Stranger Rituals

by Kali Rose Schmidt

  She reached for the bird skull around her neck, the one she had scooped into her pocket after she had been betrayed by someone from her own town. The one she had held onto when the Praeminister had dragged her down the hall to his rooms, all the Warskian soldiers looking the other way, no one bothering to help. Because the Praeminister was a holy man, and she was a corrupted, Vrakan slave.

  The memory shuttered her mood, and as a heavy cloud rolled over the city, blocking the sun, she thought it fitting.

  “Besides, Kadezska, you’re hungry, no time for reminiscing,” she muttered to herself. It was surprisingly difficult to murder an innocent victim for blood when the sun was shining so brightly. She thought of going back to a raptum den, and as if answering her thoughts, she heard a woman pleading as she left the more crowded areas of the city, into the desolate sections where stragglers wandered aimlessly.

  Another alleyway, another guard. This one was thin and lanky, a woman on her knees before him, her hands clasped together as if in prayer. Scarko started down the alleyway. The tang of blood was noticeably absent here, meaning it could have been a troomla den. Drug dens, it seemed, were more common than cafés on these streets.

  Scarko didn’t care about the type of drug as she glanced at the woman in rags crying out for the guard to let her in. She just needed someone to feed on.

  The guard glanced towards Scarko, then shoved the woman aside gently with his boot. “No zed, no entrance.”

  As Scarko approached, she took the man in, pimples on his chin, a goofy grin plastered on his face when she stood before him. The woman was moaning, her grey hair tied back in a greasy bun.

  “What’s in there?” Scarko asked, gesturing toward the door behind the man.

  The man smiled. He was a boy, really. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, a knife hung at his waist. “Troomla,” he said, eyes sparkling. “Joyous, beautiful troomla.”

  “No raptum?” Scarko asked.

  The boy’s eyes darkened, and he knitted his thick brows together. “No raptum. We don’t serve that here.”

  Beside them, the woman groaned.

  Scarko nodded towards her. “Does she come here often?”

  The boy nodded. “But she doesn’t have any money.”

  “Who runs this place?”

  The boy frowned. “You’ve sure got a lot of questions, I’m not so sure…”

  Scarko batted her lashes. It was a game she could play well. She sidled up close to the guard, so close she could smell the coffee on his breath.

  The boy cleared his throat. “Councilman Rog Ek.”

  “Does he own raptum dens, too?”

  The boy nodded. “He owns everything. Probably the king as well.” Suddenly, he clamped a hand over his mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  Scarko shrugged, made a note of the name. Perhaps it would be helpful when she returned to the Order. “Too late now, I guess. Don’t sweat it.” She toed the dinginess of the alleyway, stirring up dust and stealing a glance at the woman, looking up at her now with desperation in her cloudy eyes. “What’s your name?” she asked the boy.

  He smiled. His teeth were yellow, but Scarko was glad to see he had them all. “Thomas.”

  Thomas.

  The thought of the dead Vrakan fighter was like a punch in the gut. She swallowed. “I’m Mia, Thomas. Can you do me a favor?”

  Thomas nodded eagerly, his eyes lighting up at her false name. “Can you get me a sample of what you’re serving here?” She nodded towards the door behind him as he frowned. She reached into her cloak pocket, gave the boy a golden coin. The woman clawed at Scarko’s legs, but Scarko bent down and shoved her off with her hand, calmly. “If it’s good, I’ll give you more of that,” she inclined her head to the coin in the boy’s hand.

  He pocketed the money. “Of course,” he said, and then he turned and scurried through the door, the woman scrabbling after him, the door closing on her fingers. She yanked them out and howled.

  Scarko sighed, looking down at the woman. “I’m not sorry for this.”

  Before the woman could scream, Scarko had her teeth in the woman’s neck, drinking of her stale, longing blood. She kept it clean, draining her only from the first bite, so she could walk back to the Cove without blood all over her hands and cloak and so she could minimize suffering to the desperate woman. When she was done, Scarko propped the silent woman up against the door of the troomla den. The only wound was the teeth marks, and she doubted the boy would take a close look when he came back. Before he could do so, Scarko left the alleyway, humming as she walked to her room.

  By some god’s miracle, she was able to curl up into her bed, pull the scrawny sheet over her body in the inn, close her eyes, and slip into something like sleep, even as she wondered if Rhodri would interrupt her again. It had been so long since she had actually slept without dreaming, it was with a flash of anger that she woke to the sound of someone pounding on her door. If it were Rhodri, she would kill him with his own horns.

  “Who is it?” Her voice was groggy with sleep, but she snatched the knife from under her pillow.

  “Open the damn door.” It was Ida’s high-pitched voice.

  Scarko sighed, slid from the bed, and stomped to the door, wrenching it open and scowling at Ida.

  Ida looked her over, her slender arms crossed. “You look like hell.”

  “So you’ve said,” Scarko replied icily, rubbing her eyes. “And it’s hells. There are thirteen, in case you didn’t know.”

  Ida smirked. “Glad to see you do sleep.” She glanced around her room. “No guests?”

  Scarko stuck her tongue out and turned to shove her feet into her boots, then laced them up tight. “I’m warning you, I don’t give an unholy damn what Zephir said, I’m not rigging up explosives.”

  “I wouldn’t trust you to, so that’s great.” Ida’s voice feigned enthusiasm.

  The two left the Cove as the sun began to set, Ida claiming that most sailors would be headed to eat at that time, before they hit the gambling halls or brothels. When they got down to the docks, the sun was nothing but an orange disk sinking beyond the Furlan, and the chill had grown, the temperature dropping once more. She resisted the urge to shove Ida into the sea and head back to the Order, where she wouldn’t be keeping watch in a place that reeked of dead fish.

  Ida had a black bag full of powders, little square detonators that she had apparently nicked from her father.

  “Won’t he notice?” Scarko asked as Ida and she kept watch from behind an empty barge docked at the end of the port.

  Ida shook her head, ran a gloved hand over her shorn hair. “Doubtful. He’s got so many weapons lying around the house; a few detonators would be the least of his concern.”

  “What would your father think if he knew you were helping Zephir take out some of the Royal family?” Scarko’s words were full of humor, but Ida darted a glance at her as they peered around the barge, waiting for an ambling soldier to cross the street to the city beyond.

  “He’d probably think I inherited his genes.”

  Scarko smiled at that. “What’s his name?”

  Ida frowned. “You plan to sell all of our secrets to the Djavul back at your Order?”

  Scarko shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Councilman Rog Ek. Owner of Kezda.” She feigned an important, haughty tone.

  The boy named Thomas, guarding the troomla den…the one Ida’s father owned. The realization was like being plunged into icy water. Ida’s father owned raptum dens, if the guard was to be believed. And he had had no reason to lie. Her father really was close to the King, really did own the city. It would be so easy for Zephir to get her taken back to the Palace. She fought off a shudder.

  She felt Ida’s eyes on her. “What? Do you know him? Is he on your hit list, too?” Ida asked carefully.

  He is now, Scarko thought, but she shook her head. The warning from Rhodri sounded again in her mind. Don’t work with him.

  Ida stood from her c
rouch beyond the barge. “I’m going to put some here,” she nodded toward the square ship, “so keep an eye out. If anyone comes close, whistle three times.” She paused, stared down at Scarko. “You can whistle, right?”

  Scarko rolled her eyes. “Get to work,” she said. Ida walked away, trailing around the barge, keeping her eyes peeled, much like Scarko herself did when she was flanking Vojtech out in Gotheberg.

  When Ida was out of sight, someone clamped a hand over Scarko’s mouth.

  Fear ran through her veins; she should have heard someone behind her. Would have heard someone.

  She whirled around, the hand still over her mouth, but letting her move. Her eyes widened.

  It was Rhodri.

  The silver in his eyes glittered in the waning sunlight, the rays bringing out the blue tints of his black curly hair, gleaming off his midnight blue horns. He held a tattooed hand to his lips, a gesture to be quiet. Her heart beating wildly, she nodded. She didn’t reach for her knife as he slowly removed his hand from her mouth. Fear coursed through her, thinking of the pain he could inflict without blinking, but still she stood, shoulders back.

  And she wet her lips to whistle, her hand trembling at her side.

  He leaned in so close to her she could smell citrus and that hint of a summer night. She did her best not to flinch as he whispered in her ear. “Don’t go to the festival, princess.” His voice was lilting, but the warning was more edged than the others. “If you want to leave here, if you change your mind, let me know.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but then she heard Ida’s steps coming around the barge. Rhodri vanished.

  Ida furrowed her brow. “Any Warskians? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she had been fiddling with something in her bag, but she halted, looking Scarko up and down.

  Scarko cleared her throat. She wished she had seen a ghost.

  “I’m fine, move along,” she forced a saccharine smile on her face.

  Ida shrugged and moved on to the next ship.

  Immediately, Rhodri reappeared, directly in front of Scarko, his tan hands held up in a sign of surrender, or, perhaps, peace. “Don’t go,” his voice was so quiet she almost couldn’t hear him, even though their breath mingled by the sea. “Kill him for all I care, but do not go.”

  “How do you—”

  Ida was back.

  Rhodri vanished.

  Scarko’s head spun, but she rearranged her features into passive boredom.

  They moved down two more ships, and Ida climbed atop the schooner, deposited the explosives. Rhodri did not return, even though Scarko looked around wildly for him. Fireworks sprouted up beyond the city in showers of gold and green, getting ready for Martyr’s Day celebrations early.

  Reluctantly, with a twisting in her gut, Scarko walked down the rocky beach with Ida, away from the docks, and settled in a cluster of long-hanging trees. She glanced behind her, searching for Rhodri, then up at the velvety sky, thinking of Vojtech. With any luck, she would see him in a few days with so much to report back on. So many questions.

  But Rhodri’s warning…she schooled her features into neutrality. She could not tell Ida. She tried to drown out his warning.

  Ida looked to her as they sat blanketed beneath the stars, atop a blanket Ida had stolen from one of the ships.

  “Be careful tomorrow, Scarko.” Her voice was hushed.

  Scarko’s skin crawled. Rhodri had more or less told her as much. But she forced the fear from her face and tilted her head. “Is there a veiled threat somewhere in there?”

  Ida shook her head. In the moonlight, Scarko saw the curve of her thin lips, the hollows of her cheeks, the diamond shape of her face. She saw what Zephir had surely seen in her. What had happened to them?

  “Do you know why I work for Z?” she asked.

  “I’ve been trying to figure it out since you came striding through that musty crowd at the fight.”

  Ida smiled, but it didn’t meet her eyes. “My father deals in weapons, Z included.” She laughed ruefully. “His best one yet. But I work for Z, not my father, because Z stands for something.”

  Scarko couldn’t hold in her snort. “Money? Testosterone? Vrakan blood?”

  “I know you don’t understand it, but here in Kezda, everyone is out for themselves. Z is no different, really, but the thing that kept me hanging on, even after we fell apart, is that he knows it. He tries to cling to the revenge he wants, what he’s going for tomorrow. But he freely admits he’s just as corrupt as everyone else in this country.”

  Had Vojtech ever admitted to being wrong, corrupt? He had said once he didn’t listen to the gods and it had cost him. Even still, did he ever think the gods evil? Himself evil? They tore Warskian soldiers apart for just doing their jobs, same as they would do when the second Holy War came. And Rhodri had said, had hinted, that Vojtech had abandoned his people at the Palace. He had implied that Vojtech was not as holy as he made himself to be.

  With a start, Scarko realized Ida was watching her.

  “Be careful of him.”

  “Who?” Scarko thought of Vojtech, then Zephir, in quick succession.

  Ida smiled. “The ones you’re thinking of.”

  “I’m not scared of Zephir,” Scarko said defiantly. “Even if he is immune to my blood.”

  “It’s not a mystery, why he’s immune,” Ida said, leaning back on her palms, looking up at the stars. “How he knew what you were. His mother was a Skuggmat. She died when he was a child, gave him a blood curse as she froze to death atop him and Jalde.” Her eyes found Scarko’s in the dark.

  Scarko swallowed, pulling her coat tighter around her, legs crossed before her. “Blood curse? You mean…blessing?”

  Ida shrugged. “Same thing.”

  12

  Window Tension

  She wasn’t sure why she decided to stay.

  As she had walked back to the Cove that night with Ida, Rhodri nowhere to be seen, she debated it over and over, wondering if she was making a foolish decision. If Vojtech would eat her bones for her royal screw up when she returned to the Order. If she returned to the Order. She didn’t trust Zephir and his crew, not enough to not believe he wouldn’t try to kill her after she served her purpose for whatever he was planning.

  But she would be ready.

  Rhodri’s warnings rang louder in her ear, his mere presence terrifying and yet phantom all at once.

  But if Zephir intended to hand her over to the Warskians, he could have done so a dozen times by now. Besides, she reasoned, it was one more night, then she would kill the Praeminister, find Zephir, and she would return to Vojtech, just as he had asked of her. She was already ahead of schedule, owing to the wolf bones that had taken her through the Skov forest. She’d likely be back before Vojtech even expected her. If she could evade Rhodri.

  Burying beneath the sheets of the inn’s room, knowing sleep wouldn’t come to her, not as she was half-waiting for the horned man to pop into her room again, she smiled as she thought of the Djavul. He would be appalled she had spent so much time with the enemy, appalled that she had let herself be put under by those damn mindeta cigarettes, not once, but twice.

  What a clever invention. She could take it back to the Order, perhaps they could use it for any Vrakan Marazan rebels or Vrakan Royal soldiers they wanted to interrogate. Vojtech might enjoy that idea.

  He rarely let himself enjoy anything save for his visions and his bones. The nights they had spent staying awake together, plotting the final battle in the coming Holy War, he had never reached for vin himself. He hadn’t partaken in syn when he had led her to the forest to do so. Part of her thought, in those moments, he was looking after her, keeping her safe.

  Maybe he was just keeping himself safe, his own secrets.

  And what of Zephir’s? Finding out his mother was a Vraka only made his fighting seem sick, more twisted. What had happened to her to cause her to die in the streets? Ida hadn’t said, and she hadn’t pressed.

  What, too, o
f Ida, of Jalde, the latter of whom trailed after him like a little brother, even though the two looked nothing alike? Zephir was lean and wiry with light brown skin and those vivid green eyes, Jalde short and stocky with deep brown skin like Klaus’s. Ida said they were close like brothers, said that Zephir’s mother had died trying to keep them both from the cold, but how had they found one another?

  It was a shame, Scarko thought, stifling a yawn, that she would never be able to find out more about them, more about Zephir’s mother’s story. And the way Zephir had looked at her when she confessed to him her vengeance lay in killing the Praeminister, almost as if he had known the horrific things the holy man did. And, Scarko realized with a jolt, that Ida reminded her of Yezedi in many ways—both with their gangly limbs and severe manners. It was why she liked the girl. And Yezedi would have liked her, too, had they not been mortal enemies.

  Scarko turned over in the tiny bed, missing her own luxurious canopy bed back at the Order in her otherwise barren room, missing the blood she didn’t have to kill for, missing Klaus’s deep laugh and Yezedi’s wide-eyed concern. The toll of the bells through the day, and night. Vojtech’s ominous teasing, his plotting and scheming. (Plotting and scheming are the same thing, Scarko, he had once told her.) She even missed, just a little, Emil and Alexander—Emil’s jealousy made her smile, and Alexander’s morose words helped her feel a little less like a sad sack herself. She wondered what they would think when she told them of all she had done in Kezda, wondered if Emil would try to get Vojtech to lower her rank, let him step in her place, for not directly following orders. She wondered, too, if Vojtech knew of Rhodri.

  Just as she thought that maybe, just maybe, she’d get a chance to drift off to a few hours of sleep before she hauled herself atop the roof of St. Jerilo’s far too early in the morning, there was a tapping on her window.

  She groaned, jumped from the bed, her knife held aloft, and looked to see Zephir’s impassive face outside of her window, his fingerless gloves hanging onto the ledge. She pulled the cloak on the desk around her nightgown, and heaved open the window, the frigid air rushing in.