by Dana Swift
“It’s orders from Maharaja Belwar himself,” the man behind me says.
Adraa scoffs. “We aren’t going anywhere.”
“Then you are going to have to answer our questions here.”
“No.”
“Hey!” I yell.
“What?” our assailants both shout.
“Can I at least turn around during this conversation?” I ask.
“Uh, sure. Slowly.” The pressure of the knife releases.
I turn, hands still raised, to find a boy around my age, straight hair, strong jaw, an orange kurta with the Belwar crest that looks a tad too big for him. No wonder Adraa isn’t worried.
“First, you two are going to take off those masks,” the boy demands.
I glance at Adraa, who is gesturing with her eyes toward the knife in the guard’s hand. It’s a real knife, steel and all, which means—
Still too risky with the purple magic at her throat. I shake my head slightly.
She rolls her eyes and gestures again. As if yelling at me with her eyes will make me gamble her life.
“Hey. Masks. Off. Now.”
Movement breaks the stillness. The guard holding Adraa grunts. A loud thud echoes. Blood.
In one clean swipe, I smash the guard’s wrist and the glimmer of silver snaps into black smoke. An illusion. Gods, I hate black fortes. A whip of black smoke lashes forward and I call to the wind, blowing space between us and tearing at his purple magic. For a second he looks at me, then his arms blaze and darkness coats his skin.
Adraa steps forward and mirrors his stance, red flames and all. Lightning cracks the sky and the three of us glow. I shift, letting magic well up my arms to pull his attention toward me in the hope we can still talk our way out of this. “Listen, we are not your enemy. We’re trying to help.”
“We don’t need your help,” the guard says.
I sigh. “I think you do. There are guards working for the Vencrin.”
The guard tries to hide his surprise. He fails, his hurt visible. “That’s not…they wouldn’t. How do you know that?”
I pause long enough for the man to realize exactly how we might know.
“It was you, wasn’t it, that night on the ship? That started all this mess?”
“Yes. Both of us,” Adraa answers. “And a couple of those men were guards.”
“We can handle that internally,” the man rushes, still hopeful. “We’ll find and question them. So stop this. Or better yet, join the Guard yourself when you are old enough.”
“Are you even old enough?” I ask.
He glares at me.
“We can’t do that,” Adraa replies in a stiff voice. “This is more personal than a fight for justice or cleaning up the Guard for you.”
He steps toward her and the magic on my arms flares in warning.
He sighs. “Revenge, then? How typical. If the Vencrin have done something to you, then report it and we can—”
I interrupt, not liking the way he’s looking at Adraa. Like she’s the easier target in this exchange. Is he trying to get himself killed? “Sorry, you seem like one of the good ones, but I think the problem might be bigger than the Vencrin, and if we’re right, the Guard can’t do anything.”
“Bigger than the Vencrin? Is there another player involved?”
I can tell Adraa is done with this conversation and so am I. “That’s what we are trying to figure out,” I say. “We are trying to get proof.”
“Proof?”
I point down to the building. “That’s one of the warehouses where they store the drugs. Like we said, proof.”
The boy stares at both of us, and then at the den below. “You are up here in masks trying to stop the drugs? You two are just bloodthirsty do-gooders?”
I frown. “We aren’t exactly bloodthirsty.”
“Yes,” Adraa says at the same time.
“Ah, I can’t believe I’m doing this.” He sighs and rubs his neck. “You’ve got fifteen minutes and then we are going in. And if we catch you…”
“We know,” I say as I unbuckle my skyglider. “This won’t be the end of our questioning.”
* * *
“Is your neck okay?” I ask Adraa once we are out of earshot.
“I know that guard,” she whispers as we descend upon the drug den.
“Who was he?”
“Lady Prisha’s head guard. His name is Hiren.”
The name rings in my ears. Her sister’s guard. “So he’s one of the good ones?”
“Gods, I hope so. Because if he isn’t and I find out—”
“He seemed genuine,” I try to reassure her. Though it irks me how willing they were to hurt her. It feels good under the mask, but it’s a jolting reminder to know that without my name or title I’m…vulnerable. We both are.
“Yeah, and upset about the traitors.”
We drop to the roof and our conversation transfers to hand signals as we target the arched window we’ve been watching for days.
“Vrnotwodahs,” I cast, and we wait for the next bolt of lightning. After it splinters across the sky I slide to the lip of the roof, complete a dangle-and-swing movement, and land on the thick stone windowsill. Adraa follows right after, and I grab her waist to steady her landing. I smile at her in my arms, but she rolls her eyes and crouches in the shadows I’ve crafted. I refocus, trying not to think about the warmth in my hands.
Below us everything looks abandoned. Empty stalls, broken crates, and wicker boxes fill the chasm of space. Deserted trading bazaars don’t get pretty makeovers. A few wizards walk underneath us and we lean back.
“Okay, they’ve passed. Do your thing,” I whisper.
“Vindati Agni Dipika,” she casts. Little rivulets of red fall from her fingers and descend upon the open warehouse. Then she waits, head tilted. I don’t want to distract her, but after two solid minutes I’m curious. “Can you sense it?”
“Yes, but it’s faint. I—I don’t know.”
“Then we go with plan B.”
With a nod, we climb down the wall, finding handholds in the intricate designs carved into the stone. We drop onto the top of old trading stalls, me to the right, Adraa to the left.
A Vencrin stands ahead of us and I slink up behind him. With my hand over his mouth I cast a sleep spell and my magic dives off my fingers. The jolt of struggle sags instantly and I catch him from thumping onto the dirt. Along the other wall two more Vencrin walk down the aisle—my next targets.
Every few moments I spot Adraa’s shadow gliding along the walls, silently taking down anyone who could alert the other Vencrin. One by one the stragglers fall. I throw a discarded curtain over one of the last wizards when a thunk echoes behind me, and a spell veers over my shoulder. The wood overhead cracks and falls. I turn to find Adraa standing over a witch’s body. “You need to watch your back!”
“But you’re doing such a good job.”
“Come on. They probably heard that.”
We run toward the wicker crates. As Adraa cracks open the first one, muffled voices swarm around the corner. Five wizards spill into view. Adraa and I spin to meet them.
“Rings,” I whisper.
Adraa nods. “Rings.”
With a yell, our two groups collide. A blue stream of water fires first and I fall back, knocking it away with half a shield, and it drenches the floor. Adraa breaks through their line and smashes a wizard in the face. Blood flies. It’s chaos, but this time we aren’t dodging through the streets. Spells hit walls, wooden stalls crash to the ground, and draped fabric ignites.
I lean and twist as an array of black spears fly toward me. One snags my kurta. Adraa has moved on to her second Vencrin and they’re dueling with lashes of wind. My next spell nails the spear thrower and I run forward. A wizard takes a punch to the gut with a s
trength spell and the wind weaver falls. Adraa’s foot presses his throat as she yells questions.
I grab the nearest wizard by the collar. “Tell me about the firelight!” I shout into his face. “Where are you keeping it?”
The wizard panics and I watch his eyes to see whether he’ll give up a location with a flick of nerves. Instead he smiles, the grin splashing across his face in such an unsettling way the back of my neck prickles. Then I place the oddness of the expression. He’s smiling not at me, but at something behind me….
That’s when I turn.
“Red!”
A fireball hurtles toward Adraa. I drop the wizard and cast, calling to the water already on the ground. I’m not fast enough.
Adraa turns and, with hands outstretched and flaming red, grasps the projectile. It’s too much. She flies backward and into a ruined stall. Wood cracks apart and the fire roars. No!
I run through the gaping hole, jumping over splintered beams and sloshing through the water I sent after her. Three aisles over, in the rubble of wood and silk, smoke slinks through the air. No fire.
“Red? Red!”
Shuffling wood off herself, Adraa steps out from the plumes of dust. The glow of her magic still dances through her Touch, her sleeve burned away. Ash dusts her red mask; her hair spirals loose from her braid. But she’s standing. “No one respects fire anymore. It’s all ‘throw it as big and hard as you can without thinking of the consequences,’ ” she says, shoving more planks of wood away.
I grab her into a hug, laughing. Thank Gods!
She pushes at my chest. “Night.”
I turn. As the smoke disperses to reveal the thin barrier I threw up, a gaggle of wizards greets us on the other side. We miscalculated how many Vencrin there are here, because we’re surrounded. They all wear heavy black or gray kurtas, thick boots, and arrogant smiles. Some fake-lunge and create big purple magic weapons to intimidate us. One wizard in front even lets his sword grow to the point where it clanks to the ground, and he frantically tries to pick it up.
“Tell us where you are selling the firelight and no one gets hurt!” Adraa shouts. The wizards cackle as they do the math. Forty, maybe fifty, against two. It doesn’t matter if a few are dense. The odds are bloody awful and we all know it.
Adraa’s arms blaze. “Do you have a plan?” she whispers.
I settle into a fighting stance. “We don’t let them get close.”
Crash!
Everyone flinches as glass cascades around us, each window breaking as a flier swoops in, donning the Belwar nine-pointed sun on their chest. I’ve never been so thankful to see a wizard who not minutes ago held a knife at my back.
Guess our fifteen minutes must be up, and good thing too. As a forest of nets and binding spells rain down on the gruesome horde before us, Kalyan and I punch our way through what moments before was an impenetrable circle.
“Cover me!” I yell as I run to the unopened wicker crates. Kalyan’s arms blaze to white and his deep voice shouts as he faces the Vencrin who aren’t running or fastened to the floor. I rip at the wicker fibers of two crates and they fray in my hands. Packets of Bloodlurst stare into my face. But no firelight.
“It’s just Bloodlurst, crate after crate of Bloodlurst.”
“We don’t have much time, Red!” Kalyan shouts as he heaves a Vencrin over his shoulder and lets him crash to the floor.
“Blood. It should be here. I can feel it.” But maybe the pulsing faintness I had felt earlier only means it was once here, once sat in these crates until it was shipped to Moolek or Gods know where. I need to question someone. I had almost broken that guy before the shooting fireball.
I gaze around at the havoc surrounding me. Balls of light and smoke stream through the air. Bodies are scattered on the ground. No one would talk to us before, when they had the numbers on their side. But maybe now…
Out of the corner of my eye, a black cloak flutters toward a window. And I know that cloak. I memorized that back. Here? He’s here?
“Night!”
Kalyan whips up toward the sound of my call, white arms blazing.
“The leader.” I point.
Kalyan’s eyes widen as understanding hits.
“He’s getting away. We’ll leave the rest to the Guard. Tvarenni!” I shout, running toward the stairs. Kalyan follows.
When I hit the landing it’s empty. I step up to the window, infusing Hubris the Second with magic, and then veer back. There isn’t a balcony, only shards of broken glass and a sense of dread pooling in my gut. A crack of lightning illuminates the cloaked flier in the distance. He must have just…fallen.
Kalyan stretches to peer at the cracked remnants of the building as I gather some distance.
No second thoughts. If that wizard did it from this height, so can I.
“What are—? No! Red, don’t.” Kalyan reaches for me, but I’ve already pushed off. I’m already falling. A low curse follows.
“Makria!” I scream into Hubris. Red sprouts from my hands and into the skyglider, but even as I push Hubris beneath me, I don’t feel the cushion of weightlessness. All that’s left is fear, gravity, and the mad flapping of my kurta against my skin. Wind pounds in my ears. I spiral. No. I’m—I can’t.
Fear of the fall brings you closer to the ground! Mr. Burman’s voice bellows in my head. I must level out. Whoosh. The roof of a one-story house zooms by. Blood. Blood. Blood.
Fear of the fall—
I have one chance. With a yell, I squeeze Hubris with my thighs and thrust my hands downward, pelleting wind at the ground. Gusts of air ripple and dirt blusters into my face, and I’m…flying. The cushion of levitation has never felt so magical. I cough out relief and choke on fear in the same breath.
Above me a magic-infused skyglider glows white. Kalyan followed me. And he got control of his skyglider much faster than—
He skids to a stop beside me. “Do you have a death wish?”
I gulp for a few seconds, staring at the wind-rippled ground.
“I thought I was about to watch you die,” he says.
I allow myself to glance over and regret it as soon as I read his expression. Anger, worry, alarm, they each find their own feature to weave in the pain I’ve caused. And that’s with his mask on. “I’m fine,” I sputter.
He snaps to one emotion—sadness. “Smoke—”
“He flew that way.” I pour speed into Hubris and shoot forward. We’ve lost enough time as it is. And this is why my “nothing more” should be sustained. We can’t care about each other like that. Trust. Rings. Nothing more.
Kalyan and I skim the rooftops, hovering between cover and the visibility necessary to find our target. He shoots me looks every few seconds. I feel his eyes, his concern. But I’m fine. I had it under control. Maybe.
For a few minutes I think we’ve lost our target, even with both of us casting sensory spells to heighten our sight and smell, even with our added speed.
Suddenly, a blaze of purple magic zooms in our direction. Kalyan and I veer in opposite directions. But it’s not an arrow or another projectile; it’s a hiss of smoke that whirls into letters, and writes a clear message in the space between us.
My throat tightens. The wicker crates upon wicker crates of drugs in that warehouse pound to the surface of my mind with each heartbeat.
“He’s trying to keep his identity hidden,” Kalyan whispers.
“What?”
“He’s afraid.”
Before either of us can move, arrows soak the night sky in color. Kalyan shouts a warning, but I’m already swerving. Yelps and hollers of a fight surround us. The black-cloaked leader is no longer alone. Vencrin, a whole pack, rise from the streets of the East Village. Gods, where did these wizards come from?
Spells race through the air. I’m reduced to a bundle of instincts. An
y flash of color and I jerk, dodge, and shield myself. Orange spears spiral toward me, and I duck. A red chain tries to ensnare Hubris, and I dip and twist. Block after block, the intricate alleyways of the East Village blur into peaked pillars, flat rooftops, and fluttering-curtained doorways.
Any and all possible backup are still fighting in the trading bazaar. Convenient timing on the Vencrins’ part or stupidity on mine?
I’m shooting spells off behind me erratically, when a Vencrin darts from the street ahead. I swivel in a new direction. I can’t even keep track of how many there are. Another Vencrin bursts into wild laughter as he shoots a boulder of purple magic at my face. Blood. I duck, and in a loud burst the spell hits the building over my left shoulder. An archway crumbles, mosaic tiles shatter, and dust plumes.
Kalyan flies in front of me with a shield and a spell aimed for the boulder thrower.
“We have to get out of here!” he shouts as both of us dodge streams of green and yellow curses. We zoom forward, one shielding as the other fires. Forget our ring strategy. This is speed and power and reflex smashing my heart into pieces. And I need Kalyan right next to me. Hubris is slick with sweat and I’m shaking. Finally, one spell hits a Vencrin in the chest and he falls with a soundless scream.
“Enough!” a voice roars. The horde halts and slowly the cloaked figure drops from above, hood pulled tight. Kalyan was right. He’s hiding his identity.
I catch my breath, hovering in our standstill, and count. Fourteen.
“Tell us where the firelight is!” I yell.
He laughs and the black cloak shifts unnaturally. “It’s all around us, girl.” Out of the corner of my eye, my light glows awake in a nearby window.
“Why have you stolen it? What do you want?”
“Maybe I want rebellion. Maybe I want to turn a profit. Maybe you have no idea what you are talking about.” He snorts. “I don’t have to answer to masked children, especially ones I properly warned.”
His skyglider wavers and finally I place why his cloak doesn’t fall right. Why more than half of these wizards are hooded and shrouded in black. Why that wizard didn’t scream.
