“I heard that the two of you were allowed to go out alone now,” Grinkin said. “I’m afraid for the safety of Dralin to be honest.”
“Hey!” Pelya smacked his chest with the back of her hand and they laughed. “There were only a few dead bodies.” She hoped it was a clever statement even if it was true. The thought chilled her again.
Judging by even louder laughter, she had succeeded. “Well said, lass,” Florsy said with a smack on her back. It knocked her forward because she wasn’t expecting it. He became somber. “You said you ‘thought’ they were good friends. I’m guessing you found out differently?”
“They left us to rescue the slaves by ourselves. We made our way through the ruins under the city and might have died if Sir Imbra, a Knight of Reanna, hadn’t shown up.”
Clutz looked over his shoulder. “I think our young friend is trying to get an early start at an adventuring life similar to our own.”
Pelya blushed. It wasn’t what she had intended at all. The men encouraged her to tell the story and by the time they reached the tent, she had told them all of it, even managing not to cry when talking about the deaths.
***
“Which tent is it?” Clutz asked after they arrived at the performance courtyard, which was illuminated by lanterns on tall poles. A crowd watched a performance at one of the stages while people moved about. Carnival was active all times of the day and night.
“It’s the red and green checkered one.” Pelya pointed to it. “Aphry runs the troupe.” There was no sign of life anywhere around it and the two torch stands in front of it were dark, unlike other empty stages. It was an ominous sign.
“Florsy and I will go ahead and make sure everything’s clear. Stay with Grinkin.”
They disappeared into the crowd while Grinkin led Pelya to a tree on the edge of the courtyard. He kept a hand gripped on her upper arm for safety reasons. It bothered her a little, but she didn’t resist.
A few minutes later, they came back with unhappy expressions. Florsy ran his fingers through his hair again. “Two of Blavoci’s guards were at the entrance to the tent. We stopped and talked to them. It seems the troupe sold the location to Blavoci and left town.”
“I don’t believe that,” Pelya protested. “I bet they were kidnapped and sold into slavery. We need to go to the warehouse and try to find them.”
“That’s not going to happen, Pelya,” Clutz said firmly. “Grinkin, get her back to the Guard District.” Before Pelya could protest, he held up a hand. “We’ll see what else we can find out, but you’re not going to get into any more danger. Is that clear?” His tone allowed no argument, so she nodded sullenly. “We’ll tell you what we discover tomorrow.” He turned back to the courtyard, followed by Florsy.
“Come on, lass. Let’s get you home.” Grinkin led her away.
***
By the time she made it back to Healing Hall, her father was asleep. The healers let her take the bed next to him again and she was quickly asleep despite the worry for her friends.
Chapter 14
Ebudae groaned as an urgent and unyielding need for food woke her. It consumed every thought as she rolled off the edge of the bed onto her feet. Still clutching the knife to her chest, she stumbled out of the bedroom into the sitting area of the suite. From there, she made her way to the door and into the hallway.
Halfway to the stairs, she met Tina, who happened to be carrying a tray of food. Alarm filled the servant’s one good eye as Ebudae attacked the food. The woman set the tray on the floor and jerked her hands away as though Ebudae might decide to take a bite out of them. Tina ran as fast as she could.
There was no intelligent thought in Ebudae as she knelt to get every last scrap off the plate. Insatiable hunger dominated her actions and when Tina rushed back with more food, Ebudae looked up and growled at the unfortunate woman.
Tina set the new tray down on the floor and backed away. Ebudae leapt forward, grabbed a half-cooked chicken and bit into it. Tina’s eye widened at the feral woman’s actions. She rushed off again.
In addition to the chicken, there was a full wheel of cheese and two loaves of bread. When Tina came back with another tray five minutes later, Ebudae was gnawing meat off the last of the bones and everything else was finished.
She stood and looked at the new tray of food with intense desire. Tina held the tray away from her as she hugged the wall to get around Ebudae and head to the suite. Ebudae snarled at her and stalked the food all the way to the small dining table on the far wall. Tina set it down and Ebudae forced herself to sit down before digging in.
In addition to pastries, cooked eggs and fried potatoes, there were jugs of milk and juice. Ebudae made an effort to eat a little more gracefully, but her stomach roiled in need for more. Everything she ate was digested at an extraordinary rate to replenish her energy.
Her thoughts were becoming clearer again, but the exhaustion was setting in fast and hard. There were numerous books on the study of magic’s effects on bodies, but none had definite answers to why or how a body could alter its normal makeup to intake vast amounts of food and sleep as a recovery tool. Something about magic altered the body, even causing many wizards to die early from various cancers or debilitating diseases that consumed bone and muscle.
Ebudae still felt heat from the dragon mark covering her back. She would eat extra over the next few days in order to replenish it as well. There were no books about the marks, but she had figured out that it was helping her to use more magical energies and protecting her body from some of those debilitating effects.
Tina came out of the bathroom with sleeves rolled up. She was drying her hands on a towel. Ebudae put her arms around the food and hunched over in case the servant might try to take it away from her. There was no chance of that, but Tina carefully took the empty milk pitcher out with her as she left the suite. Perhaps if she didn’t have such a terrible stutter, Tina might offer words of encouragement. Instead, she patted Ebudae’s shoulder and left the room.
A few minutes later, Ebudae’s hunger was satiated. She nibbled on a pastry while wondering if she had enough strength to make it back to bed. Hands on her arm lifted her to her feet and Ebudae saw that Tina had come back.
Ebudae protested futilely as Tina stripped her and put her in the bath. Strawberry and raspberry leaves mixed with rose petals in the bath created a delightful aroma and felt heavenly against her skin. Ebudae came out of the drowsiness while Tina scrubbed her clean. The servant woman rarely spoke, but the two of them had grown a strong bond. Lady Pallon’s cruel treatment of them created partners in suffering. Tina was Ebudae’s faithful ally and took excellent care of her.
Looking at her arm, Ebudae observed there were no marks from the cutting she had done that morning. Looking around, she wondered what time it was and if it had been that morning. There was no clue as to what time of the day it was. Ebudae decided she didn’t care. She ran fingers over her thigh where she had stabbed, but those wounds were gone too.
The dragon mark: it healed her wounds in addition to everything else. The thought was fleeting. Ebudae wanted to think about it, but it also protected itself from her and Ebudae knew she would forget about it by the time she woke up. She twisted and saw the glowing orange lines covering her back. It was only visible when working and she wondered what Tina thought of it.
Water poured over her head and she gasped. Tina pulled her arm to make her stand up and then dumped another bucket of water over her head while the young lady uttered a few choice words she wasn’t supposed to know.
A few minutes later, Tina had Ebudae dried off, put in a nightgown and then into bed. As the servant tucked her in, Ebudae quietly and sincerely said, “Thank you.” Tina gave her a tight smile and left the room. Ebudae didn’t notice because she had already fallen asleep.
***
The struggle between finding more food for her bottomless stomach and remaining under the soft covers to sleep was beginning to irritate Ebudae. She had already
woken two other times to eat and shouldn’t be hungry anymore.
With a sigh, she flung the covers off and sat up. Once again, Tina had taken away the empty tray from the nightstand and left another covered with a cloth to keep the food from getting stale. She set it on the bed in front of her and picked at the food while thinking about everything that had happened.
Her grandmother thought she was evil. Am I? Ebudae didn’t know. She had enjoyed killing the wizard and would jump at the chance to duel another, preferably to the death. It didn’t feel evil though. Ebudae had also enjoyed helping Pelya rescue the slaves. Pelya was definitely good.
The events of the last few days were starting to spin again. Her grandmother’s hatred, Pelya’s good, the wizard’s head exploding, slaves huddling in the dark, slochunds slinking in the dark, knights casting liquid light, Carnies laughing at her all swirled about and began causing the room to spin as well.
She opened the drawer and found her knife just where it should be. Tina must have cleaned it and put it away at some point. Drawing her left sleeve up, Ebudae slowly cut a line into her arm. The pain felt good and stopped the room from spinning. The blood was pretty and she stared at it.
The cut began to heal, closing just as she had cut it, from one end to the next. The blood was drawn back into the cut to be re-used. She cut one more time, enjoying the sharp tip of the knife separating skin. Her back warmed in protest at having to heal a self-inflicted injury yet again.
The second cut healed and Ebudae felt her muscles relax and breathing come easier. She had to sort the problems out though. Otherwise, they would come back worse than before. Cutting helped for a little while, but if she didn’t resolve things she wouldn’t be able to focus her mind for magic.
The worst thing was her grandmother’s hatred of her. It was a problem there wasn’t a solution to. Ebudae wasn’t willing to kill her, because then she’d be stuck with the estate and she didn’t want it. Moreover, the woman was smart. She would protect herself against magic somehow, so if Ebudae tried to kill her, things would get worse. The only solution was to avoid her grandmother as much as possible.
Next was Pelya’s good. ‘Why is that a problem?’ She asked herself the question, but didn’t have an answer, so she set it aside for a minute.
Death was the next thing. Ebudae liked death. It was fun. ‘That’s probably a big problem.’ Dead things were easy to understand. Living things were difficult. People were the worst because they always had opinions and talked about them. ‘The problem isn’t death, it’s that everyone else is afraid of it. I’ll like death and keep it to myself.’ That decision was enough to solve the problem. The pressure lessened a great deal and everything seemed a lot less chaotic in her mind.
Slaves made her think of Pelya and good again, so she set that matter aside for a moment and considered the slochunds. They were scary because there were so many of them in the ruins. Ebudae didn’t know how they survived, but they did. She and Pelya had fought hundreds of them as well as other creatures, but always explored alone and they had a system of battling. It was something that she had an occasional nightmare about, but not worth wasting any more time on.
The knight of Reanna and his companions were interesting. They wanted to use Pelya for some reason. She was important to them. It occurred to Ebudae that she didn’t care about the knight and was able to remove him from the spinning in her mind.
Pelya was the key. She rescued the slaves and a shining knight looked up to her. Everyone loved Pelya unless they were evil or wanted to hurt bunnies.
“Bunnies! I have to get Shade.” Ebudae said the words aloud as she got out of bed. Her knees buckled from weakness and she had to steady herself. Dizziness and spots swam in front of her eyes as she regained her balance.
She chose one of her more simple dresses with a little lace on it. It was purple and had numerous runes to keep her safe. What her grandmother didn’t know was that Ebudae had been outside the manor a few times on her own. She never went far, but the need to escape was strong, so she’d sneak through dark alleys and try to get close to danger without being noticed.
Once she was dressed, she put the knife on her belt and went to her workroom, locking the door behind her. Ebudae grabbed pouches and wrapped a blood-red, hooded cloak around her shoulders. She liked the color of it and ran her hand along the soft cloth.
Ebudae pushed a series of stones in the wall to make a section slide into the floor. She grabbed a lantern and headed to some stairs down. A series of passages led her to the back wall of the estate where she peeked out to see if anyone was in the alley behind. When it was clear, she opened another secret door and stepped outside, leaving the lantern behind.
The night was cooler than the hot days that had been suffocating the city. Piohray and Siahray were partially full in the sky. Smog made their light seem sickly. It combined with the illumination of streetlights nearby to create creepy shadows in the alley. A sense of being watched tickled the back of her neck, but no one appeared.
She took one step to the left to go to the temple before changing her mind and heading the other direction. Ebudae wanted to talk to Juggles and the others to see why they had left them alone to rescue the slaves under the warehouse. It was another of the things that was bothering her.
People in general were complicated. Magic was easy and fun. Making dresses and poking the needles into her fingers was enjoyable. Living in her suite and taking baths was nice. Ebudae didn’t like people though.
It brought her back the thought of Pelya as she made her way down the street, keeping to the side in the hopes she wouldn’t be noticed. Pelya acted with courage in everything she did. She also protected Ebudae, always standing in front when danger was near.
Pelya didn’t hesitate to break into the warehouse because she wanted to save the brother of a friend. Ebudae hadn’t hesitated because she wanted the thrill. She didn’t care about Aphry or saving Jovias, but it had been exciting. Pelya had rescued the slaves while Ebudae had rescued an emo bunny. The bunny seemed more lovable than half-starved people in cages.
Pelya also cried when people died. Ebudae knew that her friend had never killed anyone and didn’t want to. The warrior girl was afraid that her father would be disappointed in her and that she wouldn’t be allowed to join the City Guard when she turned eighteen because of it.
Ebudae concluded that Pelya was not just good, she was epically good like in bard’s tales. She would need all the help she could get and Ebudae vowed that she would always do anything to help Pelya. But it was going to be in the way she saw fit, even if that meant killing anyone who threatened her friend.
She kept an alert eye on her surroundings. The feeling of being watched persisted. If possible, she wanted to avoid using magic after having driven her body so hard. It occurred to her that she still had no idea how much time had passed since she had come home.
***
The after-midnight crowds at Carnival brushed against her and she drew her cloak as tightly as possible, making her way to Aphry’s troupe tent. A few tugs on the cloak indicated that pickpockets were trying to grab one of her pouches, but she pushed on faster to get away from them.
A man seized her arm and reached for one of the pouches. When his hand touched the pouch, the runes sewn into it flashed and burned his hand. He screamed and tried to shake off the green flames.
Ebudae reached out with a hand and cast a small spell. Her hair flicked about her face as tiny lightning bolts sprang from her fingers. It wasn’t a lot of power, but the jolt knocked the man back into the crowd. People stepped back and looked at the stunned pickpocket lying on the street. One helpful bystander stomped on his hand to extinguish the flames.
For the first time since entering Carnival, Ebudae had elbow room. “He tried to pick my pouches. It’s a very bad idea,” she said in a loud voice to defend her actions. No one insisted on claiming any wrongdoing, so she continued on her way. He would live.
A few minutes later, she reac
hed her destination. The torches on either side of the stage were unlit. Aphry had mentioned that active troupes kept their torches lit throughout the night to advertise that there would be acts performed.
Using utmost caution, Ebudae made her way to the tent opening. It was magically sealed. She examined the runes and realized there were layers of them. It was an intricate lock designed to keep out experienced thieves, even those with magic.
“Now why would you be studying those runes?” a high-pitched voice asked from her right.
Ebudae turned, ready to cast another of the lightning spells. A bald-headed City Guardsman stood at the end of the path between tents.
“Here now,” a different voice said from behind her. She turned and saw a grey-haired member of the Guard. “It’s a bad idea to go around casting spells at people, especially when Guard uniforms protect us from them.”
“Not from all spells,” Ebudae replied. Pelya had told her about the protections that Guard tunics and armor had in them. They were more formidable than most people realized. It would take a powerful spell to overcome them.
It occurred to her that she wasn’t willing to attack the men. Whatever issues she may have, Ebudae didn’t consider herself a murderer. She released the energy she had already gathered and stood straight with arms to the side in a gesture of peace. Watching the Guardsman’s eyes widen as he took a step back and put a hand on the sword gave her satisfaction.
“That doesn’t make it a good idea to go around slinging spells at us.” The bald man spoke again. Ebudae put her back against the other tent so that she could keep an eye on both of them. They came ahead until they were ten feet away on either side. The bald one smoothed out his white mustache. “What are you doing out here all alone, lass?”
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