“You always amaze me,” Shade says, turning to take the lead.
I grab her by the shoulder, pulling her back into place behind me, with Roarke and Seth behind her.
“Shadow,” I order, and she chuckles.
Chuckles.
All of my muscles tense, but it’s too late. She’s already set my skin on fire, my chest, low in my torso – every-fucking-thing.
We move through the stalls. Making purchases. Giving the locals reasons to believe we’re here for supplies and nothing more. Roarke takes care of the haggling. Pax makes sure Roarke actually pays the people and doesn’t Allure them into just giving things to us. Which is exactly why he and Seth are banned from every gambling den in the realm – which also doesn’t stop them from Alluring their way inside.
Salted meat. Solid lard. Rock cakes and crisp bread. Apples and oranges. Dried fruits and nuts. A water bottle for the woman. Essentials.
When we reach an intersection where the goods turn from produce to products, everyone naturally separates. Pax to a jewelry merchant to ask about his travels and the kinds of trouble he’s had. Rumors too, I assume. Anything a vendor who moves from market to market might have come across. Seth approaches a haggard looking old man trying to sell tin whistles, and Roarke cuts across to a bookseller… figures.
I would love to push her into one of their shadows – but I can’t trust any of them, and I can only trust her when she’s in my shadow.
On my direct right is a cloth merchant’s stall, hung heavy with bolts of fabric and lengths of gossamer. The man inside is barely visible behind his wares. He makes a throaty coughing noise, spits on the ground, then looks angrily out at the crowd. The next stall down has a long table covered in Silvari glassworks. The young man behind the counter looks confident about his product, but uncomfortable with the crowd.
Uncomfortable wins.
I approach the man, cocking my head to one side as I listen for the sound of my shadow walking behind me.
“Oh, wow,” the merchant says. “You don’t look like the kind of person to buy glass.”
I look over the items. A small clear dove sitting on green branches with red berries. An ink holder made to look like twisting vines. A collection of fine rings in all the colors that glass-dye could possibly come in, and a perfectly clear bracelet with five incredibly thin colored lines running through it. Around it. Never-ending circles.
I grunt. Circles are always never-ending.
And the merchant is right about me.
“News from the road. Trouble?”
“No, sir,” the kid says, his pulse quickening. He begins to lick his lips and swallow heavily – almost uncontrollably. “Saber, sir.”
He might be about to piss himself. As much as I would enjoy that, we’ve got a job to do.
I turn to leave just as Shade steps in close and loops her arms through mine. I look down at her. Pulled in close to me, her fingers looping into mine and her other hand resting against my bicep. Half of the tape on her fingers and arms has come off. The healing nicks are thin red lines against golden skin.
Wounds I gave her.
If I didn’t need this information, I’d take that hand and throw it, and her, to the edge of this damn bubble.
“What my dear friend here,” she begins, oblivious to my reaction, “Is trying to ask, is if you might have come across any rumors of any kind of trouble. We’ve been tracing a rogue Saber who has kidnapped a woman and child, and we just want to get them back safely,” she says.
A scent teases at the back of my nose, and I sniff the air just to be sure. Lilies and roses.
She’s flirting with him.
The guy looks shocked at first. From the pretty girl to me and back again.
To Silvari, a mortal would feel – weak. Like something lesser. They probably can’t tell why, most Silvari have never met a mortal in their lives. Some thrive on dominating others. Some might just take pity on her. None would see her as an equal.
Not sure if there’s any other emotions on that spectrum.
Don’t care, either.
He steps in a little closer, his gaze so intently on her that I have to put my hand in my pocket to stop from drawing my sword. I could take the guy’s head off from here. It’d be so quick, so soundless. Not even a scream. No one would know.
“There are rumors of beasts on the roads, moving towards the borders. Some say they’re being called by a BeastSeed, but my grandmother swears BeastSeeds are just myths. FaunaSeeds enchant birds and deer, but these creatures are feasting on any travelers they find. I haven’t seen one, and I travel from the coast to the western border then back again, so maybe they’re just rumors. Even still, the merchants have begun moving in caravans – and no one dares camp on the road anymore.”
I avoid meeting Shadow’s gaze. She’s thinking what I am. BeastSeeds are real, and the one hunting us has been hard at work sending creatures towards a force of magic that should be impenetrable to them.
“Why?” I ask.
The guy’s eyes flick to meet mine. Shadow’s done a good job getting him to talk, and he starts sharing the details with me while the girl lets go of my arm and moves to explore the glass on display. She hovers her hand over the bracelet for a moment before moving further down the table.
“Rumor is they want out. That’s all I know.”
Seth joins us, and I thank the merchant with a few copper coins. I move toward my Shadow, rubbing the spot where her hand was resting, trying to relax the sensation of wanting her close again. I’m about to thank her for intervening when she begins to whisper.
“Is this Silvari glass?” she asks.
I nod, a ‘yes’ noise escaping me.
“This was in the riddle. This is what –” She waves her hand to indicate her neck. “What he keeps those souls in?”
I nod.
“But it’s so delicate. This feather is so fine I can hardly see the thing.”
She reaches for it. It’s one of the heavier pieces on the table, the kind of thing Roarke would use as a paperweight. I take a step back, letting Seth between us. The markets are still flowing, customers coming and going. Pax is still talking to the jewel merchant and Roarke is just thanking the book merchant.
“It won’t break,” Seth says.
“Of course it can break,” Shadow says.
“Silvari glass is incredibly strong. You’d have to drop that from the top tier.” He points straight up into the trees. “Onto stone just to chip it,” Seth says. “If it would chip at all.”
I turn my head just in time to see Shadow’s fingers brush against the tip of the feather.
It shatters.
Shadow opens her mouth to scream. Seth covers the distance to her before the sound can escape. He wraps one arm around her waist – glass fragments still in the air.
He may have just said, “Yoink,” as he snatched her away from the shattering glass.
Not stopping until he’s down the street with her. In a blink. Pushing his speed to its limits.
I growl, pull my coins out, and offer the merchant payment.
“I look like I would accidentally break Silvari glass – right?” I ask the merchant – order him, really.
He nods profusely and takes the money.
All my money.
This stuff isn’t cheap.
76.5 miles from Potion Master Eydis
Can you break? I ask internally, as my fingers whisper across the glass feather.
The glass shatters.
The merchant squeals, diving for cover.
The fragments are still in the air when Seth wraps his arm around my waist.
“Yoink,” he says softly, as he lifts me up so my feet are off the ground and pulls me in close to him.
His speed dissolves the distance between the glass merchant and the end of the street, ripping the breath from my lungs and leaving me gasping.
When we stop, he relaxes his grip enough for my boots to settle on the ground. My head spins, an
d my feet stumble as he turns me around and forces me to face him. He grips my chin and tilts my head back, giving me a sharp look that is so unlike him, melting my confusion into worry. Full blue-eyed intensity traces over every inch of me. He turns my head to the left, then the right, then the left again.
“What?” I ask. “Have I grown a moustache?”
My mouth is in fine form – even though my heart’s racing, and my mind is terrified of his reaction. Of his fear.
A smile stretches across his lips – I love being able to do that to him.
“I’m looking for blood.”
“Is there any?”
He shakes his head, just once. Over Seth’s back, way down the row of stalls, Killian is paying the glass merchant. I feel the odd need to go back and claim all the untouched glass as mine. Not buy it, just take it.
“I really don’t know anything about mortals,” Seth says as he blows the fine glass dust from his arm.
Pax blurs across the marketplace, using his super-Saber-speed, followed quickly by Roarke and Killian. Surrounding me.
“What happened?” Pax demands, his gaze boring into me.
“Apparently when mortals touch Silvari glass, it shatters,” Seth says.
Killian pinches the front of his shirt in two fingers and tugs at it. Glass dust billows off of him.
“Into dust?” Roarke asks, eyes wide and full of wonder.
“Why? Is dust unusual?” I ask.
“Usually when the stuff breaks, it’s thin like a razor blade and cuts deep and fast,” Roarke explains.
Plucking some from my hair, he rolls it through his fingers. His head tilts to one side, and his long hair falls around his face as he thinks.
“This is finer than the sand that glass blowers use to begin with,” he says.
He holds his fingers up and shows me the droplets of blood left there.
“Crap,” I exclaim, tipping my head over and trying to shake the remnants free before I’m the one bleeding.
I don’t like bleeding, but I do it often enough without the help of razor sharp glass.
Roarke kneels down, looking up at me from under my hair. “You’re obviously not cut, Kitten.”
I freeze. Obviously.
“Do I look like an idiot right now?” I ask.
I’m bent over in the middle of the street. Bum in the air, hair flung over my head, dancing and shaking and jumping around.
He raises an eyebrow at me – trying not to laugh.
Seth is laughing.
I swallow hard. The abrasions on his fingers have already healed over. What I would give to heal like that.
“But I’ve touched your glass before – I washed dish after dish of it,” I say from under my hair, before I straighten, pull my clothes back into some kind of order, and then act like none of that just happened.
“That was just glass. Silvari glass is made using a recipe – like a potion, it directly uses power,” Roarke says, standing up beside me. “It’s super secretive. No one other than those who work it ever get to see the process. And they’re sealed up, never to walk in society again.”
“Let me guess – GlassSeeds are extinct too.”
“There are no GlassSeeds,” Seth says, but he looks to Roarke for confirmation.
“Glass magic was created and crafted by the Origins. Access is still pretty limited, very expensive trinkets except at the Black Castle.”
“And OriginSeeds are extinct?”
Killian grunts in answer. A ‘yep’ grunt.
I wince at my lack of tact. “Are all your people dying out?”
Pax nods slowly, and my heart thumps a double beat.
The market is full of people. Three women in fine dresses are carrying baskets of lavender with five kids dancing and singing and chasing after their mothers’ skirts. Colored buntings fly overhead, and a guy selling balloons sings from the corner about how a balloon is the best gift for a child. The place feels alive.
Pax does not look lively. He looks serious, solemn even.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I say, gesturing to the crowded street. “And there were hundreds of you in the White Castle.”
“Yeah,” Seth says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “There are plenty of Silvari without Seeds – just not many of us left with Seeds.”
“There used to be more than four thousand PowerSeed lineages,” Roarke adds softly, motioning to suggest we start walking. “Eight hundred of them have become extinct. Lithael’s father – Lucif – lived for eleven hundred years. The first Seed became extinct the same year he became a dignitary of the Crimson Castle.”
“There is a Crimson Castle?” I ask, which completely shatters my assumption that the White Castle and the Black Castle wore good versus evil titles.
“Was. With less Seeds, the realm has needed less places for them to train and live. The castles are magical; like our borders, their existence relies on a balance of power. The Crimson Castle fell before I was born,” Pax explains.
“Now it’s the most feared piece of land in the kingdom. Lucif really left a stain on it,” Seth adds, but Roarke quickly moves us on.
“Cobalt soon after. Followed by Jade, Amethyst, and Amber.”
“They get reopened as locations for the trials. Except for the Crimson, that is. Poisoned – no one survives that one,” Seth says.
All I can think is that that explains the cutthroat attitude of the servants at the White Castle. More Silvari and less Sabers means not everyone would get the opportunity to actually serve the Elite anymore. I’m not sure what the surplus of servants are off doing, but I imagine it’s much less glamorous – paving roads and tending fields.
The markets sprawl on forever. Silence settles between us.
Eventually Pax stops, and the others follow suit.
“Roarke, the saddler. Seth, the canvas merchant, and Killian, do you think I can trust you with the ribbon merchant?” Pax asks.
The guys nod and move off. I follow Killian because I don’t think the guy can handle a ribbon merchant at all. For one, the merchant is a woman, and for two – Killian has no charm.
I step in front of him.
“Hi, how have sales been today?” I ask, leaning in to examine a piece of pink lace.
“A beautiful day,” she says, eyeing Killian with a crease in her brow that screams her internal dialogue, ‘run, run, run.’
“Oh, don’t mind my –” I search for a word to settle her nerves. Bodyguard isn’t going to work… “Husband. He’s a big softy on the inside.”
Killian grunts, crossing his arms over his chest and all but taking a step back. But the woman relaxes, taking her hands from her apron pockets and lifting a roll of red lace.
“This one is much finer quality,” she says. “But I’m thinking that, with your fashion style, black would be more fitting.”
I sigh down at my clothes – Pax’s clothes. Again.
“Actually, a dear friend of ours was due to arrive, traveling the road from the coast, and we’re afraid something has happened to her. Has there been any news of trouble?”
Her expression changes, fear turning to stress.
“The road has become terrifying. The caravan ahead of ours was decimated. We found the carts empty and several of the guards slain, all of the horses released, and the few guards that survived were bruised and scared, hiding in the trees. They wouldn’t tell us what they were transporting, but it was in locked steel boxes and it was still stolen. They babbled that there were five who attacked them. Four men and a woman.”
“Sabers?” I lean forward to whisper-ask.
She nods furiously.
“Rogues? Bandits? Surely not a triune?”
“The surviving guards traveled with us until we reached Berminta. Told tales of the attackers being young, maybe even too young for the call. One was a dragon, another a ShimmerSeed. And a MagnetSeed – that’s how they stole the locked boxes. A MagnetSeed – they’re not even supposed to exist. And a woman who cou
ld control the world with her words. I thought they were fantasy, a new fairytale in the making. But when we reached Berminta, enforcement ushered the men in for questioning and we never saw them again – that struck me as weird. We left Berminta as soon as we could.”
I feel the heat, the power, roll off Killian, but he doesn’t say or do anything.
Time to end this conversation.
“Thank you,” I say to the woman.
She offers me a smile, then turns to tend a customer at the other end of her counter.
I step back to leave, but Killian doesn’t move – because three men are walking straight for us.
Sabers, just by the look of them. The biggest guy is in the middle, a bow sticking out over his shoulder. The thing is huge. His brows sit heavily over his eyes, giving him an angry look even though he’s smiling. The armed men on either side of him push back the waists of their cloaks, flashing the hilts of swords. The one on the left has a ruggedly handsome face, ruined by a nose that is a little too big and, at some point, had the tip sliced off. The guy on the right runs his fingers through his hair, turning in a circle as he walks to whistle at a Silvari woman in a flowing blue gown.
The woman giggles, hesitating as if she might come over to the guy. But he waves her off and she scurries down the street.
“Enforcement,” Killian growls.
“Wait,” I say, putting a hand on his arm before he can turn to leave, or worse – draw his weapon. “Aren’t they the best people to ask for information?”
“They’re long-term enforcement. They live and work here.”
“So, that means they should have loads of details for us. Why didn’t we go to them first?”
Killian shakes his head. “No, that means they’re not doing their jobs, or worse – they are a part of the problem.”
I purse my lips. He’s right, but I’m right too.
“Let’s just hear them out,” I suggest.
The men stop in front of us.
“I’m listening,” Killian growls loudly.
I roll my eyes.
“What my friend is trying to say is ‘hello’,” I translate.
“Well, hello to you too,” the whistler says.
I’m standing close enough to Killian that I feel him beginning to move. I wrap my arm through his before he can kill the guy. I am assuming he’s planning on killing the guy.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 56
