Fortune Favors the Cruel

by Kel Carpenter

  “Quinn of House Illvain, also known as Mirior, you are under arrest for the intended murder of Earl Houche of House—” The guards pretty speech broke off as Quinn started laughing, cackling like the maruda they thought her to be.

  Quinn was not yet a dark Maji gone mad, even if she did dance with Mazzulah, the god of the dark realm, in her heart. Being wicked and being insane were two different things, though they often went hand-in-hand.

  The sky dimmed with pewter and charcoal clouds tinged red. Hysteria crept into her thoughts as she clutched the black opal.

  Too much…

  It was trying to funnel too much…

  Quinn pulled the knife from her sheath and held it in one hand, the stone in the other. Her arms didn’t shake. Her breath didn’t quiver. The makings of a wicked smile ghosted her lips, because she felt far too confident and that only meant one thing.

  The guards advanced on her from all sides, swords in hand and armor glistening beneath the nightmarish sky. Apprehension thickened the air, and Quinn took an intoxicating whiff.

  The black opal cracked down the middle and exploded. In that instant, every flicker of power it had been holding back fell over Quinn with a quiet hush.

  She gasped for breath, air leaving her body but nothing coming in. The pieces of the useless amulet fell to her feet.

  The guards took another step forward, their overwhelming anxiety leaking into the air around them and fueling the cataclysm sinking into her bones.

  Dark shadows thickened and swirled around her. They clung to her skin as if attracted to the very power inside that fueled them. An aching abyss of despair and promise opened up inside her. Too much power. Too many people. So many feelings that were tied to her very being. They swarmed her.

  Her confidence wavered as her power consumed her.

  Black tethers snaked around her arms, snapped out, wrapping around the guards. Screams reverberated through the market as, one by one, men began to fall around her. Their internal struggles now as overwhelming as her own.

  Panic clawed its way through them as terror coiled around their hearts, sinking sharp vile claws into their deepest, darkest fears and squeezing the organ that beat rhythmically, trying to keep them alive. She couldn’t control the onslaught. She didn’t know how.

  For most of her life, she’d worn some sort of barrier—chains or stones meant to mute it, to cage that darkness inside her. The trouble with cages is that eventually the beast breaks free.

  Those chains of silence that allowed her to control it in small bursts had completely fallen away with the shattered opal and left to her own devices, Quinn did the only thing she knew how.

  She lashed out.

  In a burst of power, she detonated. The entire southern market fell into utter chaos. People dropped where they stood—men, women, children—as their nightmares consumed them. No longer could she contain it to just the guards. Some fell to their knees and sobbed. Others simply stood. Stared. Catatonic.

  And at the center of it all was Quinn.

  The girl with more power than she knew what to do with.

  More men came and the bells rang in the square. A horn sounded, and in Quinn’s turmoil, a soldier not yet obliterated by her powers stepped up. Brandishing his sword, without pause, the man brought the decorative pommel down on her head.

  Like a candle snuffed out, the market fell eerily silent as Quinn crumpled in the dirty streets without any barrier—magical or otherwise—to protect her. And finally, the nightmares ceased.

  Blood Contract

  “The price of freedom is greater than all but one—survival.”

  — Quinn Darkova, former slave, prisoner, possibly deranged

  Quinn opened her eyes and stared at the slowly dripping ceiling—the very thing that had awoken her—as another water droplet fell, splashing her forehead and sliding down her temple. An echoing silence greeting her and a slight ringing in her ears that slowly ebbed. Her throat was parched, and it hurt to swallow. She wiped the back of her hand across her face, and it came away slick with sweat, water, and grime.

  Where in the dark realm am I? Quinn wondered.

  A creaking hinge nearby alerted her to people and stirred her into action. She struggled to sit up just as a wave of nausea threatened to send bile up her throat. Groaning, she leaned forward, head on her knees with her arms wrapped around her middle as she waited for it to pass.

  “She’s awake,” a low voice whispered, just at the edge of what she could hear past her own beating heart. “Go notify Fierté before someone’s head ends up disconnected from their shoulders.”

  Quinn perked her ears upon hearing a name. She wasn’t sure who exactly this Fierté was, but a niggling in her gut gave her a suspicion.

  “Where—” she choked, her mouth salivating. She swallowed twice, trying to settle some moisture in the back of her throat before trying again. “Where am I?” she called out, blinking and turning her head to the other side so she could take in her surroundings.

  Dirt floors and a bucket to piss in. Metal bars surrounded her on three sides, just tall enough for her to stand if she desired. She didn’t.

  The guard at the end of the hall outside her cell didn’t reply. He wasn’t wearing the gold and white of the capitol. Nor the blue and silver of Dumas’s city guards.

  He wore red and gold. She frowned. “Who…?” she started.

  Her lips parted when it hit her. She knew exactly whose footsteps were coming down the corridor. The guard said nothing, made no move to reply to her unfinished question. His eyes were cold as they settled on her.

  “Thank you, Dominicus,” that voice said. The one from the market. The one from her dressing room. He turned the corner, and Quinn inhaled sharply.

  “You,” she spat. Her voice gravely and dry. She lifted her head as her nausea finally settled.

  “I told you it wasn’t over, Quinn,” he said. There was a hard edge to his voice that spoke of control. Restraint. “Did you really think I’d let you go after your little threat?”

  Quinn remained silent as she stared at him through the bars of her cell. The guards behind him watched her with an anxiousness she had expected. She couldn’t quite remember how dried blood had gotten on her hands, but she clearly wasn’t getting out of here any time soon.

  “If you wanted me dead, then why bother trying to talk when they’ll hang me all the same?” Quinn asked with a rasping cough.

  “Who said I wanted you dead?” the man replied.

  Quinn blinked, confused.

  “You don’t?”

  “No. I don’t want you dead.” He paused for a brief second, giving her a moment for thought. “I want you to work for me.”

  Quinn drew a stuttered breath. “To—work for you?” she asked, not entirely sure what that meant … Work for him doing what? He simply nodded. “Why?” she asked, eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to her.

  “You have gifts I’m interested in.”

  Understanding sparked in her eyes as she said, “Ah, I see.”

  “You’re a fear twister,” he said quietly, stepping up to the bars.

  Quinn stilled for a moment, sinking into deep thoughts. Silence descended as the last vestiges of his words echoed in the nearly empty imprisonment block.

  Fear twister.

  She hadn’t heard that term in a long, long time. Certainly not spoken with such assuredness. Fear twisters were a thing of legend. While theoretically they came about in every age, dark Maji such as these could rarely hold themselves together through adolescence. Even fewer into adulthood.

  They were scarce; some of the rarest Maji of them all, and yet here he stood completely assured. Completely certain that he had indeed found such a unique and powerful Maji.

  Quinn’s chuckle was low as it slid between her cracked lips. She tilted her head back and let the sound carry out, racking her body as it built to a hoarse laugh.

  She cackled until tears ran down her face and her stomach cramped with pain. The r
oar of laughter died out as quickly as it came, leaving Quinn gasping for air as she continued to snigger under her breath. She watched the man, noting the tick in his jaw as she became unhinged.

  “Who told you that?” she asked. “Because it wasn’t Olivier.” She was quite certain of that. While the old man had figured out she was a Maji, he never asked what kind and she never volunteered.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “People don’t allow dark Maji to live with them, not even Olivier. They’re too unstable. Too volatile. Too … prone to delusions of grandeur …” Her voice trailed off as she pointedly looked at him.

  “I suppose you are fortunate then that I am not most people,” the stranger said.

  “Forgive me if I don’t trust who you are or what you want when you show up looking for me, touting the name of a dead nobleman that didn’t know half the things you seem to think you do,” Quinn replied icily. She turned her head the other way, searching the gaps between the bars and the cracks in the wall for even an inch of wiggle room. This place was a prison, though, made for men far larger and physically stronger than her. Quinn let out a slight huff when the man spoke again.

  “Olivier was one of my oldest friends. One of my only friends, really.” She narrowed her eyes, glancing back at him. Waiting for him to continue. “He knew that I’ve been looking for—” He broke off, hesitating for only a fraction of a second, but it was a fraction enough to notice the change. “Someone like you,” he surmised.

  Quinn raised an eyebrow. “Someone like me?”

  “A fear twister,” he supplied. Proclaimed. He was so sure, it made her want to know how exactly he’d been able to pinpoint that in less than twenty-four hours when not a soul had figured it out in the past ten years.

  “Olivier was my master. My last master,” Quinn stressed. “He pulled me from a post, still bleeding from a whipping that might have killed me had he not brought in healers. He bought me from the monster that did it. He gave me food, and clothes, and a place to stay.” Her lips pinched together as she took a breath to push past the brief flashes of memories so debilitating that they had more in common with nightmares. “Do you know what he asked of me in return for my freedom?”

  His dark eyebrows came down as he narrowed his eyes slightly and shook his head.

  Quinn smiled bitterly. “He asked that I have breakfast with him every morning and read to him for one hour every night. Willingly. Until he died.” She paused, swallowing hard on the dusty, stale air. “Olivier Illvain was a kind man. One of the only I’ve ever known. Even if he had somehow figured out what I am and let me stay, he had no reason to betray me.”

  There was a short silence before he spoke again. “Did you know Olivier had a daughter once?”

  Quinn squinted in confusion for a brief second and then narrowed her eyes in distrust. “Many years ago. Why? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “His daughter was a dark Maji.” Quinn blinked, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from showing surprise. “She died when she was thirteen.”

  Expression unreadable, Quinn said, “I hadn’t realized.”

  The stranger nodded once and said, “Olivier couldn’t help his child when she lost her mind and hung herself. He blamed himself for her death, but he also knew he had no idea how to help her. As you pointed out, he was a kind man—and kind men don’t understand dark magic. They don’t realize how deeply it is ingrained in one’s soul, or that simply telling them to be different won’t make it so.”

  Quinn’s lips parted. “And you do?”

  His voice carried as he said, “Olivier knew I was looking for you and that you would be better off with me. That’s why I’m here.”

  She stared at him wondering if this seemed as far-fetched to him as it did to her. She wondered if he saw his own manipulations.

  “You weren’t looking for me. Just someone like me.”

  “Semantics.” He raised his eyebrows when she glowered at him.

  “This isn’t going to work the way you think it will,” Quinn replied. There was a tremor of ire in her inflection, a note of warning, but above all else there was a blunt honesty.

  “I can get you out of the jail cell, that won’t be a problem.” He spoke crisp, coolly. His eyes may be burning coals, but his voice rang of complete and utter control.

  “I wasn’t referring to my imprisonment,” she replied tepidly. “Given it’s hard to employ those that are dead, I assumed getting me out of this blasted cell was the minimum.”

  He stepped closer to the cage, just inches away if Quinn were to try to reach through the bars. “Then what?” he asked softly, but firm, his words brushed over her skin leaving a trail of gooseflesh in their wake. Quinn shook her head and slowly got to her feet, wavering as she reached out to steady herself against the bars.

  “Suppose that I am a fear twister”—she paused when his eyes flashed—“You saw what happened in the marketplace. You likely heard of what happened when they came to arrest me. I have very little control.”

  “I can train you.”

  Quinn blinked. That wasn’t the response she’d been expecting, but it had her attention all the more now. “What makes you think that?” she asked.

  “You and I are … alike.”

  “You’re a fear twister?” She had never met another before.

  “No.” That was all he said. Just ‘no.’ They stared at each other for another moment before Quinn let her gaze drop to his clothes again. He was definitely a nobleman. Some merchants often made enough to buy noble cast-offs, but this man was dressed in a fresh pair of breeches and a new tunic. He was wealthy, there was no doubt.

  “Why are you here?” Quinn finally asked.

  “I told you,” he replied. “I want you to work for me.”

  “And if I don’t want to?” She threw it out flippantly, testing his responses while running through her options. She wondered if she could escape before they planned to execute her. Because there was no doubt that after what had happened in the market both times, they would.

  The gods’ honest truth of that didn’t sit well with her.

  “Then I suppose I’ll see you at the hanging they have planned in a few hours.”

  Quinn jerked her gaze back to the man. “A few hours?” she repeated, her pulse picking up. How long have I been out? Weren’t there trials for these things? Or am I too dangerous to put on trial now … that was more than likely accurate.

  He really may be her only real option out of this, and while she was curious about what he meant … that wasn’t enough to make her want to work for this man. He intrigued her far too much.

  “So, what will it be then? Work for me and live, or stay unemployed and die?”

  “I don’t even know your name,” she countered, a trickle of sweat sliding down her back.

  “Lazarus Fierté,” he replied.

  “No Lord with that name?” She lifted an eyebrow as she leaned forward and grasped the bars.

  His expression didn’t change. Lazarus remained silent as he waited. She scoffed, turning her face away.

  “Do we have a bargain?” he asked.

  “I’m not a slave,” she said, fixing her eyes back to his face. “Let’s get that straight right now. I’d rather die than go back to that, so if that’s what you’re wanting, then leave. I hear hangings are nice this time of year.”

  Her irreverence managed to score a slight twitch on the right side of his mouth, but she couldn’t say for sure if it was a frown or a smile, or perhaps it was just her imagination because it was gone before she could fully appreciate it.

  “You will not be a slave, I assure you,” he replied. “Now, do we have a deal?”

  “Sure. Fine. Yes. Get me out and we have a deal.” Lazarus didn’t move to open her cell door or call for a guard. She slapped the bars. “What are you doing? You asked if we had a deal, I agreed. Get me out.”

  “You didn’t really think it would be that easy, did you?”

&nb
sp; Quinn growled low in her parched throat.

  “A contract,” Lazarus said, reaching into his pocket and withdrawing a feather.

  “A contract?” she repeated, staring at the strange jagged edges of the feather. He didn’t produce paper, nor did he produce ink. He simply held the feather out for her to examine.

  “There is an inscription on it,” he stated.

  She noted that, but she couldn’t read the language it was written in.

  “When you sign your name with this, you will bind yourself to me in service of ten years—”

  “Hold on.” Quinn pressed her hands flat against the bars and leaned closer. “Ten years?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head. “No. Five.”

  “I’m saving your life,” Lazarus reminded her.

  “And I’m sure you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart.” Quinn lifted a brow before dropping it and continuing. “You’re offering me this deal—this contract,” she corrected herself, “because you need me—even if you won’t tell me why just yet. I will not be bound for ten years to someone I don’t even know.”

  “You will have to live with the disappointment,” Lazarus replied coldly, “or you could die with your freedom.”

  “You. Need. Me,” Quinn repeated, emphasizing her words. “You wouldn’t even bother if you didn’t, would you?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. Quinn pulled her hands away from the bars and folded her arms across her chest. “I’m a translator. I know languages, and I can quickly learn more.”

  “I can hire other translators,” he replied, but he didn’t keep talking, allowing her to continue.

  “Sure, you could. But why when you would have me? I have more to offer. You’ve already made that clear,” she pointed out.

  “For five years?”

  She nodded. “For five years.”

  “Or I could have you for ten,” he replied, “and you could thank me for saving your life.”

  “I’ve never met another fear twister,” Quinn said, catching his gaze. “Have you?” When he didn’t reply, she smiled. “You haven’t,” she deduced, “and dark Maji aren’t very common.”