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

by C. H. Williams

  All he could think was that it was probably a decent break for Sam, not being the person in the apartment she mistrusted the most.

  It was sort of weird, that she’d been dropped in the hall, bound and gagged, but she wasn’t hurt, beyond the tender rope-burns on her wrist, and that she didn’t bear any worse scars might very well be a first, coming back from the farmhouse at this ungodly hour, and with exhaustion pressing down on him, it was difficult to be anything more than just a bit fussed at the interruption. She’d found her fair share of trouble, and this…

  Well, this didn’t even hit the board.

  And Chim—whatever she was, she seemed harmless enough.

  “So, what precisely happened?” Sam asked, passing Elsie a tin of salve for the burns on her wrists, which she took with hardly a side-long glare—a veritable peace offering, almost.

  “She barged into my room—”

  “Oh, quite untrue,” Chim mused, turning over a small music box in her hands. Her fingers found the key beneath it, and a moment later, sweet music chimed up, tinny and warm, gears clicking in time to the tune. “See, she was about to run away—”

  “Not true!” Elsie snapped, a glob of salve forgotten on her fingertips.

  “—which suited me just fine, but she started looking at the plate, and she got all sad and mopey, and I had no choice but to tie her up,” Chim finished. Setting the music box down, she cocked her head to one side, eyes flitting to Teddy, disturbing and dark. “That was not to be her pyre,” she said quietly, voice going flat. “That is not the alter upon which she’ll end. The others, though…” She shook her head. “They had to burn.”

  He was a mountain.

  The Thread gave a little twinge at the thought. A small nudge of sympathetic grief, he told himself.

  Not a whispered chastisement, willing him to find his way out of that rocky shell he crawled inside, where the world was cold and still and didn’t hurt.

  Cold smoke burned his lungs long before he could see it, something akin to burning trash perfuming the air, and that, he told himself, was what made his eyes water so viciously, that was what kept his breath at bay, that was the problem, in all of this, that hazy cloud that would linger over Butterfly Ridge come morning.

  Tom was waiting for them, arms crossed, gray eyes fixed on the smoldering rubble of the farmhouse. “Went up ‘bout midnight,” he mumbled. The smell of alcohol on his breath cut through the smoke. “That’s what the neighbors said. Must—must’ve been goin’ before, because that’s when they…” He trailed off, lost.

  Inside, the Thread gave a shiver, like a dog, shaking off water.

  Gravel crunched, a whispered gods on the air as someone else joined in the viewing.

  His eyes skirted the wreckage, tracing where it’d all been.

  And in that moment, it hit him.

  They were gone.

  Marlene and Gregory Mirabeau.

  Mom and Dad.

  Gone.

  I am a mountain.

  The Thread recoiled at the thought, thrashing into his chest, and he’d’ve fallen over, if Elsie hadn’t been at his side to catch him.

  Home, smoldering as the hint of dawn was peering resentfully over the horizon.

  Home, smoke and ash in the air.

  Home, and it was gone, all of it, gone, the hungry nights, the cold nights, the happy nights where the books were enough, the hurting nights of broken ribs, the tender nights where his mother would kiss his forehead and squeeze his cheek and tell him he’d done good picking Sam, the lonely nights where he’d sit at the table with his father and they wouldn’t say a word, the nights when he and Elsie had toasted bread over the roaring fire, the fire that burned them all, took them all, all his nights he’d ever had.

  I am a mountain.

  His knees buckled, Elsie taking a staggering step back, her arms around him, now, shouldering his weight.

  He was burning up. Just like them.

  His feet were reluctant to hold the ground.

  He loosened his death-grip around her, though, letting her pull back enough to see his face—but he left an arm threaded around her waist, all the same.

  If he let go, he would fall.

  And if he fell, he knew there would be no rising.

  She said something, then, soft and gentle, cold fingers brushing his cheek. Her eyes were flooded, too, he noticed, pale light cresting the edge of the world.

  His gaze flicked to Tom, moving now for the charred remains of the farmhouse.

  No, please, not now, I’m not ready—

  He was gesturing to a couple of onlookers, buddies of his, his low, hollow voice asking for a hand—

  Teddy’s throat was tight, his body hot, too hot, watching them poke and prod the blackened planks with toes of boots and half-burned lumber. Someone hollered, rubble shifting, and another grimaced, a prone form lifted up from the ashes.

  He saw the hands first.

  Clawed. Blackened, gnawed by flame.

  I am a mountain I am a mountain

  His heart was racing uncomfortably fast behind his ribs, frenetically pounding an escape, and the world was getting darker again, darker and hotter, burning—

  They were laying the body by the road, crisped skin flaking off onto the red dirt, nothing but the stench of burned meat and the sight of twisted, raw flesh left.

  “El…Elsie,” he stumbled, her name clumsy on his lips. He was clutching her coat where he’d wrapped his arm around her waist, leaning heavily against her.

  Shock. It was shock, that was all it was. He was woozy from shock.

  NO, it seemed to shout, enraged. And in a starburst of anger, the Thread exploded from within his chest, and now he was burning, too, burning black and red and white hot light. He was falling, slipping towards the cool earth beneath, slipping away, away, away.

  His knees hit the packed dirt.

  Voices, voices filled the air.

  Hands, across his body.

  A tremor, through his bones or in the ground, he could not say.

  He heard his name, heard his sister’s voice, felt her arm laced beneath his as she drew him up.

  He knew there was cinnamon and cloves and sun, and that Sam was there.

  They were walking, but he didn’t want to go.

  Walking, and he should stay and help.

  Help.

  Help.

  FLETCHER

  “Love does not afford uncrossed lines.”

  ~Sam Alderton

  He had heard a whisper of the fire burning.

  One foot into the street, and he’d tasted the soot.

  And when he’d seen the ashes for himself in the early morning light, he found himself searching for the sound that’d carried him this far. Wherever she was, though, he told himself it was too far for the beating beneath her ribcage to reach his ears.

  That didn’t stop him from hearing it, all the same.

  Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.

  The wreckage reeked of more than match and tinder.

  You did this, you did this, you did this.

  She had forbidden him from coming to this place.

  Forbidden him from meeting the charred remains, now covered in patchwork quilts, half in the ditch.

  It didn’t matter, in the end, though, because they’d gotten to her, all the same. It wouldn’t end with a kobalde in the brambles, that much, he should’ve known. To come for her family, though, for her…

  But what he felt off the wreckage wasn’t the magic of his people—magic, it was, no question—but it remained unfamiliar. Human, though, if he had to guess.

  There was a temperamentality to that sort of flare. Almost unstable. Unpredictable.

  And the wreckage seemed to scream that sort of volatile magic the humans knew so well.

  That must’ve been her eldest brother, lingering by the bodies of her not-parents. He was stockier than Teddy, his skin looking rather wan and yellow, the stubble of more than a few nights scratching noisily against his finger
tips as he scratched his jawline, frowning at the rubble.

  Another one, forbidden.

  “Pardon.” Fletcher’s voice was hoarse in the smoky air, his tenor pushed higher with nerves.

  Her brother turned, jerked from thought.

  “I—I’m sorry, but El…” He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

  She wasn’t gone. He could hear it, she wasn’t, wasn’t, wasn’t—

  “Left already,” the brother said gruffly, tossing a hand down the road towards town. “Ted’s sick, she an’ Sam took’im home. You’re Thatcher?”

  He tried—and failed—to hide the look of relief he knew was written across his face. “Fletcher. I’m, uh, sorry for your…your loss,” he muttered, turning, “it’s…sorry.” Whatever words he’d meant to say fell flat as he left the brother. Sleepless nights and endless worry had left his mind devoid of any Vernacular words he usually held close, leaving nothing but the flowing Dradic words of his youth and home.

  He’d snapped, last night.

  Another night for her to remember.

  But she’d sent the wine glass singing, the crystal trembling, shaking, screaming with each pass of her dampened fingertips against the rim, the pitch wavering as the wine tilted precariously, dropping by uncomfortably obscure increments as she sipped it away, and it’d sent his skin afire. His hands had been shaking, his head throbbing, and whatever ground they’d gained in their silent game had been lost to the searing pain from between his ears.

  She knew, too. He’d asked her not to make them sing, and she’d done it anyway, not giving a damn that the sound had been eating him alive.

  About one thing, his brother was right.

  Humans could be cruel.

  Fletcher stood before the golden 401, the tremors of his fist against the door still rippling through the wood. Inside, a faucet was running. Someone was pacing—Elsie, if he gauged correctly, her soft foot-falls so opposite of the heel-striking humans lodged above him in the Merchant’s Quarter. Sheets rustled, and someone let out a groan, of pain or relief, he couldn’t tell.

  Humans could be cruel.

  He hadn’t been there, when they’d found Augustus. A Sentinel, he’d been buried in intelligence reports at a border post to the east, devoid of human life. Or any life, for that matter. Nobody cared for the eastern border.

  No, all the action was to the west. The human settlements, with their raiding parties and their production rings and their subsistence farmland that, most years, produced so little it was a wonder they tended it at all.

  Word had been sent, and he’d found Augustus with the medics in the compound infirmary. He’d refused to be moved to the palace.

  But beyond that, he’d returned an empty shell. His pale eyes had remained distant, his jaw clenched in silence as he stared at the ceiling, lost somewhere else.

  Augustus never came back from that place. Not really.

  Humans could be so cruel.

  The problem was, though, his people were no better.

  My people.

  They weren’t his people, not in any true sense.

  The door opened, and Elsie gave a sharp inhale, eyes widening. She’d been crying, but knowing her, probably pretending she hadn’t been. Her dark braid was falling apart at the ends, strands flying out in anarchistic fits, the sleeves of her tunic pushed up to her elbows. “Fletcher.” His name was uncomfortably soft on her lips, soaked deep with warning.

  “I saw,” he managed, and her brow creased—not in disapproval, though, he realized.

  In pain.

  Wordlessly, she beckoned him inside. “Teddy—”

  “It’s enough to make anyone ill,” he mumbled, trying to drown out the conversation from the back of the apartment.

  —my mother—

  “You talked to Tom.”

  —you’re just numb, right now—

  It was an effort to rip the words through the din. “El…”

  “Elsie!” Sam’s voice was sharp with worry, cutting down the hall, and something was wrong, very, very wrong. The sounds of conversation had died into gritting teeth and a shivering bed frame, and he could sense it, the tempestuous quiver of unmistakable power hanging in the air, caustic and sterile.

  This was not the illness of grief.

  Perhaps he mended cuts and scrapes.

  But this, the unmistakable sounds of one violently ill, this, too, was the work of a Healer.

  SAM

  “In his heart, there lay turmoil so vast that it shook the seats of the gods themselves, one word left in the wake of the tremor. Listen.”

  ~Greysha Boewliç

  Sitting in the soft feather bed, curtains drawn against the rising sun, Teddy watched with a look of dismay as Sam rung out a damp cloth over the bathing room sink. “I told you. I’m fine.”

  Sam glanced over, raising an eyebrow. “Mm-hmm.” Then, shaking out the rag, folding it into a neat rectangle, he came to perch on the edge of the bed. “Lean back.”

  Reluctantly, Teddy sank back into the pillows, not sparing him an eye-roll that would’ve made El proud. But as Sam pressed the cool cloth against his forehead, a sigh of relief escaped Teddy’s lips, his eyelids fluttering closed.

  He was burning up.

  The blankets had been kicked back, his thin cotton shirt already soaked with sweat.

  “So,” Sam said softly, blotting Teddy’s pale skin with care, “do you want to talk about it?”

  “Do I want to talk about how I just watched my older brother pull my parents’ burned bodies from what’s left of my home,” he echoed. Ocean eyes blinked open, bleary and bleak. “No. No, I really don’t.”

  Little flecks of soot were bleeding into the white cloth, smudging gray and black across Teddy’s already ashen cheeks. “I remember when they took my mom,” Sam said softly, working the marks from his lover’s skin. They’d talked about it—in nine years, how could they not—but it was different, now.

  They shared the loss.

  He wasn’t the garden path boy running to his best friend. Not anymore.

  “I…” Sam let his hand fall to the bed, cloth forgotten. “Hon, I—I have so much, right now, I wish I could say. And it’s all wrong, but…it’s alright, not to feel a damn thing right now. It’s okay to be numb, or—or buried in the hard facts. But please, Teddy. Don’t tell me that you’re fine. You don’t have to be crying on the floor, or—or collapsed in the road, to not be fine. You can be laying here, quiet inside, and still be not fine. It is allowed, you know.”

  “I know,” Teddy whispered, letting his eyes close.

  “We will get through this. Not—not just today, I mean,” Sam went on quietly, “but…but all…” He trailed off, panic rising as he watched even breaths replaced with jolted, shallow ones, Teddy unhearing, seized with jerks and spasms.

  Her name was on his lips a moment later.

  “Teddy!”

  But crumpled on the bed, furrowed brow welling with beads of moisture, skin flushed with fever, he would not wake.

  “Come on, hon,” Sam begged over Teddy’s unconscious groans. He didn’t want his voice to be so desperate. Didn’t want the fear to edge in any further.

  Just a nightmare. Just a nightmare.

  But people woke up from nightmares.

  What they didn’t do was slip into unconsciousness, shivering and drenched in sweat.

  “Teddy, please! Wake up!” Elsie’s eyes were starting to swim, her knuckles white as she gripped his shoulder, shaking his limp body with dangerous ferocity. “Theodore! Now!” Like using his given name would somehow snap him from whatever hell he’d clearly slipped into.

  His hair was dark with dampness, his body starting to jerk and spasm, and Sam’s hand lingered on his sweat-soaked chest, taking in the rasping breaths, sharp and irregular, racing heart pounding frantically beneath, the other finding Teddy’s limp fingers—

  Like embers beneath his skin.

  Like there’d been something ignited, deep inside.

>   But this was not the beautiful fire of poets and dreamers.

  “What’s wrong with him,” Elsie whispered, her hand shaking as she pushed the tears from her cheeks. “Sam.” Her voice was louder, fear masquerading as anger and blame. “What’s wrong with him?”

  An accusation, like this was his fault.

  Teddy’s hand was hot, too-close-to-the-fire as he brushed his fingers against it once more, and he’d read the lines in a book, once, words that were the closest to prayer he had.

  I will pull you back from death.

  I cannot live without you, and so I pull you back to keep on living.

  A pathetic relinquishment of his own agency.

  But they were so true. So gods-damned true.

  Amid the convulsions, a whorl of sparks crackled up in a rush of ozone where their skin collided.

  Hot in Sam’s veins, prickling deep into his palm, it burned oh so sweetly, knocking the breath from his lungs like it did every damn time but this time was different, this time wasn’t a paring knife that slipped in distraction, a bruised elbow collided with a door frame, a jagged rock slicing his leg with delicious ferocity.

  Let me take a look, Teddy had murmured, hands steady as Sam had winced, grimacing at the streams of red staining his calf, and he was seizing at the flood of memories rushing in the wake of doubt, youthful memories of that hot summer day by the river so many years ago.

  Let me take a look and what he’d really meant was I care that you’re hurting, and I will stop it, if I can.

  Let me take a look and I will always be here to hold your hand, to help you up when you fall down.

  Let me take a look and we are it, you and I.

  But the release was enough.

  Enough to bring Teddy back from whatever hell he’d found.

  Blue eyes flew open, had locked on Sam’s, wide with terror and brimming with tears, and Teddy’s chest was heaving, fingers digging deep into Sam’s hand. “No, no, no…”

  He damned his own voice for breaking as he cradled Teddy’s damp cheek in his shaking hand, thumbing away the tears with soft sweeps. “You’re okay, it’s all okay, I promise, everything—everything’s going to be fine…” But even as he said it, he watched Teddy’s panicked eyes, tears welling in his own.