, and if it takes Marjorie’s scrub to do, then so be it.”

  Teddy frowned, watching as Sam turned on the tap, splashing his face clean. “So?” he asked hollowly as Sam reached for a towel.

  “So, what?”

  “Did it work?”

  Sam inhaled deeply, running a hand along his jawline. “I dunno.” His gaze flicked to Teddy, grimacing. “I smell like a tangerine. A very smoky tangerine.” Rolling his eyes, he re-capped the tin, tossing it with derision into the drawer. His blonde hair was still damp from the bath he’d already taken, his tan skin still red from where he’d scrubbed it raw, and he seemed to take his tangerine failing as surrender, leaning instead against the counter, looking rather dejected.

  It wasn’t the first body Sam had found dead in an alley, and the first had been his mother, so it wasn’t hard to find the parallel.

  And as for Teddy, it wasn’t the only blood he’d gotten on his hands.

  Maybe his guilt had been written across his face, because Sam was scrutinizing him with crossed arms, eyes dark. “It wasn’t your fault, you know,” he said quietly.

  “I know.” His eyes drifted across the colored bottles lining the lip of the tub, their perfumed oil making the air heavy and thick with lavender and eucalyptus. “I keep telling myself that,” he went on, sitting up, water sploshing against the side of the tub, “that I did everything, that her death was the—the act of a coward, that it isn’t on my hands, and I…don’t think I will ever really believe that, Sam.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the girl in the ally.”

  “Yeah, well,” Teddy mumbled, fist hitting the surface of the water with resignation, “neither was I.”

  It’d been weeks, and he hadn’t been able to shake the dream.

  The sweetness of the start. The bitter end.

  Nothing about how Tess died was right.

  For their faults, they’d adored that little girl, Marlene and Gregory. Her death had broken them both into apathetic squalor, though, and he couldn’t remember a single tear being shed after she left.

  She’d died, and their family had, too. Slowly. Painfully. The beginning of a very long end.

  Abandoning the tub, he rose, stepping onto the mat, and yanked a towel from the rack, glaring at nothing in particular. “Well. Anyway,” he muttered under his breath, trying to snap himself out of memory. It wouldn’t do to lose himself in melancholy again. Not when the Thread had found the warpath in that regard, apparently—an unpleasant development, one he could’ve certainly gone without.

  At the thought, the Thread nudged him, almost like it was offended.

  Healer.

  Fletcher’d used that word, in the ally.

  I didn’t know you were a Healer.

  Well, Teddy thought sardonically, neither did I, Fletcher. Neither did I.

  “Anyway?” Sam edged, raising an eyebrow.

  “You said you were thinking?”

  “Oh.” His expression of displeasure melted, shoulders relaxing slightly. “Yeah, I was thinking, this evening exempted, that the apartment’s starting to feel a little crowded. And then…” He paused, fiddling with his hands. “There’s the matter of work.”

  Work, and the slowly draining accounts.

  “We haven’t really talked about it,” Sam went on, glancing down at the floor, “but I…I don’t think it’s likely I’ll be able to find work in the district again. Mulligan’s was a long-shot from the start, and—and it’s done, now. The lease here is up next month, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find we’re not able to renegotiate, either. And I keep thinking about what a big place the world is. About all the places we haven’t seen, places we don’t even know exist—”

  A loud knock shattered through the apartment, cutting him off.

  Frowning, Teddy tugged the belt around the dressing robe tight, following Sam down the hall, a billow of steam from the bathing room at his heels.

  “Two in the gods-damned morning…” Sam yanked the door open, glaring.

  And froze.

  Chim was standing politely at the threshold, hands laced behind her back, red hood tilted back. Her perfectly girlish curls were askew, her usually bright pinafore apron wrinkled and smudged with dirt—though beyond this, she seemed in high spirits, flashing them both a wide smile. “Good evening,” she beamed, bouncing on her toes with excitement.

  But Teddy’s eyes had fallen in disbelief to the parcel—or rather, person—in tow.

  Elsie was on the floor, leaning against the corridor wall, scowling. She’d been gagged, a great mass of rope stuffed in her mouth, her hands tied behind her back, her ankles bound.

  Sam was already across the hall, kneeling beside her, deft fingers undoing the gag amid her muffled protestations. “El, please—”

  “No, shut up—it’s her,” she snapped, grimacing as he let the rope fall. “It’s her! Get her!”

  “Are you hurt?” Teddy’s fingers were shaking as he tried to loose the bit about her ankles, but the knot had been pulled impossibly tight—

  “Ugh! Get her, you moron! She—”

  “Well, that’s quite rude,” Chim remarked, watching them from where she leaned lazily against the door frame. “I find time in my very busy schedule to step in and rescue you, and—”

  Sam shooed Teddy’s hands away with a scoff, turning to make quick work of the bindings.

  “Rescue? This isn’t how you rescue people!” Elsie retorted, tone more exasperated than anything else. “That’s a basic principle of rescuing people! You don’t kidnap them—”

  Teddy was waving them both off, running a hand through his hair as he glanced between them. “Okay, El just—what happened?”

  “I was trying to tell you! She kidnapped me!”

  “You,” he muttered, turning for Chim.

  “Yes, her!” Elsie cut in, turning for Sam to reach the bindings be
hind her back. “It’s her! She’s the kobalde!”

  TEDDY

  “Burn. Burn unceasingly, unendingly, burn until all that remains is the charred earth, fertile, ready to begin again.”

  ~Greysha Boewliç

  “Kobalde,” Teddy echoed, staring at Chim.

  The little girl merely plucked the bag of candies from her pocket, and began fishing around inside.

  “Just—get—will you hurry up,” Elsie snapped, glaring over her shoulder at Sam, “since neither of you’ll—”

  “I told you. You can’t get me if I don’t want to get got,” Chim frowned, examining a piece of candy against the flickering wall sconce of the hall.

  “Everything alright out here?” A rather stout woman was peering out of the door several apartments down, her hair in rolling papers, surveying the chaos in the hall with something between interest and annoyance.

  “Yes, Mrs. Hughes,” Sam muttered, releasing the rope from Elsie’s wrists, and beginning to coil it quickly in his hands. “Nothing to see here, simply the usual hubbub…”

  “Well, hush!”

  Her door slammed, sconces rattling, and Teddy pulled his robe a little tighter, face heating.

  Elsie made a grab for Chim—

  She vanished.

  Actually vanished, nothing left but a hint of the black vapor she’d been swallowed up into.

  A high-pitched giggle echoed from within the apartment a moment later. “Well, come on,” Chim was laughing, bouncing up and down on Sam’s sofa, clapping her hands with glee. “It isn’t a game if nobody else plays!”

  Elsie was rubbing her wrists, lurking in the entry way, shooting dirty looks at a very vivacious Chim, who’d taken to wandering with great curiosity about the apartment, touching anything and everything vaguely of interest. “You’re being awfully calm about this,” she snipped to Teddy under her breath, never taking her eyes off the kobalde.