Shadow City

by Francesca Flores

  Tannis gave a half-shrug, half-nod. “He couldn’t read, so he didn’t know what any of the previous letters said. The Jackals gave them to him to deliver to the Tower, but he didn’t hand them off to any one person. He would leave them tied to the legs of a bench in the courtyard, or in cracks in the wall. The Jackals told him where to put them each time. Whatever is going on, it’s clear there’s a traitor in the Tower. Probably more than one. They could easily help Bautix find a way in when he decides to attack.”

  “If he attacks the Tower, he’ll kill the rest of the Sentinel and rule by himself.” The words made goose bumps rise on Aina’s arms. “It will be a bloodbath. We won’t only have Kohl to worry about anymore.”

  Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. The wind blew the scent of the river toward them, and the sound of crickets chirping reached her ears. Maybe Kohl wanted the Dom for himself, but Bautix would destroy it if the people inside weren’t aligned with him. She gulped, suddenly wanting to run back home and check that it was still there.

  “I don’t care what happens to the Sentinel, though,” Tannis said, her voice as quiet as the steady flow of the river nearby. “The Steels think Kaiyanis people are dirt in this country. They think we’re all killers and thieves—” Catching Aina’s raised eyebrow, she clarified, “Okay, I’m a killer, and Mirran is a thief, but most Kaiyanis aren’t. I grew up in a fishing village. Just a lot of poverty and slavery there.”

  Aina bit her lip while she considered a response. This was the most Tannis had ever said about her past at once, and she was already shutting down—shuttering the emotion on her face, staring straight ahead again. The moonlight brightened Tannis’s hair and glinted off the throwing stars and pistols she wore, so she looked ethereal, like some kind of lethal fairy, and Aina caught herself staring—she’d always found Tannis pretty.

  “We’ve worked together for six years, but we haven’t gotten to know each other that well,” Aina finally said. “I was afraid to show loyalty to anyone but him, and you didn’t want to trust a single soul. And we both know that when working with Kohl, you get used to hiding things.”

  When Tannis looked back at her, her gold eyes were bright and cautious, and she clenched her jaw. If there was anyone else who could understand what working with Kohl was like, it was Tannis.

  “When I was twelve,” Aina continued, “I thanked him for bringing me to the Dom. Every time I made a mistake after that, he reminded me he could put me back on the streets whenever he wanted. Any weakness you reveal, he uses it to manipulate you, so you try to keep as much of yourself a secret as you can.” She drew in a quick breath, her hands trembling a little as she dug them into her pockets. “But we shouldn’t have to do that with each other. You had to find your own way to Sumerand as a child, didn’t you?”

  “I’ve always told people I smuggled myself onto a ship to come here as a child, but that’s a lie,” Tannis murmured, and when she spoke next, her words tumbled out like she’d been holding them in so long, they all needed to come out at once. “The day I was born, my father fell off a ladder at work and broke a leg. On my first birthday, he caught a plague sweeping down the eastern coast. He healed from that, but could still hardly work with his damaged leg. We starved a little more every year. On my fourth birthday, he fell ill to the same plague and died a few days later.” She let out a laugh of disbelief. “My mother grew very … paranoid. She convinced herself it was my fault he died and my fault we were so poor. She thought of me as a plague.” Her lips and voice shook as she forced out the next words, blue hair shrouding half her face from view. “When I was eight, she sold me to a slaver taking children to Kosín. I worked in the kitchen of a casino. Maybe a few months later, maybe a year, I don’t know, I’d starved myself enough to slip through the bars on my room’s window. I jumped from the third floor. It was winter, and the snow broke my fall. When I landed outside at the back door of the kitchens, I saw that the man guarding us had fallen asleep. I could have taken his keys. I could have saved more of the people they’d brought over. But I was a coward. I ran and left them there.”

  Aina felt a pang in her heart at those words and stepped closer to Tannis. She imagined herself as a child, running whenever someone else on the streets approached her even if they might have been able to help. Running from the scene of her parents’ murder while their bodies were discarded.

  “That’s when you joined the Vultures?” Aina asked. “And then worked with Kohl?”

  Tannis nodded. “When I was fifteen, I vowed to go back and break out anyone that I could. One day, I heard of a father and daughter. The father was a Sacoren; he’d lived here almost his whole life before he and his daughter were caught and made house servants for a rich Diamond Guard captain in Rose Court.”

  Aina nodded, the old stories coming back to her. “They used to offer captured Inosen either death, prison, or indenture that never really ends. So he offered himself and his daughter?”

  “Yes, that’s what he did. He never had his diamonds removed, and he and his daughter could live together in the house of that captain. But years after the war, they were still stuck there. I helped them escape, but the daughter was shot and killed in the process. After the father got settled in a new home, he met with me and said I could always come to him for help. And he said that if war ever strikes again, he would use his powers in the way Verrain had, the way he wished he had used them against the Diamond Guard when his daughter was killed. There was nothing he could do for her once the bullet hit her brain, but he still wished he’d fought back instead of ran.” She sighed and met Aina’s eyes. “Everyone in this city owes someone something, don’t they? We’re all running from some kind of guilt, trying to make up for it with deals and promises. But I don’t see a point in fighting for the past anymore. The Dom is my home and my future. And if that means you want me to introduce you to this Sacoren, I will.”

  “Thank you,” Aina said, trying to hide her shock at everything Tannis had told her. “Why didn’t you mention anything about him earlier?”

  Tannis’s gold eyes softened, and her next words made Aina’s heart race in a different way. “Maybe because I trust you. I didn’t feel comfortable telling the truth of what happened to everyone, but … I wanted you to know. I know we both have a lot of dark spots in our past, but since we’re leading the tradehouses together now, maybe we can help each other get rid of them.”

  Tannis moved closer, leaving only a few inches of space between them—and Aina didn’t know how to reply. How many times had Kohl said kind words to her like Tannis just did, only to punish and taunt her later? She’d fallen for someone who only knew how to hurt her and had no idea how to move on from it. Every time she considered it, memories of Kohl came back and her throat closed up, her hands shook, her thoughts scattered. If she allowed anyone to touch her again, or anyone to kiss her, who was to say they wouldn’t try to ensnare her next? Or that she wouldn’t hurt them too? “Tannis,” she began. “I don’t know what—”

  “It’s okay, I get it,” Tannis said quickly, stepping back. “I’ll ask the Sacoren to meet us tomorrow, all right?” They walked the rest of the way to the Dom in silence, Tannis slightly ahead of her. Aina’s ears burned the entire way back. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she get over the pain Kohl had caused?

  They soon reached the Dom and Aina breathed a small sigh in relief—it was still there. Willow trees stood out front, blocking anyone on the street from seeing through the barred windows of the two-story building. The silver moon washed out the white walls while the red moon’s light gleamed against the oak door. Tannis walked in ahead of her, giving her one awkward grimace before going upstairs. The Dom was quiet at this hour, but well lit and warm. Tannis decorated in ways Kohl had never allowed. Pale yellow electric lights hung from the ceiling all the way down the hall in the shape of small stars, and a tall pot of flowers stood next to the staircase. Kohl had always kept the place cold and miserable, apart from his own office, all in an
effort to keep his employees fighting to get what he had.

  Aina entered the office a moment later. A candle cast a soft orange glow over the bookshelf, the chest of drawers, and the desk. She tensed like she always did at the sight of Kohl’s old things strewn about, like he might be watching her from the face of the clock, the whorls on the wooden desk, or the window behind it. The small, porcelain horse that had belonged to her mother sat on the desk now, dust-covered and like a specter in the dark room. Candlelight played off it, glimmering on the ceramic-like fireflies’ reflections over the river. She reached out, but halfway there, her fingers trembled and she let her hand fall back to her side.

  If she touched it, she might remember her mother humming as she dusted the horse and everything else in their one-room home. If she picked it up, she’d remember Kohl holding it out to her without the slightest bit of remorse on his face; proof that he’d been her parents’ murderer.

  Her hand curled into a fist at her side. She wanted to slam the small statue into the wall and shatter it into a hundred pieces simply because Kohl had given it to her.

  But it was the only thing she had left of her parents. The old copy of the Nos Inoken on their table, the dried yellow flowers her mother had liked to put in her hair, the wire dolls Aina had played with, the overalls her father had worn to work every day that carried his lemon and cedar wood scent—all of that was gone.

  With a frustrated huff of air, she turned away from the desk, leaving the horse untouched like she did every night. She shrugged off her jacket and draped her bloodstained scarf over the back of the desk chair, which made it look like it was more her own than some remnant of Kohl’s. It was getting too hot to wear them outside now, anyway. And maybe, seeing them in here would help her be less afraid of this room. Less afraid of ever being under his control again.

  She went upstairs then, passing the room she shared with Tannis and Mirran, another employee who’d been in the Dom for years, and approached the bedroom where the recruits slept. Johana, the youngest one whom Kohl had only brought in a year ago, would be on the roof doing an overnight watch of the surrounding area. The other recruits—Kushik and Markus—were two thirteen-year-old boys who’d lived at the Dom for a few years. Aina had started sending them on jobs without supervision as long as they stayed together, and now they were still awake, chatting and throwing knives at a target on the wall to keep themselves alert before heading out.

  When she knocked on the door, they both snapped to attention and their knives dropped to the floor.

  “Before you go on your job tonight, can you deliver a message?” she asked, and they both nodded, asking no questions as she instructed them to go to Ryuu’s mansion, Teo’s apartment, and the safe house where Raurie and Lill lived, and ask them all to meet outside the safe house at sunset the next day.

  Once the recruits were well-trained enough, she’d let them go on jobs alone and assign them specific roles: Blades, who would be assassins like her and Tannis; Foxes, who were thieves like Mirran; and Shadows, who were spies like the one Aina had killed earlier tonight. She only hoped they would all live long enough to get those jobs in the first place.

  She tried to sleep, but restfulness eluded her. The lead on the warehouse tonight hadn’t led her to Kohl, and she was no closer to finding him than she was yesterday, yet her enemies only multiplied: Kohl, Bautix, the Jackals, even one of her own tradehouses. Half-awake, half-asleep, she dreamed of Kohl holding out her mother’s porcelain horse to her, his voice mocking as he explained that he’d saved her life by taking her into the Dom.

  I was just doing a job, Aina, he said over and over in the dream, holding out the small statue with his arm tattooed with the mark of his old gang. The vulture hung by a string of diamonds stared at her. The vulture came back to life, and the diamonds wrapped themselves around her throat, choking her while he laughed and whispered that he’d save her again if she begged him to.

  Help me, she said in the dream, and when she woke up covered in sweat, she wondered how far she could really go without needing him.

  5

  Sunlight flashed through the training room window and shone on Markus’s sweat-streaked face as he swung forward. Aina dodged his punch with a quick step to the side.

  When he pivoted, the fear showed on his face: forehead creased in concentration, breath heavy and labored.

  Aina struck out with the wooden stick she held. He dodged, but a little too late; it glanced off his side instead of jabbing him in the stomach. With his opposite hand, he moved to strike her newly open side, but she blocked it with her elbow.

  Markus’s next step brought him forward, but when Aina stuck out her leg, he tripped, sucking in air sharply. Aina grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him upright, placing her wooden stick across his neck.

  “Dead,” she said, then stepped back.

  “I need a break,” he said, bending over to place his hands on his knees. Kushik and Johana both stepped forward, looking eager to take his spot in practice, but Aina held up her hand to stop them.

  “Do you think an enemy will give you a break?” she asked. “If you’re tired, go on the defensive and let your energy come back. When you’re fighting for your life, it will.” She nodded at Kushik and Johana. “What else could he have done better?”

  “He got too close to you,” Johana said in a rush.

  “He was trying to land hits, but that left him open,” Kushik added.

  Markus stood up straight, wiped the hair away from his face, then sighed. “I won’t be so reckless next time.”

  “I know,” Aina said under her breath, but she knew that as long as they were doing this with wooden sticks, he wouldn’t take it seriously. Kohl had only used them to train her for a month and then switched to real blades. The phantom pain returned, old scars reminding her of how harsh his training could get. Her hands curled into fists. She was trying to treat her employees more fairly, but what good was that when they could learn quicker if she pushed them? Taking a deep breath, she said, “Kushik, you’re next.”

  While Markus and Johana moved to sit at the edge of the mats and Kushik stepped into the center, brimming with energy, Aina moved to the far wall where a rack of weapons hung. A small washbasin stood next to it with a grimy mirror above. She could see half of her face—wisps of black hair, the copper skin tone common of people from Mil Cimas, the scars and fading bruises that were always a part of her job, the sunken look of her eyes that she didn’t think would ever go away after years addicted to glue. She still hadn’t decided what kind of leader she would be, but she knew she’d only survived this long because Kohl hadn’t gone easy on her. Dropping the wooden stick to the floor, she selected a long, curved blade from the rack.

  Kushik swallowed hard when he watched her approach with it, and his earlier excitement ebbed—quickly replaced by the resigned determination she recognized in every recruit while training with Kohl’s methods, a look she’d used to give herself in the mirror every night. She watched with disappointment swirling through her; hating that Kohl’s way, in this regard, was probably the best.

  “All of you need to step it up,” she said in a hollow tone, remembering the bodies she and Tannis had seen last night, the threats from Bautix, the spy from Thunder, the knowledge that Kohl would stop at nothing to get the Dom back. “I know none of you were probably even born during the last war. I was a child. But don’t be surprised if another one starts up again.” She took a deep breath, the sun in her eyes. “You need to learn to fight against real weapons while having none of your own, because you will be in that position at some point. You need to learn to kill with nothing but your hands, to stop people from doing the same to you. That’s how you survive: keep drawing blood, show no weakness, or you’ll be the one who’s bleeding.”

  A nerve-filled silence followed her statement, but she gave them no time for it to soak in. Soon she would leave to meet the Sacoren that Tannis knew and learn the Mothers’ magic—another weapon on top of th
e one she held.

  She stood across from Kushik, blade held ready in her right hand. “Begin.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Aina had left the Dom and approached the entrance to the safe house, breathing in the summer air. The sun sent deep orange streaks westward over the Stacks, lighting the puddles on the dirt roads left from an afternoon rain.

  Miles to the north, the Tower stood starkly against the orange and gray sky. Its black-rock spires touched the thick clouds that were sure to unleash another deluge tonight.

  It will be a bloodbath. Tannis’s words from yesterday came back to her now. If Bautix managed to kill all four members of the Sentinel and take over within a week like he’d promised, then they didn’t have long at all to prepare for war.

  She thought of Kohl, who would be helping Bautix try to take back the city, and disgust surged through her. Their battle for the city got so many innocent people, like the Inosen, killed.

  Death wasn’t enough of a punishment for Kohl. She’d kill him, but she’d find a way to make him pay for everything he’d done before she did.

  She spotted Teo first, leaning against the side of a house with his arms crossed over his chest and staring southward. Raurie, Ryuu, Tannis, and Lill walked toward them from the safe house a block away. The path to the safe house was through a sewer entrance a block away, but since Raurie and Lill would be hiding this magic from the rest of the Inosen, they’d chosen to meet at a slight distance instead.

  When she came up to Teo, he nodded toward Tannis and asked in a low voice, “Can you trust this man she knows?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “He owes her, which is as close to trust as you can get with most people in this city.”

  “Did anyone notice you leave?” she asked Raurie and Lill once the others reached them.

  “Since everyone has moved in today, there are some supplies we’re missing,” Lill said. “They usually send the younger ones of us to go out and buy food and things, so we volunteered. We’ll have to pick up supplies on the way back to cover ourselves.”