She whirled to face me. Mischief was back in her fluttering dark lashes and twitching smile.
I looked again at the path she had been about to drag me along and pulled my hand from hers. “Don’t think for one minute you’ll get me dancing. I have work to do.”
She dipped her chin and peered at me, eyes sultry. “Is my company so abhorrent?”
I barked a laugh. I wouldn’t even attempt playing this game with her. She changed like the ocean, one moment benign and calm, the next a raging storm. I couldn’t keep up and decided right then to give up trying. I was a professional, and this was a job. Dancing with a sorceress would not get me closer to the Dragon’s Eye.
“I booked us a room at the Half Crown Inn. Have your fun, princess. Be ready to leave at first light.”
She rippled her fingers in a teasing wave, stepped toward the dancers, curtsied in her leathers, and then strode off, light on her feet as though she belonged. The music had changed to a playful jig. Local voices rose, adding a chantey twang and Shaianna disappeared among the merriment.
I left her there and headed back to the inn, but got turned around in the crowd. A line of locals shambled by, holding aloft their straw dragon with coal-black eyes and foil-wrapped teeth. Cart horses bedecked with jewels stood on display. Children dressed in long, colorful frocks and waistcoats played. Brea didn’t celebrate like this. There wasn’t much to celebrate inside the city walls.
I couldn’t have been the only one feeling the buzz of excitement in the air that night. Now that I’d accepted that magic was real, perhaps there was more to the celebration than an excuse to drink and be merry.
My sister would have adored this …
Turning away from the revelry, I found my way back to the inn, keeping an eye out for Tassen’s distinctive hat among the crowd. He’d been watching her before my arrival. That could mean something, or maybe I was being overly cautious. It was probably nothing, but Shaianna attracted trouble the same way she courted magic.
The inn’s food went a long way in chasing away the emptiness the moorland trek had left me with. The mead warmed by veins, and a brief lukewarm bath finally made me feel halfway back to being Curtis Vance again, and not the sorceress’s plaything.
While the townsfolk celebrated below my room’s window, I sat on the edge of the bed and wiped down Shaianna’s bejeweled dagger. Rarely did I see such perfection in a blade. No nicks, no cracks. It could have been forged yesterday. The edge had been hardened to capture a ripple in the steel. A warm, orange glow from the outdoor gaslights filtered into the room through the window. The gems scattered along the hilt and blade played with the light like those gems scattered down Shaianna’s body had.
I tilted the blade toward the light. Part of me, the same part that wished I had never met her, wished I hadn’t seen her in the water. It would have been so much easier that way. I would be back in my loft, thieving for the rich and spending my rewards as I deserved. Daryn may still be alive. I would be ignorant of magic, and all would be right with the world. Ignorance had cushioned me from the ugly truth of my past for so long. What difference would a few more years make?
But I had met Shaianna and I had seen her in the water, and that perpetual memory of the sunlight and water pouring over her stalked me.
A few sharp knocks rapped on the door. I hid the dagger against my back and opened the door to find Tassen and Shaianna propping each other up.
“I’m afraid we lost track of time,” Tassen slurred. He prized Shaianna’s hand from his arm and gave her a helpful shove toward me. I stepped aside and watched Shaianna sashay into the room. Halfway in, she lifted her hands toward the ceiling and began humming a merry tune.
Tassen removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “She’s special, that one. Take care of her.”
I crossed my arms, not hiding the dagger in my grip. “You should leave.”
“Yes. I should.” He bowed his head and put the hat back on, pulling its rim down to half cover his eyes. “G’night, thief.”
Thief. Wonderful. Had she told him we were searching for the priceless Dragon’s Eye too? I clicked the door closed and turned to find Shaianna dancing to her own internal tune.
“He smells like the sea,” she singsonged. Her black leather waistcoat hung askew, revealing a narrow glimpse of her middle. Her long hair licked low down her back and rippled as she swayed her hips. “These people are bright and free,” she added softly. “So much joy in their dark, little lives.”
“Mm …” I yanked the blanket from the bed and set it down on the floor across the room. “Take the bed. Lie down before you fall down, princess.”
She didn’t appear to hear me. Standing inside the puddle of orange gaslight, she lifted her hand to eyelevel and turned it back and forth, rippling her fingers as though her own hand fascinated her.
“I am hunger and vengeance,” she said. “But there is more to me than these things. There is more to them, and more to you than your past. I find I am thinking of bright things and future things, and what it means to have a choice.” She lifted her head and looked right at me. “Do you understand, thief?”
I was wrong about her being an angry drunk. She was a crazy drunk. I should have guessed as much.
“I understand you’ve partaken in too much merry drinking.”
“It’s marvelous.” Her attention wandered back to how the light played over her hand. “So fragile and beautiful. And deadly.”
I stole the pillow from the bed, tossed it onto the blanket, and frowned at my temporary bed. I wouldn’t be getting much sleep. “Deadly, yes,” I mumbled.
“There is much potential in each of them.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ll regret this in the morning.”
“Nothing like my potential, of course … but still, there is something to their inconsequential lives. A spark in the night.”
“Do you hear yourself, princess?”
“Of course.” She blinked at me and smiled as though she’d just realized I was there. She strode forward with her usual unwavering purpose, and I froze, caught between wanting to back away from her and not wanting to let her win. She stopped—too close—and lifted her hand to touch my face. I caught her wrist before she could get there.
“You are guarded,” she said.
“I’d be a fool if I wasn’t.”
Her gaze darted about my face, scrutinizing my expression and probably seeing right through my efforts to conceal my thoughts. I loosened my grip on her arm but didn’t release her. I should have, but I didn’t want to let her go. If anything, I had to fight the urge to slip my hand around her waist and pull her closer still. What did magic taste like?
“I know you observed me in the water.” Her eyes glittered like the jewels in her daggers.
I swallowed and released her wrist.
“I took pleasure in your admiration.” She spoke slowly and quietly. Her lips and her tongue would be soft—I crushed that thought before it ran away with the rest of them.
“It is odd for a man to desire me? I wonder about such things, redundant as they are.”
My pulse raced and need throbbed way down low. I could kiss her—slip my hand in her hair and taste her—but it wouldn’t stop there. I lifted my hand, and she watched warily as I pressed my fingers to her cheek and brushed over where I knew the teardrop hid. At my touch, her glamor fell away like water so I could both feel and see the little gem beneath my fingertips. Her soft lips parted. She lifted her chin.
All men have weaknesses. She would have found yours the moment you met.
I stepped back, dropped my hand, and cleared my throat. “Sleep it off, princess. I’ll be back in the morning.”
I scooped up my coat and left the room, keeping my gaze straight ahead. If I looked back, I might go back, and that way was a fool’s trap.
Chapter Ten
Nightmares—horrid storms made of flames and screams—jolted me awake. Through my sleep-addled haze, I knew two things: It was
still dark, and the woman sleeping beside me wasn’t Shaianna. That last thought brought with it a sudden gut-sinking sensation of regret.
I dragged a hand down my chin and rolled onto my back. Finding another bed to keep warm in hadn’t been my finest decision of the night. Those few more beers hadn’t helped either.
A scream outside wrenched me from the bed. Tugging my clothes on, I staggered to the window and swore. Roaring firelight licked up the townhouses and over straw-covered roofs. The Half Crown Inn was back there. Shaianna.
I snatched my dagger from the dresser, woke my companion, and told her to clear everyone from the nearby buildings.
Out on the street, people fled the flames, while others rushed in, buckets sloshing. A few buckets wouldn’t get this blaze under control. Nothing short of a miracle could save the town now.
I rounded the street corner and found one side of the street awash with flame. The Half Crown Inn’s thatched roof steamed. It hadn’t yet caught, but it had minutes, if that. Heat pushed against my back as I fought through the stream of fleeing people.
“Have you seen the woman I came in with…?” I asked those rushing from inside. “The woman with black hair? Have you seen her?”
I pushed through the inn’s main door into the bar.
“You can’t go in there, sir,” a maid stammered as she shoved by.
Smoke rolled across the low ceiling. I buried my face in the crook of my arm, ducked low, and headed for the back stairs. Screams—I could hear them, but I didn’t know if they were real or in my head. I pushed on, stumbling up the stairs, eyes streaming and lungs burning. Shaianna could be sleeping. Drunk as she had been, she could be oblivious to the danger. I hit the landing and the oily smell of scorched meat hit me. Memories simmered to the surface, but they couldn’t have me, not now. I had to find Shaianna.
I veered left at the top of the stairs, and clutched the bannister in the thick smoke. A groan sounded through the building and rumbled through the floorboards. Somewhere behind me, the timber floor creaked. Hot air rushed over me. I ducked into my room just as half the ceiling collapsed in a roar behind me, spilling flames with it. I slammed the door closed, coughed into the crook of my arm, and blinked through streaming tears at Tassen.
“She’s not here,” he said as though more surprised by her absence than by the inn burning down around us.
“Why are you here?”
“Never mind that. We have to leave.”
The door at my back was hot to touch. Paint bubbled on the panels. “Can’t go back. The ceiling’s collapsed.”
He looked down at my boots, where smoke crawled through the gap beneath the door.
“What’s your interest in Shaianna?” I demanded, pushing forward.
“We have more pressing matters, don’t you think?”
“No.” My fingers curled into a fist. “Some folks won’t make it out of this fire.”
“Mayhap one of those folks could be you, thief.” He lifted his hands. “Save the pissing contest until we’re away from the flames.”
I swung at him. He dodged the right hook but not the left I buried in his gut. He doubled over and clutched my shoulder. I had him against the wall before he could retaliate and pressed the dagger to his throat.
“Tell me or die here,” I snarled.
Wide-eyed and his hat askew, he spluttered, “I was paid to track you both.”
“And?”
“And take her back.”
“To Brea?”
“Yes.”
“Inner Circle?”
“What? No. Just a man … a man with gems to spare.”
The same man who had hired me to steal the cup, or someone else, someone who knew more about the pieces of this puzzle?
The same curious urge to spill his blood came over me, same as it had in the highwaymen’s camp. “I should bury this blade in your heart and leave you for the fire.”
His smile twitched nervously. “Meanwhile, your lady friend could be anywhere—”
“I am no lady.” Shaianna perched inside the open window, one arm draped over her knee. Head cocked, she looked less than impressed with her uninvited guest. “My thief is correct,” she said. “You should die here. All men should die. You are treacherous beasts.”
I might have argued my case if smoke hadn’t been rolling around the room and drifting higher.
“Kill him, thief,” Shaianna ordered.
Tassen swallowed. The bulge in his throat bobbed against the edge of the blade.
“No..” I pulled him from the wall and shoved him toward Shaianna. “I want to know who hired him. He comes with us.” Tassen staggered, caught his hat, and aligned it back on his head. He looked between Shaianna and me, judging who was likelier to keep him alive.
“Let me give you some advice, Tassen. My lady friend doesn’t much like you, and I’ve seen what she does to people she doesn’t much like. Were I in your shoes, I would keep my mouth shut and do as she says, else she will kill you, and she won’t make it quick.”
Shaianna pinned her killer’s glare on Tassen, her joyous smiles and easy manner long gone. Once more, she was made of stone. “Perhaps the fall will kill you?” She smiled a hungry, wolfish smile.
Tassen blustered, but his grin didn’t last as he realized she meant every word and could easily make it happen.
With the walls and floor groaning around us, we each climbed from the window and inched along the sills, stepping over gaps. Shaianna made scaling the building’s facade look as effortless as her dancing, while Tassen struggled to cling to the stones as he followed behind her.
His boots slipped. I snatched his sleeve and yanked the man up, allowing him to clutch the sill protruding above us. Gratitude shone in his eyes once he had regained enough strength to open them. I nodded him on.
I was sick of mysteries and unanswered questions. Once we were free of the fire, Tassen would talk, or he would find himself alone with the real Shaianna.
We had reached street level when Shaianna whirled and pinned her gaze on something behind me.
She plucked her dragger free. “Look out, Curtis!”
I ducked aside, twisted—dagger out—and struck at the blur coming at me hard and fast. The thing slammed into me. We hit the ground hard, tumbling together. Claws caught my left side, pain burned, teeth snapped at my face, and red eyes burned into my soul. I slashed wildly with the dagger and only knew I had stabbed the mage in the gut when hot, syrupy blood spilled over my hand and down my arm. It opened its maw and howled a blood-curdling scream. I cracked my fist across its face and kicked its limp body off. But my relief was short-lived. I climbed to my feet and saw them, all of them …
The houses crawled with mages. They scurried down the walls into the street, pouring through the gaps in the flames.
May the fire cleanse your soul …
I turned around on the spot, looking for a gap in the onslaught. Tassen was gone. I was alone, but the screams were real, weren’t they? No, my parents hadn’t screamed. Those screams had belonged to my sister.
Fire boomed from my left, spewing from windows and doors. I shied away from the heat, spotted Shaianna beckoning me forward, and broke into a run. Fire licked through the buildings as fast as we sprinted down the debris-strewn street, the flames framing us as we fled.
We veered around a corner and slowed as a wall of rippling flames surged across the plaza, devouring the festival’s strange straw mannequins. All the houses huddled around the town square were ablaze. I shielded my face against the heat beating at me. Hot air cracked my lips and burned my lungs. And behind us, the mages came.
“Give me your dagger.” Shaianna held out her hand. She stared back the way we had come, at the wave of mages rippling closer.
Those things—they had to be a hundred strong, and still more appeared, spilling in from side streets, out of broken windows, down walls. How were there so many?
“Give me your dagger, thief, and when you see an opportunity, run. Run and
don’t look back.” Shaianna looked me in the eye. “Do as I command and live.”
I handed her the dagger. Her fingers brushed mine, and a chill trickled up my arm. Daggers at her sides, she walked toward the oncoming storm.
The mages didn’t pause. They surged as one, pooling into a stream of rippling black bodies.. Shaianna opened her arms as though inviting them closer. I had prayed only once before in my life, when my sister had lain dying in my arms. The restless gods hadn’t answered my prayers then, and I doubted they’d answer them now, but unarmed, with the fire at my back, I had nothing left to fight with.
“By the restless gods, keep her safe.”
When the first few mages hit Shaianna, I was sure they would bury her. The battle would be over before it began. But Shaianna slashed both daggers in a wide arc around her, throwing the mages back. She didn’t stop. She moved in—cutting, slicing, dancing. Every step was deadly, and every strike accurate. Within a few strides, the gems scattered about her body glowed brightly through her leathers, lighting her up from the inside until the same ribbon of emerald light spiraled around her the way it had atop the moors. The mages kept coming, like oil trying to smother water. But the more mages came, the brighter she glowed. A shining star inside an ocean of darkness.
A gap opened between the mages and a half-collapsed building where the flames had burned out. I dashed for it and didn’t look back, didn’t hesitate. Head down, I ran until the heat faded and the light dulled. I continued across the bridge marking the outskirts of town, where the Calwyton people stood watching their homes burn.
I stood beside weeping, broken families who had been laughing and dancing only hours before. Embers sailed high into the sky, and the sounds of Calwyton’s death throes carried deep into the valley and across the moors.
I was the last to cross the bridge.
I caught two tame horses in the fields outside Calwyton during the early morning hours and walked them to where a stream burbled and the air smelled of damp bark instead of burning tar. Mist drifted across an empty dew-drenched field and rolled up against the stream, but it stopped short of seeping into the forest behind me.
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