by Jaida Jones
Shining Talon merely had to approach one and it opened.
He strode onward without looking back at his companions. Rags got the impression he was trying to pretend Morien didn’t exist.
So Rags trudged along in silence again, grudgingly respecting the flourishes and details around him being eaten away by dirt. No loose trinkets or half-buried jewelry boxes he could nab to sell. His fingers stung, the air wasn’t stale enough for how deep in the earth they were, and the guy who’d hired him was pissed.
All in all, a bad job.
“Leading us to the execution chamber?” Rags asked. His voice echoed over the bare walls.
Shining Talon paused in his self-assured stride and turned with a question shadowing his face. “For what reason would I do that? I cannot kill the Lying One as long as he has contract with your heart. He will destroy you, and I cannot allow that to happen.”
Haha. Power fit Rags like a shirt borrowed from a man twice as big as him. A shame. From everything he’d imagined, pulling the strings was supposed to be magnificent, a thrill to kill for.
Rags forced himself to shrug. “Just making conversation. So there is an execution chamber in this place, huh?”
“Five of them,” Shining Talon replied.
Rags should have stopped asking questions. Didn’t. “What kind of a place needs five execution chambers?”
It was near impossible to catch Shining Talon’s gaze when it shifted, light reflecting off milky silver. But Rags got the sense Shining Talon had looked at him. Rags always knew when he was being watched.
“This, the Lone Tower, was one of the Bone Court’s great military strongholds.” Shining Talon’s explanation was mild, like it didn’t cost him anything to offer. “Even in defeat, it was safeguarded against invasion.”
Right.
Except Rags had broken through all those safeguards.
All those Lone Tower safeguards.
Rags was almost too numb to the impossible to feel the confirmation of where they were hit, settle, sink in deep.
You don’t belong, the door had shouted at him. Maybe it hadn’t been a threat. Maybe it’d been a different kind of warning.
Rags truly stopped asking questions after that.
He counted another room with a lone tall chair, this one upright, and noted the scorched marks—shit, handprints—stamped on the arms. Then they passed through another room with an empty bed, preserved like a held breath, in perfect condition. A third room with a dining table set, plates and goblets and chairs and untouched food that hadn’t rotted, waiting for its diners to return. Rags’s fingers itched to grab something so he could pretend this was any other job.
But it wasn’t.
At about the time Rags suspected they were being led in circles, Shining Talon guided them through a final door and out into the light.
They were in a forest. Stars glittered above. A river of molten silver passed in front of them, reflecting the sky. Or ceiling. Rags stared until his eyes burned, trying to determine what he was really seeing.
Morien lingered on the threshold. Was he unable to cross? Or did he know something Rags didn’t—that once someone entered this place, they’d never be able to leave?
Rags tested the theory, putting one foot on one side of the door and the other back into the chamber. He wasn’t torn apart or struck by lightning. A good sign. But Shining Talon stared at him with what would have been curiosity on a human face, and that made Rags feel stupid.
“Never spent time in a fae ruin before,” he muttered, the heat in his cheeks driving his gaze to the floor.
Fucking. Fae. Ruins.
“It is much changed since before I Slept,” Shining Talon agreed.
Without dwelling on that statement, the fae knelt by the side of the river of silver and, whispering what sounded suspiciously like “excuse me,” plunged both hands into the rushing water. At his touch, it hissed. Steam rose from the rippling surface. Shining Talon grunted, gritted his teeth, and held his position. His shoulders were so taut, Rags wondered if he’d snap in two.
Despite himself, Rags leaned closer.
The river dried up, all its liquid silver drawn together with and against the current, bubbling and boiling into a single shape beneath, then around, Shining Talon’s hands.
When it was finally at rest, Rags could see that Shining Talon had pulled a silver creature from the river.
16
Rags
It looked, Rags thought, like a lumpy snake. But seeing as how it was a magic river beast that operated with indescribable power, he didn’t want to insult it.
It hissed one last time as it rocked into its edges. The lumps became delicate legs.
It was a lizard the size of a pony.
It regarded Rags with one silver eye and Shining Talon with the other. A third blinked open on its forehead, discovered Morien, and narrowed.
“Your pet?” Rags asked. Someone had to say something.
Shining Talon withdrew his hands. They had blackened unevenly from fingertips to wristbones. The sight reminded Rags of his own injured palms, and he scowled.
“Pet?” Shining Talon repeated, like he didn’t understand the word.
The big silver lizard put one clawed foot on the edge of the now-empty riverbank and heaved itself out. The way it moved made Rags’s breath catch in his throat. It was beautiful, each joint feline in its grace, precise and delicate. Its hinges turned beneath a silver webbing of translucent scales that served as skin.
It was a machine.
Dane would’ve loved this. The thought echoed unbidden before Rags could stop it, his old friend’s laugh still ringing in his ears. As boys in Cheapside, they’d spun all kinds of tales about fae silver and gold, the wonders of Oberon’s lost kingdom, how someday they’d find it together. Rags kicked those thoughts away.
“Her name is One,” Shining Talon said. “She is the first fragment of the Great Paragon. Neither of us is her master, and she is impatient to meet the one who is.”
“Oh, is that all,” Rags replied.
They stared at each other for a brief moment before he suddenly became very interested in checking the maybe-rock in his pocket.
It wasn’t moving. Still and cold, even to Rags’s hot touch.
Shining Talon had referred to One as the first fragment, which meant that they were definitely keeping Rags’s piece their secret. A little too much like working with a partner for Rags’s liking, but he was still alive, his heart in one piece, and he’d seen treasures kids from Cheapside only thought they dreamed about.
The only problem was that Rags couldn’t think of any story or rhyme where a human shook hands with a fae and came out on top.
17
Rags
If such a thing was possible, One liked Morien less than Shining Talon did. As their trek through the fae palace continued, she kept her distance, third eye constantly narrowed to a slit. Morien seemed unbothered, although it was impossible to tell what the bastard was thinking under his scarves. Rags’s heart didn’t hurt, so he had to assume they’d done something right.
The lizard was indifferent to Rags and, after sniffing Shining Talon’s hands—which had begun to cool, the blackness receding toward his fingertips—paid him little attention. The only time One acknowledged their presence was biting the back of Shining Talon’s leggings when he came too close to what Rags assumed was a wrong door. Were they now following the lizard? Rags snuck a look at Morien and found him as inscrutable as ever.
When they met up with the Queensguard, Rags was struck again by their silence. Like toy soldiers left unattended between the first and second doors, they lined the dark corridor at eerie and empty attention, still blindfolded by Morien’s scarves.
Shining Talon bared his teeth at the sight of them but said nothing. They were backtracking now.
Heading out.
Rags was nearly free to get back to the city, find out who’d sold him into servitude to the Ever-Nobles, and make them pay
. After that, he’d settle back into his old life. He’d never swear in the fae’s name. He’d get better at being bad and make sure he wasn’t caught again.
Yeah, and if he believed that, he’d believe anything.
There’d been a total lack of shock in Morien’s eyes when presented with a living fae. Had he been expecting this, not fae-glass lances or star ruby diadems?
“Guess it’d be too easy if one of these guys was the picky silver lizard’s master,” Rags muttered.
Shining Talon nodded solemnly. “The search could take decades, perhaps a century.”
Something about the way he said it made Rags wonder if he was stalling for time. Inflating Morien’s expectations.
Nah, it was a mistake for Rags to try to read him like a normal person.
“It would be in Rags’s best interest if you would share more information about this Great Paragon,” Morien told Shining Talon.
The only point of brightness piercing Rags’s foul mood was the way the sorcerer kept his distance from One, putting all six Queensguard, Rags, and Shining Talon between them. His posture wasn’t scared, but that detail suggested otherwise.
Rags snorted and sat. “Figure it’ll be a long story. Might as well get comfortable.”
Shining Talon settled beside him on his knees, his back straight, looking like a wary cat ready to leap at the first shifting shadow. “For the sake of my lord Rags, Lying One, I will answer your questions with words rather than steel.”
It would have been nice if Rags could genuinely not care about whatever fae secrets Shining Talon revealed. But he listened, breathless, with mounting appreciation for the light kindling in Morien’s eyes at the tale.
Because there was a treasure. The greatest treasure, if you valued unparalleled power above all else.
“Forged from the heart of all fae silver,” Shining Talon began, “the Great Paragon took an age for our best smiths to create. A second age passed while our Enchantrisks wove their magics over it. Then came the third age. . . .”
And it went on like that. Six ages to complete the Great Paragon, six fragments created together, which, when joined with their individual masters, would form an unstoppable whole, some kind of symbol for unity.
“Hang on.” Rags felt a stab of guilt at interrupting the flow of Shining Talon’s story, but also, his mouth had always worked a smidge faster than his brain. “Unity like, fae and humans working together? That kind of unity?”
Two pairs of eyes, one silver and one black, stared in his direction.
Rags fumbled with the hem of his shirt. “Didn’t know unity was ever an option.”
“There was peace,” Shining Talon continued, “promised between our rulers. The Great Paragon was a gift, five parts united under the command of five humans, with a sixth from the fae to guide them. It was too powerful to entrust to one wielder alone.”
So this thing was in six pieces. Of which One was . . . one.
Shining Talon was vague about what happened once all six beasts had found their masters and what happened when they were brought together—Morien seemed especially keen to learn that—but Rags suspected it was because Shining Talon didn’t know, maybe hadn’t seen it for himself.
“Wait, though,” Rags broke in again. “There’s a fae master of one of these beasties, obviously that’s fine. But the rest—the humans—they’re all dead by now. Ancient worm food.”
Morien cleared his throat, impatient about the interruption. Rags tried not to let it bother him. If he was going to be at someone else’s beck and call, he planned to make it uncomfortable on both ends.
“There is a master born every generation,” Shining Talon acknowledged, “to accommodate the realities of your brief, fragile human existences.”
“Sure,” Rags said. “That makes sense.”
“It was many lifetimes ago when the Great Paragon was scattered,” Shining Talon concluded, “to remain so until such a time as it was needed.”
Rags snorted softly. “Should’ve brought it back into play before the Lost-Lands became lost. Might have turned the tides.”
Shining Talon lowered his head until his face was hidden by his dark hair. “Of this I cannot speak. After the Great Paragon was sundered and its fragments hidden, I was chosen to remain in this place until I was awoken by one worthy of command.”
“Of command,” Rags repeated.
Shining Talon lifted his eyes to Rags’s face. His shining eyes. All of him shone. Rags resisted the urge to squint but felt like a stubborn child staring directly at the sun. He’d always pictured the fae as being as ancient as they were wise, as wise as they were cruel. He’d pictured them as weapons sheathed in shadows, with less of a dazzling glow. “My lord Rags, though these are not the circumstances I might have envisioned—”
“Do you know the location of the other five?” Morien cut in.
Rags watched Shining Talon’s hands work over his thighs, the black bone tattoos shifting with every clench. What had he been about to say? Why did he care? The less Rags knew, the better his odds of survival got. He felt queasy from all the magic apples he’d eaten.
“Such knowledge could not be given to any one being. It would have been too dangerous,” Shining Talon replied.
“But you knew where the first”—One hissed menacingly at this, and Morien corrected himself—“where One could be found.”
“One knows how to find her master,” Shining Talon said. “After that, my instructions were . . . unclear. I believe that One’s master may be able to lead us to Two. Somehow.”
“Somehow.” Morien leaned closer to Rags, and Rags braced himself for the pain to begin again.
“What I know,” Shining Talon began—and did Rags detect the first note of familiar emotion in his voice, like fae could feel fear as keenly as humans?—“is that I was intended to be Master of Six. And the one who woke me would be Master of Five.”
Rags nearly choked on his own laughter, then had to pretend he’d swallowed a cobweb to explain his sudden sputtering. No one else laughed.
“But it’s not true,” Rags said, dragging them stubbornly by the nose to see the joke. “It can’t be me. I wasn’t even supposed to be here.” Suddenly, he was in shackles again, pleading his case before a magistrate. “I’m more a means to an end. . . .”
“A tool,” Morien supplied.
“I know nothing of your human arrangments,” Shining Talon said, in a tone that made perfectly clear that he also had no interest in learning. His gaze landed bluntly on Rags, without the sharp steel he reserved for Morien. “Nor does it matter what brought you to me, my lord Rags. Only that it was you who came. You alone possessed the skill to find me.”
Morien hissed. It was a sharp, unpleasant sound, and when Rags looked at him, he found the sorcerer glaring his way.
“You imply that Rags is of unexpected importance to our cause,” Morien summarized.
Did Rags imagine the way Shining Talon seemed to grow larger, filling his space more thoroughly as he straightened? Or had Rags’s mind finally snapped like a rope stretched too tight?
“He is vitally important,” Shining Talon said. The finality in his tone left no room for argument—even from a shitty, sneaky sorcerer like Morien the Last.
18
Rags
Rags had to admire how their new roles kept them both safe. Morien or Lord Faolan would want to bring the pieces of the Great Paragon together, to control such a powerful weapon for themselves. Or for the Queen.
Regardless, the sorcerer couldn’t off Rags with a wave of his hand. Not unless he wanted to wait for another Master of Five to be born and reach a useful age. A beastie master only came along once every generation.
Morien could have blindfolded Rags and Shining Talon but chose not to. A glance at One explained why. The sorcerer needed someone to stand watch between her and him.
“If you would spare two of your sorcerous cloths, Lord Rags is injured and would benefit from bandages.” Shining Talon thought h
e was in the position to ask for anything, when this partnership was balanced on the point of a needle.
But to Rags’s surprise, Morien handed two red blindfolds to Shining Talon, then roused the Queensguard with a twitch of his fingers.
Shining Talon knelt at Rags’s feet. Rags stared down at the fae, aware that he was making an ugly face—distaste, stress, confusion, why are you treating me like something more than a stain on the bottom of your boot—but not willing to wipe it off.
He was only alive because of Shining Talon, whose entire people had been done in by sorcerers. Sorcerers like Morien. Morien, whom Rags had led straight to Shining Talon’s doorstep, whose orders Shining Talon was now following.
At this point, if Shining Talon had been practical and killed him, Rags would’ve welcomed the sense it made.
He didn’t. Instead, he held up the bands of red fabric, draped like open wounds across his palms. “I know that these are not ideal, or uncontaminated by the Lying arts, but allow me to do what I may, in order to bring relief to you.”
“Why?” The question was out before Rags could stop it.
“Because, my lord Rags—”
Someone had to disabuse Shining Talon of this “lord” misimpression. Even if it was the only thing protecting Rags from Morien.
“Not a lord,” he said.
Shining Talon paused. “I was told—”
“I don’t care what you were told.” Rags turned his focus to one of the cuts on his thumb. “I’m a thief. A good one, but fuck it, that’s all. I came here to steal some kind of treasure, and I was tricked into it, made a bad deal, in service to your least favorite guy, Morien the Last. So quit it with the ‘lord’ shit. Unless you’re a condemned murderer, you outrank my sorry ass.”
The X’s at the sides of Shining Talon’s mouth twitched, then stilled, the only hint Rags’s words had hit home.
“I might be a thief,” Rags finished, “but I don’t lie.” Well, there had been a few times. “. . . much. Not enough to be a Lying One.”
