Shadow Blessed (The Shadow Accords Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Across the tavern, Etan worked much the same way as Carth, though he didn’t have the same deft touch and had to bump into patrons as he worked his way through. Carth didn’t need anything quite like his bruising method, preferring to sneak in and then back out before anyone was the wiser.

  Theft was common along the docks, which made their work along the street easy enough, but it was equally common in the taverns along the docks. When she’d visited a few of the other taverns, she had discovered that there were others like her, others taking scraps. It had surprised her at first, but the more she watched for it, the more she recognized those along the docks most responsible for taking coin. A sort of truce existed, one where you worked only your tavern, which was another justification for Etan and Kel. If they didn’t take coins, someone else would.

  She ducked away from the wall and slipped her hand into a pocket of an older man before withdrawing with the coin purse within. From the weight of it, Carth knew that she’d probably taken her allotment for the night. She knew to be careful not to steal too much. Too much risked drawing Vera’s attention, as well as the reputation of the tavern.

  Carth made her way toward the kitchen. Now that she had full pockets, it was time for a full stomach. At one table sat a plain-faced young man with a finely woven cloak practically draped across the table, his eyes focused on the dark-haired woman sitting across from him. A gold bracelet that hung from his wrist matched the flash of gold around his neck. That much gold would make it likely that his pockets were equally heavy. Grabbing his purse might give her a night free, and that was really what she wanted.

  Weaving around the table, she made a point of moving erratically, intending to slide back around to the man. When she turned, he still perched on his chair, his gaze fixed on the woman.

  How could she not attempt to grab his purse?

  Carth slipped forward and reached for his pocket.

  As she did, he spun, almost as if expecting her movement, and grabbed at her wrist. Carth had a moment to catch the deep curiosity in his eyes and had a flash of recognition before she jerked her arm free and darted toward the kitchen.

  She didn’t bother to see if he would chase.

  Inside the kitchen, the heat from the oven was nearly oppressive. She hurried to the back door and crawled onto a nearby stool to peek through the small cutout in the door through which she could just make out the inside of the tavern. She couldn’t see the man at the table from this angle, but for a moment, she thought it had been Jhon, the man who had tried to grab her when she saw her mother in the street, then chased her to the temple.

  Why would he be here?

  “Get down from there!”

  At the hard edge of Vera’s words, Carth scrambled down. “Sorry, Vera.”

  She waved a spoon at her. “What do you think you’re doing, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be out wiping tables and collecting scraps?”

  Carth smiled. That was what Vera called it when she had her strays roaming the tavern. They collected scraps of food as they cleaned the tables, wiping them off so that others could use them. That was the reason Etan thought it particularly amusing to refer to their other activity by the same name.

  “Kel is taking care of it tonight. And I…”

  Vera’s eyes narrowed in that warm way she had. Carth hated that she had to lie to her.

  “What happened?”

  “I… I thought I saw someone I recognized. From before.” She’d never explained to Vera or Hal what had happened, and neither had asked for answers. A few other children had come through for a day, sometimes two, but they never stayed longer. Carth had discovered almost all of them came from outside the city and moved to a place of safety, but she still didn’t know why.

  “Go on to bed if you want,” Vera said. “Tomorrow looks to be a busy night, what with the festival and all. You probably never collected scraps during a Evenstorm Festival, but most of the men are half-drunk by the time they show up. Should be a busy night.”

  “Yes, Vera.”

  As Carth started from the kitchen, Vera caught her hand. “You know I’m always willing to listen.”

  Carth swallowed, tears welling up for the first time in weeks. She ran from the kitchen, risking another glance back toward the door into the tavern, thankful that it created space between her and whoever was out there.

  Once in the street, Carth slipped into the shadows created by the streetlamps, preferring to fade into the darkness rather than walk openly. While here, she could remain hidden, avoiding any of the crowds moving away from the docks. Night drew like a shroud overhead, dark sheets of clouds drifting above her blocking the moonlight. Wind gusted from the north, unusual for Nyaesh.

  Carth gripped the hilt of the knife stolen from the A’ras. In the weeks she’d lived with Vera and Hal, the knife and the books reclaimed from her childhood home had become her prized possessions. The knife because it symbolized the vengeance that she intended to claim for her parents as well as a means to achieve it, and the books because they were her only connection to her mother, other than the ring she now wore on a loop of twine around her neck.

  She stopped at the same place she stopped each night, lingering outside the home that had once been hers. Lights glowed within, and the sound of voices drifted from the open windows. The home had remained empty for nearly two weeks, but when it became apparent that no one would return, Carth hadn’t been surprised that someone else moved in. She had never stopped by in the daylight, and didn’t really want to. She didn’t want to risk the possibility that she might see the people who had taken over her home.

  But each night she managed to get free, she came here, if only for a few moments. It served as a reminder. With each day, she felt a growing desire for answers that might never come, but she had something that would help her find what she wanted. She had a name.

  Felyn had been there the day her mother had died. He had been responsible for the deaths of the A’ras. And he was likely responsible for what had happened to her mother, possibly even her father.

  All she wanted was to know what had happened, but how could she, a girl of no more than twelve, find the answers she needed? Not by sneaking around Vera’s tavern, taking scraps from her patrons.

  The temple was the only other place she visited as often. It was always empty, even more so than it had been that night, reminding her of how her home had been empty. It was times like this, when she stared at her old home, the longing for her missing family filling her chest and gnawing at her stomach, that she wondered what would become of her. When her parents were alive, she had never taken the time to think about it, but now that they were gone, what would she do? She couldn’t steal from the patrons in the tavern indefinitely. Eventually she would grow up, and she didn’t know what Vera or Hal intended for her then.

  Rather than making her way toward the temple, tonight she wandered toward the small square where her mother had died. Carth rarely went back there. The memories were too painful. When she had returned to the square, she found herself drawn to the small wall and would sit next to it and simply stare as people wandered by.

  Two streetlamps glowed with soft orange light on either end of the wall. Carth crouched outside the wall, leaning against it with her hand tucked in her pocket as she gripped the knife while watching people making their way through the street. This section of the city didn’t have the same number of taverns found near the docks. Mostly there were shops here, and the people passing by looked as if they lived and worked nearby.

  A flash of maroon caught her attention and she tensed. She sat far too openly and didn’t like the idea that one of the A’ras might see her, especially as she held one of their knives. They had no reason to harass her, but that didn’t always mean they wouldn’t.

  The man made his way quickly through the plaza.

  Carth watched him as he did. It was rare to find the A’ras walking alone. The bastards always moved in pairs, making getting revenge difficult, but alone…r />
  She stood and moved after him, careful to mask the sounds of her steps. At night, even with her best effort, her feet still seemed to thud across the pavers. Carth found the shadows but wasn’t able to hide nearly as well as she wanted.

  The A’ras moved quickly and made no effort to hide his passing. Others in the street shrunk back or turned away, but not Carth. Were she playing a game as she had with her parents, he would have lost. It was far too easy to track him, nothing like trying to keep up with her mother. Her father was even harder.

  As she neared, she pulled the knife from her pocket.

  Her heart fluttered and she forced it to slow. Having nerves now wouldn’t serve her, not when she finally had a chance to do something about what had happened to her family. This would be the beginning.

  Unless she failed. If the A’ras noticed her following, she knew that he would have no difficulty dispatching her. Even without their magic, they were skilled swordsmen and she was nothing more than a little girl. But if she came at him quietly and snuck up behind him, she might be able to sink the knife into his back before he even knew she was there.

  Barely ten paces away, the man turned a corner. Behind him, Carth paused, her face pressed against the cool stone as she peered around the building, a wave of nausea rolling through her.

  The A’ras lay on the ground, unmoving.

  Carth scanned for who else might be there but saw nothing.

  She waited, half-expecting the man to stand, but when he didn’t, she realized that someone else had gotten to him first.

  Her fluttering heart began to race. The only person she had ever heard of attacking the A’ras had been Felyn. The rest of the city feared them, and for good reason.

  Could that man be here?

  If he was, Carth wanted to be somewhere else. As much as she wanted to know why her mother had been killed and what had happened to her father, she had no misconceptions that she could handle herself when it came to Felyn, especially when he had dispatched three A’ras as quickly and easily as he had.

  Nothing else moved.

  Not Felyn, then. Or if it was him, he had already departed.

  Carth crept forward, keeping her body crouched and her muscles tensed so that she could bolt away at the first sign of anyone else, but there was nothing.

  Blood pooled from the A’ras’s neck. She tipped his head back and noted the long slit across his throat. Seeing a man dead like this should bother her, but this was one of the A’ras. She had a hard time feeling anything for him. Searching his body, hoping for another knife or something, she discovered that even his curved sword was missing.

  How had someone been here and cleared him of weapons so quickly? She had only been a few steps behind, not far enough back that she wouldn’t have been able to see it when someone attacked and then searched the body.

  There was a sash of red wrapped around his upper arm, a marker of the A’ras.

  Carth untied it and ran her fingers along the silky surface a moment before tucking it into her pocket. Now the only thing that marked him as one of them was the small tattoo of three stars across his right hand.

  Sounds came from behind her and Carth scurried forward. She didn’t want to be caught in the open with one of the A’ras dead. Once she reached a nearby alley, she paused and watched. A young couple happened upon the A’ras first, their shocked gasp drawing more attention until others came. Someone must have noticed the tattoos on his hand and understood what they meant because everyone began backing away, eventually leaving the body untouched on the stones.

  Carth waited, wondering if any of the A’ras would claim him, but when the distant temple bell tolled twice, she decided she needed to return to Vera’s tavern. As she made her way back, she thought she heard footsteps trailing behind her, but when she turned to look, she saw nothing.

  With each step, the sense that someone trailed after her increased until she started sprinting, only slowing when the crowd around her thickened and the stink of fish from the docks told her that she neared the tavern.

  6

  The elderly man sat with his back to her, a stack of coins on the table making him a clear mark, but it was the two men on either side of him that made her pause. A thick-armed man whose floral tattoos marked him as being from Garvain kept his eyes roving around the tavern, never settling in one place. The other man, a thin, compact man wearing a plain brown cloak, stared straight ahead. Strangely, she found herself drawn to him most of all.

  “Aren’t you going to make a play at it?” Kel asked.

  Carth rubbed her eyes. She was tired from lack of sleep. Etan had kicked the bottom of her bunk repeatedly throughout the night, thinking it funny to keep her awake. He’d thought it even funnier as she’d stumbled along the streets throughout the day, too tired to keep her focus as she tried grabbing at purses, but struggled too much. She kept going back to the place where she’d left the sash, burying it under rocks near the shore.

  “I don’t think he’s the best target.” She hated letting scraps like that get away, but what would she risk if she attempted to get past his two companions, and tired at that? The bigger man was more likely to catch her, but she had experience moving quickly with men like him. That was one advantage to her size. The other man made her more uncomfortable.

  “Etan said—”

  Carth spun to Kel and jabbed a finger into his chest. He took a step back, grabbing at his shirt where she poked. “I don’t care what Etan said,” she whispered. Even irritated, she still had to be careful that she didn’t speak too loudly here, preferring instead to let the voices in the Wounded Lyre keep her voice obscured. “If you think he’s such an easy target, then you grab at his pocket.”

  Carth slipped away from him, staying near the walls, where she could observe the entire tavern. After the previous night, she almost didn’t want to collect enough scraps so that she could leave the tavern. When she’d reached her bed, it had taken her hours for her heart to slow, and she’d still been awake when Kel and Etan came into the room. Etan made no attempt to keep his voice down in spite of Kel shushing him. There was something more going on in the city with the A’ras than she knew, and she wanted to find out who else might be targeting them.

  As she moved away from the table, she had a crawling sensation between her shoulder blades, one she recognized from the games played with her parents, one that made her think that someone watched her.

  Slowly lowering herself, she discovered the smaller man looking in her direction. Carth shivered. Had she attempted to grab the old man’s coins, she had little doubt that he would have seen her.

  She continued to move away from the table. There were other tables where she could work, though she’d already made a pass through here, so finding additional scraps without attracting attention would be difficult. Better to return to the kitchen, take a few bites, and come back when there had been some turnover. That would be safest, but Vera would frown on it.

  A low-pitched voice caught her attention. Not so much the tone or a sense of familiarity, but the content. “You hear another of them bastards got cut last night?”

  Carth looked for who spoke and found a younger man with a wild shock of dark hair on his head, leaning forward intently. The three others at his table all sipped tall mugs of ale, two of them with eyes already glazed over. They might be drunk enough for her to pilfer from them, but they had the look of sailors, men without much money. More than that, Vera had warned her to stay clear of men like that.

  “Careful, Bren,” the man across from him said.

  Bren raised his glass and took a long drink. “Why should I be careful here? There’s nothing but drunks here.”

  “You’re here,” the man next to him said.

  “I’m a drunk.” Bren took another drink. “Shouldn’t we talk about it? After so many getting cut, don’t you wonder what’s going on?”

  “They’re still the A’ras,” the third man said. His brown eyes looked at the others more clearly,
and in the time Carth had been watching, he hadn’t touched his drink. “You talk about them and they find out. Best to leave well enough alone, Bren.”

  The other two men nodded.

  Bren finished off his ale and slammed it down. “I’ll leave it alone, but you don’t need to be so damn scared to even talk about it. Especially now, with the Reshian making their presence known.” His voice rose as he spoke, and talk at some of the nearest tables began to die down. The sober man grabbed Bren and pulled on his arm, but Bren shook him off. “No reason to be scared down here, Foln. They ain’t down here. They’re never down here.” When another man grabbed at him, he stood. “Fine. I’m going.”

  As Bren weaved his way through the tavern, he bounced off one of the poles and Kel slipped forward, moving too slowly as he slid his hand into Bren’s pocket and back out. Bren tripped over Kel and they both fell forward.

  “What you think you’re doing?” Bren said.

  Kel crawled back, his eyes wide.

  Bren patted his pocket and Carth watched with growing concern as the man realized that his coin pouch was now in Kel’s hand.

  “Boy?” Bren thundered.

  Carth glanced at the kitchen. If Vera discovered Kel had been caught grabbing scraps, she’d throw him out. She might start to ask about how Carth and Etan managed to bring in so much coin. They all might be out of a place to stay.

  Kel continued to scoot away, not saying anything.

  The door to the kitchen opened and Vera poked her head out.