I am in Kirath. On a dirty street that I don’t recognize. There is mud and gods know what else staining the cobblestones an ugly brown. The buildings are in need of fresh paint, new wood, or new structure altogether. Kelbans, all dressed in modest homespun, struggle to keep their clothes clean as they saunter down the ill-made street.
Up ahead, a sign hangs from the eaves of a two-story stone building with several windows. Scrawled in scrappy, downtown dialect are the words “Lazy Eye Shop.” The door to the inside is propped open with a square of iron.
“I asked you to accompany me, Landor, because you’re the only one I trust to fulfill this mission. I realize it’s a strain on you – especially with the amount of reliance your father puts on you these days, but I promise, when we’re done here, I’ll give you the rest of the week. Deal?” Craig’s voice is charming. Friendly. It makes me feel ill even before I see him standing at the corner of the little shop. My brother stands at his side, head bent, and arms at his sides in resignation.
“You are my captain,” Landor replies. “I’m yours to command.”
Craig bites his lip in irritation, but makes no comment. He stomps through the shop door. Landor follows him, shoulders straight. He’s readying for the worst.
I follow them inside.
The room is lined with shelves full of antiques and intriguing objects of all shapes, sizes, and colors. A girl is dusting some shelves in a far corner. Landor and Craig approach her. She is very slender, and I don’t miss the way in which Craig circles the shape of her sleek black skirt that leaves little to the imagination. Something about the way the girl cranes her neck to one side or gracefully flicks a mound of dust off the top of the offending shelf is familiar to me.
Landor clears his throat loudly.
The girl stops dusting but doesn’t turn around. Her feet still on the edge of the stool she’s standing on.
“Pardon us, ma’am, but we are looking for the owner of this fine establishment,” Landor says.
The girl turns around. I am not a bit surprised to recognize the high cheekbones and flashing eyes. It’s Daria. She looks down her nose at them with the haughty expression of a high-born lady rather than a lowly citizen. She releases a whisper of a chuckle – low, taunting, and meant to sting the pride of those who believe they’re above mankind.
“And what would you want with the owner of this fine establishment.” She drawls out their high dialect tone without missing a single syllable.
Craig doesn’t miss a beat either. “We were told they might have some information about the rebellion that’s been nipping at our heels for the past few months.”
Daria gracefully steps off the stool, relinquishing her advantage of height, and stares across the counter at both of them, duster still in hand. “Well, I am the owner and I don’t seem to have any information for you.”
“This gentleman was pretty certain you do.” Craig isn’t giving up.
Daria smiles – her lips curl around her teeth and a gleam sparkles at the center of her eyes. “Was he now? Well, he must have been mistaken. You came all this way for nothing.” She turns her back on them.
“There was an attack on a weapons supply just outside Kirath’s northern wall of defense. We have reason to believe the rebels may have taken the shipments into this very vicinity. Have you seen anything suspicious lately?” Landor asks.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Daria turns around and sneers at him. “I’m quite sure.”
“You didn’t see any men, perhaps wearing masks, moving anything suspicious between houses? Or the clang of weapons in the middle of the night? Maybe even a dog barking from sudden disturbance?”
“I didn’t see any men in masks or hear any clanging weapons. As for the dog barking from a sudden disturbance . . .” She flickers eyes over him with disgust. “. . . you’re not the first one to come in here.”
“Be careful, girl!” Craig snaps.
“Or perhaps . . .” Landor leans across the counter-top, so close to Daria’s face that their noses almost brush. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t retreat. She holds his gaze, her lips drawing closer and closer together into a tight line. “Are you a rebel too?”
Her lips widen into a smile. “Piss off!” she snaps.
The force of her words spreads saliva across Landor’s eyes. He draws back and wipes at them, a groan of disgust surging from his throat. Part of me wants to strike her for it.
Craig draws his sword and points the gleaming tip at Daria’s throat. “Try that again, bitch, and this will slice your mangy throat in half.”
Daria smirks. Craig blinks in surprise.
And she has a knife directed at his throat in a matter of moments. She must have hidden it beneath the counter-top.
“Not today,” she whispers.
Landor recovers from his sudden blindness and steps between the two weapons. “Cra – Captain! Now’s not the time for such a skirmish. We don’t need another riot on our hands. Neither does Celectate Wood.”
At the mention of the man he serves, Craig sheathes his blade. “It’s your honor, Landor, not mine. If you wish the diseased bitch to stain it, then so be it.”
“Landor?” Daria slowly lays the knife beneath the counter-top once more. “Landor Bone?”
He turns around to look her in the eye.
“Ah, yes. I knew I recognized you. The coward who left his sister to the hands of a monster. Who could forget you? Everyone knows your name. Everyone knows what you did. How you let your sister be dragged away while you, a knight sworn to protect people like her, did nothing.”
Landor’s face turns white. “Not another word, bitch . . .” he growls. His fists shake dangerously.
“I have to thank you.”
Daria, knowing she has their full attention, crosses her arms and leans across the counter-top. “You . . .” she says to Landor, “. . . started a war. A war that will change this land forever.”
“Rebellion,” Craig corrects.
She shakes her head, that playful smile on her lips curling into a smirk of amusement. “It will be a war. And – unlike all the other countless rebellions and riots this land has endured in the past – this one will not die.”
“Won’t it?” Craig asks. “Who’s going to keep it alive if all the rebels fighting it are dead?”
“When a rebel dies, more come alive. The more of us you kill, the more of us you create. A rebellion is a cycle of trial and error. We have to find out just what makes us stronger and what makes us weaker. What makes our enemies stronger – and what makes them weaker. A war is what happens when we learn those things. When we know what the enemy wants, needs, and lives on. And between you and I,” she whispers with a seductive wink, “you’re dangerously close to a war.”
Craig and Landor leave the shop abruptly. Craig smashes a pane of glass on the door before following my brother down the steps and back towards the proper streets of Kirath.
“The little pisser has just ruined my day. Maybe I’ll return the favor some time, the slagging crone!” Craig swipes a hand through his curly hair.
“She was a real piece of work,” Landor agrees. “And what a wasted trip.”
Craig shakes his head. “Not wasted at all. I learned all I needed to know. Besides, we’ve got something better waiting for us back at the palace.”
Landor’s shoulders visibly stiffen. Craig doesn’t notice his unease, but I do. It strikes fear into the core of my heart. What has he done?
Craig turns around when he realizes Landor isn’t following him.
“What’s waiting for us?” Landor asks, trying to pretend he was fixing his shoe.
Craig claps him on the shoulder. “The way to end this rebellion,” he whispers excitedly. “Lan, we caught him! We finally caught him!”
“Caught who?” Landor manages to choke out.
“The giant! We caught the giant!”
The blast of white light blows me through darkness. I register the c
rack of my shoulder, then my back, on hard ground, and the blood sizzling through open skin. I open my eyes and the sun blinds me. I am flat on my back.
“Kyla!” Shade slips a hand behind my shoulders and lifts me into a sitting position. His hands drift to my face, forcing me to look at him, pressing hard, callused palms into my cheeks. His eyes are wide. Panicked? “Kyla, can you see me?”
“You’re four inches from my nose. Of course I see you, you ass!” I shove his hands away from my face and resume my former position – flat on my back. Air is close around me, but I can’t breathe any of it.
“We caught the giant.”
The man who’d saved me from the riot. The man who’d encouraged me at the gates. The man who’d approached Lan in the stables and shared secrets I couldn’t unravel. He was caught? And Landor looked distraught?
What has my brother done?
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to strike at you so hard. To hurt you like that, okay? It was just . . . you need to know, sooner or later, that in this world you cannot trust anyone. Everyone wants what they want. And everyone wants to live. So they are cowards. They will grovel, kneel, and submit just because they don’t want to be buried in the dirt before their time. It’s a shitty view on life, I know, but it’s the only view on life that remains true.” He leans towards me and places a hand on my shoulder – over the scar. “You, most of all, should know that.”
I did know it.
But I also knew, like he couldn’t, of those who were not cowards. Of those who were willing to make sacrifices. Of those who had made sacrifices! Daria. Landor. The giant. Mother. There were people like them in Kelba. Thousands of voices silenced beneath a single man’s reign who would not remain silent any longer. A cry in the night that would not go unheard. A voice that would not be silenced.
People had turned their backs on Shade his entire life. Mocked him. Pitied him. Judged him. No one had ever fought for him except his parents – and they’d paid dearly for it. No one had ever accepted him – scars, temper, and all – as a person. They looked at him and they saw a monster to be feared. A mutilated boy to be pitied. A raging fire that would destroy them.
“You’re wrong about them.” I stand up and head for my room.
He grabs my wrist before I can slip through the curtains. His touch is gentle, but insistent, forcing me to turn around and look at him. “I am not working for King Arkran, Kyla!” he breathes. “You have to believe me on that. I hunt shadows for him – that is all! I have never, once, thought about accepting his offer.”
Deep down, I believe him. Why? Because I want him to be the person I’d begun to unravel. I want him to be the hero hiding beneath a monster’s mask. It’s a blind, biased belief, but it’s the one thing I can hold onto.
“I hate Smoke,” I whisper, pulling my hand free. “It is dirty.”
“When we return to Agron, things will be different,” he whispers back as I step into my room and close the curtains behind me.
That is what frightens me.
I shut the door securely behind me once I’ve entered the washroom. The clean tiled tub is full of steaming water – compliments of a dutiful maid. I stare at the wisps of heat rising above its glossy surface and try to concentrate. On the polished exterior of the water. On the marble gleam of the tiles. On the droplets of concentration sliding down the sleek, stone walls.
But I cannot re-enter my vision.
I slam my hands onto the side of the tub.
Landor’s is in danger. I can feel it!
“We caught the giant!”
Lan has done something!
“The way to end the rebellion.”
“Let me in!” But the black hole inside my mind remains a black hole – it does not pull me into its depths. I try to force myself into the black hole. My skull resounds with a noise like crackling fire and splitting pain quivers down the sides of my head and out of my ears. I scream against the pain and tighten my hands on the corner of the tub – hands pulsing with fiery heat.
The water leaps from the confines of its rectangular prison and swirls into the air, a perfect ball of shimmering liquid. The iron torches in all corners of the room shake and cracks splinter down their ornate handles.
The black hole tightens, suffocating me, and then I am thrown from its interior. My skull explodes. My hands explode. The room explodes.
I am sequestered in darkness.
When I leave the room, the iron torches are shattered beyond recognition, and the bathwater is dripping from every corner of the room.
Chapter XXIX
Hours later, Shade taps gently on the door, and gestures at Axle’s room when I raise questioning eyes at him. It is late. I am tired. But amends must be made.
Axle’s room has no windows, but the fireplace is larger and an iron chandelier hangs from his ceiling, which is twice as high as mine. There is a big, furry rug in front of the fire. It is where Shade and I find him sitting, propped up with a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. The only thing he’s missing, I internally realize, are Master Rolfe’s spectacles. He would be a scholar in Kelba. A scholar with a killer sarcasm and killer skills.
“I thought, for a moment, you had decided to completely disregard Shade and I for good. I see now that your good sense has flown,” he mutters as Shade and I sit down on the rug in front of him, forming a triangle of unspoken peace.
“I apologize for my behavior earlier.”
“No big deal,” Axle waves off my apology and shuts his book. The familiar sound of rustling paper makes my chest ache. “King Arkran brings out the worst shit in people. It’s part of his stunning personality.”
Such words, said with such careless abandon, would be severely punished in Kelba. And from Lucius and Dirk’s obvious displeasure, they weren’t even allowed to be said here.
“How can you make fun of him so lightly? He is the king.”
“He’s not my king. I didn’t pick him. I didn’t even know he existed until we came back from the gates of hell itself,” Axle says, bitterness in his tone. “If I’d had my choice, we wouldn’t have a king at all. I like the idea of tribes so much better. Agron would be its own dominion. Gavrone would be its own dominion. Smoke would be its own dominion. On occasion, we would band together to fight a growing evil – namely, the shadows. But that is all. We would go about our business and rule ourselves how we saw fit. Otis would make a good ruler, yes?”
“Axle . . .” Shade starts to say.
“I know, I know. It’s impossible. Nothing like that would ever happen. But, hell, if I can’t wish and dream like any common fool, right?” He finishes the wine in his glass before throwing the polished object into the fire.
“What I meant was how are you allowed to make fun of him so lightly? Shouldn’t you be punished?”
Shade stretches out onto his back and puts his arms behind his head in a relaxed position. “That, I believe, you already know the answer to, Kyla Bone. All your experience in the noble scepter of life should give you a decent-sized guess, at least.”
“Or perhaps she believes he keeps us around for our stunning good looks and dazzling charm?” Axle suggests.
I glare at him.
“He endures us,” Axle admits, “for now. Because, without us, the shadows would overthrow Agron. Then where would the monsters turn? Smoke.”
“We’re his bodyguards at the border? Without us, he’s a dead man,” Shade says, “and he knows it. We’ve been his eyes, ears, swords, assassins, and advisers since the beginning of his reign – just not the kind he wants. We do as we please, when we please, and he doesn’t have a say in any damn part of it. We are our own leaders – or at least – we were once.” He looks pointedly at Axle.
Axle shrugs. “Being a guardian of Agron means I owe my life to the city and its people. I will die protecting them, at all costs. My allegiances did not change, Shade, just because I actually chose to have allegiance to someone other than myself.”
“They won’t
appreciate it,” Shade muses.
“I don’t expect them to.”
“Selfless prick.”
“Introverted asshole.”
“Do you two need privacy?” I interrupt. “Because if this is going to turn into petty name-calling, I have other things to do.”
Axle chuckles. “What? Comb your hair? Face it, Kyla, we’re your only source of entertainment in this bleak land.”
“Gods help me,” I grumble.
Shade sighs, exasperated. “Axle, why did you want us here? I’ve had a shitty day, a shitty argument I could have done without, and I need to get some sleep.”
“I heard from a servant who heard from a maid who heard from a guard that tomorrow, in your grand hometown of Smoke, they are hosting a market fair. There will be games. Food. Acts of daring. We should go.” He shakes with excitement. “We could explore Smoke.”
“It’s a shit-hole,” Shade grumbles without much enthusiasm. “Not much to see.”
“Let us be the judges of that,” Axle says. “You don’t have to come. Kyla and I can keep each other company quite well without you, pal. What do you say, Kyla? Want to explore Smoke? Maybe have a little fun before we’re stuck on a shitty return journey with a bunch of annoying pricks?”
“Hell, yeah.”
“It’s settled,” Axle slaps his knee. “We leave, bright and early in the morning, before Keegan or one of his cronies catches wind of our plans.”
“Fine. I’ll go with you,” Shade sighs.
“You won’t be dull and ruin our fun, or I’ll dump your ass in the moat,” Axle warns.
“I won’t,” Shade promises. His voice sounds disinterested and his eyes are closed so I can’t see his true thoughts. Maybe that’s why he’s keeping them shut.
Axle winks at me.
I ignore him.
We don’t return to our proper rooms. Instead, we play some sort of game with some cards that Axle pulls from his pocket. It’s a game of trickery. Two cards of the same color and shape placed on top of one another forces the person who placed the second card to answer any question the other players ask them.
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 50
