“I can’t keep going!” Kel cried.
“You have to.” Carth’s arms had begun to tire and her lungs burned, with each breath feeling like she breathed fire, but she knew the moment she gave up, they would drift along down the river. Much longer, and they would get pulled under.
“Carth—”
He started to slip from her grasp, and she squeezed his sides, trying to hold him in place. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t—lose Kel. It was her fault that he’d fallen in, and she wasn’t about to be the reason someone she cared about died.
Carth continued to kick, holding as tightly to Kel as she could. Her vision started to go black and she blinked, trying to clear it, not wanting to lose sight of the shore. It was tantalizingly close now. All she needed was a few more kicks.
Kel slipped from her grip and dropped beneath the water.
Carth cried out.
She stopped swimming and took a deep breath before diving beneath the surface.
Water rushed past her as she tried to swim in place. It was too dark to see Kel. Had she lost him?
Something grabbed at her sleeve.
Kel?
Then Carth was pulled from beneath the water, and with strong strokes, someone dragged her to the shore and threw her up to the top of the rocks. The overwhelming cold finally struck her and she shivered uncontrollably.
Someone had saved her.
“Kel!”
She sat up and saw a man with a dark cloak shaking himself free from the water. “The other will join you soon.”
Carth followed the direction of the rushing water along the shore and saw another man carrying a small, unmoving bundle over his shoulder. When he neared, he set Kel down next to Carth. She checked to see that he was breathing, then finally allowed herself to relax.
“Thank you,” she said.
The first man stood along the shore, staring out at the river as the other approached. “You should not have gone for a swim so late.”
“It wasn’t a swim. He fell in.”
“And you went with him?”
“I went after him.”
The man turned and came toward her. Moonlight filtering through the clouds gave deep shadows to his face, but there was something familiar about him. Had she seen him before? He didn’t have the look of the sailors who came through the docks, dropping off shipments on their way farther down the river, and he didn’t have the stink of the local fishermen, but he’d been a strong enough swimmer to pull her from the water.
“You went after him in the dark and this late in the season?”
Carth didn’t know how to respond. It was foolish what she had done, but letting Kel drown because of an accident would have been equally foolish. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” the man said.
He took a step toward Carth and she shivered again, this time less certain whether the cold in the air made her shiver. With a sudden pulsing fear in her chest, she searched for signs that he might be one of the A’ras, a sash or a sword, but found nothing. The A’ras wouldn’t have gone into the river after someone drowning, anyway. More likely, they would have been the reason someone had been thrown in.
She pulled the knife from her pocket anyway. The blade reflected some of the moonlight, gleaming dully, and the faint edges of a smile pulled on the man’s mouth.
“Do you know how to use that?” he asked.
Carth jabbed toward him with it.
He chuckled. “That’s one way. Not the only one.”
Kel coughed and the man glanced at her knife once more before turning back to his partner, taking a place along the shore, staring at the river as if expecting something to float down it. He wasn’t a tall man, nor particularly large, but he stood as if an immovable rock along the shore.
“Carth?” Kel whispered.
“It’s me.”
“How? What happened?”
“We nearly drowned.”
Kel coughed again and started to sit up. He tensed when he saw the two men standing along the shore. Neither moved, and neither spoke.
“I know that. How did we not?”
Carth motioned to the men. “They pulled us from the river.”
Kel was silent for a while. “We… we should get back.”
Carth took a deep breath and felt her heart beginning to slow. Kel was right. They had been gone long enough. If they didn’t appear, would Vera or Etan bother coming to look for them?
Kel helped her to stand. Water dripped from her dress and her braid remained saturated and stunk of the river. She’d have to comb it out, and she hoped that her dress dried quickly. Kel looked as miserable as she felt, with his normally thick hair flattened against his face, and his shirt and pants clinging to his body.
He started to grab for her wrist but caught himself. “Come on,” he said instead.
Kel started down the street.
Carth glanced at the two men, but they didn’t seem to notice. Could she leave without saying anything more to them? They had saved their lives. She owed them some sort of thanks, at least.
She approached them slowly, neither man seeming to move, but both tensing as she neared. “Thanks. For saving us, I mean.”
The shorter man turned. The shadows cast by the moonlight parted slightly, and Carth realized why he was familiar. She resisted the urge to back away, the desire to run. This was the man from the tavern the night before, the one who had seemed to watch her, staring at her with a gaze that seemed almost knowing as she considered taking scraps from the man with the stack of coins on the table.
His face gave no sign that he recognized her. “Choose a better time to swim next time,” he said.
Carth bobbed her head in a quick nod and turned to run off after Kel. As she did, she had a crawling sensation between her shoulder blades, the same sensation she’d had the night before, when she had been convinced that he watched her. Only, when she risked a glance back, the man once again stared at the river.
She didn’t slow her pace until she reached Kel near the edge of the city. Neither spoke much as they slowly made their way back toward the docks of Nyaesh, and to the Wounded Lyre.
8
The next few days passed slowly. Kel rarely spoke to Carth, and when he did, it was nothing more than a few terse words, almost as if he was mad at her for what had happened. In some ways, she supposed that it had been her fault. Had she not pulled her knife on him, he might not have stepped too close to the edge of the rock and fallen into the river, but then, had he not grabbed her wrist, she wouldn’t have needed to pull her knife on him.
The one time she’d tried to approach him, he’d brushed it off, but the look in his eyes spoke of embarrassment more than anger. How could she help him get past that?
Etan noticed the tension between them and, unsurprisingly, favored Kel. The larger boy had never warmed to her, and it seemed that he would not now. When he wasn’t tormenting her by kicking her bunk, keeping her from getting even a single good night’s sleep, he went out of his way to make collecting scraps more difficult, making a point of interrupting her as she stalked toward different people along the street. More than that, he’d taken to talking to some of the older boys on the street, but whenever she got close, he glared at her until she left him alone.
Carth had given up on the subtle approach and instead went with the bump-and-lift technique. It was a little less graceful than what she preferred, but she didn’t have much of a choice with the way Etan interrupted her. She considered using it on him as revenge, taking whatever paltry amount he might have collected, but decided against it. One stray shouldn’t steal from another.
The morning of the fourth day after they’d nearly drowned, she found herself tailing the same man as Kel. Their target wore a formal cloak, almost too warm for the weather, and the fine silk hat that covered his head was out of place for the docks. The flash of silver on his wrist had made him an easy mark.
As she approached, her feet paddi
ng silently over the cobbles, she heard the steady clopping of Kel’s feet.
She shot a look over her shoulder. What did he think he was doing? There was an unspoken agreement that when one of them chose a target, the others stayed away. Kel knew that as well as anyone—he had watched as Etan made certain that she knew.
Kel ignored her as he closed the distance.
Carth turned her attention back to the man she followed. He paused at an intersection, peering in both directions on the side street before hurrying across. Carth waited a moment, giving him space as he went so that he didn’t think she followed him, and took the time to grab Kel’s wrist.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He pulled away from her. “Collecting scraps. The same as you.”
“Not the same as me. I marked him first.”
“I don’t see it that way.”
He started across the street, hurrying after the man without saying anything else.
The comment hurt. What had she done other than help him? Kel was supposed to be her friend—one of the few that she had made while staying with Vera and Hal. She considered choosing a different target; now that she had moved off the River Road, away from the docks, Etan wasn’t there to sabotage her collections. But stubbornly, she didn’t want to find a different mark.
Carth slipped between the crowd as she crossed the street. In spite of the midmorning noise, she could still pinpoint Kel’s footsteps, using the tricks she’d learned from her parents. Much like following her mother, when she followed Kel, she was careful to keep her head down and made a point of weaving around the people in the street, avoiding notice as she moved as silently as possible.
She reached the top of a slight rise. In the distance, the domed peak of the temple rose to the east, the top of it gleaming almost gold in the sunlight. To the west, rows of tall houses continued to rise until they reached the palace. She caught sight of the man in his heavy cloak making his way west.
Carth hurried forward, now chasing not only the target, but Kel as well.
When she caught Kel, she bumped into him from behind and sent him sprawling.
He fell to the cobbles, a hurt look on his face. Carth ignored him and slunk after the man. Now it was less about scraps and more about showing Kel that he couldn’t treat her that way.
At another intersection, the man paused again before heading across the street, seemingly making his way toward the palace. Carth hurried after him, knowing as she did that she followed too quickly and too closely.
The man turned.
She skidded to a stop, turning aside as if to make it appear that she wanted only to peer into the window of the dress shop she happened to find herself in front of.
Carth studied the reflection off the glass to see the man working his way up the street again. Going after him would be foolish, something that Etan would do. She needed to return to the docks, where she knew the places to hide before sneaking out to collect scraps.
Kel came thundering up behind her, running faster than he should.
“Kel!” She hissed his name as quietly as she could, but he didn’t make any effort to slow or look back at her.
The stupid boy would end up getting caught again, and this time there was nothing she could do to protect him, not from a man who looked like he might have half of the royal family in his pocket.
Carth considered simply returning to the docks. What did it matter to her if Kel ended up getting caught?
But she couldn’t. He might not see her as a stray, but they weren’t so different.
Moving quickly, she caught Kel right as he bumped into the man from behind.
The man spun, quickly grabbing Kel’s hand. This time, with the leather purse clutched in his hand, there would be no hiding the fact that the stray had stolen from the rich man.
Streaks of red ran up the man’s face and he lifted Kel off the ground by his neck. Kel couldn’t be all that heavy, but seeing him lifted with one arm still shocked her.
“You know what happens to thieves?” the man said. Carth realized that this wasn’t the same man she’d been following. That man had a silk hat and embroidery that marked him as someone with money. The man now holding Kel had a plain brown wool cloak and hard black eyes that reminded her of Felyn.
Kel tried kicking to get away, but the man held him. Kel’s face went from red to blue and his eyes watered, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Carth froze. People gave space around them, not looking at the man, or if they did, they quickly glanced away. The man continued to squeeze, swinging Kel slightly until he stopped kicking and thrashing, until he almost stopped moving altogether. Another minute more and he’d be dead.
The man stared at Kel, saying nothing more. It was that empty expression that bothered her most, one that made it seem like killing Kel meant no more to him than stepping on a beetle. The same kind of expression that Felyn had had when he’d killed the A’ras.
Her mind went blank.
Carth darted forward, pulling the knife from her pocket as she did.
She moved quickly and silently and stabbed the man in the arm before slicing up at him.
With the first stab, he dropped Kel so that he lay in a heap on the ground, unmoving. The man managed to block the second swipe, ducking back. His eyes narrowed and he glanced at his arm a moment before looking at the knife Carth clutched.
She worried that he might attack her. If he was strong enough to lift Kel like that, then he would be strong enough to easily outmuscle her. But he didn’t.
He took an unsteady step back.
Carth pushed on Kel with her foot, still holding the knife out. Kel rolled over, barely moving. “Get up!” she hissed.
He took a wheezing breath in and she glanced down for the briefest moment before turning her attention back to the man, but he was gone.
Carth held the knife out, her hand shaking as she did, afraid to put it back into her pocket in case the other man returned, but as people began filling the street around her again, she decided that he wouldn’t return.
Kel moaned softly.
“Can you stand up?” she asked.
He opened his eyes. “What happened?”
She stuffed the knife back into her pocket, looking him over. Other than the red marking on his neck where she could practically trace the outline of the man’s hand, he appeared unharmed. Color had returned to his face, though he now had a washed-out, sickly color to his skin. “You about got yourself killed, that’s what happened.”
Kel swallowed, and a pained look came to his face. “I remember that. How is it that you stopped it?”
“I’m not without skills.”
He sat slowly and rubbed his neck, wincing as he did. “I feel like I’ve had my head in a noose.”
“Not your head, but your neck at least.”
Kel attempted to glare at her, but the anger faded. “Thanks.”
She offered her hand and helped him to stand. “You wouldn’t have needed help if you hadn’t gone after him. Besides, that wasn’t the same target as before.”
“You’re right. You were after him first. I should have left him… what do you mean it wasn’t the same man?”
Now that he was standing, she wanted to get away from this place, away from where Kel had nearly been choked to death in the open, away from where no one had been even willing to help. The docks might not be the cleanest part of the city, but the people there had something of a code. She couldn’t imagine a man simply killing a boy with others watching, unwilling to do anything.
“The man I tracked had a silk hat and embroidery. The man who nearly…”
“Killed me?”
She nodded. “His clothes were different.”
A troubled expression passed over Kel’s face. “I thought he was the same one. I was watching his back and never lost sight of him.”
“You must have,” Carth said.
They reached a busier section of the city, and the cawing of a gull m
ade her feel more comfortable, knowing that they neared the docks. Wind gusted, carrying the stink of fish and grease, but she breathed them in, letting her heart begin to slow.
“I didn’t think I had. I know how to collect scraps, Carth,” he said, lowering his voice. “At least, I thought I did.” He sighed, rubbing his neck.
The red mark where the man had gripped him had already purpled. It would turn into an ugly bruise and would take days to fade completely. How would they explain that to Vera? It had been bad enough trying to come up with an excuse about why they’d returned to the tavern sopping wet, and that after what had happened the night before. Now this? Vera would know something was up.
“You’re going to have to cover that.” She pointed to his neck and he jerked his head back and away. Carth’s expression soured. “I wasn’t going to touch it, but you’re already bruising.”
He touched the skin gingerly. “I know that.”
“Then find a way to keep it covered up before we get back to the Lyre.”
Kel wrapped his hand around his neck, only partially obscuring the markings. The man’s hand had been enormous compared to Kel’s neck. “How can I do that? It’s not like I can wear a scarf all day.”
Not a scarf, though some wore them in Nyaesh. Anything with too much color risked the appearance of affiliation with the A’ras, and unless you were a part of them, doing so would only get you hurt. “There might be some paints I could try,” Carth said.
“Paint?”
“Oils,” she said. “My mother once showed me—” She caught herself before sharing too much about her past. She’d made a point of not telling Kel and Etan about her family, not wanting to reveal anything more about herself than necessary. Why would she make that mistake now?
“What did your mother show you?”
She swallowed, wishing that she could have been more careful, but Kel didn’t seem interested in asking about her mother, only about what Carth could do to help him hide the markings on his neck. “Different combinations of leaves and oils that create different colors.”
“Will it work?”
Carth shrugged. If she managed to remember what her mother had taught her, and if she could mix it in the right way, she might be able to help paint over the skin enough for it to blend in. She wasn’t sure how long it would last, but what did they have to lose?
The Shadow Accords Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 7
