Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  The implication, the nod to my past, was there. “I am done running, Anuska. Are you?”

  “I …” She faltered, and the illusion of the High Guard fell away, leaving a woman with the weight of the Inner Circle on her shoulders. “I will do what must be done. It is our way.”

  “And the Inner Circle people? They could fight. They’re all ocra, and they each have a connection to the past, to this. It’s their right to choose their own fate.”

  “They will want to fight, of course, and they’ll turn themselves into mages doing so, killing themselves in the process. For now, they are protected from themselves.”

  I thought of my sister in the workhouse, of her death by her own hand. “Give them the choice, Anuska.”

  She lifted her chin and met my gaze. I had seen that look from her while standing on the timber platform, waiting for the guards to light the pyre. The look of devotion to her cause. But then the strength of her glare weakened and her gaze flicked down to the closed book on her desk. “Your father was right about you. You would have made a fine High Guard.”

  I opened the door and stepped outside. “I make a better thief.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The docks were a short walk but a quicker carriage ride away, and time was fast ticking on and I had to hurry if I wanted to catch Tassen before he left Ellenglaze’s shores. Patting my pockets, I hailed a carriage and dug out one of two remaining small rubies. I should have risked Molly’s wrath and taken Fallford’s silverware when I’d had the chance. Saving a city was costly work.

  Saving Brea …

  Rocking with the motion of the carriage, I pinched the last gem between my fingers and lifted it to the light pouring in through the carriage window. The sun had caught a layer of high clouds, turning them flame red. That crimson glow glistened in the small gem, lending it a ruddy warmth. Maybe if I knew how to harness magic, I could somehow use the ruby to stop her. I laughed quietly at the absurdity. Stop her with my latent magic? The idea was ludicrous. No, this was the realm of ships and cannons. I was just one man. How could a single man stand against a dearmad?

  She was powerful, dangerous, and deadly, but her kind had died out. I tried to recall whether Shaianna had told me her people had died or gone. Those two things were not the same. But I couldn’t be certain of her words.

  A pang of something slippery and unpleasant slithered through me. Guilt. Shaianna—the laughing woman—had marveled at life. When she smiled, it seemed the stinking, wretched world outside the Inner Circle became a better place, if only for a few fleeting moments. But they were just moments, snuffed out by the truth. She couldn’t change, or she would have already. Her shroud of sorrow told me that. What must her life be like? One moment filled with wonder, the next driven by the hunger to destroy those very things she considered precious. Surely it was a twisted kind of torture to love that which you hated and to hate that which you loved. I wanted to save her from that. Save her from herself, if such a thing was possible.

  Like Anuska saved her people from themselves? Was I such hypocrite?

  Turning the ruby over and catching the blood-red light seeping in through the carriage windows, I glared at the gem, trying desperately to rouse any sensation, a tingling, or whatever magical whispers Shaianna and Anuska had referred to. But all I saw was a gem, and all I felt was its now-warm surface. Shaianna had said rubies were blood magic. Perhaps I had to be wounded for it to work. Or maybe I was the only Inner Circle descendant who didn’t have the disease. A dud.

  I chuckled and popped the gem back into my pocket, nudging the dagger as I did. Curiosity had the dagger in my hand and my gaze running over its jewel-encrusted handle. Emeralds—earth magic. Diamonds—air. Rubies—blood. Topaz—water. The dagger had them all. My thoughts wandered to the mosaic of gems that had trailed across Shaianna’s body, gathered in all her curves, and led me on a chase to discover every inch of her. How could someone so beautiful, someone strong and yet so fragile, bring about the end of a city?

  Brushing my thumb over the dagger’s jewels resulted in nothing more than a chill blowing in through the window, bringing with it distant grumbles of thunder. If I had any magic in me, it was surely so deep it might never be roused. Or, perhaps, Shaianna’s mark was exactly as she had suggested: protection. When she flooded the tomb with magic, had she protected me from what would have been a massive exposure to its poison—the same kind of magical flood that had created the mages all those hundreds of years ago?

  Why me? I asked myself again. If we succeeded in stopping her, I would probably never know.

  Thunder trembled through the air. The horses shied, jolting the carriage and throwing me to one side. The driver barked an order. He snapped his reins, leather on leather, and the animals whinnied. When the next clap of thunder came, it blasted so loud and so fierce, the horses bolted. I snatched the grab rail and clung on as the carriage tilted one way, then the other. Wheels scraped against stone, and the carriage toppled. Glass shattered, exploding inward. I hit the door hard, jarring my back and neck. Steel and timber screamed, or perhaps it was the horses. Then, abruptly, all was still.

  Wetness dribbled down my face. Blood, probably. Grazes burned my cheek, and my lower back throbbed with a sudden consuming heat. I reached a bloodied hand to the opposite carriage door and heaved myself through the broken window.

  The sun blazed too bright, too hot. I settled a knee on the side of the carriage and saw sunlight lick from house to house. Not sunlight. Thunder rumbled through the ground and shook the air. Not thunder. The ringing in my head faded, and my focus sharpened. The screams were coming from the people fleeing through the streets. Some cried, some were silent, but all were running. Sprites of red twirled and danced in a blistering breeze. Embers.

  The wind changed, and in a great swirl of heat, ash, and flame, the inferno came rolling down the street. I sucked in a breath of hot, acrid air and fell back inside the carriage. The firestorm raged, roaring and thundering closer. I buried my head in the crook of my arm and wondered—with fear hammering my heart hard against my chest—if my luck had finally run out.

  The blast hit the carriage, and the carriage shifted sideways with a roar of twisting metal. The frame creaked around me and wood cracked. Heat poured inside the carriage. Furnace-like heat stung my face, my lips, and—when I breathed—my throat. I hugged my coat over my head and prayed to any god left who would listen that this was not the end.

  And then the terrible onslaught was gone. As quickly as a receding tide, the heat pulled back. The carriage steamed and groaned, and all around me, flames spluttered, snapped, and snarled.

  I clambered back through the window, wincing as the exposed metal burned my hands. The street glowed. Wooden doorways and window frames throbbed red, but few flames had caught. The inferno had blown in and out in seconds. No natural fire behaved that way.

  I dropped onto the road and half staggered, half ran, churning up swirls of ash around my legs. Bodies lay sprawled on the road, burned to coal. A roar—so tremendous it dropped me to my knees—barreled down the street. I glanced back, almost tripping over in my haste. Icy terror gripped me. I saw her then—saw her in all her monstrous glory. She rose out of the smoke like a leviathan breaching ocean waves. Her horned crest appeared first, then her wings arched high, whipping up storms, and finally her vast, scaled head broke through the smoke. Green eyes observed the rows of houses in a way that suggested cunning. Her lips rippled in a snarl, and then pushing with her hind legs, she took to the air. Her wings beat hard, blasting ash, dust, heat, and debris over the street. I hid my face, and when I looked again, she filled the gap between rooftops and sky and roared her triumph over a city at her mercy.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “By the restless gods, Vance, what happened to you?” Tassen leaned over the ship’s rail as his men hurried about, releasing ropes and pulling back the footbridges.

  “You’re leaving?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.

 
; “I’d be gone already if the bay wasn’t choked.”

  I couldn’t do this alone. I had seen her. She would be the end of us.

  “Give me five minutes, Tassen?”

  Shouts of sailors scrambling to launch their vessels drowned out my request. All around, rigging clanged and sails rippled. And from Brea, church bells rang over and over without pause. I dared not look back, too afraid of the ruin I might find.

  Tassen considered me—my singed coat, matted hair, and likely soot-covered face—and waved one of his crew to lower the footbridge. A flicker of firelight caught my eye as I boarded his vessel. Brea’s east side was ablaze. Flames reached for the gray, heavy sky. The wind had caught the flames and was pushing them along. Timber shacks, market stalls, storage warehouses—the entire eastside was lost; it just didn’t know it yet.

  “We saw her,” Tassen remarked grimly, noticing my line of sight.

  I didn’t have the words to reply as I followed him across the deck into the captain’s cabin. Inside, I reached for the edge of his desk as the ship rolled beneath my feet.

  “You’ve got a nasty head wound, friend,” Tassen grumbled. “You should let my doc take a look.”

  “You can’t leave. The cannons on this boat and boats like it are the largest weapons in Brea. If you leave, we’ll have nothing.”

  “This ain’t my fight, thief. I’m surprised it’s yours.”

  “Fallford’s dead.”

  Tassen clamped his jaw and ground his teeth. He curled his hand into a fist and bumped it against his desktop. “Well, that’s a wretched shame. He was a good man and kept me in trade. How?”

  “The dragon, in a roundabout way. You need to rally the captains of every able boat in this harbor.”

  He barked a laugh. “We’re merchants, not an organized fleet. Our ships are our livelihoods, and you’re asking us—me to risk everything, and for what? Brea?”

  “Are you just going to sail right on out of here and let us burn?”

  “That was the plan, yes. If we can get through the armada in the way.”

  “She’s coming for you, for all of us. You think she’s going to see the boats in the bay and turn away?” He had to do this. Without him, Brea would burn. I couldn’t let him leave. One man couldn’t stop a dragon, but cannons could. “Load your guns and turn them to the skies.”

  He scratched at his forehead, dislodging his hat. “She?” He noticed me flinch and his eyebrows arched. “This is the sorceress’s doing?”

  “It’s difficult to explain.”

  “I’ll bet my hat it is, thief.” He closed his eyes, breathing in, and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Death follows you—”

  “Like a shadow? Yes, I know. I’m trying to make it right—with your help. Tassen, there’s no time and there’s no choice. She’s coming.”

  “Well, shit.” He nodded and set his jaw in defiance. “While we sit here, stuck in the bay, we may as well load our guns.”

  “And the other boats?”

  “Ships. They’re called ships.”

  “Those too. All of them.”

  “I’ll send a deckhand before we push off. I can’t make the other captains do anything. Half of them would probably prefer to watch Brea burn.”

  “I’ve seen it,” I mumbled. “They wouldn’t.”

  “Let’s get to it, then.” He swept across his cabin and scooped up several pistols, then ushered me toward the door. “Time and tide waits for no man. What’ll you do, Vance?”

  I swallowed hard, still tasting ashes on my lips, and stepped out onto the deck. The smell of hot tar and timber smoke choked the air. “I think I might be bait.”

  The Inner Circle people filed through their grand entrance gates two at a time, heads held high. Outer Brea folks crowded around to watch their arrival. Guards from both sides flanked the column, their eyes hard and stances rigid. They expected trouble, but as flames still licked the sky over Brea’s east side, fear of the winged monster chased away their fear of these quiet, regal people.

  I walked on the outside of the line, beside Anuska, who was dressed in armor more practical for the battlefield than a parade.

  Anuska told me that once the Inner Circle folk had heard the roars from inside their walls and seen the flames light up the sky, she couldn’t prevent them from rallying. I read in her ensuing silence that she hadn’t tried to stop them. This was their choice.

  “These are good people,” she said. “And they’re all about to get themselves killed.”

  I stayed quiet. They had the right to choose their fate, as my sister had. My parents, good people that they were, hadn’t fought their fate either. They had embraced it, despite my being the catalyst.

  As I walked beside the people I had shunned—and saw the fear in their eyes turn to strength with every step—warmth spread through my chest. These were my people. They suffered for the greed of their ancestors, who had stolen from the Arachians, and they continued to suffer, but today they were taking a stand.

  A small one-sided smile tugged at Anuska’s lips. “I’m relieved we didn’t burn you.”

  “So am I.”

  “Though I fear for your life, Curtis Vance.”

  “Don’t waste your fear on me, Anuska.”

  She saw my smile, which only perplexed her more. I considered that perhaps, had I not fled the Inner Circle and all its teachings, she and I could have been friends. But I’d chosen to take my sister away, and Anuska’s fate and mine had diverged. Now here we were, walking side by side.

  Few of my choices had been wise. The words of the moorland woman, Jodelle, continued to haunt me. You make the wrong choice, thief. Your kind always does.

  It was time to start making the right choices.

  “Where are the mages?” I asked.

  “Locked deep beneath the spire. There’s a hatch directly below the platform. It opens into a dungeon. We will free the mages only when all else fails.”

  All else being the ships in the bay and the few troops the city guard could muster.

  We walked Brea’s narrow streets, our eyes on the sky. I could hope Shaianna had gone, but the chances were slim. She would be close; this had only just begun.

  The guards helped clear the dockside of refugees, steering them toward the stone storehouses. They would be safer inside. A flotilla of tall ships had dropped anchor in the harbor, canons bristling along their flanks, and among them, three substantial merchant vessels sat primed. Tassen had come through.

  The Inner Circle people lined the dockside. Anuska had shared with them the wealth of Inner Circle gems, but many had brought their own, their pockets now weighed down. Their presence didn’t surprise me. My parents would have gladly stood shoulder to shoulder among them.

  A nearby father told his son how to hold the gems and what to do to harvest the power inside. I listened and touched the single ruby in my pocket, but as before, I felt nothing more than the cool sea breeze at my back and the dull aches the toppled carriage had left.

  Water lapped at the seawalls behind us while we gazed over our half-burned city. Gulls keened above. We waited.

  Anuska stepped from the line of hundreds and regarded her civilian army with the same pride I’d felt swell inside me.

  “We fooled ourselves into believing this day would never come. That we could stay hidden behind the wall.” The breeze carried her voice down the dockside. “Our ancestors shut themselves away, forgetting the world outside and our place within it. They turned our truth into lies. But that must change.”

  Brean’s Outer Circle folk hung back. Some were armed with rifles, blades, or whatever else they could lay their hands on. They all observed the pristine Inner Circle folk with narrow-eyed suspicion. Their perceptions would soon change once this line of unassuming men and women started harvesting magic from their gems. It would be a fine spectacle, but I couldn’t help wondering how many of the people standing next to me would survive the coming storm. The father and his wide-eyed son, the elderly woman an
d her stoic husband, the young girl to my right who stood alone but defiant. These people weren’t soldiers. They had no weapons to wield, but they were ocra—magic users—and all the braver for it.

  “We have been forgotten for too long, and now we are called upon to reveal our truth. We didn’t ask for this, but we must answer it. We didn’t cause this, but we must prevent it. She is the Shadow that consumes all, and we are the light!”

  “The light!” the crowd responded.

  Anuska returned to my side. “Are your ships ready?”

  I couldn’t know for sure, but I answered all the same, “As they’ll ever be.”

  She looked at the sky, trepidation stark on her face. “Then let us begin.”

  Anuska nodded at the guard nearest her. He lifted a hand. The crowd quietened.

  “Begin.” His voice boomed down the dockside, and in its wake, the line of Inner Circle people bowed their heads, nestled their gems in their hands, and began whispering.

  The low hiss of hundreds of voices crawled across my skin and up the back of my neck, wrenching my insides into a bundle of nerves. A shiver followed, the type of shiver that quickened the blood. I gritted my teeth and scanned Brea’s smoke-obscured skyline. She would come. The magic would draw her out. And if the restless gods were on our side, the cannon fire would take her down.

  The whispering turned incessant and lapped at my mind like the water lapping at the dockside. I wrapped my fingers around the dagger and clutched it tightly. This would be the end of Shaianna, and that was right, wasn’t it?

  Some things should be destroyed, she had told me, surely knowing it would come to this.

  All eyes focused on the sky, but something snagged my gaze to my left, where crooked lines of dockside cottages stretched toward central Brea. The breeze pushed smoke through the streets, carrying with it distant screams.

  A low rumble, a sound I felt more than heard, bubbled up from the breeze. I glanced at Anuska, but the captain’s attention was on her line as she concentrated on chanting. She was clutching gems, not her sword.