by K. A. Linde
“But Brigette…”
“Don’t speak her name,” he said tightly.
“You’ve heard?”
“Heard?” he asked coyly. “That the Eleysian throne has been wiped out, the countryside is in turmoil, and all the warring parties are clamoring for the crown? Believe me…I’ve heard.”
Cyrene wilted. “My apologies.”
“Anyone going to tell me what is going on here?” the commander asked, his eyebrows knit together in confusion.
“Ah, I see you’re the culprit who dropped this group at my door,” Basille said to the commander.
“You already know them?”
“Indeed. This is not our first run-in.”
“I don’t understand how we keep ending up in the same place,” Cyrene said with a shake of her head. “Once was chance, twice was coincidence, but three times…”
“I think the word you’re looking for, my dear Affiliate, is fate.”
“Affiliate?” the commander said with a raised eyebrow.
“I don’t claim that anymore,” she said to Basille.
“Ah, yes, I did hear rumble of something else,” he said, gesturing for them to all get out of the street. “Consort?”
Cyrene’s eyes snapped to him. “How exactly are you so well informed?”
“I am a simple peddler. Information is my favorite currency.”
Matilde bustled past Basille and tipped her head at him. “Are you working with these assassins, too, now, Selby?”
“I don’t discriminate on clientele,” Basille said.
Orden snorted in the corner.
“We’re pleased to hear that,” Vera said, “because we need you to take us through the Drop Pass.”
Ahlvie coughed himself hoarse. “You want to take us where? You know the Pass is haunted, correct?”
Avoca knocked her shoulder into his as she passed into the room and took a seat. “Scared?”
“I’ve heard the stories. And, no offense, but when we travel with Cyrene, things tend to be worse than expected rather than better.”
“Thank you for that,” Cyrene grumbled.
“I was going to suggest the Pass as well,” the commander said. “It’s the fastest way out of Kell, and the Guild won’t follow you through. You’ll be off to Yarrow and beyond in no time with the right guide.”
“And you all think I am the right guide?” Basille asked in his drawling Eleysian accent. For once, he wasn’t dressed head to toe in the Eleysian garb—loose fit pants and a shirt, fitted around the ankles and wrists. Much too cold in Kell for that attire, but he still managed to make the tailored Kelltic clothing suit his tan skin and dark features.
“Is there another one around?” Avoca asked with that heightened intensity that only she could master.
With her own anger simmering just under the surface, Cyrene worried that she might erupt.
“Certainly no one as well traveled as I,” Basille said.
Cyrene had a feeling she knew where this was going. “What’s your price? There’s always a price.”
“Gold?” Orden asked. “We have plenty.”
Basille barked out a short laugh. Cyrene shook her head. No, that was never what he was after. He always wanted something more.
“What is it?” Cyrene asked. “There’s something else. Last time, it was an invitation. And this time?”
“I find myself in a room with some very important people. I should think they have something valuable to me.”
The commander moved with the fluidity of a wraith. He grabbed the merchant by the throat and raised him onto his tiptoes. “I bring these people here on good faith, and you are swindling them, crook?”
“Put him down,” Cyrene cried at the same time Vera said, “Control yourself.”
Basille’s eyes were bugging as the commander slowly eased him back onto his feet. He released the peddler, who coughed and choked.
“That was unnecessary,” Avoca muttered.
“I quite liked it,” Ahlvie said with a lopsided grin. “I could get used to this guy.”
“Before the brute attacked me, I was going to name my price,” Basille said, straightening and rubbing his throat.
“Well, spit it out then,” Cyrene said. “He is the least of your concern in this room.”
“Ah, so you went beyond your manifest then? I knew you’d find the right tutors.”
“Enough,” Vera said. She waved her hand in the air. “We are at the end of our wits. You always did like to hear yourself speak. Say your price.”
“Guess,” he said with a twisted smile.
“Can I cut him?” Avoca asked. Her blade was in her hand, and she looked poised to throw it into Basille’s chest.
“Wait,” Cyrene said, holding her hand up. There were too many voices. When she had been in Eleysia and struck a deal with Basille, it had been for something innocuous but with dire consequences. She needed to think on his level. If he was their only way through the Pass, then she would figure it out. “Something about home.”
“Yes?” he asked.
“You want to go home?”
He scoffed. “I can go to Eleysia anytime I please.”
“Then, something more than that?”
“I want you to write a letter,” he said simply.
Cyrene furrowed her brows. “To whom exactly?”
“I want my name cleared and to be reinstated as a noble on the Privy Council.”
“How exactly am I supposed to do that?”
“You know a certain prince,” he said with a smirk.
Cyrene sighed. “Dean.”
She didn’t even have to ask how he knew that Dean was still alive.
“See it done, and I’ll take you through the Pass.”
“I can’t guarantee that he’ll do it.”
Basille grinned. “Oh, he’ll do it.”
Cyrene shook her head in disgust. Deals made her feel slimy. “Fine. But we must hurry.”
Basille disappeared to retrieve pen and paper.
Avoca strode across the room to stand in front of Cyrene. “You do not have to do this.”
“It’s just a letter,” the commander said. “I’ve seen him deal with much worse.”
Cyrene paled. If only it were just a letter. She and Dean might have parted on good terms in Fen, but that didn’t mean that she was anxious to open that connection between them. She didn’t even know if she would ever see him again. Or why it made her so anxious to consider that she wouldn’t.
“Maybe you should mind your own business,” Avoca snapped at him.
Matilde and Vera materialized before the commander. “We believe that you were promised information in exchange for your own help. While Cyrene prepares, we would be happy to explain what your Guild training has been sufficiently lacking.”
The commander looked as if he were about to snarl at them but eventually disappeared. Cyrene was grateful that she wasn’t the one who would have to explain everything to him. Matilde and Vera had years of experience. She would be better off writing one measly letter.
Cyrene folded the letter and addressed it to his Royal Highness Prince Dean Ellison of Eleysia. She had no mark of her own, so Basille used his own seal to close it.
“You’ll need one of these,” he told her. “I could give you a fair price.”
Cyrene rolled her eyes. “How will we send it?”
“The commander will do it,” Basille said, as if it were obvious. “Now, let’s go, Consort. Much to do and little time to do it.”
Cyrene backed out of the drawing room and carried the letter outside. Her friends had saddled their horses, packed the saddlebags, and consolidated their belongings. The commander was hastily scribbling into a worn book, looking suddenly out of place in the light of day.
She cautiously approached him. “Commander.”
His head darted up. “Are you finished?”
“Basille requested for you to get this into the right hands.” She passed him the letter.
It was the first real compliment he’d given anyone.
“Yes, they are. Did you learn much?”
“Enough. If I need more, I’ll send a hawk.”
“A hawk?”
“They’re incredibly smart. My hawk could find anyone in Emporia. He will find you, and he will find the person to deliver this letter to.”
“Thank you for not double-crossing me,” she blurted out.
“Not yet at least.”
“So, do I get your name yet?”
The commander tucked away his notebook and pulled her into his arms. She wrapped hers around him, surprised at how close she felt to this total stranger.
“When next we meet,” he promised.
Cyrene laughed. “Be safe.”
“An assassin’s life is never safe.” He released her with hooded gray eyes and a warm smile. “May the river run red.”
“I’ll take that as an benediction.”
“Keep your wits about you in those mountains, spitfire. You’ll need them.”
With those chilling words, the commander stepped back and disappeared into the distance. She shuddered at the thought of him becoming Doma. With his power and unbridled ferocity, he could do anything. She was glad to leave him as an ally and not an enemy.
“Ready?” Orden asked as she marched over to retrieve Ceffy.
“Ready to get this over with.”
“Mountain ponies would have been better,” Basille said, “but we work with what we have.”
And then they moved out and away from the nightmare of Alba, toward the dark and foreboding hell awaiting them.
“Did you hear that?” Ahlvie asked, his eyes scanning the mountains closing in all around them.
“You are making everyone jumpy,” Avoca ground out. “There is nothing in these mountains.”
“Actually—” Basille said from the front of the line.
“Shut it,” Cyrene snapped at him.
Ever since they had set foot in the Drop Pass, Basille had been hinting at ghost stories and monsters and all manner of creatures that would swoop in and destroy them. It was making everyone jittery. Even Matilde and Vera, who were never ruffled.
Cyrene heeled her horse forward to come to the outside of Vera. “Do you know what we’re looking for?”
“We’ll direct Master Selby in the right direction, but we were here many years ago, and the passage into the caves was completely obliterated,” Vera told her.
“Obliterated?” Cyrene asked uneasily.
“Blasted off the face of the earth.”
“How?”
“I believe you mean…by what?” Vera said grimly.
Cyrene leaned in closer. “Are you saying there actually are creatures that haunt this pass?”
“I’m saying that the stories aren’t for nothing.”
“Keep your eyes open and your senses sharp,” Matilde said.
“And your magic close,” Vera added.
“Wonderful,” Cyrene muttered under her breath.
She held her magic on a short leash as she moved back to Avoca’s side. Though the Pass wasn’t narrow by any means, the snowdrifts kept them two abreast as they tramped through the snow. And, even though it was daylight, time seemed to move differently here. Dark clouds hovered overhead. A storm was brewing. Cyrene could practically reach out and touch the intensity of the current. She had learned the hard way not to meddle in weather if she didn’t have to, but something about this called out to her.
“I seriously heard something this time,” Ahlvie said.
Cyrene groaned.
“His ears are sharper than ours,” Orden reminded them.
She hadn’t heard a thing, but Orden was right. Maybe Ahlvie could hear something they couldn’t. All she saw all around her were white snowdrifts, tall evergreen trees, and endless black granite that the Barren Mountains were known for. Its highest peak was called the Black Mountain of Death. Real cheery.
A twig snapped in the distance, and Cyrene’s eyes darted to where the sound had come from. “Okay, I heard that,” she whispered.
She held her magic taut, like a bow ready to fire, and waited. Avoca also grasped her magic, and a blade slid into her hand. Heeling Ceffy toward the source of the noise, Cyrene held her breath as she approached. Whatever was hiding in these mountains was making them all insane. She could feel the tension in her group. They needed to find these caves and get out of here. Nothing good could come from somewhere like this. And certainly not if they had to stop at every stray sound.
Another crack sounded a half-step from where she was standing on the tree line. With a quick jolt, she snapped her magic out at the unsuspecting victim. A yelp came from the trees, and then an average-sized white rabbit darted out of the clearing before hurrying out of view.
She released her breath in a gasp. A few chuckles were heard behind her.
“See? It’s nothing,” she assured them.
Ahlvie looked sheepish. “It felt like more than a rabbit.”
“Maybe your senses are wrong here,” she suggested, urging them forward again.
They had a lot of ground to cover.
“Everything feels wrong here,” Basille said from the front. “It always does.”
“But you’ve been through before. So, we’ll make it this time,” Cyrene said with feigned confidence.
The higher they got up in the mountains, the harder it was to breathe. The Pass was overrun with snow already this early in the season. Basille threw back a long rope once it became clear that, if they stepped off his trail, they could be lost in the snow. They each tied together their horses and moved single file through the cold. The weather was so damp and uncomfortable that even Matilde and Vera were helping to heat the whole party and their horses. A task they normally considered built character.
“Once we cross the high point, we’ll head toward Black Mountain,” Matilde called to Basille.
He turned back toward them and sneered. “There is no path to Black Mountain. I’ve already told you.”
“We’ll have to make one then.”
“There’s a reason it’s called the Black Mountain of Death.”
“Death was added as a scare tactic,” she said. “I assure you.”
“It worked,” he grumbled.
Cyrene couldn’t shake the feeling of dread settling over her. She didn’t know if it was the tall tales of the Drop Pass that she’d heard as a child. Horrible tales of creatures coming out, endless darkness turning people into ash, and ghosts. Always ghosts.
She shuddered at that thought. Even though she herself had been speaking to a two-thousand-year-old dead ancestor for the last year, the idea of ghosts made gooseflesh dance on her skin and the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
“I still hear something,” Ahlvie muttered.
“It’s probably another rabbit,” Avoca said.
But, when Cyrene glanced back at her, she could see that wasn’t what Avoca believed at all.
By the time they were heading to the top of the Pass that afternoon, the cloud had darkened entirely. Each of the girls held a ball of Doma Fire in her hand to lead the way. But the darkness only escalated, as if it had a physical presence pushing in on their magic. The shadows began to shift. The night crept in. And, soon, the bunny was the least of their concerns.
“It’s not ghosts. It’s not ghosts. It’s not ghosts,” Cyrene whispered under her breath.
Lightning cracked overhead, illuminating the mountain for a brief moment. Everything looked normal. Just as it had appeared this morning. But, once the thunder boomed in warning, the answering call was clear.
There was something else out there.
And they were blind.
Then, she heard it.
Swoosh.
“Arrows!” she yelled. “Attack!”
But it was too late.
A distinct thunk sai
d that the arrow had landed into its target. Avoca screamed behind Cyrene.
“Avoca!” Cyrene cried.
She reached for Avoca through the bond and probed for the wound. Through her shoulder. A direct hit, and she was already losing blood. Cyrene could sense the blood as well as her own magic.
Orden took charge in the madness, ordering them out of the open pass and up to the top of the mountain where they would have a better position. They hadn’t gotten to choose where this battle was fought, and it was leaving them at a distinct disadvantage.
Arrows whizzed past them as their horses heaved upward through the snow. Cyrene called wind to herself and blasted the arrows out of the way before they could fall on them again. Matilde and Vera were already working on setting up a barrier, but their group wasn’t stationary, and since they were drawn out across such a wide swath of space, it was difficult to keep in place.
Cyrene put up her own shield in front of Avoca, who couldn’t defend herself. She was doubled over on her horse, breathing heavily into her wound.
She held her Doma Fire at the same time, lighting the path before them, but it gave her no better view of who…or what was behind them. They needed to be able to see. They needed this storm to pass. She was already having difficulty managing too many spells at once. She would have to drop the shield around everyone to open up the sky for them. It wasn’t a risk she could take while Avoca was in danger.
Just before they reached the top of the Pass, an explosion rocked the ground before them. Basille wheeled around to escape the onslaught. His horse bucked and tried to free itself to escape. All of them pulled up tight together, their way barred.
Then, out of the smoke, came dark shadows that moved as smoothly as ghosts and struck fear into Cyrene’s heart.
She swallowed hard and herded Avoca behind her. Their group cut their lead line and then made a circle, facing off with the deadly shadow figures. With their shields up, they were prepared to unleash whatever power they had to stop these ghosts from killing them all.
“How do you kill a ghost?” Ahlvie muttered.
She could feel him bristling, ready to transform at a moment’s notice.
“Those aren’t ghosts,” Matilde said.
“An ambush,” Basille said, shaking his head. He had a thin blade in his hand that he held as if he had been born with it.
