She had to stand up for herself. For the Eyes of Aleer. Jocklun had—by proxy—tried to kill her and Adom and Tig and… her family, that’s what they were. It was only fair that his retribution come in the same form, no?
“I’m afraid money doesn’t buy you time,” Elaya said. She threw her hand up. Pinched Jocklun’s chin. Flung his head back.
The steel edge of the knife was terribly sharp. Felt like cutting through cream. Regret came instantly, much like the blood spraying her face. She stilled herself, reminded herself that she wasn’t a ruthless killer, simply a woman who refused to be mistreated.
She turned, faced the Eyes. Most of them nodded, maybe in appreciation. Maybe in understanding. They certainly didn’t blame her.
“This,” she said, “is the beginning of a new era. We leave our mark upon Haeglin, and soon we will leave our mark upon the world. Are you ready?”
The smiles told her that, yes, of course they were ready.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Oriana patted Sarpella’s snout. “Remember, if I’m not back before tomorrow morning, you must return. Yes?”
She could sense rebellion brewing in Sarpella’s mind.
“Sar,” she said, hands on her hips as if she was the dragon’s mother, “I mean it. You get out of here if I’m not back by then. It means something happened and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
The dragon’s icy eyes looked away from Oriana. She accepted the directive but wasn’t happy about it.
That’s life when raising children, Oriana knew—or dragons—sometimes you make decisions they don’t agree with. The one minor difference between the two is that children can hit you and stomp and scream, while dragons—well, they can eat you.
But Sarpella would never eat Oriana. I hope.
Oriana kissed her sweet girl, then departed the cave for the wetlands outside. She had a saddlebag draped over her back and a sheathed skinning knife attached to her belt. Two mornings ago, she’d left Rol and the others to fly across the sea. She had hoped memory served her well and that her navigational skills would see her part the roiling fog walls of the wetlands and arrive before a narrow cliff rising high and sharp.
Fortunately, it did and they had. Beyond the cliff, about ten miles away, lay a small city named Feirdeen, known for its salted frog legs and skewered fish eyes. Her friend, the rogue sorcerer Catali, lived there. Or rather, hid there.
Oriana kept Sarpella low during her descent into the wetlands and hid her in a cave for two reasons. Firstly, even in Baelous, cities and villages did not appreciate dragons flying overhead, for obvious reasons. Secondly, with the resurgence of the clutches and the Conclave’s fall—if it had indeed fallen—there was a chance a clutch had taken the city. In either case, Sarpella’s arrival would not be welcomed. Oriana would not risk her life.
Each breath Oriana took across the green, soggy wetlands felt hot and humid. It seemed to rain constantly with small bite-sized breaks in between. Slimy, fat snakes combed the trees while other wildlife splashed and hunted.
Oriana hated snakes, but she barely paid them any mind as she slogged through. She could think only of Catali—if she was alive, if she remained in Feirdeen. Oriana couldn’t afford to waste more time. Dragons were returning to Avestas and she needed to know when, how many, and if the Conclave had endured the clutch’s uprising. If the Conclave had truly fallen, there would be no help. And what a terrible, hopeless future that would render.
She arrived at Feirdeen eight hours after leaving Sarpella behind. The city emerged from the wetlands in an unnatural and conspicuous manner. The architects had made no effort to blend the city into its surroundings, having instead attempted—and stupendously failed—to amalgamate the wetlands into Feirdeen.
Porous cream clay framed its walls. Inside, catwalks and bridges spanned the city, rising over and circling beneath one another in a furious assemblage of overpasses and underpasses, each leading to man-made mounds and plateaus, some where only a single cottage sat and others that looked like miniature districts.
Oriana walked in without confrontation, partly because Baelous’s power dynamic fundamentally differed from Avestas’s—wars here were generally not fought with swords but through other, more clandestine means—but also because there was no one there to stop her. It wasn’t until she made it beyond the granary in the middle of Feirdeen that she saw the first signs of life, and even those were scant: a couple barefoot men conversing amongst themselves. Their audible chatting ceased when they saw Oriana and turned instead to inaudible whispers.
Strange, she thought. A quick examination of the city’s foundation and those of the buildings showed no obvious signs of stress—indications that crop up when dragons come to roost. But this place was not at all like she remembered. Either a crisis had caused it to wither away, or… well, she wasn’t certain what the alternative reasoning would be. She did begin doubting that Catali was here, though.
She climbed a catwalk, which spat her out onto a small mound that intersected three bridges. It’d been six years since she’d last visited Feirdeen. Time had dusted over the map in her mind.
Staring up at the dizzying display of risen pathways, she debated internally. Was it the right bridge, then straight till… no. No, that couldn’t be it.
“Milady!” crowed a girl no older than twelve. She had red hair and a freckled face. “I’ve never seen you before. Are you visiting? My name is Nalune.”
Oriana smiled and crouched at the girl’s height. “Hello, Nalune. I’m Oriana. I’m looking for Graybeard Hischk; it’s been many years since I was last here.”
The girl bit her bottom lip and nodded enthusiastically. “I know where he is! Follow me.” She extended her hand and added. “You should hold my hand in case you get lost.”
“Of course,” Oriana said, beaming at the girl’s innocence.
Nalune led her up several ramps and across at least half a dozen bridges, eventually coming to a plateau with a finely combed mud lawn and some potted plants edging square lake stones that led to a two-story lodging. An empty rocking chair sat on the balcony.
Nalune cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “Graybeard Hischk! This is—”
The door snapped open, cracking against the siding. “What do you want?” A slender, clean-shaven, olive-skinned man stood there, a rope of quartz around his neck. His face softened. “Oh. Forgive me. I did not realize we had a vis…itor.” He squinted. “Oriana?”
Oriana put her hands up as if condemned. “It’s me.”
With a hearty smile on his lips, Graybeard Hischk waved her in. “Come here, come here. It’s been years, hasn’t it?”
Oriana rubbed Nalune’s hand appreciatively. “Thank you, dear.” The little girl boinged on her feet, then raced off as children are wont to do. “It has been a while. Six years, in fact. Feirdeen has changed much in that time.”
“Regrettably,” Graybeard Hischk said. With a seductive pass of his hand over her shoulder, he clicked his tongue. “You look lovely as always. Still of Liosis, or are you a taken woman now?”
As his fingers dragged across her neck, she caught a whiff of sage and lavender. “I’ll always be of Liosis, taken or not.”
“Mm. Tell you what, why don’t I meet you in the gardens? I’ll fetch us some wine and crackers, and we’ll catch up as old friends ought to do.”
“I’m afraid I can’t remember where the gardens are.”
Graybeard Hischk wrapped a hand around her waist and led her to the edge of the plateau. He pointed and gave her directions, showing her landmarks to keep her on track. Feirdeen was by no means large, simply meandering and disjointed.
The city’s garden was less a garden and more a muddy expanse of transplanted grass that had yellowed and wilted, small potted trees, and shrubs that leaned severely as the mucky and soppy soil uprooted their fibrous anchors. A crushed stone walkway wound through the center, edged with torches whose oil vapors billowed into the air.
A quartz table stood in
the center of the garden, shaded by an umbrella. Oriana sat there and waited for Graybeard Hischk to arrive.
It began raining then—fat, swollen drops that the clouds spat out in such a frenzied fashion that it gagged the soil and puddled almost instantly. Oriana was only faintly aware of the rain, much like, when staring thoughtfully out a window, you’re cognizant that a pane of glass lies before you, but it’s not something you truly see and consciously perceive.
Oriana had drifted off briefly. When she came to, the crunching of stone alerted her to Graybeard Hischk’s presence.
“I hope you enjoy reds,” he said, cradling an amphora of wine in one hand and a wooden bowl of crackers and two mugs in another. “It’s all I have, unfortunately.”
She smiled. “I normally don’t indulge, but I’ll sip for the occasion.”
Graybeard Hischk seated himself and poured the wine. He pushed the bowl of crackers closer to Oriana and mentioned they were seasoned with peppercorns.
Oriana noticed dirt beneath his fingernails and yellow stains on his teeth. His eyes were swollen and black beneath. Whatever had happened to Feirdeen seemed to weigh on him heavily; she remembered him as prim and proper to a fault.
“So,” he said, placing both hands around his mug and taking a gulp, “tell me the occasion.”
The rain had petered to a sprinkle. Oriana watched as the infrequent droplets splashed into her wine. “The need to get away swept over me.” A titter told her he didn’t believe that at all. She hadn’t expected him to, but this was how her father had taught her to hold conversations: surrender as little information as possible while forcing your foe to tell you all he knows.
Graybeard Hischk broke a cracker in two and lifted one half to Oriana’s mouth. She declined—politely, of course, but inside her gut wriggled like a half-eaten worm, which is precisely what Graybeard reminded her of. He had always been a vain womanizer, but he’d grown brasher over the years.
“If I were you,” he said, taking a bite, “and I wanted to get away, I wouldn’t set my destination as Feirdeen.”
“It thrived once. Not long ago, if I recall.”
He itched his scalp furiously, as if tiny insects were eating away at his hair follicles. “Once.”
Oriana raised a brow expectedly, but Graybeard Hischk said no more. She had to decide where she wanted to go with this conversation. The more information she forced him to cough up, the more he’d want in return. Why Feirdeen had fallen so far intrigued her, but sometimes you’ve got to let your curiosity go unanswered. Cities come and go, Oriana knew, and she wasn’t here to discuss civics.
“You must remember Catali,” Oriana said.
“The bald sorceress,” Graybeard Hischk said. He lifted a mug in toast and added, “She could outdrink a lake. Also fantastic in bed, if you believe it.”
Almost a decade ago, when Oriana had first hatched her plan to change Avestas forever, she’d met with Catali. The two of them had sought refuge in Feirdeen, far from the Conclave and prying eyes. That was when they had first been introduced to Graybeard Hischk. He wasn’t Graybeard at that time, only a young man who could listen to tales of sorcery all day and through the night without so much as batting an eye.
In exchange for their stories, he’d brought them food and clothes, often stolen, sometimes borrowed without the owner’s knowledge. He was suave then as well, and far too romantic, but still charming.
Now it seemed carnal desires had eroded that charm. It was too bad, Oriana thought, that he had to grow up.
“I was hoping to speak to her,” Oriana said.
Graybeard Hischk lowered his mug, frowning. “Ah, poor Ori. I feel terrible for you. I haven’t seen her in years.”
That was a lie. Oriana had met with Catali only two months ago, when she’d brought with her the most recent shipment of whelps. She’d said she was still living in Feirdeen, that the Conclave hadn’t suspected a thing.
“That’s strange,” Oriana said. “She sailed across to the Pinnacle not long ago and told me all about Feirdeen and how it’d grown.”
“Oh?” He attempted to pass that off as an innocuous remark, but the rising pitch in his voice betrayed his flat affectation. “She probably didn’t want you to worry about her.”
“Why would I worry?”
Graybeard Hischk leaned back. He looked away, toward the city proper. “I, uh”—he shook his head, settling his eyes on Oriana—“apologies. I thought I saw something. Catali’s unapproved use of sorcery likely attracted the attention of the Conclave; you two always knew that was a possibility.”
Again, his attention veered away from Oriana, as if he expected someone to appear. He faced her again, smiling.
“If you have any idea where she might be, it’s imperative you—” She stopped. A rustling, behind her. She turned and the haziness of a figure approached. He carried a dagger.
“What is it?” Hischk asked nervously.
Oriana got up, walked behind Hischk. She fisted his hair and pressed her skinning knife against his throat. “You didn’t actually think I’d allow this meeting to proceed without the safety of my illusions, did you?” She watched the hazy figure attempt to make sense of the empty garden. “I knew something was different here, but I didn’t think you’d try to assassinate me.”
“Ori, please,” he begged. “I didn’t—”
She pushed the blade edge more firmly into his jugular. “Where is Catali?”
“It wasn’t my idea! I swear, I swear—” He began weeping now. “Ori, I promise you that—”
She made him bleed. Just a little. Only a trickle. But he screamed nonetheless.
“She’s safe!” he cried.
“Where?”
“Here. I hid her. We were going to leave, cross the Blight and head north. Ori, the Conclave, they came and—” He got choked up, had to collect himself. “They took almost everyone.”
Oriana relaxed her pressure on the knife. “The Conclave? But why—”
“They told me I would oversee the repopulation of Feirdeen. They threatened me—this city—with fire and plague, and they said it would come from the sky. I was terrified that they might have spies here. That they’d know you had come. If I let you leave… gods, I don’t know what they would do to me.”
“I don’t understand.”
He turned, eyes wet and face blanched. “Ori, the Conclave, the clutches… they’re one now.”
“Why—”
He shook his head sadly. “Because of you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
They rode in on a horse that wasn’t theirs, dragging a cart they did not own, hauling cabbage and lettuce they had not grown, and wearing tattered rags they’d plucked from a bucket sitting in a chicken coop. The clothes had smelled like pee when Lavery had first put them on, but after a week of travel, they’d aired out. Or maybe he’d gotten used to the stench.
This ruse Laythe had concocted hardly seemed necessary, and Lavery had told him as much.
“Valios has a freedom of passage policy,” Lavery explained. “You don’t need to sneak in. They don’t even require flags like Haeglin and the Roost and Plorgus and… well, I think almost all the capital kingdoms do. Even lots of smaller cities have begun requiring flags to identify merchants and guests of the crown and—”
“There’s a dead king in the East for reasons I am not aware of,” Laythe said, interrupting the long-winded Lavery. “The natural order of things, perhaps, but foul play is just as likely. Freedom of passage exists only so long as peace does.”
Day and night they traveled, resting only so their horse would not wither away on them. After each campfire they made and before Lavery could get so much as a moment of sleep, Laythe hounded him, forced him to practice his Walking abilities.
“Knowing you want to leave this very time and place,” Laythe had explained, “is not enough. Patience begets discipline and discipline begets proficiency.” He told Lavery that when his desire to depart the present overwhelmed him to the
point of near madness—a sensation Laythe called the Madness of Departure—he had to wait a little longer. “Don’t give in,” he said.
It took several campfires for Lavery to develop the poise and patience and trust needed to push away that madness, to endure and allow it to intensify. That, Laythe said, was when fragments of the past and slivers of the future would drape his vision like the blackness of the Valiosian tombs he so enjoyed visiting.
At first, the visions spun uncontrolled. They looked like blurs of faces and landmarks from times he did not know and those that had not yet happened. They dashed across his eyes like darts, each one coming and going without pause.
“Wait,” Laythe told him. “Let them slow. They’ll come into focus.”
Lavery could not. The need to immerse himself in one of the visions, any of them, was too great. He allowed himself to plunge into a random bygone vestige of the past. Or sometimes the future; those ones were always scary, because you knew what you were getting with the past—there were no questions if what he saw had happened or if who he met had actually lived. The future, though? Laythe had warned him, and Baern too, that Walking into the future is a treacherous ordeal. The future shifts, always. It is fluid and malleable, and the things you see are only possibilities, and sometimes even impossibilities.
So he preferred to stick to the past. This took practice. Choosing where to go in the past took even more, especially because each Walk exhausted him. He’d stumbled out of a Walk once and fallen into a day-long stupor.
But before they reached the outskirts of Valios—a trek that had taken one month in all from the time they’d departed Oriana’s estate—Lavery had, for the first time, weathered the Madness of Departure. And the visions of yesteryear crawled before him, subservient to him. He swiped away those that did not interest him, advancing the years or reversing them until he found the period of time in which he wished to Walk.
Laythe had told him that, when his vision blurs and voice echoes, he must return to the present. Failure to do so would result in the obliteration of his mind. He would never again wake. Over time, as he conditioned his mind, he could remain in the past or future for longer.
The Dragon Thief (Sorcery and Sin Book 1) Page 29
