Life

by Rosie Scott

  Four

  Nyx led the Seran Renegades, Cyrus, and Uriel down a long, chestnut-colored stone hallway, stopping just outside a steel door. The inn room number was engraved just above her head as she prepared to knock. The low, whimsical tune of a lute met my ears from through the door. When Nyx tapped her knuckles over the steel, the music stopped, and footsteps came to the door. It immediately opened, and the man within smiled as he saw Nyx.

  Nyx had said her new friend was a half-breed of Vhiri and Alderi, so I hadn't known what to expect. His Alderi father had apparently been dark-complected like Nyx because his skin had the most beautiful unique hue of a deep purple bronze. It was such a rare color to see that I found myself wishing the various races of the world would intermingle more often. Clearly, half-breeds could be some of the most beautiful people of all.

  His eyes were deep brown irises set within white, taking after his Vhiri mother. He stood at just about six feet tall, and was as thin and practically muscled as most elves I'd ever known. His hair was a mix of black and dark brown, and he kept it out of his face in a lazy ponytail. His eyes immediately found me, connecting my image to the things he'd heard, and he smiled warmly.

  “You must be Kai Sera.” His voice was a bit rough around the edges as if due to smoking ferris, but it was also friendly. A long arm was stretched toward me when he offered a hand, and I took it. “I'm Holter Dunn. I'm so happy to finally meet you.”

  “Dark hunter,” Azazel spoke up from behind me.

  Holter glanced back at the archer with a smile. “You're good with names.”

  “Names say a lot about people,” Azazel replied. “I am Azazel Beriah.”

  Holter nodded. “Then if you speak from experience, I hope all of your troubles are behind you.”

  “They are. Did you escape the underground?” Azazel questioned.

  “No, friend. My father did some decades ago. I grew up in Silvi with my Vhiri mother.”

  “Your father left?” I asked, thinking of the non-monogamous nature of the Alderi.

  “Sometimes, yes,” Holter admitted. “He became a mercenary captain, so he was gone for long patches of time, but he always came back. He loves me in his own way. But the ways of the Alderi stem deeper than blood.”

  “Does that bother you?” I questioned, noting his hesitance.

  Holter shrugged half-heartedly, glancing over at Nyx. “There are some things I wish I could change about it. But because I am a half-breed, I'm not tied to one race or another.”

  Nyx grinned at me. “He wants me all to himself, Kai.”

  Holter's face softened a bit, and he said to Nyx, “I told you I would not chain you.”

  “And I told you that you couldn't even if you tried,” Nyx retorted playfully.

  Holter looked back to me, unwilling to be as blunt as Nyx about his personal details before a group of strangers. “I was in Silvi when you were there. I would have joined you in the underground if I was able.”

  Nyx snickered and added, “He's a youngling.”

  “Are you?” I questioned.

  “I am twenty now. I was fifteen at the time you came through.” Holter looked a bit embarrassed as he added, “My mother forbade me to go underground at the time.”

  “That's nothing to be embarrassed about, friend,” I offered. “I am glad you finished your childhood in Silvi. How does it fair?”

  “Since the flood?” When I nodded, Holter continued, “You'd never think it flooded at all. If the water rose, it only did by a bit. When I was in Scirocco, I heard the north had it worse.”

  “Do you wish to join us in Hammerton?” I asked him.

  “Yes, if I am welcome. I could be useful to you.” As if to further convince me, Holter started to list off his strengths. “I spent my teenage years as a hunter. I am blood-kin with the oozlum. After elemental magic spread in the wildlands, I learned earth and death. I am a pretty good shot with a bow, and I know a little alchemy.” Holter glanced back into the room, pointing at the lute he'd left sitting on a chair. “I am also a musician.”

  “Well, I wasn't convinced until you said that,” I jested, to which he chuckled.

  “It seems you are talented in a little bit of everything,” Cerin commented.

  Holter smiled at my lover. “Thank you for saying that. I may be young, but I think I can help.”

  My heart warmed with his humility. “Holter, you are much too innocent to be running around with Nyx.”

  He chuckled. “I think she wants to change that.”

  Nyx nodded enthusiastically while letting her eyes roll over him in attraction.

  “May I ask what an oozlum is?” Azazel questioned. “I'm assuming a type of animal since you are a beastman.”

  “Yes.” Holter nodded. “It's a muscular bird that makes its home in the wildlands. It is adept at flying backward as well as forward. These are the reasons I chose it. I am a good scout, and I can carry grown men in my beast form as I fly.”

  “You'll be very helpful to have around,” I told him.

  “Ah. So I am accepted,” Holter replied, with a hopeful smile.

  “Of course. You are more talented than many of the people I meet. You should know this; you've met Nyx.” I chuckled as she smacked me playfully on the arm.

  “Kai.” Cyrus's voice pulled my attention back to the hallway, where he and Uriel had mostly been quiet. As Holter continued talking with the others, Uriel and I followed the second Sentinel down the hallway a few feet. When we were out of earshot of everyone other than Azazel, he said, “Perhaps one of them would be willing to deliver our message.”

  I nodded slowly, thinking. Cyrus and Uriel had been waiting to send a messenger to Hazarmaveth requesting another assassination contract on Queen Tilda. It was imperative that we were overseas when it happened. Because Eteri and I now had an alliance, the Alderi would no longer have any qualms about the job.

  “We don't know that we can trust Holter,” Uriel pointed out when I'd been quiet.

  “It doesn't matter if we can trust him or not,” I commented. “I'll ask him how he feels about it, and if he's against it, I can make him forget the entire conversation.”

  Cyrus frowned. “How?”

  “Illusion magic, Cy, the type she hates.”

  “Are you certain it works perfectly every time?” Uriel questioned.

  I nodded, thinking back to when such spells had been used on me during the Hazarmaveth takeover. “Trust me, I've been under its influence. I have never gotten the memories back, and I'm told I witnessed the death of a friend. That's not something I'd otherwise forget.”

  Cyrus nodded, glancing back toward the others. “Let's try it, Kai.”

  I walked back to the others, catching Cerin and Holter in the midst of a conversation about necromancy. The two quieted when they noticed my stare.

  “Nyx.” I moved my eyes to Holter. “Holter.” I motioned toward their room. “Let's have a chat.”

  Nyx's eyebrows rose. “Uh-oh, we're not in trouble, are we?” Even as she said it, she hurried into the room as Holter backed up into it, confused. While Nyx sat back on the bed, the others and I took a seat across from her on a couch. Maggie didn't trust the furniture and decided to stand against the wall, ducking slightly to avoid hitting her head on the ceiling.

  “Is there a reason you should be?” Cyrus asked teasingly as he closed and locked the door behind him.

  “Smuggling drugs, maybe,” Nyx commented, to which Holter glared at her in panic.

  Both of the Sentinels laughed at her bluntness. As Cyrus stood back against the steel door, he said, “You don't think I can smell all that ferris, Holter? You're young, so let me give you a little tip: take some canvas, soak it in cressa-water overnight. Wrap the ferris in that, and it'll take the stench away. You can take it anywhere, and no one will be the wiser.”

  Holter frowned over at the second Sentinel. “Aren't you a Sentinel?” He questioned, motioning toward Cyrus's prestigious black and yellow armor.

 
“I am. Cyrus Anil.” After Cyrus nodded toward Uriel, the healer introduced himself.

  “I never thought I'd see the day,” Holter murmured, plopping back on the end of the bed he shared with Nyx. “A Sentinel is teaching me how to smuggle drugs.”

  Cyrus chuckled. “Ferris never hurt anybody. I've tried convincing our queen that taxing it would be more beneficial than throwing its users into the dungeons, but she doesn't listen to me.”

  “If I had a piece of gold for every time I've had to throw a ferris user in the dungeon, I'd be able to retire,” Uriel muttered.

  “Am I being arrested?” Holter asked, watching both men with confused eyes.

  “No.” Cyrus smiled. “But you could have been if it wasn't Uriel or me here. Cressa-water, Holter. The alchemy shops around the district should have it.”

  Azazel shook his head on the couch beside me, tugging his satchel out from between us. “I have cressa.” The archer dug around through his dried alchemy ingredients, pulling out a small stack of what looked like deep fuchsia petals lined in parchment. He lifted it up to his nose, and the resulting breeze from the movement hit my nostrils with a heavy floral scent. Azazel stood from the couch, handing the stack over to the younger man.

  Cyrus grinned over at Azazel. “Why do you carry cressa?”

  Azazel sat back down on the couch beside me. “For my lotions. Cressa is very oily. The same oils that mask the scent of ferris hydrate my skin.” He motioned toward his wrists.

  “Sure,” Cyrus teased him.

  “I don't smoke,” Azazel insisted.

  “So...” Nyx trailed off, pursing her lips as she sat beside her friend, “are we going to break out the ferris and have us a party, then, or why are we in here?”

  “Gotta be honest,” Maggie commented from where she stood beside Uriel, “I've never tried the stuff before, but I'd be willin' to.”

  “That's not why we're here,” I insisted, though I chuckled due to our circumstances. “Nyx, you trust Holter, right?”

  “Sure. I wouldn't have brought him here if I didn't.”

  I leaned toward the younger man. “How do you feel about the queen?”

  Holter's brown eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “Queen Tilda? Of Eteri?”

  “Yes.”

  “All I know of her is what my mother told me, and she hated her. Tilda's the reason she lived in the wildlands at all.”

  “How would you feel about delivering a message to Hazarmaveth?”

  Holter glanced over at Nyx, who looked absolutely intrigued. “What kind of message?”

  “An assassination contract.”

  “Oo!” Nyx raised a hand. “I'll do it. No contract necessary.”

  Cyrus chuckled from the doorway despite the weighty subject. “Keep your voice down, Nyx.”

  Nyx lowered her voice to a whisper and repeated, “I'll do it.”

  I couldn't help but huff in humor. “Nyx, please. Just wait a second until Holter answers.”

  “He doesn't have to answer, Kai,” Nyx retorted in a whisper. “I'd do it in a heartbeat. I've been waiting for her to die.”

  Holter took this information in with some interest, before turning back to me. “Why do you want her dead?”

  We took a few minutes to catch both Holter and Nyx up to speed on the events of the past few years. Nyx knew much of the queen's treachery, of course, but she hadn't been present when we'd heard of Cyrus and Uriel's plans or for the conversations about how we were confident the queen would pull her support from me when I needed her most. Nyx sobered a bit when I told her that in particular, probably because all of us had risked our lives for Eteri for years.

  “Okay, so why can't I kill her?” Nyx questioned, keeping her voice low.

  “We need to be overseas,” I told her. “If you were caught, it would ruin us.”

  “Us? You said this was their idea,” Nyx replied, pointing over to the two Sentinels.

  “And it is their idea,” I said, “I'm just going along with it. It doesn't matter whose idea it was, Nyx, if you were caught in the midst of it, you know what would happen.”

  Nyx blew an exhale through her nostrils, blowing her black hair away from her face. “Fine. I'll keep it to my fantasies, then.”

  Holter was silent a moment. “Will this come back to me? If it's caught?”

  “It'll come back to me,” Cyrus said from the door.

  “And me,” I mused.

  “No.” Cyrus shook his head. “You were never a part of this until Cicero got involved.”

  “I'm a part of it now,” I replied.

  “I want this all to fall on me, Kai,” the Sentinel replied. “Not Uriel. Not you. Not Holter. Not Altan.”

  “It could kill you,” I protested.

  “And so what if it does?” Cyrus questioned openly. “I accepted the risk a long time ago. Better me than everyone at once. If your name is attached to it, Chairel could crumble right after you take it. If my name is attached to it, the worst that could happen is my execution.”

  “And the best that could happen?” I asked.

  Cyrus's eyes were humble in my own. “I figured I would be welcome in Chairel with you. Harboring me would put you in danger of another war, but I could find some way to disappear until everything died down.”

  I tilted my head toward him in acknowledgment. “You wouldn't even have to ask, Cy.” The Sentinel appeared both grateful and relieved by my answer.

  “I'll take the message,” Holter offered.

  I glanced over at Azazel. “Maybe he could take it to Corvina,” I suggested. “Even if my name's not on the contract, if he told her I was a part of this, maybe she'd try hard to make it happen. What do you think?”

  Azazel nodded. “She said you could always request her support.”

  “Is Corvina someone you knew in Hazarmaveth?” Cyrus questioned.

  “Yes. She's trustworthy,” Azazel promised.

  Over the next hour or so, we talked through our plan. Holter was to take the contract to Hazarmaveth via the same tunnel we'd left the underground through years before in the southern Pedr Crags. We told him where to find Corvina, and once he did he would make the verbal request of her using the names of both Azazel and I. Holter would then deliver the gold and contract with Cyrus's name attached to an assassin's guild by Corvina's side. Because Corvina was one of our most essential sympathizers in the Hazarmaveth takeover, she'd remained in a position of power after we'd left. We knew she had pull in the underground city, and if she knew that Holter had come to her partially by Azazel's request, we were sure she would try to throw Hazarmaveth's best assassins at the job for us.

  Holter nodded along as we went through the plan with him over and over again. Much of it would not be written down in the case he was stopped on his way through the Eteri grasslands. Cyrus and Uriel both gave him a surplus of gold with which to request the contract. Before we set to leave Nyx and Holter for the night in their room, I leaned toward our new recruit to say one final thing.

  “Attempts have failed before. You tell Corvina that if this—” I tapped the coin purse full of gold in his hand “—does not cover the expense, I will provide. All she needs to do is contact me and request compensation.”

  “You are just trying to get involved,” Uriel commented, before a chuckle.

  “I'm trying to ensure it happens before we near the Chairel border,” I replied. “I can't afford to finally reach my home just for Eteri to pull out of the fight. I could lose everything.”

  Cyrus shook his head, watching me with his arms crossed over his chest. “I'm not going to let that happen.”

  “You are powerful, Cy, and you are a great friend,” I acknowledged, “but you are just one man under the service of a queen who won't hesitate to use you as an example. The time could come when you have to choose between loyalty to your queen or loyalty to a friend.”

  “I don't see that as much of a choice,” Cyrus replied, and Uriel glanced over at him.

  “You woul
d abandon Eteri?” Uriel questioned, conflicted.

  Cyrus appeared troubled, though he said, “I don't see it as abandoning Eteri. I see it as choosing between Tilda and Kai. Once we leave for Hammerton, I never want another thing to do with Tilda again. If I refuse to abandon Kai in her time of need, perhaps the others will join me if only to honor the agreement between the Sentinels and Renegades.”

  Uriel looked thoughtful for a moment before his light gray eyes met mine. “Forgive me, Kai. I don't mean for my hesitance to make you question our friendship.”

  “Your hesitance doesn't bother me, Uriel. There's a lot to be hesitant about. We need to think these things through.”

  Uriel nodded slowly, before he murmured to Cyrus, “If it comes to you refusing to abandon Kai, the Sentinels may fight amongst themselves.”

  An anxious exhale blew through Cyrus's nostrils. “Yes, we may be split. All we can do is try our hardest to figure out everyone's allegiances before that can happen. Perhaps we can use your illusion magic, Kai.”

  “Perhaps.”

  We prepared to leave Holter and Nyx to their room minutes later. I stood up to follow my other friends out, but I reached out a hand to Holter just before I left, and the younger man took it.

  “Thank you for doing this for us,” I offered.

  “You're welcome, Miss Sera.”

  I smiled at his politeness, surprised by it. “Call me Kai, friend. If you are to join us, you are my equal.”

  Holter beamed back at me. “I look forward to joining you. I hope I will make it back in time.”

  “We will leave Tal near the end of High Star, 426,” I reminded him. “As long as you are back in Mistral two fortnights before then, you'll make it. Just be sure not to dally.”

  “I won't.” Holter gave me a charming smile. “I'll leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Nyx followed me to the inn door as I walked out into the hallway. When I turned to her, she smiled. “The first night I see you in forever, and you're taking away my entertainment.” She jerked a thumb back to Holter, who watched our conversation from their rented bed.