Of Noble Chains (The Ventori Fables)

by Miles, D. L.

  “It’s another realm,” Zia said, “they can’t get back here unless it’s a temp spell…can they?”

  “They’re called Realm Walkers,” Aeryn admitted, and Zia felt her eyebrows rise. “They’re the strongest of Casters, and they’re capable of going between the banished lands, and here. They leave behind a grey dust if they’re not careful. So if you see it, run.”

  Zia stopped on the concrete, and wondered what a Realm Walker would have to do with Trenton’s father, or even herself. But somehow, she knew it would come back to Cindel. Zia decided to make sure to look for anything at the dead woman’s condo that would point to Casters.

  Cindel’s building was small compared to everything else in New Havilan, but it was nice. The hallways were wide, with decorative tables and plants, and painted a pearly white. As Zia and Aeryn walked down to condo 458, a middle-aged man nodded at them. Aeryn nodded back, and Zia just trailed behind until they reached their destination.

  Zia glanced over her shoulder just as the man entered the elevator, and when she turned back she found the door to Cindel’s condo already open with Aeryn inside. She quickly stepped in, and shut the door behind her.

  “So what are we looking for?” Zia asked, trying to act like she didn’t have her own agenda. It was hard to remember that Aeryn was her mentor, that he was teaching her how to survive as a Ventori when she did so many things on her own. She wanted to include him, she really did, but some things, she felt, he didn’t need to know. After all, he was the one who reported to Ms. Madsen.

  “Anything that might lead us to why she was killed,” Aeryn called from another room, “look for case files, evidence of unfaithful lovers, blah, blah, blah.”

  “Gotcha,” Zia said back.

  Cindel’s condo was big, and the front door opened right into the living room. It had large, black chairs sitting in front of glass windows that made up the entire far wall from where she stood, and to her left was a small kitchen. By the way the pans were set up, and the thin line of dust that sat on the appliances, Zia could tell Cindel didn’t cook. Ever.

  Zia stepped down the small gap between the entrance and the living room, and saw that Aeryn was investigating one of the two rooms that sat on the left, just past the kitchen. So she decided to turn right, for two more rooms, since there was nothing that she could see near the couches. Zia flicked a light on in one room, and found it was the bathroom; spotless, just like the kitchen. She turned and moved on, deciding to come back to it later.

  The next place was Cindel’s bedroom, relatively clean, but clearly lived in. The bed was unmade, and a few shirts sat on top of it, as if she had been deciding what to wear for the day. A bookshelf sat on Zia’s right, and was covered in novels of all languages; some she recognized, others she didn’t. The far wall was one giant window, revealing the spectacular view of the city. She took little time to appreciate the way the Arks curved upwards, or how the sun bounced from the sparkling rooftops. Her eyes scanned the room, and her left sat a dresser, seemingly riffled through. Zia stepped over, and inspected it, but she never expected to see what she did.

  Sitting just on top of the dresser, next to a jewelry box and a stack of papers was a framed photograph. And staring back at her was Cindel, Aeryn, and another familiar face. Donataen.

  Zia turned her head for only a second to check on where her mentor was, but he was still across the condo; and when she looked back at the photograph, she expected it to be different, like she hadn’t just seen her mentor standing smiling with her brother and the victim. But they were all still there, standing in front of the Academy of Light, they looked no older than she was now.

  Before she could stop herself, she reached out and lightly touched the frame. In seconds she was already taking the photograph out and looking closer, turning it over to read the back. In big, swirly handwriting it said, “Me, Aeryn, and Don on graduation day! Super sunny, and Don and I finally kissed!” A heart followed the sentence.

  Aeryn’s footsteps shuffled outside of the bedroom and Zia folded up the photo and stuck it into her jacket. When her mentor stepped inside she could only hope she didn’t look as horrified as she felt. Her brother had dated Cindel? And Aeryn knew them both?

  “Find anything?” Aeryn asked, and Zia looked over at him. He looked so calculating, standing in the doorway, and she wondered what else she didn’t know about him, or what he had hidden from her. She shook her head and he noticed the open drawers of the dresser, “Going through girls’ underwear drawers?”

  “No,” Zia replied instantly, her tone giving her away, “it was like that when I came in. I think someone else was here.”

  “Think they found what they wanted?” Aeryn surveyed the room, and Zia did the same.

  “Yes,” she admitted, “otherwise the room would be completely trashed, right?”

  “Good job,” Aeryn smiled, and Zia became very aware of her movements. “I found her computer, I’m just trying to figure out her login.”

  He motioned for her to head out the door, but Zia shook her head. “I’ll be a second. I want to see if I can find out anything about her here.”

  Aeryn walked away with a shrug. Immediately Zia began to riffle through Cindel’s dresser trying to find something, anything, to tell her more; but there was nothing hidden within her clothes. Zia moved on to the jewelry box. As she pulled out the levels, she noticed the corner of a paper sitting underneath the last set. Carefully, she lifted the bottom out, the part that shouldn’t even be able to move, and found a thin stack of letters.

  Another glance at the doorway, and Zia pulled the papers out; she easily recognized her brother’s handwriting easily. She licked her lips, unsure of what to do, but she was already opening the first letter and began to read.

  It was a love letter from Donataen to Cindel. There were only three letters, two of which arranged secret meeting spots somewhere in town, and the third was simply a poem. Zia couldn’t help but whisper it to herself, imagining her brother next to her, “Love follow me, and let it be sweet. If I had known this once before, I’d of hurried to meet, this borrowed time. Love follow me, and let it be sweet.”

  It was written in his small, scratchy handwriting, and was signed by “your loving Donataen”. Zia stepped back and sat down on Cindel’s bed. She had never having expected to learn this. The first letter was dated the day he graduated from the Academy of Light, the second was a few months later, and the one that remained open in her hand…it was dated just before he died. Zia realized that Cindel must have really loved her brother to have kept the letters for so long.

  Regaining her senses and holding back tears, Zia refolded the letters and stuck them in with the photograph. She had never known her brother had been dating someone, but that would have to wait. She knew Aeryn would never tell her about his connection with Cindel, or her brother, and she was going to have to figure it out on her own. Somehow, her to-do list was getting longer and longer, and she was running out of helpful resources. But she was Ventori. She would get it done.

  Zia moved into the living room to find Aeryn sitting at a laptop, a few files on the couch next to him. As she approached, he handed them to her, his eyes never leaving the screen. She questioned, “What are these?”

  “Something Cindel seemed to be working on,” he said as Zia began to flip through the pages. It was accounting papers, with large sums of money being transferred to different accounts. Zia noticed that some were highlighted, with corresponding dates; one of the highlighted dates was the day after her brother’s death. Aeryn continued, “It seems that some money was transferred from Achaicious’ account to his assistant’s, with another off-shore account sending money into Achaicious’.”

  “So he was paying his assistant?” Zia questioned, still distracted by the news of her brother.

  “Four of the dates are highlighted,” Aeryn went on, “each after a Ventori was killed. It’s in the second file.”

  Zia sat next to her mentor, getting that sinking feelin
g in her stomach. She opened the other file, there were only abbreviations, and then clan names. AC – Neith, LU – Jasper, DN – Medea, DR – Jasper.

  Aeryn was studying her, she could feel his eyes on her. Was he trying to judge what, if anything, she had figured out? Was this another test? Zia kept herself composed, and declared, “So he was being paid to kill Ventori?”

  “Seems that way,” Aeryn said, shifting his eyes back towards the computer.

  “Achaicious paid his assistant to kill Ventori?” Zia repeated, clearer this time. But what she really wanted to say was that he paid his assistant to kill her brother. Zia’s eyes went over the words again, and she felt a fire growing inside of her. Her brother’s unsolved murder, that was so obviously a murder, had been declared an honourable Ventori death. He had been Tracking something, and she was told whatever it was had killed him; there was nobody caught for it. She remembered how easily the Light Guard had brushed it off. She could still see the blue dust that had been on Donataen’s shoes when she had found him. Still hear the movement that had been nearby.

  “He did,” Aeryn sounded so sure of it, but he had yet to get into Cindel’s computer. It was then that Zia began to think he only became her mentor because of her name, and it had nothing to do with her abilities.

  Aeryn could tell that Zia had already put two and two together. The same man that killed Cindel had also killed her brother. What he couldn’t tell was if she had linked him in as well. She was good, he thought, but maybe not good enough. Either way, he planned on bringing her to catch Achaicious, and finally bring justice to all the murdered Ventori; but first he needed to get into Cindel’s computer. It was harder than he had thought it would be; she was always terrible at keeping her password a secret, but apparently she had learned a few tricks since he had last seen her.

  As Aeryn was about to type in another guess at the password, the computer beeped, and the screen went black.

  “Did you get it?” Zia asked, not letting go of the files.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Aeryn leaned in closer to the screen and so did his student. They stared and waited, when finally it lit up again.

  The cursor blinked in the top left corner, a black mark on the otherwise pristine screen. Words began to glide across it, and it gave them some important information.

  “There’s another transfer,” Zia stated, “going from that off-shore account from across the waters.”

  “It’s going into Achaicious’,” Aeryn concluded as he read the words, taking the files back from Zia.

  “No,” Zia argued, “it’s going into his assistants now, Delmont’s. It’s for Trenton’s father!”

  “What?” Aeryn furrowed his brow, for once being out of the loop. He didn’t like being out of the loop.

  “A boy at the library,” Zia explained, “his father supposedly committed suicide last night by the northern cliff. I bet Delmont killed him, and this is the payment from Achaicious.”

  “But why would he want these people dead?” Aeryn found himself asking. That was something he already knew the answer to, but he needed to hear what Zia was thinking.

  “Because he’s a Specter, and that’s what they do.”

  “Maybe,” was all he gave her.

  Zia felt…lost. Although part of why she wanted to become Ventori was because she wanted to find the thing that had killed her brother, she had never expected it to be so soon. And she had never expected that Donataen would be connected with Rinehart the Unbreakable. As she sat on the couch with Aeryn, she thought of how she would prove that Achaicious was behind the deaths and found the only evidence was in Aeryn’s hands.

  “We should tell the Board,” Zia said, not really wanting to do anything with the Board. But before they could bring in the Caster, he had to be declared a STRAY, and the only way to do that was talk with the Board of Justice.

  “We can’t, not yet,” Aeryn told her. “We need more evidence.” He checked his watch. “And we have another meeting to get to, so we better leave.”

  Aeryn began to gather up the computer and files. Zia bit her lip, but went with him. It was only a matter of time before she would be able to find out everything, whether Aeryn helped her or not. She asked, “Where are we going now?”

  “Woman’s shelter across from VA,” Aeryn said. “They’ve got a little problem that nobody else wants.”

  “Are Specters dying again?” Zia asked, thinking of how nobody cared to solve the deaths at the hospital.

  “Not exactly.”

  Chapter 16:

  The shelter was an old red brick building that sat across from Ventori Ark and just between two other short towers. It had a sign out front reading, “New Havilan Western Women’s Shelter”, in bright white writing against a black board. Zia pouted, wanting to keep working on her brother’s case rather than do this. She still had trouble thinking that; her brother’s case.

  “You’re here!” a young woman called out to Aeryn as she burst through the front door of the shelter. She immediately grabbed onto both of their hands and shook simultaneously, a large smile on her face. Her brunette hair was tied in a loose string and hung over her shoulder. She couldn’t have been much older than Aeryn. A small stab of jealousy stung at Zia, but she pushed it away, remembering that he had never told her he knew her brother.

  “Well,” Aeryn said, taking his hand back, “it sounded like you needed help.”

  “We really do,” the woman said and looked at Zia, “I’m Trinila, I’m one of the victims.”

  “Victims?” Zia squinted at the woman. She didn’t look hurt, in fact she looked excited.

  “Yes, come inside,” Trinila ushered them into the building, and showed them to a table where three more women sat. Two of them had babies on their laps, while the third was at least seven months pregnant. The Ventori remained standing.

  The shelter was small and overcrowded. Extra beds had been set up in the living room areas and were separated by sheets hanging from the ceiling. Women and children sat in various areas, while two volunteers attended to them; she had never known anyone in New Havilan that needed this kind of help. And she never thought about helping anyone either, other than catching STRAYs; she never thought further ahead than that.

  “You’re the ones hiring us, then?” Aeryn questioned the woman and they all nodded. One began to rock her baby as it began to fuss.

  “What’s the case?” Zia asked, getting tired of everything. These women looked fine, and perfectly healthy. None of them were wounded or showed any sign of even being upset. Most of them just looked mad.

  “We need you to find someone,” Trinila explained, “the man who got us all pregnant.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Zia said before she could stop herself. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously,” Trinila pouted, “he slept with us and then left, leaving us with the children. I only just found out I was pregnant!”

  This wasn’t even about a STRAY Specter, why would Aeryn bring her to this case? Actually, it wasn’t even a case! Zia crossed her arms with a huff, “So you all have a one night stand with some jerk that leaves in the morning, and you call Ventori to find him? Why not try the Human Guard?” Not that they would care either.

  Trinila’s eyes dimmed a little. “You don’t understand.”

  “Why don’t you explain it to her,” Aeryn suggested, “we’ll take the case.”

  “But—“ Zia began but was cut off by Trinila.

  “We didn’t want to go to bed with him,” she said, looking to the other women, “but we were compelled to. He was very charming, and always so nice. I wouldn’t say it was…rape, but…we didn’t have much of a choice. It was like a spell, we can’t even remember how we had met him.”

  “Spell?” Zia repeated. She turned to her mentor, “So it was a Caster?”

  “Maybe,” Aeryn shrugged. “What would you do now?”

  Zia faced the woman, suddenly feeling bad for trying to turn them away. She asked, “What did he
look like?”

  Each woman gave a different description. Trinila remembered him being tall, dark, and brooding, while another one said he was average height, with light hair. None of them matched, and Zia furrowed her brow. When Aeryn noticed that she wasn’t getting anywhere, he excused them and pulled her aside near the desk.

  “Casters can do spells to hide their appearance,” Zia theorized, “but they can’t usually get humans pregnant, can they?”

  “Don’t let the victims wording affect your judgment,” Aeryn said, “look at what you know. You have four women that slept with a man, they each got pregnant and he vanished. They say he’s the same man.”

  “I guess it could be different people,” Zia tried to think, “and it could just be a coincidence.”

  “It’s not.”

  “So you know what it is?” Zia looked up at him, and he nodded. If he knew, why not just tell her? Right, another test. She started to search her brain for an answer, and only came up with one, “Incubus?”

  “Good job,” Aeryn winked and it sent a jolt of excitement through Zia’s body. He turned and leaned backwards on the counter, resting his elbows there as he surveyed the room. The women, the victims, watched the Ventori, but began to converse among themselves. “It’s been at least a year, and it needs to be someone that’s close by all the time. An Incubus’ magic takes time to affect someone.”

  “So a volunteer?” Zia eyed the two men serving women. It was the perfect opportunity for an Incubus; he could get close to the women, sleep with them, and when they got pregnant nobody would consider it a Specter crime. It had gotten past Zia after all, but thankfully not Aeryn. It did make Zia wonder, though, how many cases were thrown away, how many victims were ignored because a Ventori didn’t want to do it?

  “The one on the left has been here the longest,” Aeryn mused.

  Zia wasn’t so sure, and replied, “Maybe it isn’t who’s been here the longest, but who’s been here the least?”