Silence descended, broken only by the crackling fire.
I glared into Jodelle’s rheumy eyes. I had planned to infiltrate the camp, sneak away once they were asleep, pick the caravan lock, and escape with Shaianna. That plan now looked unlikely. A hostage was the next best alternative. “You have a friend of mine. Set her free. Let us leave. Nobody need die.”
Jodelle’s smile broke into a grin, and then she cackled. “A friend, you say?” She rose to her feet, laughing harder. The wicked roll of it drifted across the camp. “You do not look like the killing type, wanderer.”
I got to my feet with her, keeping the pistol aimed between her eyes. “Many have made that their last thought.”
Her cackle died, and with it went the humorous glint in her eyes, darkening them. Her wrinkled lips twisted like slugs drying in the sun. “You can’t see it, can you? Blind, you are, like all men. Oh, you poor fool. She plays you. You’d do well to turn that pistol on yourself and end it here before more perish. There is no life without death.”
I licked my lips and glanced at the highwaymen creeping closer. The wargs stirred, roused out of their stupor, but made no move to attack. Jodelle’s rambling was no doubt designed to unsettle me. It had the same ring as what the old man from the plaza had said. It seemed I had a new talent for attracting the crazies.
“Come.” I gave the pistol a flick. “Unlock her wagon. We’ll leave you and your men be.”
Jodelle’s smile never truly left her lips as she moved around the tree stumps and strode ahead. I stayed beside her, keeping the pistol on her while my gaze flicked between her men and the caravan.
“Tell me what lies she has spun for you,” Jodelle crooned, bizarrely delighted by the fact I held a pistol to her head.
“Stop talking.”
“Did she speak of your destiny, perhaps?”
I smiled. “My destiny? A man like me has no destiny. Yours will end here if you fail to do as I say.”
“Mayhap she has lured you in close with the promise of riches?”
We reached the caravan. I kicked out the timber brace and urged her up the steps. “Unlock it.”
She sank her hand into her pocket and removed a key. “All men have weaknesses. She would have found yours the moment you met. She sees who you truly are, more so than you see yourself.”
“Woman, your twittering is not helping the itch in my finger. Unlock the door.”
She cupped the rusted padlock and pushed the key inside. “You will remember my words in your final moments, and you will make a choice. You will make the wrong choice, thief. Your kind always does.”
There was no time for me to consider how she knew I was a thief. The lock clicked open, and Shaianna burst from the wagon, springing at Jodelle. The old woman and the sorceress went down in a tumble, the fray punctured by the woman’s screams. A hatchet strummed into the wagon—too close to my head. I spun, aimed the pistol at the first oncoming brute, and fired. The weapon bucked, the impact jerked him back, and another took his place.
I pulled the trigger again. The pistol clicked. The hunter snarled and raised his hatchet. I tossed the pistol in the air, caught it barrel first, and smiled. A curious, not unpleasant thrill buzzed through me. I should have been afraid. The men were too many, the space too cramped, and we were backed against a quarry wall, but fear didn’t touch this sensation—if anything, it heightened it. My hand itched to pummel the man’s face in with the butt of the pistol. I could already see the action as he came forward. He would die alongside the others. They would all die. Burn them to dust—
Not my thoughts. The truth hit just as the highwayman was about to. I froze and heard Shaianna’s voice rise. A rush of warm wind tore past me. The wargs surged in, but not for me. One slammed into the highwayman, knocking him face down. It buried its muzzle in the man’s neck, cutting off his screams as quickly as they’d begun, and then it abandoned the body to dive back into the slaughter.
In the madness, the farthest wagon had caught fire, and flames devoured its contents. The fire leaped from one wagon to another. The wind gusted through the camp, swirling the flames higher and toying with the screams of dying men. Beside me, Shaianna appeared, standing tall and still—icy. Firelight glittered in her eyes. Jodelle’s body cooled at her feet. She had lost her cloak, shrinking her appearance, but there was nothing vulnerable about the way she had launched from the wagon, nor in the way she admired the chaos unfolding around us.
She turned her head to me. “Let death have them. It is all they deserve.”
Chapter Nine
After retrieving my dagger and hers, we trekked in silence through the mist for much of the following day, only speaking briefly to decide on the best route through the valley. I had queried Shaianna about the wargs and whether they would track us. She had smiled fondly and told me they had no intention of hunting us down. I hadn’t asked who they were hunting instead. It was probably best I didn’t know.
As we walked, I wondered again what I was doing with this woman. The lure of the Dragon’s Eye and the wretched bond prevented me from leaving her. Without those, I would have shrugged her off long ago, or so I told myself. Trapped as I was, I trudged beside her, thoughts shifting between the images of her embraced by magic and how she had smiled as the wargs had torn into the highwaymen. Now I had new memories of screams in the flames to join those I already harbored.
Jodelle’s words, and those of the old man in the plaza, haunted me, drifting through my mind like the mist settling on the ground around us. From the moment Shaianna appeared in the alley, my world had become a whirl of magic, truths, regrets, and lies. Mine, and maybe hers. I’d heard her voice in my mind and felt the elated rush as she killed. My gut told me none of this was right—and neither was she. But it didn’t have to be right. I just needed the valuable Eye.
As night approached, we set up camp beside a stream. The gurgling water against the silent sentinel trees soothed some of my frayed nerves.
“You are quiet, thief.” She sat at the edge of the stream, twirling her fingers in the water, and didn’t look up as she spoke.
“What is there to say?” I pulled my coat around me and stared at the water tripping over and around rocks.
“How much farther is Arach?”
“Another day. There’s a town near the ruins. We should stop there tomorrow, resupply, and find some fresh horses.” I needed some decent food in my belly, a wash, and a few tankards of ale to erase the trail of bodies in our wake.
She didn’t respond to that, just twirled her fingers in the water. “They deserved to die.”
“No doubt.” I had plenty of doubts, but I kept them to myself.
“You’re unhappy.”
I chuckled, kicked a few loose rocks aside from a patch of mossy earth and sat against a larger, lichen covered rock. “There is very little here to make me happy, princess.”
“You’re afraid.” She looked up, “Of me,” she added. A touch of sadness dwelled in her expression.
“I used to have a dream,” I said. “When I was very small. One of those dreams that comes night after night. I was falling, but not waking up. Falling through the dark, and it was quiet. So quiet I only heard my heart and something that sounded like fluttering wings or fire—I never did discover which. The fear grew, all around, closing in. Eventually, I would hit the ground and die. But that wasn’t what I feared the most.” I paused. After all this time, the memory of that dream still had the power to quicken my heart and dry my mouth.
She sat up and drew her knees against her chest, clutching them close. Her eyes were wide. I couldn’t remember seeing them so green.
“What did you fear more than dying?” she asked.
“I wasn’t alone while I fell. Someone else was always there. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel their eyes on me. They were powerful. They controlled the air through which I fell. They could have helped me, but never did. They just watched, and that frightened me the most. What kind of person watche
s another die and does nothing?”
My voice caught as my memories swirled. I dropped my gaze to the stream and dragged it back to Shaianna. She rested her chin on her knee, patient and serene.
“You remind me of that dream,” I told her, already wishing I hadn’t, but it was said and done and what difference did any of this make? If all went well, she would soon be another memory among all the others.
“What stopped these dreams?”
“I mentioned it to my mother. She told me it was foolish to fear something I could not stop and that I should find a way to master it—to use it.”
“She sounds wise.”
“She was.”
“Did you master your dream, thief?”
“No. But eventually, it stopped coming, and I forgot about falling and my silent watcher.” I couldn’t help but smile at her. Seated beside the stream as she was, she could have been a normal young woman, if not for the teardrop gem glittering in her cheek. “Then I got older and had my eye on joining the guards, and I had no room for boyhood fears.”
“You were a city guard?”
She seemed surprised and I couldn’t blame her. A degenerate like me couldn’t be a city guard, right? “No. Those dreams never quite came to fruition.” I picked up a small stone and tossed it into the stream. “What do you dream of, princess?”
“Fire and bone, ashes and stone.” She sighed. “Though I do not fear my dreams.”
“How do they make you feel?”
“Hungry.”
Fire and bone, ashes and stone. Of course her dreams were most peoples nightmares. She wasn’t most people. “I don’t suppose you could dream of sunshine and rainbows? No, not you, Shaianna.”
Her eyes shone with what almost looked like brittle innocence. “Is there something wrong with me?”
I might have laughed out loud if the look on her face wasn’t deadly serious. “I think there’s everything wrong with you.” I regretted the words as soon as her eyes softened and she looked away, but I wouldn’t take them back. “But what is the opinion of a thief worth to someone like you?”
She didn’t reply, and judging by her expression, her thoughts were miles away, probably on a future without me in it.
I shuffled down against the rocks, tucked my chin into my chest, and pulled my coat tighter still, angling my crossed arms so my hand rested over the dagger—just in case she got any ideas. “Sweet dreams, princess.”
“And to you, Curtis Vance.”
Calwyton attracted hunters, highwaymen, drifters, and those who’d found the Brean city guards unfriendly. The rest of the townsfolk, those who stayed all year round, were mostly farmers from the flatter west lands. Calwyton happened to be midway between Brea and Kalbridge, situated at the mouth of the Draynes, and the last settlement before the Thorns, making it a useful waypoint for travelers. New faces were normal. Shaianna and I were largely ignored, partly because the little gray town appeared midway through a festival.
Straw scarecrows hung about the houses and stores, propped up at jaunty angles in what I assumed was a curious local tradition. Rather than welcoming, I found their button eyes and bailer-twine mouths unsettling.
Shaianna had sprouted a smile at the sound of music and the sight of brightly colored banners hanging from the bridge into town. After elbowing our way through the crowds choking the narrow cobbled streets, I sent her off to admire the revelry while I continued sinking my hand into the pockets of those with gilded coats and polished boots. They wouldn’t miss a few gems, and I figured I deserved some real food.
An early evening chill had settled over the street, but that didn’t stop the ruddy-cheeked locals from spilling out of their townhouses. They’d started the celebration early in the day and showed no signs of stopping. Fire-eaters, stilt-walkers, burning barrels—the carnival atmosphere was difficult to ignore.
I hired a room for the night with the gems I had pocketed—one of the few rooms left at the local inn—washed off the moorland dirt, returned to the revelry, bought two tankards of warm barley malt drink, and took them outside to ward off the cold while I looked for Shaianna.
A fiddler played a merry tune on the fringes of the nearby plaza. Dancers twirled and ankle bells jangled. Above the crowd, a vast straw dragon-puppet danced on sticks. Crowds packed the streets from one side of the street to the other. I hadn’t realized this many people lived so far outside Brea.
I eventually found Shaianna dancing with others, her arm interlocked with a young man’s, and smiling so broadly she could have been an entirely different person. The teardrop gem had vanished. If it wasn’t for her leather wrappings, I might have overlooked her. Those in the crowd didn’t look twice, not even to notice her exotic dark leathers. Nobody here cared or noticed that she was a little different.
“She’s a pretty one.”
The man who had spoken was leaning against a stone half wall ringing a small cottage yard. A wide-brimmed hat hid much of his face, revealing only his shadowed chin. His waxed riding cloak had been rubbed raw in places, suggesting he was a seasoned traveler. He nodded toward Shaianna. “Has an air of joy about her,” he added. “Don’t you think?”
He wouldn’t be saying that if he’d seen her wrap her hands around a man’s throat or plunge her dagger into the gullet of another. “That she does.”
Some of Shaianna’s dark hair had slipped its ties and clung to her flushed cheeks. The rest of the flowing locks fanned whenever she spun in time with the music. Her partner twirled her, and then she switched to another dancer—a woman—and on she went. The music plucked and slid from the fiddle, and hollow drums kept up a breathless beat. Country music, fast and loose. We seldom heard the likes of it in Brea.
“What is the celebration in aid of?” I asked. Shaianna wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon and clearly had no concern for my whereabouts. I might as well root around for information while I could.
The man pushed his hat back with his thumb, revealing a long, strong face tanned from days working under the sun, making him from lands much hotter than those in Ellenglaze.
“You’re Brean,” he drawled. “I’m guessin’, from the accent. That explains your ignorance. City folks don’t much like Calwyton folks. No offense.”
“Some taken.”
“I’m not Calwyton or Brean.” His smile tucked into his bearded cheek. “But I know this land and its people well enough. This is Harvestsfall. Dates back to when miners outnumbered farmers five to one, when gems were pulled from the ground by the wagonload, and when the moors were truly wild. Every year, the valley people and the moor people meet and pay their respects to the restless gods.” He eyed my surplus tankard. I offered it over—Shaianna wouldn’t be back anytime soon and some local knowledge could be useful. He took the drink, guzzled some gulps, and nodded his thanks. “I don’t think anyone here cares if it’s meant to ward off evil spirits or usher in a mild winter,” he said, using his tankard to gesture at the crowds. “They just like to drink mead, fill their bellies, and enjoy themselves. We must take small pleasures where we find them, traveler.”
“Vance.” I offered my hand.
His grip was firm, his hands calloused from hard labor. “Darius Tassen.”
The fiddler paused. The dancers cheered. And off they went again, the pace relentless. I caught sight of Shaianna here and there.
“I didn’t know miners worked the lands this far east?”
“Not in many generations. Most all our gems come from the Beveston mines by the coast. Do they not teach anything in Brea?”
“I’ve spent a lot of time trying to forget what they taught me in Brea.”
His eyebrows rose. “Where are you and the laughing woman heading?”
He lifted his drink to his lips, hoping to conceal the obviousness of the question.
I smiled and sipped my malt. I wasn’t about to tell a stranger our route so he could rob us later.
He noted my grin and my silence, and tipped his cup in acknowledgement. “W
ise,” he said.
Still, his mention of the laughing woman instantly grabbed hold of the one memory I couldn’t shake.
“Just here on business,” I said, admiring Shaianna twirl and laugh as though the restless gods so many believed in had plucked out the old Shaianna and replaced her with this joy-filled lady.
“If that’s business, I’ve been doing it wrong.”
Shaianna’s green eyes locked on mine too quickly for me to look away. She bowed to her partner and nudged through the crowd toward us. A glint of joy, or perhaps mischief, sparkled in her eye. She came at me with the same unwavering attention as those she’d stabbed in the gut. The only difference was her smile. She stopped in front of me, lips parted and about to speak—probably to demand something of me—but then she spotted Tassen admiring her. She cocked her head and read the man in that blatant glare she had perfected.
“Good evening, milady.” Tassen touched the rim of his hat. His smile slid sideways into the kind of dastardly grin I may have used myself once or twice. “The music speaks to you.”
I was expecting a harsh retort from her, but she smiled shyly and lifted her hand to me. “Come, thief—”
Shyness from Shaianna? What trick was this? I took her hand, abandoned my drink on the cottage wall, and tugged her away from Tassen into the crowd. She dug her heels in and pulled back, stopping me in the middle of the street.
“Why must you persist in calling me a thief in public?” I grumbled in a low voice. “You’ll get me hanged.”
A flicker of irritation sharpened her glare. “That man cares not for what you are.” She lifted her voice so I could hear her above the chattering crowds and music. “By his stance and stature, he too is of questionable occupation.” Her hand twisted in mine, reversing the grip on me. She pulled me toward the dancing. “Come.”
Now I dug my heels in. “If he too is questionable, then that is all the more reason to keep quiet. We should keep our heads down, retrieve the supplies we need, and rest up for the journey to Arach tomorrow.”
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