Heart thudding hard against my ribs, I swung a glance over my shoulder. The inhuman thing curled its bony fingers around the frame and hauled itself out at an angle, as if the rules of nature didn’t apply to it. It scurried low like a spider, spreading itself over the tiles, and scuttled forward.
“What is that?”
It burst forward with speed, and so did I. Ahead, the assassin swung around a chimneystack, as lithe and quick as her dancer frame suggested.
“A mage!” she called back.
I followed close, watching for loose tiles beneath my boots. Brea’s church bells chimed inside the Inner Circle ahead, where buildings rose ever higher, their gray stone walls clawing at the sky. We’d need to shake the creature before we hit the inner wall; there was no climbing over it.
The assassin skidded down a pitched roof and landed in a crouch on an outcropping of thatch. I landed with a solid oomph, and behind me that thing scampered, the screech of its nails on the tiles tugging on my nerves.
Straightening, head pounding and heart galloping, I scanned the ocean of rooftops surrounding us for a clear path. “There’s nowhere.”
She backed up, nudging into me, and then sprinted into a running leap for a roof an impossible distance away. She cleared the gap, landed awkwardly, and slipped. My breath hitched. She tumbled, rolled, and snagged a gutter at the last second. Clinging on with just her fingertips, she dangled there. I couldn’t reach her; there was no way I could make that jump. The wind whipped her cloak around her, bringing with it the bells still ringing out the midday. She heaved herself up over the gutter and climbed to her feet. “Thief! Look out!”
The mage slammed into me from behind. I fell forward, and my cheek smacked against the parapet. A blinding flash of pain cracked through my jaw and neck. The thing wrapped its clawed fingers around my ankle and yanked me closer. I kicked and struck its face with my boot—once, twice—but it didn’t even blink. And those horrid eyes burned through me, into me, seeing all my fears. A smile split across its dry face.
“Give usssss … the jewel, thief.” It slurred and hissed the words around a split black tongue.
“What jewel?” First a cup, now a jewel? I hadn’t stolen any jewels—recently. Did it mean the rubies?
It lifted its right hand and its nails scythed through the air. It would gut me, just like it had Daryn. It would spill my insides all over this rooftop for the crows to feast on. I’d die a coward; my sister had been right.
Sunlight glinted off the dagger as it punched into the mage’s right eye, flinging its head back. The thing let out an almighty howl and collapsed—dead—on my legs. Warm blood spilled over my boots.
“Thief!”
I dropped my head back onto the thatch and peered into the blue Brean sky. She really needed to use my name. I didn’t need the whole city knowing I was a thief. My heart beat double-time, trying to pound its way through my chest. Maybe I could just rest here a while?
“Thief! Hurry.”
I kicked the mage off and twisted onto my front. The assassin stood on the opposite rooftop, the wind tugging her cloak and hair to the side, her eyes fierce.
“My name is Vance,” I shouted back.
“I don’t care,” she growled. “Get up. There are more.”
Propping myself up on an elbow, I squinted into the sunlight and saw them. The mages spilled across the rooftops like oil over water.
Shit. I tugged the dagger from the dead creature’s eye and backed up to the roof’s edge.
“Jump,” her princessness ordered.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Jump, fool, or die.”
“I’m not jumping that.” A fool, was I? I spied a downpipe and straddled the top to begin my descent.
“Where are you going?” she snapped.
“Where does it look like I’m going? Down.”
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
Down pipes, guttering, rooftops, railings, scaffolding—these were my walkways and Brea was my playground. Her princessness could bitch all she liked, but I’d had enough of her and enough of the mages. I’d hit the street and get lost in the crowd. It would take a few years until I could show my face on this side of the Outer Circle again, but I could live with that, if it meant not getting thrown in the rich-folk dungeons for two murders I didn’t commit. Or getting sent back to the workhouse. I couldn’t go back there; I’d slit my own throat first.
I settled on the street, straightened my waistcoat and smoothed back my jaw-length hair. Tucking the dagger into my belt, I tracked the murmuring of the traders crowds and wove my way through the narrow streets to the market square. Whatever those mages were, they seemed to have given up their pursuit. Perhaps they were after the assassin, not me. Good riddance.
I meandered among the crowd, my thoughts turning to Daryn as I spied a few purses he could have pickpocketed with ease. Vendors shouted their wares, people haggled and jostled, and it all continued as though nothing had happened. But Daryn’s body lay cooling back at the coach house, and I’d left him there. Not my problem.
The whores would donate a few coins to pay for his burial. They’d look after him in death as they’d doted on him in life.
I should go back. It was the right thing to do, but doing the right thing had screwed me before.
I stopped beside a stall selling oil lamps and picked one up, pretending to admire the elaborately painted glass.
“I can do you a mighty offer, sir. How’s about one for your lady? A single ruby?”
I tapped my pocket; the pouch of rubies was still inside.
“I’ll think about it,” I lied. At least I had the rubies. How quickly everything changed. Yesterday, I’d been perched high up on a rooftop, watching the residence from which I’d been about to steal an artifact. Now my client and a kid I might have called friend were dead, and I was homeless.
A sudden shortness of breath gripped my chest. I sucked in air and slumped against the stall. The more I fought to breathe, the more the air escaped me. My head spun and vision blurred. I reached for the stall’s edge, missed, and fell forward. Several oil lamps went flying. They shattered against the cobbled street. A scream rose, rattling around my muddied thoughts. The scream wasn’t mine, was it? More screams. From men and women both. Slumped over the stall, I turned my head, ignoring the traders’ bellows to run. They—the mages—tore through the crowd as though those people were paper, slicing with their claws. I should have been among those fleeing for their lives, but I couldn’t stand, couldn’t move, and every breath shortened until it was all I could do to snatch a mouthful of air, stealing it from whatever force was taking it from me before I passed out. I curled my hand around the assassin’s dagger. I’d go down fighting, and I’d take a few of those bastard creatures with me.
“Show him the rubies …” The assassin’s whispers poured into my ear. I started and glanced left, but she wasn’t next to me. “Don’t look for me. Do as I command.”
“They’ll kill me …” I slurred.
“Have I been wrong yet, thief?”
I lifted my gaze and looked for the assassin. She had to be close, her voice was right there beside me, but through the dizzying fog, I couldn’t see her.
“You waste time. The rubies. Take some out and scatter them when they approach.”
This is insane. I should fight.
“You are in no condition to fight. I am coming, but until then, trust me and do as I command.”
Screams were volleyed around the market square.
“Hey!” I called out, digging my hand into the pouch and scooping out a generous handful of rubies. “Looking for these?”
I couldn’t focus on the mages; they were just darkness and nightmares closing in. I tried to swallow, but the action clogged my throat. I gripped the cool, hard rubies and focused on those instead. The mages circled in, tightening their net. Something heavy landed on the canvas tent above me.
“Now!”
> I threw the rubies at the shadows. They swarmed around the fallen gems like rats trickling from a sewer. So many …
“Turn left, thief. Walk away. Do it slowly. They are fixated on the gems, for now.”
I pushed off the stall and placed one foot in front of the other, believing I might fall at any moment. But with each step, my breath came easier and my pulsing heart slowed its racing beat. Once I could see and breathe again, she was there, standing in front of the vast inner wall, striking in her stillness. Her hair and clothes were as black as night against the brilliant white wall.
I plucked her dagger from my belt and strode forward. “This was your doing. My client? The kid, Daryn? Those things? It’s all about you. Tell me what in the king’s name is going on, or I’ll kill you where you stand.”
“What king?”
“Huh?”
“What is the name of your king?”
“What in the … what? King Jacobie, you know the one. Shows up once a year and sits on a jeweled throne to watch the paupers wrestle in the dirt.”
A puzzled look crossed her face. “No, I do not know the one.”
Why were we discussing the king? I chuckled. “Nice diversionary tactic. But despite what you keep calling me, I’m not a fool and I’m not buying your horseshit. Tell me what’s happening here, or I’ll stick this lovely dagger in your lovely middle.”
She cocked her head and blinked her dazzling blue-green eyes. “Kill me and you kill yourself, thief.”
I had my hand around her throat before it even occurred to me she had a second dagger and could have launched it at me. I pinned her to the wall and leaned in close. Beneath my grip, her skin felt cool and smooth, and up close, those eyes truly did shimmer like precious gems.
“Tell me what I want to know or die,” I growled.
“We are bound.” She spoke softly, like her words didn’t mean much. To her, perhaps they didn’t.
“What do you mean, bound?”
Her delicate lashes fluttered and her lips parted, revealing pearly white teeth behind those soft, pale pink lips. “You drank of my fluids. You are bound to me. We are one.”
I let those words sink in, truly savoring their insanity, then pushed off her and backed up. “You are really something. I’ve never encountered crazy quite like you, and I once knew a girl who talked to the restless gods. At least she knew she was insane. You, princess, take it to the top.”
“How else could I speak to your mind?”
“Bound to me?” I shook my head and laughed. “That’s not possible.”
She sighed and flicked back her hood, giving me the full weight of her less-than-patient stare. “We cannot be separated. This is why you almost succumbed in the market.”
Then more of what she’d said hit me and my stomach lurched. “I drank of your fluids?”
She growled in frustration. “The cup.”
I drank her fluids. “I was drunk, but I distinctly remember pouring my own water into that cup.”
“Yes, but the cup is not ordinary, and neither am I.”
I blinked, opened my mouth to ask, and then stalled, because what she was suggesting was impossible. “So you’re talking about magic? I hate to burst your little fantasy bubble, but magic doesn’t exist, princess.”
Her glare wasn’t getting any lighter. “You’ve seen it with your own eyes and experienced it inside your mind. You truly are a fool, a stubborn, ignorant fool.”
She almost stamped her foot. Though she believed her words, there had to be another explanation.
Perhaps I’d almost passed out due to heat exhaustion. It was hot, and I had just been running for my life, and there was also the fact I was hungover and likely dehydrated. And the creatures, they were just men. Ugly, twisted, and hideous, yes, but just men. Her words about magic were nonsense.
She shook her head and dipped her chin, and for the briefest moment, I glimpsed the woman behind the attitude. A thin flicker of sorrow hid behind all her impatience.
“What’s done is done.” She sighed. “We cannot undo the past, but we can move forward. Thief—Vance, we must find somewhere safe to rest before nightfall. Whether you believe me, the mages will come again.”
Though she needed the kind of help prescribed by a head doctor, she was right about one thing: we needed to find shelter for the night, somewhere well away from the market district. I needed time to consider my next move and what to do with Her Craziness. “We’ll catch a ride.”
“Ride?” Her voice fluttered. “Ride what?”
It was going to be a long day.
Chapter Three
Watching her Royal Haughtiness clutch at the rail inside the rickety carriage was, in all honesty, the funniest thing I’d seen since the improvised pig wrestling match at the farmer’s market. Considering she had appeared the picture of lethal grace until now, seeing her turn into a nervous, fumbling wreck warmed my cynical heart.
She sat rigid beside me, while I slumped in the seat and let the jolting sway of the carriage soothe my strung-out nerves. The rattle of wheels and rigging and the clatter of horse hooves against the cobbles was loud enough that I had to shout to be heard.
“Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Fingers cannot be of the same length’?”
She looked at me, wishing me dead with her glare alone.
“It means we cannot expect perfection in everything we do.”
She glared some more.
I smiled back at her. Through the carriage door window over her shoulder, the great Inner Circle spire pierced Brea’s horizon. The city bells rang, calling the approaching night, while the sky bled its death, leaching red through the azure skies. As light faded and shadows grew long, we passed streams of foot traffic, traders returning from market, no doubt with some strange tales of the creatures that had attacked. The guards would be questioning the witnesses and getting mixed tales of murder and mayhem. Perhaps they’d be too busy with the market massacre to think too much on the two bodies I had left behind.
“Where do you come from?” I asked, shifting in the hard seat and adjusting the assassin’s dagger so it didn’t dig in my back. She hadn’t asked me to return the dagger, and I wouldn’t offer.
“Nowhere, thief.” And we were back to thief again.
So she didn’t want to talk. That was fine by me. I might have given her some time and space had she, in any way, appeared affected by the events, but she was as rigid and reserved as when she’d commanded me to drink from the cup in the alley. At least I had survived the encounter. My gentleman client couldn’t say the same.
“Did you retrieve your precious cup, princess?”
“Yes,” she hissed and kept her gaze locked on the carriage bulkhead, as though she could see through it into the driver’s back.
The carriage hit a pothole, jostling us with enough force to almost throw me from my seat. I clung on with one hand and reached out with the other, blocking her fall. She caught my arm with a gasp, looked at me in a way that made sure I knew she believed the potholes were entirely my fault, and settled back onto the seat.
“Are you always this prickly?” I asked.
She glanced at me side-on, and her rock-hard expression softened by a fraction. “I no more want to be here than you do.”
“Then go, please.” I chuckled. “I’ll ask the driver to stop and let you off.”
“I cannot go. I have already told you: we are bound.”
“Yeah, about that …” I twisted in the seat, still clutching the rail. The carriage continued to skip and bounce, and she gripped the door rail tight enough to white her knuckles. “Let’s say I believe you about the cup and I can get past the whole magic does exist thing. How are we bound again?”
“You drank from the cup—my cup.”
“You said that already. What does it mean?”
She lifted her gaze and growled low. “I will explain, but not here. How much farther is the inn?”
“We’ll reach it before nightfall, although I ca
n’t say we’ll be any safer inside its walls as out. Brea innkeepers are somewhat untrustworthy.”
“So it seems to be the case with all men.”
“You know, another man might take offense at that.”
“But not you?”
I straightened and turned my face away, admiring the proud marble architecture of Brea’s Eastside District as we passed.
My sister trusted me; she died for that trust. “Not me, princess.”
I’d expected my haughty princess to kick up a fuss when I paid for just the one room, but she stayed quiet, looming behind me like a shadow—one capable of killing me in my sleep. I pocketed the remaining rubies. I still had enough to hitch a ride on a trading coach to Wreckers Gate—alone. If it came to that. Wreckers Gate wasn’t the most welcoming place, especially for a jewelless thief, but it was that coastal outpost or east of the Thorns Range, and I had never been outside Brean lands or beyond the Thorns. Travelling east was a gamble. I wasn’t desperate enough to see the back of Brea. Yet.
After inspecting the inn’s modest room, Her Haughtiness left without a word.
I shrugged off my jacket and loosened my shirt, still in dire need of a bath, and ventured downstairs to the front of house. I found her tucked away at a table in a corner. She’d opted to keep her cloak wrapped around her, hiding her unusual attire, and sat in the darkest corner, chasing the shadows.
After ordering two ales, I set one down on the table in front of her and sat opposite. She watched the small, rowdy crowd without so much as looking up at me, so I unashamedly watched her. What little firelight reached us cast a shifting glow across her face. She couldn’t be very old, no older than my twenty-two years, but she carried herself with a confidence usually found in seasoned warriors. Perhaps she heralded from the east, where warriors were trained in light blades and subterfuge tactics, but her accent was wrong for Eastern Ellenglaze. Where and why would a highborn woman learn to kill with such efficiency?
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