“We were mired in the crowds,” Etienne explained as they left together.
Marielle clenched her jaw. She wanted to hear what else they had to say. If she was going to be stuck in these buildings for the next few days, she itched to know why. More than that, she wanted to hear what Etienne would say to the Harbingers. Especially now that she was linked to them.
With a sigh, she lit a fire, scooping water from a barrel next to it into a kettle and setting it on the hook above the flames. The fire lit easily, and she moved to Tamerlan.
He moaned as she tugged off his boots. They were wet and muddy. She threw them to the side by the wall and worked to unbuckle his belt and remove his sword. As she slid the belt off, his eyes flickered open.
“Marielle,” he sounded feverish.
“Shhh,” she said, gently pulling the belt free and hanging it on the hooks by the door. The sword was heavy, dragging at the belt. “You’re safe here, Tamerlan.”
He looked around, his eyes glassy, still muttering feverishly. “Trying to help the Lord Mythos find the Eye.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, tugging at his light armor. How did it come off? Ah! She found the leather straps, the tip of her tongue sticking out as she concentrated to loosen them.
“Trying to make it all right. Dragon.” His face was slick with sweat. It highlighted the stubble along his jaw and the sharp lines of his face.
She paused, looking at him, compassion and frustration warring inside her. He wanted to make it all right again? He wanted what she wanted.
And she was torn because part of her wanted to appreciate that desire and part of her thought it was unfair that he might find redemption when she still hadn’t found it. After all, she wouldn’t be in this mess without him.
“Are you sorry that you rescued me?” she asked gently as she pulled the armor off, piece by piece, and set it to the side of the bed.
“All those people. Innocent people.” His breathing was labored as he rambled. “Dragon. I killed them.”
The fever must be bad for him to be mumbling ‘dragon’ every few minutes. Marielle flinched from the thought of the dragon. He haunted them both. And he would destroy everything if he wasn’t stopped. But running all over the city looking for a lost amulet didn’t sound like the right way to stop him. The Harbingers had magic of their own. That would be a better way to stop a dragon.
“Marielle?” his voice, faint but still resonant as it had been the first time she met him, twisted with the golden scent of her attraction to him. It rose up with his own scent, making her mouth water with the cinnamon and honey scent of him. She was as drawn to it as ever, despite every reason she had not to be.
“Yes?” she asked as she gently tugged his tabard up and over his head, flinching when pain flashed across his face.
“Can you ever forgive me?” the words dropped from his mouth heavy and full of pain and with them, the golden attraction she felt for him flooded the room so strongly that it was more powerful to her than the turquoise and lilac of magic. More powerful than the guilt she felt over what her life had cost the world. It made her want to say ‘yes’ just to soothe him, just to make him smile.
“I don’t know,” she said, softly, honestly.
“I hope that you can someday.” His words were faint, and his eyes drooped.
She chewed her lip, closing her own eyes for a moment as pain swept over her. She was as much at fault as he was. Everything he’d done, she’d been complicit in. But how could you forgive something so horrific? How could anyone ever atone for that?
He was wicked and beautiful, tainted and attractive. He was utterly out of reach.
She cleared her throat, gently tugging the tabard over his head as he hissed in pain. It would need to be cleaned. It was soaked in blood. She hung it on one of the hooks and began to pull his shirt out of his breeches, tugging it free gently. She could feel her cheeks heating up. Practically, he needed to be undressed for his wounds to be tended. But she’d never undressed a man before and it felt – invasive. Like she shouldn’t be doing it. Like it was a small kind of crime.
He flinched from the pain with every tug of his clothing.
“Marielle?” he asked, his voice soft and thick.
“Yes?” she asked as she gently worked his shirt over his right arm and then peeled it bit by bit from the drying blood on his chest. His body was hard and strong under the bloody shirt. He could recover from this – she was sure of it.
“What do the laws say about forgiveness. Is it even possible? For someone like me?”
They said it wasn’t. They said he should sink. They said there was no redemption for a person like Tamerlan.
But why not?
He lay there, his face smooth in his half-conscious state, his big, calloused hands lying still and vulnerable on the narrow bed. It was his eyelashes that made him look the most innocent. They lay on his cheek like a child’s and she traced their soft edges with her gaze, letting it wander over his slightly parted lips and his blood-crusted chest as it rose and fell. He looked so innocent. He looked so young.
And he wasn’t innocent at all anymore. Did it matter that he’d done it all to save someone else? It mattered to him. It wouldn’t matter to the desperate survivors, mourning lost friends. It wouldn’t matter to the dead.
And yet ... couldn’t there be some hope for a man like this? What would Captain Ironarm have thought? She’d said it was moments like this where a Watch Officer really knew what she was made of. What had she meant by that? Had she meant that Marielle should be iron hard, not letting emotions or sympathy get in the way? Or had she meant that Marielle would see that not everything was so easy to judge? Some things were murkier than she could imagine.
She felt the Wind Rose over her heart – a renewed commitment to justice. She just wasn’t sure. Everything was so tangled that she lost sight of one end of the thread by the time she got to the other end.
“I don’t think there is forgiveness for someone like you, Tamerlan,” she said thickly as she slid his shirt over his head. She was sad to be the one to say this. But wasn’t honesty better than lies? Didn’t she at least owe him that? “Not for the butcher of the Temple District. Not for the man who destroyed thousands of lives.”
He shuddered as the shirt came free, his eyes opening groggily. “Be careful, Marielle. With words like that, you might make me fall in love with you.”
Was that a joke? She licked her lips. It had sounded a little bit too real.
His eyes closed again but he grunted when she spread the sheet over his battered body – she left his dirty breeches on him. She wouldn’t invade his privacy enough to remove them. If Allegra didn’t like that – well, Allegra didn’t seem to like much of anything.
His chest wound was open and bleeding, the blood crusting at the edges now that he was lying still in the bed. Just looking at it made her flinch.
The water in the kettle was boiling. In a moment, Allegra would return, and she would patch him up again, but right now he was suffering for his sins, one breath at a time, and Marielle wasn’t even sure if she thought that was a good thing or a terrible one – just or unjust.
She sighed, wishing that the world was as black and white as her vision was. If only things were simpler. If only he didn’t smell like life and hope when he was nothing but death and despair.
Dawning
Day Two of Dawnspell
16: Tenacity’s Plaything
Tamerlan
TAMERLAN WOKE TO A snore. Surprisingly, it was Marielle. It looked like she’d been sitting in a chair beside the foot of his bed and had fallen asleep and slumped over the foot of the bed.
Had he really asked her for forgiveness last night?
And had she really denied him?
That part made sense. He wasn’t sure that there was anyone who could ever absolve him for what he’d done. Not sure that he’d want to meet a person who would. What kind of crimes would a person have had to have committed to be able
to shrug at Tamerlan’s?
And yet, that was all he wanted. It burned in him like a flame. He was going to find a way to redeem himself or die trying.
Marielle’s shirt parted where she was slumped across the foot of the bed, showing the upper part of her chest where someone had tattooed a many-pointed star recently. It reminded him of a compass. Fitting. After all, she was like a moral compass, always pointing due-justice. He smiled as he watched her sleep, her snores filling the tiny room. She was too beautiful for that guard’s uniform. Too beautiful for the rough cloth and leather that she dressed in. Her long black hair had untangled from its braid and it wrapped around her like black ribbons. He felt a smile start to form but it slipped from his face when he tried to sit up.
He bit back a moan. Someone had dressed and cared for his wound, but it hurt more now than it had yesterday. Bruising spread across his chest, black and splotchy. Everything hurt. And he was mostly naked. How had that happened? He felt his cheeks heating at the memory of a small pair of hands undressing him.
Carefully, he pulled his feet from the bedclothes, trying not to disturb Marielle. She seemed unhurt beyond the tattoo – and they were safe here. At least there was that.
His clothes hung from hooks, bloodstained and muddy. They were going to be awkward to dress in.
He flinched as the door opened and Etienne walked in. He took one look at Marielle spread across the end of the bed, her legs still on the stool beside the bed and one look at Tamerlan frozen as he was about to stand. His eyebrow rose and he shook his head, his eyes narrowing for a moment as they caught on Marielle’s tattoo.
He threw a bundle of cloth at Tamerlan, speaking quietly. “Today we’ll dress down and blend in. Leave the armor. Bring the sword.”
Tamerlan nodded, grateful when the door closed behind the Lord Mythos and he could dress as slowly and painfully as he needed. The clothing was simple – tradesmen’s clothes. He was used to those. Even so, it was long minutes before he was dressed and pulling his sword belt on.
He leaned down as he was leaving, laying a palm for a moment on Marielle’s sleeping head. She hated him. She could never forgive him. And yet, she’d sat here all night guarding him while he thrashed from nightmares and memories. What kind of golden heart cared for an enemy like that? She deserved the very best.
“Ready?” Etienne asked the moment he stepped out of the room.
Tamerlan nodded. He felt anything but ready. What he needed was rest and time to heal. What he wanted was to stop this dragon before it was too late to ever find his soul again.
Dragon.
Any mention of a dragon set Ram off again. He’d muttered to Tamerlan all night, an endless litany of obsession. No wonder no one spoke of him. If he was as obsessive in life as he was in his afterlife, he couldn’t have had many friends.
Dragon. Dragon. Dragon.
Etienne coughed. “I had to carry you back here last night.”
Tamerlan felt his cheeks heat at the thought. Now he owed the Lord Mythos another debt he couldn’t repay.
“Thank you.”
“I can’t take Marielle with me. The city is ripping Scenters to pieces,” he said, shifting his weight uncomfortably, like he had something on his mind.
Tamerlan adjusted his sword. It would be hard to wield with his wound, but he would do as he must.
“So, I need you,” Etienne continued, clearly torn. After a moment he sighed and laid a hand on Tamerlan’s injured shoulder. Tamerlan flinched from the touch, but before he could even gasp in pain, fire scorched his flesh, followed by ice ripping through his body. He gasped, thinking he was dying as he collapsed to one knee, clutching at the wall for support. Everything hurt. Everything ached.
He’s killing you! Fight back! He didn’t even know which Legend was screaming in his mind, but he agreed. He was going to die.
And then, quick as a heartbeat, the pain was gone completely, leaving him sucking in deep lungfuls of air.
“You still have magic,” he gasped. “Why didn’t you use that before?”
“I’d hoped to avoid it. It’s not mine to use.”
Magic belongs to no one but the one who takes it. Tamerlan wasn’t sure if that was his thought or one of the Legends. They were beginning to sound too familiar in his mind so that sometimes their thoughts felt like his. Did that mean he was going crazy?
He worked his shoulder experimentally. It felt fine, the muscles moving easily. He drew in a breath – the first one in a long time that came easily.
“Why do that for me?”
His belly rumbled loudly, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in days. Etienne shoved a water flask toward him, and he drank deeply as the other man spoke before climbing back to his feet.
“It’s Dawning – no food anywhere in the city. You could use some, but you’ll have to go without. Call it your part of the payment for the magic I stole.”
“How does hunger pay for anything?” Tamerlan asked.
Etienne gave him a burning look. “Suffering is a form of payment. You’ll find that out. Everyone does eventually. We all pay for what we want in time, energy, or health. Today, you pay in health. Now, come on. No time to waste. I have an idea of where we can look for the Eye.”
Etienne’s idea was a bridge. Dragon Collar Bridge, to be exact.
Which was how Tamerlan found himself in the rising dawn, looking over the side of the tallest bridge he’d ever seen. It spanned between the Library District of Xin and the outer wall of the city, rising up, up, up into the air. A canal and a set of locks worked under the bridge, and even in the early morning, it was packed with boats.
Tamerlan felt a thrill of something close to apprehension. It left gooseflesh over his whole body. The last time he’d looked at a bridge it had been flying right for him as the dragon Jingen flicked his tail. He gritted his teeth. That wasn’t going to happen today.
He scanned the sky looking for a dragon silhouette. Well, it might not happen today. If they were lucky. That dragon would return sometime. It had to.
He shook himself back to reality.
It made sense to check this bridge. It was built during the time of King Abelmeyer. And it was rumored to have a hidden room in the footings, though right now Lord Mythos was striding along the bridge, inspecting the rails.
The amulet is not in the bridge, Lila Cherrylocks told him boldly.
Tamerlan tried to shove her from his mind. The more he listened to the Legends, the more they felt real. But they weren’t real, were they? Not if he didn’t smoke.
Oh, you’ll smoke again. You can’t stop now. Not when you have access to all of this.
She didn’t know him.
From the Dragon Collar Bridge, he could see the smoke still rising from the ruins of Jingen. Never again.
You’ll have to. If you want to find this amulet. Only one of us can tell you where it is.
A ruse. To trick him into evil. Lila was a trickster and he should never forget it.
I’ll tell you what – what about if you go and find your hidden room just like you want to. But before you do, I’ll tell you what you find inside and if it’s what I say it is, then you’ll smoke the mixture and call on us and the right Legend will show you to where the amulet really is.
No deal.
Then you admit that it’s not here?
It could be here. Etienne was right that this Bridge was built at the right time. And Tamerlan had read about the rumors of a hidden room. If anyone could find that room, it would be Tamerlan and Etienne. Etienne had brought the book with them, and he’d given it to Tamerlan before he started to inspect the railing.
The book went into detail about the way the bridge had been constructed before moving on to Abelmeyer’s mausoleum. Why detail the bridge if it wasn’t connected to that somehow?
I look at you and I laugh.
Laugh all you want, Lila. I’m going to find the amulet.
No, that’s the clue about what you’ll see inside.
A clue? It sounded like a taunt. Tamerlan rolled his eyes and looked again at the bridge diagram. Why would they put that beam offset in one of the piers but not the others? That seemed strange. And the brickwork on that one – while the same in the diagram – looked slightly different on the actual bridge. He squinted at it. It was hard to see from up here. He needed to get further down the pier to be sure.
Down along the bridge, Etienne was trotting toward him. As the sun burnt the mist from the canals and the lower buildings, the people were pouring into the streets.
Dawning had always been one of Tamerlan’s favorite holidays. He loved the feeling of setting your life in order, of cleaning out every part of it, of lighting your sins on fire to drift into the sky. They’d be doing that tonight, making little paper lights that drifted up into the air with their evil written on the balloons – setting it free, seeing it leave, cleaning out hearts and minds just as they cleaned buildings and streets. But this time during Dawning, that wouldn’t be enough for him. His sin had flown up in the air, alright – in the shape of a dragon bigger than a city and more deadly than anything he could imagine.
And it seemed that Dawning was not the same this year in Xin, either. He didn’t see the lines of Smudgers who usually filled the streets. He frowned as he looked around. Where were they during this holiday? He would have expected them to be there in huge lines of worshippers, weaving through the city. He caught sight of knots of timekeeper priests, their mandalas hanging from belts and cords around their necks. Their bells rang at their hems just as the bells rang every hour all through the city. But where were the Smudgers?
“We need ropes,” Etienne said as he arrived back to where Tamerlan was. “There’s nothing on the railings. The room must be somewhere below, and we’ll only see it if we scale down from the top of the bridge.”
“Where are the Smudgers?” Tamerlan asked.
Etienne ignored the question. “We can start with one pier and work our way down each of them to find where the secret room might be.”
Dawnspell Page 10
