She shivered. If the horrors she had caused meant nothing, then good meant nothing either. What a terrifying thought.
“Marielle!” a hand caught at her sleeve and she almost lost her balance into the canal. She had to drop into a crouch to avoid being pulled into the water. “Marielle!”
“Jhinn!” He was in his small gondola, clinging to the side of the moat. “How did you get in there?”
“I have my ways,” he said, bright eyes sparkling. “Tamerlan?”
“Healing and safe,” she said, glancing around to be sure they weren’t caught, but no one was looking. All eyes were on the palace wall where a group of Landholds was assembling – Lady Saga the ruler of the city and her guests.
“And you?” he asked.
“I’m with them.” Marielle pointed to Etienne and the Harbingers.
Jhinn hissed in a gasp and then the bells were ringing. So many bells of so many sizes that Marielle could hear nothing else over the tinkling and gonging and bonging filling the square.
When, at long last, they stopped, her ears were still ringing.
“Marielle, they’re dangerous!” Jhinn warned, pulling her closer to him so she could hear his desperate words. “We need to get upstream and away from them. I’ve found out who they are and what they want.”
“Some kind of justice,” Marielle said, her eyes drifting up to where Lady Saga was welcoming the crowd.
“This Dawnspell marks a legendary hunt that will determine the future of our city!” Lady Saga proclaimed, her high-collared dress looking as well-made and carefully-tailored as Lord Mythos’ jackets always had been. Like him, she was ringed with guards. “And for this hunt, the prize is like none other. A handful of gold might pay for a new shop or a freshly painted gondola. An invitation to a party might get you new connections or an experience you’ve never had before. I’m offering you something more- a single wish. If the item you are hunting for is found, I will grant the finder any one thing that is in my power to grant. So, search hard and make me proud!”
Marielle glanced at Etienne. He stood leaning forward, his jaw clenched and fists balled at his side as if he could barely control himself as the next speakers walked forward. Was that worry pouring off of him in ochre waves?
The girl with the long hair joining Lady Saga on the wide balcony made Marielle gasp. She looked like Tamerlan – soft where he was hard, slight where he was broad – but her likeness to him was remarkable. That was his light hair, his distinct jawline, his dreamy eyes. She even had shoulders a little too broad for her clinging dress – like his broad shoulders. Could that be his sister? It was strange to see her, knowing that she was at the root of all the tragedy in the past two weeks. She probably didn’t even know it.
“It’s worse than that, Marielle,” Jhinn hissed as the newcomers arranged themselves. “They are coming to destroy us all. Beware any connections they make to you. They might seem helpful or benign, but any tie at all will bind you to them and you will not be able to escape. Promise me that you won’t let them offer you anything!”
Marielle turned to him. “It’s too late. The one in the button up coat has decided to be my Wind Guide – whatever that is.”
“Mer’s spit!”
But his next words were washed away by the announcement.
“I am Renli Di’sham and this is my beloved fiancé Amaryllis Zi’fen. Amaryllis will tell you about the hunt this year!”
“Whatever you do, Marielle, don’t take any gifts from them, okay? Nothing, no matter how valuable, is worth that cost,” Jhinn hissed.
“Okay,” she said uncertainly. “What do you mean by that?”
But he was already rowing away as Amaryllis spoke to the noisy crowd. Marielle clenched her jaw in frustration.
“The Dawnspell hunt this year will be for King Abelmeyer’s Eye,” Amaryllis proclaimed. “A ruby amulet of great power. With it, we will overthrow the dragon which destroyed our neighboring city and we will make Xin safe again!”
A cheer erupted from the crowd – a cheer so loud that Marielle clamped her hands over her ears.
“Look for it in the hiding places of King Abelmeyer! Search his statues and drink houses. Comb his bridges and obelisks. We will find it somewhere in our city!”
There was a roar of approval and then Lord Mythos was pushing through the crowd. He grabbed Marielle by the collar, dragging her close so he could shout into her ear over the noise of the crowd. His eyes – desperate – were nothing compared to the pulsing orange and ginger of his scent.
“Take the guests to Spellspinner’s Cures. I will return when I can. Keep them safe.”
He was gone, slipping into the crowd faster than an eel through water. Marielle turned to the Harbingers, ignoring the fury on Liandari’s face. Anglarok’s mouth and nose were wrapped in a scarf just like hers, so she couldn’t see what his expression was as she spoke.
“I’ve been ordered to guide you,” she yelled over the cacophony. “Will you follow me, please?”
A knot was forming in her stomach. Jhinn’s warning had been clear – she should be avoiding these people. But she had also promised to serve the Lord Mythos and she couldn’t obey both at once. Where had he disappeared to? And why did he seem so shaken by the hunt for King Abelmeyer’s Eye?
“I don’t think your friend got his wish,” Anglarok said as they pushed a path through the crowd for the others. “But don’t worry, Windsniffer, when we reach our destination, I have a gift for you.”
And how, exactly, was she going to avoid receiving it? Things just kept getting more and more complicated. Marielle felt a twitch beginning in the corner of her eye.
11: At Home in a Library
Tamerlan
TAMERLAN GASPED, LEANING against the wall to try to clear the stars from his vision. What he needed was a glass of cold water and some sleep. What he wanted were answers.
The way forward seemed surprisingly clear and he didn’t want to lose that clarity. Not when it might make redemption a possibility.
The past can’t be redeemed. But the future can be stolen.
Lila Cherrylocks had a grim outlook on his chances, but she’d sing a different tune when he found a way to atone for his past.
This Library reminded him gut-wrenchingly of the Queen Mer library. It was Dedicated to Deathless Pirate, an ensemble of skulls and bones, shipwrecks, and artfully depicted crashing waves. And just like the Queen Mer Library, The Deathless Pirate Library was guarded by a pair of vigilant librarians, complete in long, smooth aprons with soft cloth gloves on their hands. They were as concerned with keeping finger oils off parchment as they were with keeping humans away from their books entirely.
He wasn’t known here. He didn’t work for a guild or have a sponsor. And that meant his only hope of accessing the books would be to sneak into the library. With a wound in his shoulder that had been infected and was only just now recovering, that wasn’t going to be easy. He took a long breath, flinching from the pain of it.
Don’t let them see you.
Yes, great advice. Don’t let the people you are hiding from see you.
Your cynicism and selfishness will be your downfall. That was Byron Bronzebow. True heroes are men of valor both in action and thought.
So, don’t be selfish and don’t let them see you. Got it.
And don’t take that tone with us! Lila snapped. Just do as I say. Wait.
He waited. Waiting was good. It let him catch his breath.
Pick up a small stone from that crack in the masonry.
He picked it up.
Think you can toss it past the Librarians so that they go to check on the books behind them?
Probably.
Do it.
He grabbed the tiny stone, throwing it deftly through the open main doors and to the library beyond and then dodging back to his place against the wall beside the door. His wound flared with pain and he felt a seep of fluid in his shoulder. Great. He was bleeding again.
“What w
as that?” one of the Librarians asked and then there was the sound of feet on marble.
He peeked around the corner. The other Librarian was writing in her ledger, the scritch, scritch of the quill a steady sound.
Get low.
He couldn’t crawl, not with his shoulder the way it was.
Do your best.
He stayed low, following Lila’s directions as she led him through the doors and past the librarian’s desk to the library beyond.
Simple.
And yet you couldn’t have done it without me.
He really couldn’t.
Why are you here?
To look for any information on King Abelmeyer. I need to find that amulet!
He angled his steps to hug the library wall, careful not to rub against the soaring bookshelves. That other librarian was in here somewhere and he didn’t want to be caught by her.
A waste of time. Abelmeyer may have owned the amulet and it may have been named after him as ‘Abelmeyer’s Eye’ but you don’t really think that it stayed with him, do you? You don’t really think it’s on a statue somewhere or in King Abelmeyer’s grave.
Why wouldn’t it be? He was slinking along a shelf of Dragonblood Plain history. There would be something here about the Eye. If Tamerlan was at home anywhere, it was in libraries. His fingers skimmed the spines of familiar titles.
Legends of the Five Cities
Power, War, and Inter-City Skirmishes of the Early Years
Tombs, Graves, and Markers
He pulled that one off the shelf, carefully flipping the edges of the pages, careful not to damage them.
If you are really adamant about finding this thing, you should just ask us.
Okay, I’m asking. Where is it?
He skimmed along the book. The author had noted every tomb and grave by the name of the deceased. King Abelmeyer’s was a huge barrow on the edge of the cliffs outside the city wall. It should be easy enough to find, though he’d have to dig to get into it. Oh. But there was also a sarcophagus in the city. Well, which one was he buried in, then? And why have two gravesites? The text tangled around the subject as if it was afraid to disclose the truth.
Well, I don’t know where it is, Lila admitted as he searched through the text, but one of the other Legends will. It’s almost certain that one of us knows. Maybe even King Abelmeyer.
I don’t know where this amulet lies, Byron Bronzebow added. But if you find it, you must not keep it for yourself. Wealth is meant to be redistributed to the people.
He’d have to find it first. He’d worry about how to use it to bind dragons and help people after that.
So, smoke your herbs and call the Legends, Lila urged. Someone will know where it is.
Dragon. Dragon. Dragon. Ram sounded heartbroken as he continued his endless chant. It was giving Tamerlan a headache.
And what? Let them destroy Xin, too? Let them slaughter innocents and destroy the peace?
Don’t blame all of that on us. Ram only wants to kill dragons. And that’s what he would have done if you hadn’t called him right before a blood sacrifice! Any fool would have known that he had to stop that. You can’t kill dragons and feed them at the same time.
Dragon! Kill!
Well, Tamerlan hadn’t known. And what other little peccadillos might the other Legends have if he called on them? Would King Abelmeyer turn out to be a conquering General who started a war? Would Deathless Pirate steal a ship and sail off to sea? Would Grandfather Timeless stop the passage of time and freeze them all in place? Who could say? And because Tamerlan couldn’t say, he certainly wouldn’t risk it. Not again.
Waves of pain crashed over him and nausea crept up. He’d better wrap this up and get back to Spellspinner’s Cures.
On a whim, he searched out the next entry about a Legend.
Deathless Pirate is said to be buried off the Dragon’s Spit point. His corpse was never recovered from the golden cage he was locked in. They sank the cage off the point in the middle of a storm so that no one would ever be able to find that precise location again. Or so it is said.
Helpful.
He was skimming to the next page when he heard a footstep behind him. He ducked and felt a whoosh of air over his head before he stumbled, nearly falling to the ground. The book was dragged from his hands as he fell to one knee, coughing and clutching his chest.
“Fools, all of them. And you’re a fool, too,” a quiet voice said in a menacing tone. The owner of the voice was agitated, his grumble turning to a rant as he spoke. “I told her not to use this as a way to find the amulet. I asked her to promise. And what does she do? The opposite! And now we’ll have fools at every turn! And I told Allegra to keep you in bed and what does she do but let you out to bleed to death in the streets!”
“We’re not in the streets.” Tamerlan struggled to his feet, still gasping, his eyes widening as he saw the man in front of him. Lord Mythos! The ruler of Jingen! The man who had tried to kill Marielle and who had stabbed him through the chest!
He choked on his breath as he tried to form the words to vent his wrath, but the other man just chuckled wryly.
“Didn’t expect to see me again, did you?”
“You’re alive!”
“I’m hard to kill,” Lord Mythos said, examining the book he’d snatched from Tamerlan. “And you are reading a book about graves. Thinking of designing your own?”
He raised a quizzical eyebrow.
“No,” Tamerlan said mildly, but his mind was buzzing like a hive of bees. “What are you going to do now that you’re here? Are you going to make trouble for my sister?”
“What does that matter to you, magic thief?” Lord Mythos said and Tamerlan’s eyebrows rose as crossed his arms over his chest. He was a foot shorter than Tamerlan, but Tamerlan still remembered how quick he was with his sword and the way he was standing suggested that he might draw at any moment.
“I never stole magic. A grimoire, yes. Marielle, yes. People’s lives ... I stole those.” Tamerlan felt his voice growing heavier with each admission.
“My city,” Lord Myths growled through clenched teeth. “My people. My dragon. You stole those! I can still sense the magic on you! You took it and you used it to destroy everything that I loved.”
“Then kill me,” Tamerlan said, feeling the blood drain from his face. “I won’t deny any of it. I did all those things. I deserve death.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “Kill me.”
He spread his arms out, flinching from the pain in his shoulder. He wouldn’t run from his fate.
“If I planned to kill you, boy,” Boy? He was barely older than Tamerlan! “You’d already be dead. No, what I want is answers. I want to know how you gathered the magic you used. I want to know where it came from and how to get it back.”
Tamerlan hissed. “Some secrets are too precious to part with.”
The Lord Mythos frowned. “Everyone has their price. Yours is the sister, yes?”
Tamerlan clenched his jaw.
“We’ll work on the price later.” Lord Mythos flipped open the book to the page that Tamerlan had been reading. “Deathless Pirate? King Abelmeyer? Hmmm. You are joining the hunt. Think you’re up for it?”
He looked pointedly at Tamerlan’s shoulder.
“I’ll do what I must,” Tamerlan said. He wasn’t up for it. He wasn’t up for any of this, but it was up to him to make it right. He had a debt too heavy to bear, a price too steep to pay. He’d just have to do what he could and hope it somehow sufficed.
“Your sister is betrothed to Renli of Yan,” Lord Mythos said, considering Tamerlan. “But not everyone in Xin approves of Yan. And both cities are in a precarious position. With refugees flooding in – my people, now destitute because of your recklessness – and ships on the horizon, and harvest coming soon, there are many avenues for the more ... ambitious ... among us to plant doubts or sow chaos. And if they do – if there is an uprising or a revolution – she would be collateral damage. You went to a lot o
f trouble to keep her from me in Jingen. What kind of trouble would you go to for her safety here in Xin?”
Tamerlan ground his teeth. He knew a threat when he heard one. And he knew that Lord Mythos planned to use him. But what did he want to use him for?
“I’ll do what I must,” Tamerlan said thickly. But what would he do if he had to choose between redemption and his sister? It would be like making the same choice a second time around. Had he chosen the wrong path last time? He thought so. But would be able to choose differently? Did he have that kind of betrayal in his heart?
“That’s good to hear. Because if you want things to remain stable, and if you want her to live, then you will have to help me.”
“Help you do what?” Tamerlan felt like he was balancing on the edge of a knife as he awaited the reply.
“Help me find Ablemeyer’s Eye before this whole city tears itself to pieces.”
12: Chaos Bubbles
Marielle
“THIS WAY!” MARIELLE led the way through the Government District toward a massive stairway that would take them down to the Spice District below. She was almost at the head of the stairs when strong arms grabbed her, pulling her from the surging crowd and dragging her against a nearby wall.
“She’s a Scenter! Look at that scarf!” He was a big man, twice her size. She fought for her knife, but her arms were pinned to the wall.
“The City Watch isn’t going to help us find the Eye,” his companion said – a smaller man and soft around the middle.
“She’s not City Watch. She’s not wearing a badge. She’ll help us whether she wants to or not. Won’t you little woman?”
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