Still thinking like a thief, Des, she chided herself, realizing she didn’t have to ‘make off’ with anything. She was on the business of the king. She had authority; rights to someone else’s horse if she needed it. All she had to do was flash the crest the king had bequeathed to her.
“Come on,” she said, rising to retrieve Clevwrith. There was no sense in prolonging this. She didn’t want to play games anymore. Jerking Clevwrith away from the storefront, she made as if to tow him down the street toward the carriage.
He didn’t budge.
Irritated, she glanced sharply over her shoulder. “I mean it, Clevwrith. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
He stared back stoically. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy on you. You think you get to betray me, hunt me down like an animal, half-drown me, and then condemn me to eternal imprisonment or death, and I’m just going to roll over and submit because you mean something to me? Because you’re someone I would die for?”
A lump welled in her throat, the idea that she might have to fight him every step of the way filling her with grief. A heavy solemnity overcame her, a grave appeal from somewhere deep inside coming to light as she met his gaze. “Please.” It was all she could manage, but she willed him to sense the consternation behind the plea, willed him to understand there was more to this than some stupid contest, some inconsequential victory. That she needed this from him, even if she didn’t deserve it. For both our sakes. Just pick up your godsforsaken feet.
To her surprise, after a long moment staring back, Clevwrith caved. His defiance evaporated. Though it was surely with great reluctance, and no insignificant amount of bitterness, he took a step forward. Then another.
Walked down the street toward his fate without another word of bravado or protest.
Swallowing her despair, Despiris followed, her fingers settling more gently around his elbow. For a moment, his cooperation made her soft again, her merciless determination swinging back toward compassion. Maybe you could let him ride in the carriage, rather than tying him to a horse. Maybe you don’t need to apprehend the gentlemen’s steed at all, if Clev is willing to walk.
Maybe they could just have a nice, peaceful stroll back to the palace, enjoying his last moments of freedom together.
But a margin of cold calculation won out, shooting down the notion before it could take hold. Naïve again, Des. Even though Clevwrith seemed to be acting off something genuine evoked by her plea, there was that little voice in the back of her head that reminded her he was and always would be a trickster.
In spite of whatever real love they had for one another, she couldn’t trust him. Not in this scenario.
She would ask the man for his horse. That was final.
Escorting Clevwrith across the street, she approached the illuminated storefront – noting the richly gowned mannequins in the windows and the sign that read The Lace Lotus over the doorway – and the gentleman who reclined without. Drawing herself up, she did her best not to appear like some thief scuttling out of the shadows.
“Excuse me, sir,” she announced herself, employing only the most eloquent of diction she’d mastered in her etiquette classes. The driver glanced over his pipe, shooing away the smoke to make out who approached. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I’m on king’s business and I find myself in need of assistance.” Fishing in her pouch for the royal sigil, she presented it for his inspection. “I’ve apprehended this fugitive, but I was separated from my convoy during the chase. I wonder if I might borrow your mount. I’ll have one returned to you as soon as I reach the palace.”
The driver reached for the sigil, drawing it into the light for inspection. “A fugitive, you say?” Curious, he peered past her at Clevwrith. “What mischief’s he been up to?”
“Oh, you know. This and that. General tomfoolery and running amok.”
“That so?” Relinquishing the sigil, he took the pipe stem from his lips and blew the smoke away from Despiris, returning his attention to Clevwrith. “Giving this pretty thing trouble, ay, sonny?”
Though thoroughly sullen about the situation, Clevwrith played along. “Not anymore, sir.”
Despiris stuffed down another pang at his bleak deference. “I’m sure a week in the slammer and subsequent humiliation of a trial will set him right straight.”
“Do you mind?” Clevwrith asked unexpectedly. Despiris stole a glance over her shoulder to find he was addressing the driver, nodding toward the man’s pipe. “Last moments of freedom, and all that.”
Evidently, he looked glum enough to earn the man’s sympathies, at least as far as being allowed the dignity of one last smoke before the ‘slammer’.
Handing the pipe to Clevwrith, the man turned back to Des. “I don’t reckon it’s much trouble. Mistress’ll probably be a while.” He jerked his head in the direction of the shop entrance, patting his middle. “Gained a little extra in the corset strings by no fault of extra pudding, if you take my meaning, and she and her Mr. are putting a rush on the nuptials. Last-minute dresses have kept me up till the wee hours of the morning for nigh a week.”
Frowning as Clevwrith took a drag and released the smoke toward the twinkling night sky, Despiris turned distractedly back toward the driver. She’d never seen Clevwrith smoke a day in her life. For a brief moment, the uncharacteristic behavior made her suspicious. What is he doing? But she could only imagine the turmoil he was wrestling with, facing his reckoning. She supposed she didn’t blame him for seeking one last little indulgence, one desperate tonic to numb the experience. Shaking the troubling visual from her head, she tried to focus on what the driver was saying.
Child out of wedlock. Rushed wedding. Last-minute dresses sewn feverishly after-hours. “Well. I’m sure we’ll have you up and running again long before the wee hours.”
“No matter. The house of Donnel is happy to serve the king.”
“Your service is appreciated. I’m sure–”
Just then, a sudden whoosh cut the silence, a bright flare catching her peripheral vision. She spun just quickly enough to see that the curtain in the carriage window had caught fire, and, pipe discarded in the gutter, Clevwrith scuttled around to the back of the carriage and out of sight.
Alarm spiking, Despiris lunged for the carriage, not sure if she meant to beat out the flames or dash around the back after Clevwrith. Both proved futile, the rest of the carriage igniting like a matchbox and spooking the horse from its post. With a frightened snort the animal lurched forward, the carriage jerking away from the shopfront. When the blaze kept pace with the startled equine, the beast panicked outright, bolting in earnest down the street.
As the contraption clamored away, Despiris caught a horrifying visual of Clevwrith, dragging in its wake with the chain of his cuffs hooked over a decorative iron loop arching form the axel. She balked at the sight, the extreme maneuver the last escape attempt she had expected. But she couldn’t falter more than an instant; if she didn’t act fast, she wouldn’t be able to catch the carriage, and Clevwrith would be dragged to death through the streets of Fairoway.
She bolted after the burning chariot, adrenaline propelling her instantaneously into a dead run. Clevwrith, you idiot, what have you done?
His body clattered and bumped over the cobbles, twisting as he strained to hold a less painful position. It was futile, of course. He’d set himself up for a wild ride.
Curses ran through her head, the drastic turn of events triggering a frenzied reaction, a desperation that threatened her clarity. Confused, aghast, she struggled to get up to speed with the situation. Cursing Clevwrith for such extreme measures. Cursing herself for not expecting it.
Was it really worth the risk, such rampant self-destruction?
But she’d always said he would go down fighting. That he would rather die than succumb to a life behind bars. Why would he be any more able to betray his nature, just because she was the one who had caught him?
He could never simply roll over. He just couldn’t.
<
br /> He didn’t have it in him.
Shod hooves ringing and sparking on the pavement, the fleeing draft horse lit up Cashmere Street, dragging the Shadowmaster and his getaway inferno behind.
27
Alley of Daggers
“You win when you outsmart me, Des. Not when you pretend you would slit my throat if I tried to get away.” – Clevwrith
*
The carriage careened down the lane, teetering and banging against streetlamps in a zigzag pattern as it went. It was this erratic motion, the delirious dodging from side to side, that allowed Despiris to gain ground.
Still, it was a moving target, prone to shirking and pulling away.
Feeling the effects of his recklessness, Clevwrith grasped at the chain he had hooked, struggling to pull his weight off the street. But he could never find relief for long, the bumpy ride constantly jostling his hold, slamming him back down, flipping him over and flaying him anew. He bumbled along like a rag doll, a cringe-worthy spectacle of fraying fragility.
But it was his cries that undid her. The inevitable crumbling of his resolve as the full consequences of his actions came to collect. Sounds of agony tore from his lips – sporadic, at first, moments of weakness willfully suppressed. But they became more frequent, more pressing, instilling a sickening sense of urgency.
She had to get to that carriage.
And not just to it, but on it.
Darting for a gap, Despiris prayed she wouldn’t get battered into a streetlamp. Charging up alongside the clattering contraption, she launched from a lamp base to the back of the carriage. The fire was all at the front now, the canvas covering the back half burnt to a crisp. Catching herself on the sooty iron frame, she hissed at the hot metal against her palms, dropping quickly to her knees to reach the axel.
Bumbling over a pothole, the carriage dislodged her, sending her all but sprawling back into the street. She caught herself just in time, her top half lurching out over open air. Hauling herself back, she tried again, draping herself awkwardly over the frame and straining for Clevwrith’s shackles.
The instant her fingers brushed the chains, proving she could reach, she fumbled at her belt for her pouch. Inside, she groped for the key, a variety of effects spilling out and strewing down the street in the wake of the carriage.
Cursing her hastiness, she dug deeper, praying the key hadn’t been one of the lost tokens. For a horrifying moment, she came up empty, afraid she’d just made a fatal mistake. But then – there! She grasped the shaft, jerking the key free of the pouch. It took a few tries, the carriage’s erratic motions making her aim jerky, clumsy. But then the key plunged in, freeing one of Clevwrith’s wrists.
He swerved behind the carriage as his anchor point changed, dragged sideways with all the strain on one arm now. Desperately, he clutched at the loose shackle, trying to steady himself as Despiris worked on freeing his other wrist. The chain had gotten thoroughly tangled with the looping iron, removing any chance of coming loose simply by freeing one hand.
It seemed an eternity, Clevwrith growling in pain through gritted teeth as he was raked over the cobbles, but at last the second lock clicked open. With a startling suddenness, he fell away from the moving carriage, tumbling to a halt in the street as the inferno carried Des onward.
Pulling herself upright, she leaped from the carriage, landing hard and spinning to break her fall. When she came up, dizzily searching for Clevwrith’s form, she found him impossibly on his feet, limping into a jog toward an adjoining alley.
Unbelievable. He was still trying to escape.
Of course, that had been his plan. He hadn’t hitched himself to a burning chariot and risked being dragged to death for nothing. No. It had been a calculated move. Desperate, but calculated. He’d known she would come after him, that she would never leave him to such a violent, gruesome ordeal. He’d set himself up for a vicious maiming where his only out was Despiris releasing him from his shackles.
She’d put herself in harm’s way in the flooding sewers to prey upon his care for her, and it was his turn to do the same.
She took off after him, her objective unchanged. Cruel and clever her quarry may be, but he’d still been put through the wringer. Of the two of them, she knew she still had more to give. She would overtake him again before he got far.
In spite of his condition, he still managed to dizzy her down a series of twists and turns before she began to overtake him. She had not been wrong, though – he didn’t have as much to give. For what must have been the thousandth time, master and apprentice flew down the alley in the same long-winded, epic chase that had ravaged the city over months past – but this time, the apprentice closed in with a sense of finality. Saw an era coming to an end in the shrinking strip of pavement separating her from her slowing target. She was upon him, gasping for air as she called on one last reserve of speed. Her muscles bunched, coiling to tackle him–
Clevwrith dived and rolled unexpectedly, a rapid flurry that saw him back up in an instant, facing her with a knife in his hand.
That inevitable sparkle of doubt flashed through her; had she only been catching up because he wanted her to? She just didn’t know anymore.
She skidded to a halt, but slammed nevertheless into his waiting embrace, barely managing to avoid skewering herself on his weapon. She wasn’t the only one who should be worried about surprise knives, however.
Two could play at that game.
She had her own knife half-drawn even as he finished catching her, brandishing it at his throat as she came to a halt with his blade at her gut.
To sway the stalemate, they were immediately finding and discarding each other’s next closest dagger, and then the closest one after that – and so on and so forth, a race to disarm one another and see who came out one knife ahead.
The silken slice of blades being rapidly unsheathed filled the alley, punctuated by breathless gasps of exhaustion and adrenaline. By the time they were finished, a litter of gleaming knives lay strewn all around them, and they were thoroughly tangled in a knot of groping, grappling limbs with a knife still in every hand, threatening one another equally. In addition to the edge at Clevwrith’s throat and the point at Des’s middle, they each had a second knife poised at each other’s backs.
Suddenly it all stopped. The only sound was their labored breathing, the only movement the sweat trickling down their spent bodies.
“Now what?” Despiris huffed after moments passed and nothing changed.
Clevwrith’s chest heaved against her forearm as he calculated the question. And then, bravely disregarding the pressure of the blade at his throat, he pushed against it toward her. He was kissing her before she could have guessed his intent, ignoring the thin stream of blood that slid down his neck, ignoring the fierce rivalry between them that had nearly just gotten them both killed.
Or him killed twice, depending on how one looked at it.
His lips were fire, salty with sweat and desperate with need, soft and hard at once, angry and worshipful and unraveling. He drew back briefly, just long enough to catch his breath and search her gaze – and for her to notice the blood at his throat, ignored or unfelt as it mingled with his sweat – and then he bent back into her, unable to stop now that he had started.
It was long overdue, a release of tension held taut between them for months. Despiris found herself kissing him back, forgetting the weapons held against one another, ignoring the irony of exchanging affection while openly threatening each other’s lives.
At some point, the forgotten knives fell, clattering to the alley at their feet. Clevwrith cinched his arms around her, and she dug her fingers into his back, his neck – anywhere she could clutch at him to force him closer. Closer, deeper, into her. When that wasn’t enough, she pushed back, crowding him up against the alley wall. Their lips broke apart at the impact, and for a brief moment he looked at her, startled by her intensity – but just as quickly delighted by it. His fingers twined into her hair, crushing h
er lips back to his.
If risking his life for her in the tunnels hadn’t proved it, she realized it in that moment – he was hers. All this time she’d been chasing him, but she’d caught him a long time ago.
It all seemed silly, suddenly, this determination to chase each other around all day, like they didn’t belong together.
Clevwrith seemed to come to a similar conclusion, drawing back once more to look into her eyes. “Des, you fool girl,” he murmured, the pain in his gaze suggesting he was reflecting on the deadly stunt she’d pulled in the tunnels.
But he was just as guilty of risking his life at the mercy of that runaway carriage. “Clevwrith, you idiot.”
His thumb rubbed across her cheek, pushing back a lock of wet hair plastered to her face. “I could have lost you,” he breathed, expression crimping with open grief. It doubled when something else occurred to him. “Or did I lose you the day you left me for them?”
Did he really think she would forget all he had been to her, just like that? That she would wipe it away like so much chalk on a board and never look back? She could scarcely stand the look in his eyes, the shadow of looming pain ready to crash down with her answer. If her answer was the one he couldn’t help but fear.
“You couldn’t lose me if you tried,” she whispered sincerely, then cracked a grin. “Or haven’t you noticed?”
The light returned to his eyes. “Thank the gods for your relentlessness, then. If that’s the only way to keep you by my side, I’ll keep running forever.”
“Don’t run,” Despiris whispered. “Not now.” And she was kissing him again, more gently this time, conveying her own bittersweet mix of apology for what had been and regret for what couldn’t last.
Because this changed nothing, in the end. Only made it harder.
Suddenly, the back door to a shop banged open into the alleyway. A small form laden with over-stuffed sacks stumbled across the threshold, startling the Shadhi apart. A pair of equally-startled youthful eyes blinked at them through the slits of a crudely-formed black mask, and then the culprit spun and darted away down the alley, little wrapped morsels spilling from his sacks as he went.
Game of Towers and Treachery (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 2) Page 22
