Burn (TimeBend Book 2)

by Ann Denton

  “The President seems impressed with you,” Lowe stated.

  Stelle tilted her head and looked at him, curious.

  “He’s the one who gave me this assignment. Said you’d requested me.”

  Stelle laughed. “The President, huh? Didn’t know my requests were that important. Well that’s nice.” She shook her head as she opened a jar of white paint. She began blotting out the mottled face on the canvas.

  Lowe simply watched her for a moment, captivated. Then he shook off his awe.

  “People aren’t always what they seem,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  “Just thinking out loud,” she looked up at him. “I mean, look at me. Who would ever expect I’d be on my way to being Troe’s new Chiara? He has a bevy of them. Has them make maps. Predictions. You’ve seen their stuff, I’m sure. Drawing is one prerequisite. Boobs are the other. He’s kind of a pig that way. And I’m going to be the best of his little harem.”

  That phrase cut at Lowe. You deserve more. He didn’t say it. She’d made this choice. Worked years to get here. Obviously wanted revenge. Who was he to question? But part of him wanted to protect her, like she’d done for him when they were kids. The part of him that remembered her, the part of him that had mourned her, the part of him he hadn’t been able to quash, despite his best efforts.

  Stelle finished with the white and started to clean the brush. “A whole lot of people feed him intel, you know.”

  “You mean Senebals.”

  “Winter does that to people,” she shrugged. “You never know who you can really trust. Double verify.”

  Lowe gritted his teeth. Am I an amateur?

  Stelle grinned and tossed the brush at him. He caught it.

  “You still can’t take advice, can you? Always thinking it’s criticism.”

  Lowe shrugged. “Can’t help it.”

  Stelle shook her head. “Still the same. This canvas is good to go. Give me back my brush and tell me what you got.”

  Chapter Eight

  Sonne Pointe was a pretty place, as far as places on the Gottermund went. It was a scenic peninsula that had once been little more than a natural collection pit for trash.

  But the secret base once located there had side benefits. Like bored soldiers who had cleaned up the cesspit to avoid the stench. The hill had a view. And now only autumn leaves clogged the shores, red when they fell, yellow-brown within a day.

  Lowe sat in a dark room by a window, hovering over a dusty box radio. It was older than most of the radios he’d ever seen. Hell, some parts even look like they came from the same machine.

  His touch sent dust flying into the air, glittering in the shallow orange light of dusk. He coughed and dragged the mic across the table, leaving deep scratches in the wood. There was a web of them there already, countless white stripes gouged into the surface by everyone else who was too lazy to pick up the mic.

  He sighed and spun a dial, pressed a button, turned a knob to hunt for the frequency. The box radio spent twenty long seconds beeping and whirring.

  The beeping stopped abruptly. “Only dead fish swim the shallows,” he said.

  Five seconds of silence. “Only dead men brave the deep sea.”

  Lowe looked over his shoulder. It was more habit than anything; the building was abandoned. Nobody had the money or the personnel to man a station this far north anymore. The men who were here—drifters—had cleared out when he’d showed them his brand. He was alone. “I have something.”

  Stelle wasted no time on pleasantries. “Our first meeting place. Three days.”

  That didn’t surprise him; Stelle was staunch in her insistence on in-person meetings only. Lowe disliked it.

  Traveling back to the mansion, or the forest, or wherever else she wanted to meet took time better spent cultivating his cover or gathering intel. Not to mention he’d have to see her. And guilt would saw his insides into jagged little pieces. Until she’d smile. Then memories would shatter him for an entirely different reason.

  Either way, being near her was too intense. It left him on edge. Made him feel weak. But he said nothing. Stelle was the budding assassin here, not him.

  “See you then,” Lowe said.

  “Can’t wait,” Stelle said, and she cut out. The radio made some guttural twitching sound and settled into a dull white noise.

  Lowe turned the dial again, hunting for frequency that would take him to the Center’s call station. It had been a while, maybe a week, since he’d let anyone know he wasn’t dead. It was probably time.

  The radio pitched and squealed. “Center,” said the operator in the curt greeting of the people under the lake.

  Lowe blinked when he recognized the voice. “Dez?”

  The radio crackled. “Lowe?”

  “Yeah,” Lowe said stupidly. “What are you doing in the call center?” She was supposed to be out on assignment.

  Which means she probably pissed someone off, Lowe thought. She was close to a promotion, so that wasn’t good.

  Dez was silent for a moment. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  Yep. Lowe suppressed his curiosity and let it drop. “I’m reporting in from Sonne Pointe. Consider this my ‘proof of life’ for the week.”

  “Sonne Pointe? Really?” Dez said, whistling. “What are you doing way out in the boonies?”

  “Recruiting,” Lowe said, making a face. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it was close enough to make his stomach turn. He didn’t like lying to Dez, even for the President. Even for Stelle. “Is Verrukter back yet?”

  “No,” said Dez, and Lowe heard her sigh. He could practically see the grimace on her face. More people disappearing, more people making the ultimate sacrifice every day. More people flattened under the boot of the greater good.

  “Anybody found a body?” Lowe said.

  Dez snorted. “Verrukter’s or his targets’?”

  “Either.”

  “Nope.”

  Lowe suppressed a sigh of his own. No body was hardly cause for hope, but it left more room for it than a cold corpse. “That’s good.”

  They both fell silent. Neither said what they were thinking. Erlenders took prisoners. If he didn’t come back soon, it would probably be better for Verrukter if he was dead.

  “Just watch him, I swear he’s competent,” said Bara.

  Lowe was standing on the deck of Bara’s boat with his arms crossed, trying to look like a Recruiter who wanted to do his job.

  Two days had passed, filled with lots of walking and mud. Father mucking sludge. She wants to do this in this heat? Lowe had arrived early that morning, covered in river grime and sweat and not in the mood to play to Bara’s impulse to shove her soldiers down his throat—a sign that winter was coming and food was scarce. Bara was trying to pack as many of her people off to become Kreis elites as possible.

  Lowe scowled. He didn’t have time to spend watching them show off. He had an appointment with a penny-haired double agent to keep.

  The soldier Bara was talking up now was a stocky, dark-skinned man named Sorgen. His muscles bulged beneath skin striped with stretch marks. His fists were always in tight balls, and he had a tattoo of a black fish diving so its lips kissed his collarbone; its tail unfurled up around his chin. The fine detail on its scales made Lowe cringe inwardly; they didn’t hand out anesthetic for body art.

  Sorgen shook Lowe’s hand with vigor, an eager inferno of energy in every gesture. Nerves or excitement? He grinned at the Recruiter. Lowe settled on excitement. He’s impressive, Lowe admitted. If a bit short.

  “Name’s Sorgen. Been all around Senebal, as far north and south as you can go.”

  “Really?” Lowe remarked absently.

  Bara turned to Sorgen. “Since Lowe’s new to our exercises, we should let him watch a round or two first.”

  Sorgen looked disappointed but turned to the crowd. Another soldier came forward, one Lowe knew vaguely. Turm or Tern or something with a T. He didn’t talk much, but he was th
e terror of the watch, a great hulking tower of a man with stones in his muscles and hot steel in his blood.

  Turm and Sorgen clasped forearms, beginning a spar. Sorgen gave no quarter. He slammed his fists into the big man’s solar plexus. Turm lurched, rolled backward, and came up in a crouch. He blocked Sorgen’s next blow with his forearm, stood, and slammed his elbow into Sorgen’s face. The short soldier reeled back, dazed.

  Turm kicked up a massive leg, aiming for Sorgen’s head, and at the same moment Sorgen dropped down, sweeping Turm’s leg with his own. Off balance, Turm toppled backwards, landing hard on his back. There was a loud crack as the wood beneath him splintered. Bara cursed.

  They kicked and blocked and rolled across the deck. They fought like foot soldiers, with hands and knees, bones and raw muscle. They were strong, more than capable.

  But not Kreis. They got angry, and nothing changed. Typical people, human to the bone.

  And they wouldn’t be able to change that.

  Lowe watched two more matches. They were not nearly as impressive as the first.

  Bara ushered her soldiers back to their posts. They piled into small canoes and rowed back to their own boats, laughing at one another’s bruises and settling their bets.

  “Well then?” Bara asked when they were out of earshot.

  Lowe felt himself shake his head. He pursed his lips. “No.”

  “No?” Bara groaned quietly. “What exactly are you looking for, Recruiter, if not soldiers? These are better men than you’ll find anywhere.”

  Lowe stood and set his eyes against Bara’s. She was taller than him by two heads, but something in his eyes made her shrink back.

  “I need one of a kind,” Lowe said. “Not excellent soldiers. Not good men. I need someone unique.” He turned his back, making for his canoe, scowling. Thinking of Stelle and how much time he’d wasted here already.

  “Come back for the celebration,” Bara blurted. “The entire guard will be there, men you haven’t seen. Maybe you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

  Lowe turned back, a curt reply on his tongue—but when he saw the look on Bara’s face, he sighed. There was desperation there. Steely eyes and an iron heart—a soldier’s heart—but also desperation. He relented.

  “I’ll be there,” he capitulated, and he got in the canoe.

  Stelle was painting when he arrived. She didn’t look up as he entered the room; she was squinting, holding her brush arm with one hand, carefully guiding a slick of blue paint over the canvas.

  “What do we got?” She stood, putting the brush behind her ear. It was nearing dusk, and the bronze evening light made her face glow.

  “Nice to see you too,” Lowe chided.

  Stelle sighed. “Sorry. Long week.”

  Long year, Lowe thought. “Don’t worry about it.”

  He walked over to stand beside her, looking at her painting. It was the young prince again, or maybe one of his mutilated brothers. The face had been warped by the acid so much that the boy’s eyes were little more than thin blue slits, peering out from under skin the color of hardened magma. He wore the crown of the Erlenders, the circlet of onyx and bone and silver. It seemed to dig into his scalp.

  “That’s …” Lowe said. He couldn’t stop himself making a face.

  Stelle snorted. “I have to practice. Chiaras do the royal portraits that are displayed in each town hall.”

  Lowe’s stomach turned, but he managed a smile. “You … have talent with a brush.”

  “I know that,” Stelle said. She crossed the room to the open window. “Why don’t we take a walk?”

  She dropped easily down to the ground. Lowe followed. They landed at the base of a tree, its roots littered with fallen crabapples. Lowe kicked one and they started walking.

  After a minute or two of silence, he started. “So—”

  “Shush,” Stelle silenced him. “Take a minute. Do you ever stop working and just enjoy?”

  Lowe opened his mouth to protest. Then he shut it. There’s always work, he protested internally. Always something more to do. But he trotted along behind her, just as he had when they were kids. After ten minutes, though, he couldn’t stand it.

  “There’s a mine in Erlender territory, ten kilometers upriver, about three kilometers in from the border. Think it’s coal.”

  Stelle smiled. She shook her head. But she stopped walking and turned to him. “I know it.”

  “Hoffen’s guard is planning to raid it,” Lowe continued. “Ten days from now, just before dawn. Thirty footmen, ten divers, all heavily armed.”

  “What’s the plan?” Stelle asked, pushing aside a branch full of burnt-orange leaves.

  Lowe took a step forward, but Stelle’s hand yanked him sideways.

  “Not there.”

  “What?”

  Stelle winked. “When I paint, I’m kind of in a daze. So, I have taken precautions. Against unwanted visitors.”

  Lowe worked his jaw. “And you haven’t told me this before because …?”

  Stelle laughed. “Relax. They’re new. And you’re careful never to enter the same way twice.”

  “So you’re telling me not to enter the same way.”

  She nodded and turned back to their walk. She held back a branch and gestured for him to go first.

  “No thanks. I’ll follow you.”

  “Chicken,” she laughed but went ahead. “So, what’s this job?”

  “Get in, grab what they can, get out, blow it up.” Lowe grimaced. “The divers are a plan B. They’ll steal the cargo boats riding low enough to have any coal in them if they can’t breach the mine’s defenses.”

  Stelle nodded, thinking. It was then that Lowe noticed the bags under her eyes. Fortune-telling must take it out of her.

  The Erlenders were a wildly superstitious people. She’d have to make more than a prediction with her paintings. There would have to be theatrics. He’d never been around a Chiara. They were too heavily guarded. Never had one as a target. But it had to be a hard life. Particularly if it was all a lie.

  “Lowe.”

  Lowe blinked and looked up. Stelle was staring at him. The light was soft behind her. It made her hair glow, like fire. “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Lowe swallowed. He looked off into the trees. They weren’t close anymore. He wasn’t sure if he should share his pity.

  “You got anything else?”

  Lowe stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Bara’s squad are having some kind of party on an island in the middle of Heil Lake.”

  Stelle frowned. “There’s an island in Heil Lake?”

  Lowe shrugged. “Apparently. Tonight at 1900 hours. It’s supposed to go all night.”

  “And?”

  “And literally everyone in the watch will be there. Whatever they’re celebrating is important. I doubt they’re even leaving a skeleton crew behind.”

  Stelle raised her eyebrows, intrigued. “Huh,” she said. “Great time to slip somebody by.”

  Lowe nodded. “Lots of somebodies.”

  Something crashed in the trees nearby. Lowe went for his knife. Stelle reached into her pocket. They locked eyes. Stelle jerked her head left, away from the noise. She crept away silently. Lowe followed.

  An explosion rocked the trees, pitching Lowe forward into the dirt.

  His ears rang as a second explosion followed, then a third. Small grey-red clouds billowed upwards from the dirt. He looked to Stelle; she stood calmly with one hand over her ear. In the other she held a small grey box with five small switches on it, a jury-rigged detonator. Three of the switches had been thrown.

  “There!” Stelle pointed, her voice a distant bell. Lowe nodded, blinking away the disorientation and clenching his teeth against the ringing in his ears.

  Stelle vaulted a fallen branch and darted off into the forest, following something Lowe couldn’t hear.

  They ran for two minutes, and Stelle came to a dead stop at the bottom of a tree; she held out her arm to stop Lowe, nearly clothes
lining him. He came to a screeching halt, dropping to the dirt to stop his momentum. Slowly, she pointed.

  A man and a woman stood in the shadow of an oak, far ahead, almost at the mansion. Stelle grabbed a stick, and with deliberate aim, smacked it against the tree next to her. The couple started. They ran across the yard.

  Lowe took a step toward them. But Stelle stopped him again. She watched intently as they turned a corner. She threw a fourth switch.

  A man’s scream rent the air. The woman rushed off in another direction.

  “Leave him,” Stelle ordered. The man wasn’t going anywhere for a long while, not without a wheelbarrow and some dedicated friends.

  He and Stelle ran after the woman, knives drawn, blades glinting in the fading light. The woman was quick and limber. She was far ahead. Only her waist length hair gave away her gender as she vaulted fallen trees.

  Stelle tried to jump the first downed trunk. She tripped and rolled forward, slamming full force into the trunk of a tree. She sat there for a moment, dazed, and groaned.

  “Shit, hell, and muck,” she cursed, standing slowly. Lowe helped her to her feet. She brushed him away and dusted the leaves off herself. The woman was nowhere in sight.

  “Shit, shit,” Stelle hissed, taking a fistful of hair in her hand and breathing out through her teeth. “Fine. We go back to the wounded one. This way.”

  They wasted no time, running back the way they’d come.

  He was likely dead by now, or close, but if they were lucky they’d have a chance to ask him a question or two. Even the way he denied affiliation would tell them something about him.

  Not that there were many candidates. Only so many people would care to follow and eavesdrop on either of them. The trek to the mansion wasn’t one somebody made on a whim. Which made Lowe nervous.

  He and Stelle burst into the open space where the bomb had gone off. The trees still smelled of old smoke and iron. The man was gone. There was a red shadow where he had been, and a trail into the underbrush with the two sets of footprints.