The door opened, framing a woman in bright light. She was younger than Marielle had expected – late thirties perhaps, with a brisk manner and a simply cut dress of expensive cloth.
“Back so soon, Etienne?” she asked, flipping her dark hair behind her shoulder.
Etienne?! She was a friend of the ruler of Jingen?
“We have need of one of your cures, Cure Mistress.” He pushed past her, and Marielle scrambled to follow without dropping Tamerlan’s legs.
“Collecting followers already, Etienne?” the Cure Mistress asked. “These two seem the worse for wear. Who put a sword in this guard of yours?”
“I did,” he replied crisply as they climbed the stairs.
Surprise puffed up from her in a startled raspberry cloud. Ha! She might be self-confident and the Mistress of Cures, but she hadn’t seen that coming, had she? Marielle wasn’t the only one that Etienne Velendark was blindsiding tonight.
The stairs were an iron framework over the store below. A long wooden counter spread across the main shop with paper bags and glass jars filled with herbs and spices along them. Salves and potions, creams and lotions – everything you would expect from an herbalist. Marielle could smell them all, threading through the air like a tapestry of scent color, painting a picture of a thriving business – and something else. Was that orrisleaf she smelled? And flagleaf? Flagleaf was contraband in all five cities. Allegra could lose this shop if she was caught by the authorities.
Marielle’s nose wrinkled as they kept climbing. There was tea brewing above and a man waiting at the top of the stairs. He was carrying iron – she could smell that much. A sword, perhaps, or other weapon.
“Do you have a guard here?” she said quietly, shooting her eyes toward the top of the stairs.
“Darlyn,” the Lord Mythos said with a nod.
“And one at the back door, too?” she asked. She could smell someone there smoking puffleaf. And she could smell suspicion floating off the Cure Mistress as she spoke. With the scarf down, maybe she hadn’t realized that Marielle was a Scenter.
“Who is this girl, Etienne?” the way the Cure Mistress said the words made Marielle’s back tinkle between her shoulder blades. Would the woman plant a knife there if she didn’t like the answer? “Why is she commenting on my ... associates?”
“One of my guards,” Lord Mythos said easily. Which was true in a way. Because Marielle had been a Jingen City Guard before the dragon rose from beneath the city. And the Lord Mythos was Jingen.
The top of the stairs opened to a big loft under a vaulted ceiling of raw beams. Marielle could see where the clay tiles were secured to crisscrossing wooden slats and huge windows overlooked the Cerulean River and the ocean. She froze. Far in the distance, trails of smoke rose into the sky, spreading a dark haze across the land. She stared, paralyzed by the sight.
Lord Mythos cleared his throat. “Recognize Jingen, Marielle?”
She’d known it was gone, but her belly knotted at the sight as it finally hit her – there would be no going back to Jingen. Not ever.
4: Cure Mistress
Marielle
“PUT HIM IN THE BACK,” the Cure Mistress said briskly, tying a white apron over her silk dress. What a paradox. Was she a rich merchant or a hard-working cure-dealer? The eagle-eye she watched Etienne with suggested that there was more here than met the eye, though nothing in her scent spoke of anything other than sincerity.
Marielle followed Lord Mythos past the guard at the head of the stairs and through a tidy area filled with chairs and tables with small lamps and stacks of books to the back of the loft where four dark doors stood in a line. Lord Mythos chose the third door, leaning awkwardly with his shoulder to open it and they laid Tamerlan gently on the narrow bed. Marielle checked his forehead, running a hand across it, and trying to ignore the latent golden scent that hung over him, drawing her in with its hot honey scent.
“So, this is the one who caused all this trouble,” Lord Mythos said.
Marielle gasped.
“Did you think I’d forgotten his face?” his smell was intelligent and dangerous – celery and birch smoke and ... was that rose? Marielle barely bit back a gasp at that. “Or perhaps you Scent something more than I wanted to reveal.”
His jaw clenched, the small muscle in the corner of the jaw jumping as it flexed.
Marielle looked away from the intensity of his gaze, opened the tops of the sacks she’d been carrying on her back and then setting the one with male clothing against the small washstand.
“Both of you out,” the Cure Mistress said briskly as she entered the room.
“His name is Tamerlan,” Marielle said, feeling suddenly vulnerable at the look of Tamerlan laid out and defenseless. It was as if her own happiness was dependent on his safety. She shook herself. What a foolish thought. Best to dislodge it immediately.
“It won’t matter what his name is if I can’t find him the right cure,” the Cure Mistress said, pushing aside a small jar of flowers on the washstand and pulling herbs and powders from her apron pockets to replace them with. “I did say ‘out’, didn’t I? Both of you out before I decide your credit doesn’t extend this far.”
She shot a warning look at Lord Mythos and he grabbed Marielle by the upper arms, steering her out of the room, and shutting the door behind them.
She gasped as they entered the large loft again, shaking slightly.
“Don’t tell me I have so much effect over you, Marielle,” Lord Mythos whispered and his breath on the back of her neck was a caress that made goosebumps run along her flesh. Not the caress of a lover – the caress of a snake, sliding around its victim.
“Of course not.” She tried to scoff, but it was too hard. “It just feels familiar. The last time you held me this way you were about to slit my throat.”
“Oh.” He dropped her arms, clearing his throat. “Yes. Well, perhaps you’ve realized why that was so important.”
“Yes,” she breathed; her voice gone with her confidence. From the wide-open window, the smoke still rose, glowing in the darkness.
“Perhaps now you can see why I needed to kill you – even if I didn’t want you dead.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you would like to know what you can do to make all of this right.”
A stab of excitement shot through her. Make it right? Was that even possible? She’d give almost anything to make that happen. Almost? That was a lie. She would hold nothing back, not even her life if it could undo her mistake.
And yet.
And yet he was playing her like a four-string vitara.
She swallowed and swiveled, moving quickly to pin him to the wall with her hands. He leaned back, not resisting, his eyes widening slightly.
“Is this why you helped us, Lord Mythos?”
“Etienne.”
“What?”
“Lord Mythos is a title – and one I no longer possess. You may call me what the rest of the world must know me as – Etienne Velendark.”
“Is this why you helped us, Etienne? You want to use us for something?” her voice was low. “How did you survive the fall of the city? How did you find your way to the house of a healer and not to a palace? Why did you help me bring Tamerlan here? What are you paying the Cure Mistress? And why should I trust you?”
He laughed. “I like the bolder spirit. It suits you, Marielle. Are those all your questions?”
“No.”
He quirked a single eyebrow.
“Why did you maneuver me into offering myself as a sacrifice on Summernight when you told me that you didn’t want to kill me, and you already had the sacrifice you needed?”
“And is that all?”
“For now.”
He smiled – a dark, wicked smile full of secrets and lies. And yet, his scent was open and honest – minty fresh. “Our world may have ended, Marielle, but with it, civility has not also died. Come with me and let us talk about it over tea while my friend attends to your friend.”
Marielle swallowed, glancing at Tamerlan’s door. Should she have trusted him to the Cure Mistress? What if this friend of Lord Mythos’ let him die or even killed him on purpose?
Etienne leaned in, pushing her hands aside easily. “If I wanted him dead, I would have just kicked him into the canal.”
Marielle’s breath caught in her throat, but he grabbed her hand and pulled her after him.
“First,” he said, “tea.”
There was a small stove to the side of the big room and Etienne took a kettle from on top of the stove, pouring it into a waiting pot and placing it with cups on a tray before leading her through a door, up a twisting metal-lace staircase, and onto the roof. Marielle shivered at the view of the dark landscape beyond. The orange-tinged smoke of Jingen rose into the night sky like a banner proclaiming her sin.
“For a merchant, Allegra lives well, don’t you think?” he said.
“I think I would like answers.”
“So would I. Let’s trade them, shall we? I will start with your most pressing question.” He lit a fish-oil lamp, placing it on a small table beside where he’d set the tea and then he sat on a small bench, gesturing for Marielle to take a seat on the bench with him. She hesitated, waiting long moments before finally giving in. He poured their tea elegantly, like it was all he needed to do that day – like it was all he cared about. It smelled of jasmine just as he smelled of rising hope – bronze and morning dew and she could have sworn a tiny tinge of rose.
“Why you?” He looked at her through thick lashes, like he was trying to be seductive. If he was, it wasn’t working. Marielle felt like a wren cornered by a cat. “Things change. Sometimes rapidly. Yes, we had a sacrifice, but the price for a bride is greater than the price for a sacrifice, and I owed the Lord of Yan a favor.”
“Are you saying you were going to kill me and marry Amaryllis?” Marielle asked.
He chuckled. “No. Someone else is going to marry her. Someone to whom I owe a favor. I was only required to spare her life. But with that came the necessity of finding an alternate sacrifice – or watching my city destroyed by the dragon within.”
Marielle shivered. “That was all supposed to be a legend.”
“Who says that legends can’t be true?”
“It was just a dusty old ceremony.”
“Built on a violent truth, I’m afraid.” He sounded sympathetic. Dark shadows hung over his narrow face, steeping him in mystery.
“You sound like you don’t blame me.”
“Oh, I don’t,” he said, sipping his tea delicately. “All things strive. All things try to live. This is the nature of reality. I expected that from you. Why do you think the chair had straps? I just didn’t bet on him.”
He looked at the floor beneath him toward where the Cure Mistress was working on Tamerlan.
“Why are you here?” Marielle asked.
“Oh no, Marielle, for every question I answer, you must answer one for me. Did you know that man would save you when you volunteered to be sacrificed?”
“No.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“My turn, remember?” she said, sipping her own tea.
He waved a hand dismissively. “I am staying with Allegra because it is ... convenient ... for me not to be in the palace or with the Landholds. Allegra and I are old friends.”
He was an old friend of a merchant and healer? He didn’t think that was strange? Marielle longed to ask more, but she needed to be careful. She only had so many questions.
“Do you know who he is?” Etienne pressed again.
“Yes,” Marielle said.
“And are you going to tell me?” he sounded impatient.
“I don’t know if you can use it to hurt him.”
“If I planned to hurt him, I already would have. I am a man of action – a man with fewer resources and less power, but still with the ability to kill a man on the brink of death.” He smirked as if he was enjoying the irony. “In fact, if I had simply left you along the canal, nature would have taken its course and likely he would have died in the night. No one else was going to help you, Marielle. No one else dares to bring in refugees. The city is too clogged. The resources too stretched – and it is only two days since we arrived. Two days!”
The teacup slipped from his hand, clattering to the floor and with a curse, he dove for it.
Marielle’s eyebrows rose. She’d never seen him so discomfited before.
“Before – in the base of the tower – you said you had access to power to defend the city.”
The look he shot her was murder wrapped in silk. “Yes.”
“So, can’t you use that magic now? Can’t you use that magic to restore Jingen?”
His laugh was bitter. “You stole that from me, Marielle. You stole my power with the breath of your lungs and the beat of your heart.”
He was on his knees in front of her, picking up pieces of pottery and it felt strange to be looking down at such a powerful young man while he kneeled before her. His movements were quick and precise, like he had coiled springs inside and he was afraid to let them leap free. He looked up at her, his black eyes burning.
“You stole my city and you stole my life. You stole everything. Without the dragon chained beneath Jingen, I don’t have enough magic left to light a candle. The dragon took everything from us. And now you are going to help me make it right.” His velvet eyes burned in the night. “Forget all your other questions, because this question is the only one we need to concern ourselves with – how can we stop the dragon from returning and destroying the rest of the Dragonblood Plains?”
Marielle shivered. She’d been so concerned with surviving and with getting help for Tamerlan that she hadn’t stopped to realize that killing the dragon was now her responsibility. After all, if she was responsible for setting him free, wasn’t Etienne right that she was also responsible to bind him again?
She gazed into Etienne Velendark’s eyes, looking for any sign of deception. They were wide, reflecting the bright light of the moon through the window and the flickers of the bright rising smoke in the distance and they looked so vulnerable from where he watched her on one knee. Certainty swirled around him in silver and mint, making everything it touched more powerful, stronger, brighter. And in the certainty, there bubbled up bursts of bronze hope like morning dew.
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly feeling dry. It felt strangely like making a vow or pledging her oath to a king – though it was him on one knee and not her – when she eventually spoke.
“I will help you destroy the dragon.”
Etienne rose in one fluid motion, putting the pieces of pottery in a careful pile on the table.
“Then it is agreed. We’ll speak more tomorrow. I think you can visit your friend now.” He nodded toward the stairs leading back down to Tamerlan’s room.
“His name is Tamerlan,” Marielle said.
Etienne smiled as if she had given him a gift.
5: A Matter of Debt
Marielle
MARIELLE WOKE WITH a start. She’d fallen asleep in the chair beside Tamerlan’s bed. He was still now, his scent stronger than yesterday and his face angelic in the early morning light. Last night, he’d been writhing and moaning in pain, crying out so loudly that she’d chosen to sit with him instead of sleeping, holding his hand and stroking his brow.
No wonder he had looked so tormented. His dreams were probably haunted by his crimes. And yet, if Jhinn was to be believed, then that sweet smell of innocence – the smell of soft baby’s breath and summer grass – pouring off him was true. If Jhinn was to be believed, then it was spirits who had committed those awful crimes and not the man before her.
She’d tried all night to reconcile the two things – that he was an innocent boy with a generous heart who had only wanted to save a sister and ended up saving Marielle instead – and that he was a monster who had slaughtered hundreds of people to get what he wanted. She couldn’t bring the two together – and y
et she couldn’t think of him as only one or the other. When she thought of him as a monster, she could see only his innocent eyes pleading for her help in saving his sister. When she thought of him as innocent, she saw only the tear-stained faces of the bereft in the Temple District.
Allegra had come and gone quietly in the night. Giving Marielle fresh water to bathe Tamerlan’s head or pouring new doses of her concoction down his throat. She changed his dressing every hour, her work quiet and methodical.
“Do you do this often? It must take time away from your mercantile,” Marielle had said.
“I’m a competent woman. I can do more than one thing at a time,” had been her sharp response. And she was certainly competent. But Marielle thought it went beyond that. Allegra smelled of royal blue and gardenia authority – a woman who dictated the lives of others, who pulled the strings of greater events. And she was a friend of Lord Mythos’ and the person he was staying with as he fought to regain power – because whatever he said about fighting dragons, Marielle was certain that was only part of what he wanted. And if he was staying here, then Allegra must be a part of his ambitions.
Oddly, she had not been rumpled or yawning when she entered the room through the night – as if she hadn’t slept at all in between checking on Tamerlan.
There had been no talk of payment, and that suggested that Lord Mythos was footing the bill for Tamerlan’s care. And it also suggested that Allegra was doing this as part of some longer game she was playing with the former Lord of Jingen.
Which meant that now Marielle was in debt to Lord Mythos. And he’d already indicated how he wanted to be repaid – she needed to slay a dragon.
With a yawn, she pulled herself up from her stiff seat and released Tamerlan’s hand. It was hard to do now that his scent was growing stronger again. It filled her mind so that she wanted to touch him – even when it just meant bathing his head or holding his hand. She had to fight that. Giving into it even for a moment could lead to infatuation – or worse, obsession. And Marielle Valenspear was an officer of the law. She was not a silly girl who could afford to become obsessed with a criminal.
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