“And unless you intend to truss me up and carry me to Ildus, you can’t forbid me. I made a promise.” She dug into her pocket and wriggled out the purse of coins. She held it out to Raze. “For your travels.”
He accepted the purse, his face softening as he regarded the three of them. “Thank you.”
Azalus glowered at her and crossed his arms. “Well, if we’re all making our own decisions here, then I too am sailing for Ezar.”
~33~
The fog trolled in from the sea, spoiling Nallea’s view of the sky. She walked the harbor road alone, her bloomers and jacket blotched with spots of dried blood, visible now in the dawn’s creamy light. The enormity of what had occurred washed over her in waves. She lacked the power to change the past, but the future… She had to protect Arrick from any blame arising from the damnable key.
Scowling Avanoe guards patrolled the harbor, garnet cloaks flapping in the wind. Was it four or five of Avanoe’s number who’d died during the night? Or six? Raze had slain them with a strange and frightening precision. He wasn’t the man who’d rescued her from slavers and picked berries with children. She would have noticed his cool indifference to life, even at the freehold. Slavers and murderers and liars had transformed a gentle man into a killer.
Could he have slain Athren?
She marched without pause, hair loose and blowing, expecting at any moment that guards of either city would descend upon her, but there wasn’t a trace of Kestrel green anywhere. She approached a patrol, intending to demand an escort to her father’s hall. Whether as prisoner or daughter remained the only question.
When the first pair of eyes caught a glimpse of her, she refused to flinch. Orders bellowed, and guards surrounded her in a protective shield. “Are you alone, my lady? Are you hurt?”
“Ai, I am alone, and nae, I’m unharmed.” She faced the mustached captain. “I would like to go home if those are your orders.”
“Ai, of course. Immediately. Your father will be relieved to hear you’re safe. The men who abducted you, can you tell us where they went?”
She met his eyes. “I assure you, no one abducted me. I left of my own free will, and I return the same way. Make certain the others know the truth.” The captain’s eyebrows pinched, and a furious snarl accompanied his understanding. He shouted instructions to the gathering guards and strode away.
Her escort delivered her to the Governor’s Hall and left her in her father’s salon, two sentries stationed at the door. She helped herself to lukewarm tea from the sideboard and waited. When the sleepless night dragged at her lids, she lay on the settee and dozed, losing herself to restless dreams.
She woke at her father’s gasp, his face pale. He retreated from her, clutching his heart. “I thought, maybe, you were…”
“Dead? Like Athren?”
The horror on his face drained, replaced by a flush of fury. “Do you understand the consequences of what you’ve done?”
“I broke into your collection and stole a knife. I rifled through your desk for a key. I crept into Arrick’s room while he slept and filched his; then I freed three men who you should never have arrested.”
“Because of your actions,” he shouted, “six of our guards were murdered.”
“Nae!” She jolted to her feet. “Because of your actions, six of our guards needlessly lost their lives. I was there, the first to pull a knife.”
“This?” He strode to his desk and held up his antique blade. “We found it stuck in a man’s neck.”
“You shuttered your mind to reason. You forced me into that position.”
“Tell that to the guards’ families. Tell that to Emperor Tegir.”
“I plan to.” She crossed her arms. “Unless you arrest me, I’m traveling to Tegir as the Lady of Avanoe, Kestrel, and Ildus. I shall demand that our Emperor recant his accusations regarding his sister’s death. And while I’m there, I want him to rid the Vales of Ezari slavers who abuse the law and murder our people.”
“He’ll arrest you.”
“I’m shocked.”
“Nallea.” He sighed. “We’ve never argued like this; we were never at odds. What’s happening to us?”
She shook her head. “Slavers, murderers, ambition, too many souls swallowed. Lies, Father. Possibly lies most of all.”
“I forbid you to go to Tegir, Nallea. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”
She tucked a stray strand of hair behind an ear. “It doesn’t seem that way to me. I am nothing but a nuisance and argument to you.”
“Nae.” He smiled. “Though I’ll admit you were much easier when you were younger and placated with a piece of cake.”
“Do you intend to lock me in a storeroom?”
“I can order you followed every moment of your day.”
“You cannot instruct your captain to sit on me forever. One word to my guards… Where are Kestrel’s guards?”
“Gone.” Her father dropped into his chair and frowned at the papers on his desk. “There was no longer any point to holding them.”
“How generous.” Nallea slumped into a chair across from him. “I have to go to Tegir. I need to find Belizae and bring her home.”
“That’s what this is about?”
“Partially.” She frowned at the blood on her sleeve. “It’s this whole mess.”
“Where are the Anvrells?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. I’m unsure whether I can trust you.”
His fingers tapped the desk. When he peered up at her, he looked as worn and faded as an old cloak. “I’ll admit a portion of this is my responsibility, though most of it rests with Athren, and she suffered from delusions. I struggled with her hostility, but I loved her, and her murder shocked me. I reacted poorly. If you’d seen Raze’s face as he left this room, you would also have believed he killed her. But I shall…consider that there is another explanation. I will travel with you to Tegir.”
“Why?”
“Because we must make this right, Nallea. I’ll help you find the woman. We’ll speak to Kyzan about the Anvrells, and I’ll insist they hadn’t a hand in Ezalion’s death.”
“And about the slavers.”
“Ai. And about the slavers. But you must be honest with me about the guards’ deaths. That is the one thing I cannot let go unpunished. Which of the Anvrells killed them?”
“Only one,” she replied. “Me.”
~34~
Switchback ramps climbed the battered cliffs fortifying the island of King’s Fist. A crenelated curtainwall girded the ominous city, and before its monstrous arched gate lay a killing field peppered with gallows. The trade in bondage thrived with the same bustle as a spring market. Perhaps the gallows served as a reminder of the alternative.
In a single file with the other bonds, Bel submitted to the bitter underbelly of Ezar, a piece of property without rights, doing as her masters ordered. Slavers funneled her into an auction area where she sat on the cracked dirt beneath the midday sun while a new set of cowled captors handed out water and bread. Beyond the soaring gate, the fortress city loomed, its towers bristling with spikes. Even its tapered domes ended in sharp finials that stabbed like iron-tipped halberds at the sky.
Johzar knelt silently beside her. The crew hadn’t allowed their captives to speak during the trip across the sea. He’d rowed, chained to the bench, the muscles in his back straining with each stroke. The slave masters had whipped him along with all the men at oars, but they were mistaken if they believed cruelty fueled the power of his stroke. It was the rage she witnessed blazing in his eyes.
Her bruises inflicted by Sajem had faded and yellowed, the rings around her eyes less swollen beneath her fingertips. The wind blew her hair into a tangled of black brambles, and her skin browned in the relentless sun. She’d mourned during the journey, grieved for her life at the freehold and for Lanya, fatalities she perceived with certainty. And what had become of Rozenn, Samoth, and the children? Did Raze still hunt her and how would he f
ind her? She’d wept into the sea until her eyes withered of tears.
“Thank you, Johzar.” She peered up at him, and he grunted, refusing to meet her gaze. His glower clouded the air around him like a flock of crows. Ten years of his life forfeited to save her from Sajem, a choice he clearly regretted. His silence persisted, but she couldn’t stop her questions or turn away. “Do you know if Raze—”
“You’re up.” A woman with a glass eye planted her boot on Johzar’s back and kicked him onto his hands and knees. Johzar gritted his teeth, and the muscles in his arms tensed. “Get up,” the woman barked.
The explosion of fury Bel expected failed to come, and Johzar rose. At the last moment, he faced her. “He—”
The slaver cracked him on the head with a wooden baton. Johzar stumbled, and blood trickled from his hairline. The woman yanked him to a rough platform and chained his wrists to a post. If any of the slavers recognized him as one of their own, they hadn’t voiced a word. A man with a silver-studded belt regarded him with a slit-eyed vigilance and called for bids. Johzar sold for four silver chits to a man in a plum tabard, and two muscled slaves hauled him away.
“You’re next!”
Bel leapt up before a boot could shove her into the dirt. She climbed the platform steps and stood by the post, teary and trembling in the parched heat. Her sale in Avanoe hadn’t felt so wrenching. She hadn’t met Raze yet or found a home where she belonged. She’d been lucky, sold to two tinkers who’d become her friends, a choice that guaranteed their deaths.
This time her losses nipped at her composure. Ezari faces appraised her as they might a piece of jewelry or a newly wrought tool. No kindness brightened their smiles. No potential for friendship softened their stares. People were chattel no more deserving of sympathy than a pot or a saddle. The best she could hope for was good care… so she wouldn’t wear out before her term expired.
The slaver with the silver belt listed her qualities and managed the bidding in a rapid chatter. She sold for just shy of two silver chits to a woman with kohled eyes and an elaborate coif. Within the hour, she and seven other young women and men boarded the Coral Crown with their new master, bound for a ten-year term in a Valcore brothel.
~
The spiked towers of King’s Fist glided into view, a beast of a city where Raze had purchased Samoth and his family. The idea of Rozenn and Thanelan within those blighted walls twisted his heart. Yet, if he’d never freed them, would Samoth still live? Upon viewing the fearsome city, the question surrendered to the warmth of Samoth’s approval. Rozenn and Thanelan would survive, grieve, and freely choose their futures.
During the journey across the sea, he’d explained his transformation to his father and brother, skimming through the gifts and burdens of Samoth’s soul. The Raze they knew, the peaceful freeholder of a season ago had vanished. A new man rose in his place, one who still sorted through the changes inside him.
None of his actions at the Governor’s Hall nipped at his conscience. Six guards had seen their veins opened and blood spilled. Briyon had understood the necessity and drawn Raze aside, allowing Samoth’s warrior skills to subdue any hesitation. The deaths had occurred without reservation, without thought or emotion, his vision tunneled on the singular goal of escape.
Even on the ride south to Ildus, he found no space in his heart for reflection. Only when the galley had sliced into the sea did his defenses permit him to behold his victims as men whose lives ended before their time. He blamed Benjmur for those losses, and Sajem, no one else.
The ship rocked on the swells and docked when two galleys departed for points south. An hour later Raze climbed the ramps to the killing field, his father and brother bringing up the rear. His eyes swept the slave market and the city beyond. “We should split up,” he said and dropped a hand on his father’s shoulder. “If you would, I need you to sit here with an eye on the ramps. No one can ship her out without passing you by.”
His father didn’t argue. “The perfect duty for an old man.”
Raze cracked a small smile and faced his brother. “I’d like you to search the market. Make multiple passes and when you’re certain she’s not here, keep an eye on the city gate. I’m going inside. We’ll meet here at twilight.” He lifted his cowl against the Ezarine sun. “If you see her, purchase her. No argument. Let’s get out of here alive.”
Orders dispersed, Raze headed for the gate. Along the way, he paused at the wooden platforms where slavers sold their bonds. He inspected the kneeling men and women, chagrined that he resembled a potential buyer. Some of the bonded smiled at him; others glowered. A few cast their eyes on the crowds with dull expressions as if bewildered by the state in which they’d found themselves. When he asked about a dark-haired woman named Bel, he received blank looks and shrugs, a smattering of apologetic replies.
The arched gate stood as tall as four men, the portcullis a weave of bolted iron with black fangs that left punctures between the cobbles. Raze wandered the streets in despair. King’s Fist had seemed a reasonable choice, but Johzar could have shipped her anywhere. The odds of finding her felt as bleak as a life without her.
He hadn’t known her long or well, and yet his quest felt epic as if his future hinged on this one woman, this one chance at love. In spite of the longing he felt for Rozenn, she belonged to Samoth; her deep affection his. Raze wanted someone of his own, a woman who desired his heart alone.
As he’d begun to assimilate Samoth’s soul, something inside him had fragmented. The warrior-turned-horseman afforded him the skills to do whatever cold-blooded violence proved necessary. He relished the focus and control, the power to rise above a state of victimhood and fight back.
All those qualities served him—if he craved a life of blood.
But that picture of the future wasn’t the one he yearned for. And though Briyon’s softer soul provided a measure of balance, Raze wanted more—a tangible life he could shape in his hands like clay, a daily dose of laughter and love to tip the scales. Bel offered that. She embodied all his hopes for the man he wished to be.
He shook his misery from his head and scanned the open plaza inside the gates. Without a trace of luck, he headed into the western district of shops and mills where scores of slave-laborers filled their masters’ pockets with riches. He walked the streets in a grid, back and forth for dull and restless hours, until shouting voices rang from the road ahead.
He climbed the road’s slope and joined the noisy crowd. They’d gathered outside a trio of buildings in the midst of being demolished by a work crew. The rubble from a collapsed wall had buried two men, though only a single voice screamed from beneath the stones. Slaves worked furiously to unearth them. A man in a plum tabard stood nearby frowning at the scene, a whip tucked under his arm.
One road no different from another, Raze changed direction. Then, his gaze doubled back and body tensed. One of the workers drew his eye. The man leaned on a sledgehammer near a standing wall, the chaos providing an opportunity to rest. A light cowl concealed most of his face as he watched the recovery, but everything else about him pieced together like a puzzle on the surface of Raze’s mind.
His heart quickened its pace. He edged through the spectators for a better view, certain the man he spied was Johzar. He shoved his way free of the crowd and strode along the wall, caution thrust aside for a pitiless desire to beat the man senseless.
Johzar glanced up too late to avoid the blow. He swayed back into the wall as a ball of knuckles connected with his cheek. Raze powered a punch into the slaver’s belly and followed with an uppercut to the jaw. Blood bloomed on Johzar’s lips. He backed up, fighting for breath, fists curled. “I didn’t do it,” he gasped.
Raze didn’t care. He shoved the slaver into the wall. “Where’s Bel?”
Johzar’s punch connected with Raze’s cheekbone, snapping his head to the side. He rotated with the hit and kicked. Johzar’s knee bent as he sidestepped and stumbled. Raze advanced in a blinding rage all his own, though Samoth�
��s skills guided the pummeling. He sank a fist into Johzar’s gut, grabbed the back of the man’s head, and slammed it into his knee. The slaver dropped to his hands and knees, and Raze hammered a boot into his back, flattening him.
A sharp crack seared Raze’s shoulder blades. He pivoted, out of breath, eyes fixed on the man in plum with his serpentine whip. While laborers dragged two bodies from the rubble, the throng of spectators and idle workers spun to gawk at the new sport.
“You going to work in his place?” the man with the whip shouted, face livid. His arm swung back, ready for another crack. “Or are you buying him?”
“Buying him.” Raze’s back stung, and his knuckles bled where Johzar’s teeth had peeled his skin.
“Twelve silver chits,” the master’s lip curled, and the crowd chuckled.
“He’s Johzar, a slaver from the Vales,” Raze pointed out. “Not a man to own as an enemy. Not a back to work too hard.”
The man’s hold on his whip loosened, and his smile faded as he eyed his property. Johzar struggled to a crouch, hands on his knees.
“His crew will come hunting for him eventually,” Raze said. “I’ll give you three chits.”
“I paid four.” The man hardened his jaw. “Two for my trouble. That’s six to you, or I’ll take my chances.”
“Six and a length of rope.” Raze counted the chits into the open palm, and the man retreated to a wagon to scratch out a new bond. Raze lashed Johzar’s wrists together and slipped a noose around his neck. He stuffed the fresh bond in his pocket and yanked on the rope. “Start down toward the gate and start talking.”
Johzar limped through a gap in the crowd and descended into the street. “I didn’t do anything. I saved her life.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know; probably Tegir. They sold me first.”
Raze narrowed his eyes. Something was skewed. “Keep talking.”
Johzar spat a wad of blood onto the cobbles. “I was in Avanoe, hunting for Draeva and my crew. While Danzell searched for you, I planned to roll Sajem into his grave.”
Legacy of Souls (The Shattered Sea Book 2) Page 21
