by Nyna Queen
A calculated risk. In that split second, he’d seen the chance, weighed the odds and made his decision. Just like he’d made countless such decisions in his life. That’s how they were trained: to act on instinct. To make the cruel decisions nobody wanted to make. To think in causalities instead of lives—and to always embrace the imminent possibility of death.
His grave had been made the day he was born, and he’d made peace with the fact that every day could be his last a long time ago. For one of his caste, there were no safety lines, no reassurances, only the certainty of death, and he embraced her with a lover’s passion. She was his constant companion, the only bride that would ever wear his widow’s veil.
Usually, her touch was as light as that of a feather. Today … today it was a chain around his neck that was threatening to suffocate him.
Darken raked a hand through his hair, still damp from the dive into the river, and realized it was shaking.
You sow death and death is what you reap.
His fingers clenched into a tight fist. Making risky decisions was easy enough when it was only his own life that was in the balance, but when it was them …
He let his eyes linger on Max’s slight form, which appeared even smaller in sleep. Their lives felt like delicate glass figurines in his hands and he only needed to grip them too tightly to break them.
Today it had been the leg, not the throat, yet if it hadn’t been for Alex and her med-kit …
His gaze traveled to the entrance of the cave, where the spider was crouching, cleansing her healing utensils. She was with her back to him, the moonlight bleaching her pale blond hair into threads spun from silver snow. If she hadn’t been there to fix his nephew up—
“I can watch over him for a while, if you like.”
Josy was standing above him, eyes big and haunted in her pale face, holding a shadow of what she’d been forced to witness today. She bit her lip and glanced over at Alex, then back at him, watching him from eyes that were too earnest, too … knowing. Healer’s eyes. Eyes that looked straight into his soul despite his desperate efforts to hide it. But trying to conceal pain from a healer was as futile as trying to hide fear or weakness from a forfeit. They were drawn to it by their very nature. Knowing that she must sense the turmoil inside him, he turned his gaze away and shifted, making space for her.
“I’ll only be a moment.”
She nodded and carefully settled at her brother’s side.
Darken rose and joined Alex at the mouth of the cave, just as she was putting away her med-kit.
For a moment they simply stood beside each other and watched Gomorrha’s dark shadow rising threateningly behind the trees, a sleeping dragon guarding a spurious treasure.
Darken had only visited the city of vices once in his life, and he wouldn’t have minded not to repeat the experience. Too many ways to die in Gomorrha—and that, coming from a forfeit, said something.
“You should have warned me earlier about the magic ban in Gomorrha’s perimeter,” he said finally. “That was a vital piece of information and not sharing it put us all to great risk. If I had used my magic … or if Josepha had …” Well, she herself had painted the possible consequences quite dramatically.
Alex flipped around, eyes frosting over with icy fury.
“Oh, I sure would have done that, sugar,” she drawled, “but somewhere between being crashed in a car and being tossed into an icy river, it somehow slipped my mind.”
Touché.
He almost grimaced.
There were about a hundred things he could say to that, but he felt too tired to fight right now. Fighting her was … dangerous. She was like fuel to his fire. Driven by emotions as much as he tried not to be. So much aggression and such a shocking lack of consideration. When she was angry, she punched something. Just like she’d punched him atop of that riverbank. Ah, the brass neck! He couldn’t even remember when someone had last dared that—and survived.
She could just be glad that he had such iron control over his magic or he might have turned lethal on several occasions today. Yet his control was beginning to slip and that was something none of them could afford. He had to act carefully around her.
But, really, who would have thought that she would go off like this? And that look on her face—absolutely priceless: somewhere between disbelief and outrage. A cat thrown into a well wouldn’t look much different, and it, too, might try to claw you bloody.
A blond strand had struggled loose of Alex’s ruined braid, touching her décolleté. She hooked it behind her ear, running her finger along her jawline. A natural gesture. She probably had no clue what that simple gesture did to a man. There was something subtly alluring in the way she moved and the fact that she seemed completely unaware of it, only made it worse. And following those thoughts anywhere further was calling for trouble.
Forcing his mind back into the present, he glanced over his shoulder, to where Josepha was protectively hovering over her brother at the back of the cave. They were still in danger out here. The law enforcement would have a hard time with the car wreck, but that didn’t mean they could stay here forever.
“How long do you think Max will be out of it?”
Alex huffed. “With what I gave him he should be out cold for at least another hour. I never actually gave that stuff to a kid, so I wasn’t sure about the amount and thought better more than less …”
Darken nodded. They could sit tight for another hour or two. Grant them all a bit more rest, the great Mother knew they could need it. Especially the children.
Crossing his arms, he indicated Gomorrha with his head. “So, how do you intend to get us through the gates?”
“Oh, I never said we were going through the gates.”
She really was enjoying this, wasn’t she? He clenched his teeth.
“Alright.” He spread his hands. If she wanted to play he would oblige. For now. “How do you intend to get us in, then?”
The blue of her eyes turned darker, more intense, two glowing jewels lit by sapphire fire. They locked on his face, before turning to the side, her head twisting with the movement. He followed her gaze to the wall in the distance …
Wait! Clearly, she wasn’t indicating—
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “The wall? But you do remember that there are wards, don’t you?”
“Sugar, I’m not stupid.”
If she went on thinning his nerves like that, they would snap pretty soon, and he could make no promises as to what he would do if that happened.
“This is a high-voltage ward,” he said with forced patience. “Extremely powerful. Touching them won’t just activate the wards spells, it will also in high probability fry your pretty little butt.”
Oh, the smile she gave him
“Just let that be my worry.”
It took him a moment to recognize the words. It was exactly what he had said to her, shortly before he had pitched their car over the highway crash barrier. The thought didn’t do too much to reassure him.
He waited for any more information, but Alex didn’t seem in any hurry to provide them. She pulled out a knife and turned it over in her hands, watching the play of moonlight on the tip.
Darken closed his eyes for a second, fingers involuntarily curling at his sides. He wouldn’t strangle her. He wouldn’t. He counted to ten. Once. Twice.
“Would you care to enlighten me?”
“Oh, I certainly would. But someone had the genius idea of dumping me into a river. Problem is, spiders don’t work wet, sorry. And since we can’t use any magic at the moment, I’m afraid I’ll first have to dry the old-fashioned way.” She brought her face very close to his, white teeth flashing in the moonlight. “Slowly!”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A NIGHT predator let out a long, ululating cry.
Alex raised her head from the cold stone she was leaning on. Pale moonlight flooded the entrance of the cave, enameling the trees and grass with silver and pearl. The moon was on its way to its full glory but not q
uite there yet, with an occasional stray cloud teasing its pallid surface. Good sight, but not too bright either. Couldn’t have hoped for better conditions for what they were up to.
Silently, she got to her feet and slid out of the cave.
The world around her was deep and heavy with a blend of fragrances that were unique to the night: spicy herbs and sweet moss hiding beneath the coppery blanket of rustling ferns; night flowers eagerly opening their blossoms to the velvety gloom, primrose and jasmine and white angel’s tears almost glowing in the dark like a reflection of the stars above; the scent of loamy earth and reeds, washed over with water reeking of mud and algae. Frogs croaked at the riverbanks and countless little creatures bustled in the shrubs and trees around her.
The spider pricked her ears, awake and curious.
The night was a world of itself, full of life and secrets. It was the time when predators roamed, and small prey quivered beneath the branches. It was where she felt at home: a night hunter among its fellow creatures.
Alex stopped after a couple of steps.
With a soft sigh, she unfurled her claws. They slid through her skin like knives through butter.
A small smile curved her lips as she moved her fingers, watching the moonbeams dance on their pointed tips. That’s much more like it.
Being dry was nice. Being one with her true skin … that was just so much better.
In the distance Gomorrha rose, dark and quiet like a sleeping giant, projecting tranquility that was as deceitful as the cuddliness of a cutesy wolverine.
She couldn’t see the wards, but she felt them, felt the whisper of strong magic tugging on her senses. The whole area was honeycombed with it like a huge invisible spider web that only waited for her to get entrapped in its guileful threads.
Just thinking of them made her shudder.
Darken was right, hard as it was to admit. She should have warned them about the trap-spells in Gomorrha’s perimeter.
Her lapse had endangered them big time. If she hadn’t stopped Josy in time, or if Darken had slipped the leash on the riverbank …
She shuddered again.
But what she had said had been valid too; he literally hadn’t given her a breath to tell them. And frankly, she wasn’t used to traveling with so much magic firepower under the belt. If in trouble, using magic wouldn’t be the first thing to come to her mind.
Obviously, though, trueborns in their overpowering glory thought they could handle about anything with a flick of their magic.
With a shake of her head, Alex ducked back into the cave.
Max and Josy were asleep in the back, huddled together against the cold of the stones. Letting her true eyes shine through, Alex scanned the bandage. Clean. No blood seeping through. Good.
Darken was napping close to the entrance, with his back against the wall, his sword positioned in his lap, hands loosely resting upon its black scabbard. She’d bet a year’s income at the Jester that anything louder than herself would have woken him up in passing the entrance.
She nudged him with the tip of her boot.
His eyes snapped open, their red amber suffusing the cave with an eerie glow, sending bloody shadows dancing along the walls. She saw his muscles tense, hands tightening on the scabbard, before he recognized her and relaxed—a little.
A stranger would have been pierced by that sword, she was pretty sure of that.
Leaning forward, she cocked her head to the side. “Still curious, tiger?”
MIST was rising from the ground, shrouding their feet like ghostly snakes as Alex and Darken quietly made their way up to the towering wall. Darken moved like a shadow himself, light and subtle, with a quiet that would make any shaper envious. He seemed to be part of the darkness, as if the moonlight was deliberately avoiding him. As if on cue, an owl’s hoot wafted through the night, a sinister sound that wound around Alex already strained nerves and send her hackles up. She moved her shoulders uneasily.
Everything seemed so surreal: she and him, a trueborn forfeit and a shaper mongrel, having a night’s stroll in Gomorrha’s shadow. Now, that would make some twisted kind of novel-material! If she didn’t know any better, she’d think that this was all a weird dream and soon her alarm clock would rip her out of it, waking her for another dull, arduous shift at the Jester’s Inn; but the man beside her was too real and too dangerous and too predatory, and he was so close she could scent the chilled alertness pouring out of him.
He was holding his unsheathed sword in one hand, tip pointing down, his grip light and easy, but if anything out of the ordinary would trouble the night around them …
When they neared the foot of the wall, Alex bent down and swiped a handful of pebbles from the ground.
The charred carcass of a songbird dotted the grass less than two feet from the wall, its once pretty blue plumage ruffled and blackened. Poor guy wasn’t the only one. There were other dead bodies as well, forming a macabre circle of sacrifices around the invisible barrier. Birds, mostly, but with her shaper-sharpened senses, Alex also spotted at least two rabbit kittens and a mole.
Most animals had the instinctual sense to stay clear of magical ward boundaries, but a bird in mid-flight might not be able to stop in time or a rabbit chased by a fox might end up fried to a crisp—fleeing from one danger and noticing the other too late.
She sorted through the stones on her palm, removing the bigger ones.
“You know what those little tourist brochures say about Gomorrha’s walls?” she asked casually, as they approached the black wall at a leisurely pace. “It’s about fifty yards high and five feet wide. It also reaches into the ground for another fifteen feet. It’s made, at least partly, from volcanic stone that has been transported here from Tharsis’ Onyx Mountains by slaves several hundred years ago. No battering ram or common missile is able to break through it.”
Darken walked silently beside her, all the attentive listener.
“It is also completely warded with spells woven into the foundation. They are awfully proud of them, too.“ Alex grimaced. “I think the term ‘insurmountable’ is used at least once or twice.”
And pride, as we all know, often comes before a fall.
“It is mostly the centers of trueborn dominated areas that are warded throughout Arcadia, but Gomorrha apparently was once a strategic point close to the border of Tharsis, so they decided to ward the city as well, which happened more than two centuries ago.”
And if they had known it would turn into one of the biggest crime pools of the country they probably would have burned it down to its foundations instead.
“They say some of the best warders of their time were involved in the construction. According to the brochures, anything touching the wall bigger than a small bird will trigger the alarms—which kinda makes sense, because the city guard would hardly get any sleep if they were summoned by every stupid insect getting electrocuted by the spells.”
“Fair point,” Darken said dryly. His face gave no indication if any of this was news to him or not.
Come on, Mr. Smug, cut me some slack!
She selected a small stone, about the size of a thumbnail, and flipped it against the wall. It hit the ward with a slight crackle and bounced back, as if it had hit an elastic net. The ward flared in a small diameter, casting out like a silver-blue spiderweb about two inches from the stone, wobbled and vanished.
Darken raised an eyebrow, clearing wondering what her little show was aimed at.
Strolling on, Alex selected another stone.
“The trouble with wards, like with other spells, is that magic energy leaks off into their surroundings over time—like radiation—and with time, if they aren’t reinforced on a regular basis, they tend to lose their potency and get weaker, just like herbs and potions.”
Now, don’t look so surprised. Yes, she had holes in her education, but it wasn’t like she didn’t know anything about magic at all.
“As interesting and instructive as your little course might be,�
� Darken said, not quite able to keep his growing impatience out of his voice, “I positively happen to know that the Royal Warding Association is very strict in fulfilling their duties in a timely manner.”
He knew, did he?
Alex smiled widely. “Oh, I’m pretty sure that holds true for the wards that shield your precious trueborn sanctuaries, but us unwashed commoners don’t seem to demand the same kind of thorough attention.”
His eyes narrowed to slits. Yes, yes, I see you scowling!
“Gomorrha has been the black sheep in the city-herd for a long time now, and it seems some of those overly inflated muckety-mucks think that if they close their eyes on it just long enough it might simply pop out of existence and relieve them of their troubles. Anyway, these wards are centuries old and since the city’s high officials think the wall so invincible, nobody paid them any attention. Sloppy, sloppy, don’t you think?”
She picked another stone.
“And, as I said, if the wards are not regularly reinforced”—she threw the stone which bounced back—“they tend to get porous”—another stone—“just like a clay jug”—another—“and after a while”—she dodged the stone chipping back at her—“this will lead to”— the stone rattled against the stone wall and fell straight down to the ground, motionlessly resting at the base of the wall.
“Holes,” Alex finished softly. A slow grin spread on her face as she stepped forward and stretched out her hand, her fingers inches from the wall. Her shaper senses didn’t detect anything, so she put her palm against the naked stone. Nothing happened. No smack, no frying.
A frog croaked loudly down at the river.
“Jackpot,” she whispered.
“A ward leak,” Darken muttered, as he stepped beside her, slender fingers tracing the stones.
Alex rolled her eyes. Of course, there had to be some sophisticated term for it and leave it to him to shove it into her face so that she wouldn’t feel too smart about herself.
He paused, stepped back and watched her with a frown. “How did you find out about this?”
