Sarn pounded the parapet in frustration. This was his fault. He’d let the mystery absorb him to the exclusion of all else and now his son might be in danger. A unicorn statue gave him a well-deserved stink eye as he wended around more statues. Sarn fought the urge to punch the plaster creature. Ran was only four and too curious for his own good. But you should have been watching him.
A guitar riff interrupted the blame game Sarn was playing and losing. He hit the arcade at a run but had to slow so he could squeeze past statues of monsters long forgotten by legend. Tusks protruded from everywhere on the hulking marble creatures and they caught on his clothes when Sarn slid between them. How the hell had Ran fit?
By crawling. Sarn dropped to his belly and wriggled through the gap between the statues’ legs. Damn the Litherians and their obsessive need for statuary in places where they didn’t belong.
The Litherians—echoed his magic, but Sarn ignored what had become a constant refrain over the last month.
Once through, Sarn replaced his hood but stayed crouched behind a planter. A profusion of leaves hid him until his sixth sense confirmed there was no one except his son about. Rising, Sarn approached a long table cluttered with the remains of a feast. Quite a few people had made inroads in the offerings judging by the stacks of dirty dishes.
And in the middle of all those half-eaten culinary creations, Ran stood on tiptoe straining to reach the remains of a multi-tiered cake. A bare inch separated his son’s grasping fingers from the fluted cake dish. Judging it safe to turn his back for a moment, Sarn scanned the balcony one more time. His green gaze passed over statues of writhing figures as he removed a burlap sack from his pocket.
“Papa help me. I can’t reach it.” Ran never took his eyes off the confection tempting him.
Sarn shook his head and moved a plate of fruit in front of his son. “Have some of these first then we’ll see about the cake.”
Ran scowled but plucked a strawberry from the pile and ate it without complaint. Sarn ruffled his son’s hair and confronted the feast. Hunger made him dizzy or maybe it was fatigue ganging up on him. How long had it been since he’d slept for more than a couple of hours in a stretch?
At least two weeks and that day had been a strange one. Sarn had woken late that afternoon with Ran beside him and no memory of fetching his son from his babysitters. Their cave had seemed different too, but not in any identifiable way. There was just a lingering wrongness about the place, which was why Sarn was avoiding it. Better to err on the side of caution for his son’s sake, and besides, Ran liked roaming around the mountain with him.
Sarn sank onto a ladder-backed chair close to the table. A mile or so yonder, the unknown woman finally boarded a boat—the longship with the flame and toothy wheel icons carved on its prow. And she vanished from his map.
“Eat Papa.” Ran shoved the plate of fruit at Sarn then resumed trying to reach the cake. His darling boy had a one-track mind when it came to sweets.
“A good idea,” Sarn said between bites. He set Ran on his lap, so they could share the vegetables, meats, cheeses and other healthy foods on offer.
While they ate some of everything, including a small slice of carrot cake, Sarn slipped his foot out of his too-large boot. Magic trickled through a hole in his dingy sock into the flagstones. It quested after Dirk and his goons.
What were they doing? What was their part in whatever the unknown woman was doing? Something illegal?
While his magic searched, Sarn munched on a sausage roll and loaded up his sack without regard to the portability of the items he consigned to it. Everything mixed together, but Sarn paid it no mind as four of Dirk’s cronies vanished from his head map.
Where had they gone? Where was Dirk? Had he followed the wrong person? Dread twisted Sarn's gut into knots.
A plate clattered to the ground and spun on its edge like a giant white coin. Sarn stared at it unable to look away. What if I chose the wrong trail?
“Then backtrack and choose the right one,” said Nolo, second in command of the Rangers, in one of his many lectures. “Start with what you know and work backward to where you went astray. The right path will stand out to you.”
Hearing his master’s voice, even in memory, snapped Sarn out of his trance. Dirk was the mastermind. All his spying had made that quite clear. So, Dirk’s friends were the diversion. He could ignore them.
Find Dirk, Sarn ordered his magic, and it raced through Mount Eredren's innards searching. Lights kindled on his map. Pale gray for the citizens of Mount Eredren regardless of their social standing and white for the child standing next to him licking cinnamon frosting off his fingers. At least Ran was occupied. His other gift was keeping an eye on the boy too, so he didn’t have to.
Where are you, Dirk? Not in the storeroom or anywhere on that level—what happened to the Carters and their goods?
The plate stopped spinning and toppled on its side. Ran stomped on it to quiet its tapping. Grateful for the sudden silence, Sarn squeezed his son’s shoulder. Then, finally, Dirk’s icon lit up on his head map. What was the man doing in the Lower Quarters? Only the Indentured had business there. It was suicide for anyone else to frequent that level. What the hell is going on?
Sarn pushed to his feet then recalled his boot. He donned it, breaking his connection to the mountain, but the fix stayed. Dirk’s icon was locked in his magic’s sight thanks to their run-in last month.
“Come on, we have to go now.” Sarn swung the sack containing the remainder of the feast over his shoulder. Gravy oozed between its stitches and seeped into his cloak. He grimaced at the smell. Oh, well, sorting it was someone else’s problem. His responsibility ended at the fetching of said food.
Sarn held out a hand to his son and Ran took it.
“Where’re we going?”
“Down,” Sarn grimaced at the oblique reference to the squalid place where he lived.
“You mean home?”
Home—the word slammed into Sarn and the truth tripped him up. Their cave wasn’t a home. It was just a place where they slept until he could find somewhere safer to live. But Sarn kept his comments to himself while he checked the corridor for witnesses. When he was certain they were in the clear, he led his son into the arcade connecting all the balconies on this level.
“Not yet, I’ve got something to do first.”
“Can we go on a nice ad-ven-ture now?”
“I don’t know.”
The Lower Quarters was a crap shoot. Sarn never knew what to expect down there. He checked on the unknown woman, but she was still out of his sensing range presumably on that ship. He could pick up her trail again if she set foot on shore.
Or I could just go look at her vessel after I find out what Dirk is up to. Now that sounded like a good plan, and Ran might consider that a nice adventure.
Sarn smiled and steered his son around a group of glaring statues as a new thought occurred to him.
I should ask Will to check the Harbormaster’s logs. Knowing the ship’s port of origin and where it was bound might shed some light on the unknown woman and her dealings with Dirk. But to discover both, he’d have to stop avoiding Will. Not something Sarn was ready to do yet, so he ground his molars.
Since their awkward conversation in the tunnel last month, Will had tried to talk to him several times. Maybe he should find out what his friend wanted. An uneasy feeling stirred Sarn’s gut at the idea, but before he could become mired in nebulous worries, his son’s last comment registered. Sarn almost tripped over his own feet.
Sarn caught himself on one of the statues in his path and met the gimlet stare of a marble woman. She looked right through him sending shivers up his spine until he looked away. He must have imagined that cold intelligence lighting her crystal eyes. She was just a statue like the thousands of others littering this place. Still, Sarn felt a disquieting urge to hurry back to the rough tunnels claimed by the Indentured. There were no creepy statues down there.
“Papa, can I?” Ra
n bounced on his toes. His eyes glittered with anticipation.
“Can you what?” Sarn’s mind caught up with the conversation, and he froze. On the other side of a marble phalanx, children laughed and played. Ran tugged him toward them.
“Can I play with them?” Ran pointed at yet more statues standing sentinel by a portal. Beyond those stony soldiers, silhouetted children cavorted in the sunbeams bathing the balcony. Ran gave the group a longing look.
Sarn let the silence speak for him. Until he could obtain legal custody of his son, the answer was no. But Sarn kept the truth to himself where it could depress only him. Ran’s expectant face fell a little more with each step away. How could he tell his son the truth?
Ran was a secret Sarn kept from the world. A secret in danger of coming out if he didn’t find a way to put Dirk and his cronies behind bars. Perhaps Dirk’s business in the Lower Quarters right now was the key. Sarn hoped so as he dragged Ran away from the children and their carefree games.
The silence between them chafed until Sarn broke it. “Someday,” he said wishing he had a better answer to offer his crestfallen son.
Unwilling to concede defeat, Ran shot him a determined glare. “You promise?”
But he couldn’t, not when his future belonged to another. So Sarn remained silent as they wended through less-populous tunnels. When a pedestrian blundered into this corridor heading the opposite way, Sarn squeezed his eyes closed. But he kept one mental eye fixed on Dirk’s symbol and the mystery he represented. One he would solve right now if Fate smiled on him.
Echoes of his son’s unanswered question haunted Sarn. It chased him to a staircase leading to the Lower Quarters and the oppressive dark biding its time in its nooks and crannies. Not even the glow of his eyes could dispel those shadows for long.
Weaving Fates
Inari slowed. Her heart beat a triple tattoo of warning.
“Mom, is something wrong?”
“No, I just remembered something I need to do.”
Inari shook her head at her son’s question, but her eyes stayed on the silhouetted back of a man tall enough to be Sarn. Of course, he wasn’t. Sarn had no business in this part of the stronghold, and he always hunched his shoulders to disguise his unusual height. But this man walked with a straight back and a confidence Sarn lacked.
Her gaze narrowed on the sack he carried then measured the breadth of his shoulders. He was broad enough to be Sarn, but he wasn’t. Besides, this man had a small child with him, a boy much too young to be Sarn’s only brother. Sunlight gilded them, washing away any telling details, as it spilled through the gaps between the statues lining the arcade.
Still, unease tightened her gut. She hung back not wanting to get any closer to them. Sarn—good God, she had last seen him a month ago. Inari rubbed a warm spot below her collarbone where a bit of his magic had lodged under her skin.
Images broke through her guard—a death’s head sketched out by arrow shafts, a hail of stones held aloft by the will and power of a young man buckling under the emotional strain. Light had obliterated everything—all of it green like the twin wheels of fire turning in his eyes. Her bow had dropped from her nerveless fingers letting her next arrow fall head first into the grass.
He killed them, Sarn had repeated in a daze while his magic raised a sparkling globe around them. Its warm touch had tingled on her skin.
She had rushed into the heart of that emerald inferno seeking only to calm him, so he could regain control. Her arms had slid around power incarnate, and its heat had burrowed into her filling a void she hadn’t known existed. Under her fingers, a remnant of his magic pulsed until she dropped her hand back to her side. Guilt walked in lock-step with her.
Ahead, the man turned a bend and disappeared without ever giving her a good look at him. Maybe he was self-conscious because he wore a deep hood, and it shadowed his face. But the boy paused, standing where shadow and sunlight met. He glanced back at Inari freezing her in place.
Distance blurred his features as Fate wove invisible threads between them. She would encounter both the man and the boy one day soon.
The child waved before vanishing around the same bend as his father releasing her from her paralysis. Inari exhaled the breath she’d been holding but tension still held her hostage. Fates’ touch was hard to shake off, but she tried. Who were they and how did they connect to her?
“Mom, are you okay?” Nerule asked, turning his mahogany eyes on her. They sought reassurance, and she struggled to give it.
“I’m fine.”
Nerule dropped his gaze to his boots. “I don’t have to go to the party.”
“Yes, you do. You’ve been looking forward to it for days.” She manufactured a smile for her son, but he saw through it. “I’ll find a sunny spot to read while you enjoy an afternoon with your friends.”
Nerule was eight and all too aware his parents’ marriage was crumbling. One day it would collapse altogether, but Inari forced that eventuality out of her mind. She refused to give up.
It takes two to make a marriage work, but you’re the only one trying, rasped her conscience. What more can you do?
The question tripped Inari up before she could banish it to the pit where she piled all her doubts. Her gaze snagged on an ancient warrior, spear at the ready, guarding the entrance to a sun-lit balcony. Beyond the imposing specimen of marble and bad taste, children laughed and played.
“Go on in.” She cocked her head toward the child-sized silhouettes ringing a fountain. They slapped its surface kicking up waves.
Nerule glanced at her, concern darkening his face. His father’s skin was as black as fertile soil but Nerule’s was the tawny of a deer’s hide. She cupped his downy cheek in her café au lait hand. The question he’d been about to ask died on his lips. It had been asked and answered already. He gave a faint nod accepting it.
“I brought a good book.” Inari let her hand drop to the basket hanging off her arm. She withdrew a thin volume and held it up. “Ranispara lent me it. She’s waiting for my review. Maybe I’ll read you some of it later.”
His eyes lit at the prospect. True Nerule could read, but the child in him loved when she read to him. “All right but I won’t stay long, just a couple of hours.”
Inari nodded. There was no point in arguing. Once Nerule started playing with his friends, he’d forget all about the time. After giving her one more look, Nerule stepped through the gap between those creepy stone sentinels.
For a moment, Inari watched the children wishing she could recapture the carefree days of her youth. Then several mothers noticed her. Off to one side, they stood whispering by a table spread with colorful finger foods. Their conversation ceased as they glared in her direction.
You’re not wanted here, gypsy, their eyes said.
Before those hateful words could travel to their mouths, Inari shook off her nostalgia. She headed for one of the public balconies to wait for her son where no one would care if she was wagon-born and a better hunter than her Ranger husband. She fingered the spine of the book Ranispara had lent her.
It had an odd title, Curse Breaker: Darkens by a new scribe rumored to be female. She hoped it wasn’t a romance or a story involving magic. She’d had enough of both to last a lifetime. Let it be a tale of high adventure to sweep her away and banish all thoughts of the mysterious man and his son.
Inari flipped the book’s pages until the text blurred, but her earlier question refused to leave her alone. Which of Fates’ strings tied her to that man and his son?
Unseen by Inari, a petite black woman materialized behind a glamour. She was Phadrassen, Fay to her friends, the Final Fate. Her red swirling eyes locked onto a woman in her early thirties. Illuminating the future was her profession, but weaving those fiery webs became monotonous after the first billion years.
Besides, she had plenty of descendants who could take care of that chore for a few days. Even a goddess needed a vacation every millennium or so. And there was a distinct lack of w
ars to meddle with. So, she’d popped in for her once-a-century visit to her distant descendants and choked down a lungful of the Adversary’s putrescence.
What the hell’s going on here? Something interesting? Fay rubbed her hands together anticipating the kind of drama she could sink her nails and maybe even her blade into.
Inhaling the stink again, she sifted through it seeking information. Her mocha lips turned down in disgust. One of the Adversary’s lesser minions had been here less than a month ago, but not the big guy himself—damn. Fay’s ebony skin boiled as her hide thickened, and a dragon struggled to break free from her confining human form. Before all vestiges of her pretend humanity puddled on the floor with her fast-shredding gown, she strengthened the glamor hiding her from view.
Thankfully she’d appeared on a balcony and the next level up was about forty-feet overhead. She needed every foot of space to calm down and reverse the change before she remodeled the exterior of the mountain stronghold and upset Shayari’s sylvan Queen.
Like any other dragon, she had a horde—her descendants. When people messed with her kin, she eviscerated them. And someone had. But the Adversary was sealed out of this world so rending him limb from limb was impossible for the moment. Fay sheathed her claws, managing by sheer force of will to avoid gouging the tiled floor.
With an inaudible pop, her body shrank and reskinned itself in humanity’s thin veneer. A snap of her fingers swapped her impractical skirt for her favorite suit of armor. Blood had stained her dragon scale armor a deep red.
Fay winked at her reflection then her smile fell. The Blood Knight might be back in business, but her favorite damsel-in-distress, Ariadne the Pure, was gone. Squaring her shoulders, Fay packed away the grief for another time. Someday she’d find out what had happened to Ariadne and take her back, but not today. Her trusty sword sheathed itself at her hip as Fay approached her seated descendant.
Of course, Inari had no idea she had a goddess as an ancestor, nor was Fay about to inform her. Only the first four generations out needed such intel to deal with the side effects of their peculiar heritage. Once the percentage of godhood shrank to below 10% it wasn’t worth mentioning. Besides, Inari only had a drop of her blood. Any effect it had was so minor, no one would comment on it. But it did grant the girl an affinity for mages and a magic-accepting physique. Both were great adaptations for a woman living in a country riddled with enchantments.
Curse Breaker: Books 1-4 Page 65
