The Broken Man

by Brandon Jones

  The Broken Man

  Thief's Harvest — Book 1

  Brandon Jones

  Copyright © 2020 Brandon Jones

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover design by: Ari Ibarra | ariirf.com

  For Emily, who believed in this book even when I couldn't.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue: Three and a Half Thieves

  Part 1: The Parose Job

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Interlude: Alia, Vale

  Alia

  Vale

  Part 2: Reverate Oak

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Interlude: Jamis, Alia, Vale

  Jamis

  Alia

  Vale

  Part 3: At the End of the Rope

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Interlude: Jamis, Alia, Vale

  Jamis

  Alia

  Vale

  Part 4: Holding the Pass

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Interlude: Vale, Alia, Tori, Jamis

  Vale

  Alia

  Tori

  Jamis

  Part 5: How the Night Ends

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue: Three and a Half Thieves

  Josen froze at the sound of wood groaning under his foot. The sound was barely audible over the chorus of crickets or the rising wind in the bare aspen branches, but it might be louder inside the house—maybe loud enough maybe to wake someone.

  So Josen waited and listened, grinning like an idiot. He shifted his weight to the other foot and wiped his sweaty hands on his pants, one at a time, careful to keep his grip. He was only ten feet up the side of the Arch Protector’s home but falling would still hurt.

  Josen tried to relax as he waited, breathing slow, but it was hard. Maybe normal twelve-year-olds didn’t get this excited sneaking about in the middle of the night, but Josen didn’t care. The air smelled like rain, and he thought he could hear the sound of thunder echoing off the mountains in the distance.

  Josen listened as long as he dared—not as long as he would have liked, but the sound of thunder was clearer now. Closer. He felt the air growing heavy with impending rain, and he wasn’t even halfway to the window. Time to get moving.

  When the first raindrops hit his hand, Josen readjusted his grip and continued his way up the side of the building, avoiding the creaky foothold easily now that he knew where it was. By the time he made it another five feet, the rain was coming down in sheets.

  The climb shouldn’t have been a difficult one—the window Josen was aiming for was about forty feet off the ground—but neither the dark nor the rain seemed to care much for what should be. The worst part was the way the rain got in Josen’s eyes and made it hard for him to see where to put his hands. So Josen climbed the last twenty feet by touch.

  Josen smiled and wiped his face on his shoulder—which didn’t help since his shoulder was just as wet as his face—as he pulled himself up the last few feet to the open window. His calves and forearms burned from the climb, but his head was a bare few feet below the windowsill now. He glanced up at the warm yellow light illuminating a perfect square of the now torrential downpour, and all the careful patience Josen possessed earlier in the climb dissipated in a rush of eagerness to pull himself into that inviting light. Ignoring the protest of exhausted muscles, Josen heaved himself up the last few feet. He grasped the edge of the windowsill and immediately felt hands, warm and strong, wrap around his wrists.

  “God’s tears, boy, don’t hang there like a dead fish. Keep climbing. I’m too old to pull you up by myself.”

  Josen grunted in reply and walked his feet up the side of the house, letting himself be pulled in through the window.

  “Grandpa,” Josen said, sliding gracelessly through the open window and onto the study floor. “I was doing fine. I didn’t need you to pull me in.”

  Grandpa Markise chuckled but didn’t say anything as he tossed Josen a towel. It was dry and soft and felt fantastic after his cold climb. Josen saw another towel draped on a rack in front of the crackling fireplace, along with a dry set of Josen’s clothes.

  Josen sighed and patted himself dry. “I really was fine,” he mumbled, stripping off his waterlogged shirt and pants.

  “I know you were,” Grandpa Markise said. He closed the window, muffling the angry sounds of the storm. “I let you climb four stories up the side of my house without so much as a word. I think I showed remarkable restraint, all things considered.”

  Grey Markise, Josen’s grandfather and the Arch Reverate Protector of the Church of the Faceless God, shook his head and sat down at his desk, where he quietly resumed working on whatever it was he had been working on while Josen had been scaling his house. Josen watched his grandfather’s keen eyes scan documents, watched his hands move to a pen or the next paper before his mind even registered that it was finished with the one in front of him.

  “You know,” Grandpa Markise said, not looking up from his papers, “if your mother finds out that her little boy was climbing up the side of my house at midnight in the rain —”

  “I’m not little,” Josen scowled. “Twelve isn’t little.”

  “That’s not how my little girl thinks of you. Either way, we’d both be in more trouble than we know how to handle.”

  “I know, I know,” Josen said. “I’ll probably get the spoon.” The infamous wooden spoon, as long as Lady Oak’s forearm, was the de facto punishment for when Josen misbehaved in a spectacular way—like climbing four stories up the side of a building during a rainstorm in the middle of the night. It was worth the risk.

  Grandpa Markise chuckled. “Only if she doesn’t break it over my hard head first.”

  “How did you know I was coming tonight?” Josen asked to change the subject.

  Grandpa Markise glanced up from his papers, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “What makes you think I knew? Maybe I heard someone stomping up the side of my house.”

  Josen gave his grandfather a flat stare, gesturing to his dry outfit. “And the towel—warmed, even—and the window was open.”

  Grandpa Markise set down his pen. “I like a little fresh air when I’m working late.”

  “In the rain.”

  Grandpa Markise’s lips twitched in amuse
ment as he stood, then came to sit next to Josen. “Josen, it is quite literally my job to know how devious minds operate—including the machinations of my only grandson. You don’t expect me to give up all my secrets, do you?”

  He ruffled Josen’s hair, and Josen let him, smiling. That was fair. Grandpa Markise was not only the Arch Protector—the head of the investigative and policing branch for the most important and powerful organization in the world—but as far as Josen was concerned, his Grandfather was the best Protector ever.

  “How did you know I would be up late tonight?” Grandpa Markise asked, raising his eyebrows in question.

  Josen wanted to smirk and shrug and tell Grandpa Markise that he wasn’t going to give away secrets either, but his excitement at the idea that Grandpa Markise might think anything he had done was clever or impressive got the better of him.

  “You don’t ever go to bed early after a Council meeting,” Josen said.

  Grandpa Markise laughed. “Indeed,” he said. “Dealing with that pack of schemers does tend to put me in a mood.” He winced. “Excepting your father, of course. He’s not one of the, uh . . .” He coughed and gave an embarrassed smile.

  Josen smiled back. He knew how his father and grandfather felt about each other. “I heard Grandma say once that she always feels like a widow for days after Council meetings.”

  Grandfather’s smile faltered, and Josen immediately felt foolish for mentioning Grandma Markise. Grandpa loved her fiercely, but she was older than he was by almost ten years and had been prone to sickness for as long as Josen could remember. She’d gotten sick again two months ago, and she wasn’t getting better. Doctor Roetu—who Josen loved for the candies he always carried—could fix anyone from anything, but he said there was nothing even he could do. Her body was simply worn out. He’d said she had a few weeks left—another month at most.

  “Grandpa, will you tell me a story?” Josen asked abruptly, not knowing what else to do. Hopefully it would distract his grandfather. And it was the whole reason he had climbed through the window in the first place.

  Grandpa Markise smiled sadly. “Of course. What kind of story do you want to hear, Josen?”

  “You know,” Josen prodded.

  A bit of familiar mischievous twinkle slipped back into Grandpa Markise’s grey-green eyes. “Well, I suppose we’re already in deep if your mother finds us out, and you did climb all the way up here . . .”

  Josen grinned. If he had just knocked on the front door in the middle of the day and asked for a story, Grandpa Markise would likely have refused, citing Josen’s parents’ wishes. But appearing at his window, in the middle of the night, in a rainstorm—Grandpa Markise was a sucker for theatrics.

  “Who do you want to hear about?”

  “The Shade,” Josen said, and noticed the smile his grandfather tried to hold back.

  “Again? You always want to hear about Grey Shade recently. Are you sure you don’t want to hear about Dania? Or Lukas Thorne?”

  “I like them too, but—”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever told you about the time Lukas stole the Aristonia’s pearls.”

  “Grandpa—”

  “Which admittedly doesn’t sound so impressive, except that Lukas did it one pearl at a time.” Grandpa Markise’s smile broadened as he spoke, and Josen couldn’t help but listen, infected by the enthusiasm flowing from his favorite person in the world.

  “Now, these were no ordinary pearls. They were the rarest sort, a full string of thirty-eight perfect, black iridescent pearls as big around as my pinky finger. I’ve never seen anything else like them.

  “The Aristonia, she didn’t even notice that any were missing for the first three nights, not until Lukas started replacing the stolen pearls with tiny, intricate black glass rosebuds. She showed me the necklace once, years later. They were beautiful—a treasure all their own.” He gave a soft laugh and shook his head. “Of course, that’s not how the Aristonia saw it. She was livid. On the fourth night, when she first noticed the missing pearls, she slept with the necklace around her own neck and woke up to find she’d still been robbed. The next night she wore a fake necklace with cleverly painted pearls and hid the real necklace underneath the bed of one of her personal servants. Lukas wasn’t fooled. When she woke, she found the fake untouched and one more glass rosebud on the real thing.

  “The Aristonia tried everything. She locked the necklace in her strongest vault with all of her most valuable possessions, then sent it to her cousin in Kendai for a night. She even sunk it to the bottom of Pomay Lake in a waterproof chest, wrapped in massive chains, to be hauled back up in the morning. No matter what the Aristonia did, no matter where she hid the necklace or how many guards she set to watch it, there was always one less pearl the following morning. Lukas never took anything else—no jewels, no money, none of the priceless art she kept in her palace. He only ever took a single black pearl, one every night for thirty-seven nights until her string of pearls was nothing but a string of black glass rosebuds.

  “Then, on the morning after the thirty-eighth night, the Aristonia woke up to find a single black pearl sitting on her bedside table, and The Girl’s Wonder—which Graccela Galliound had painted personally for the Aristonia when she was a young girl—was missing from her wall.”

  “Wow,” Josen said.

  “Wow indeed,” Grandpa Markise chuckled.

  “So that’s where he got all those pearls? The ones he left anytime he stole something?”

  Grandpa Markise nodded. “He hadn’t always done that. The pearls he left at the sights of his other robberies all came from the Aristonia’s necklace. They’ve become quite the collectors’ items, each one of them worth many times more than the entire necklace they were stolen from.”

  “Did he have any left? I mean, when you caught him?”

  “He did. Fourteen years later, the night I caught him, he had three left in a velvet pouch tied inside his pocket.”

  “Wow,” Josen said again. He licked his lips. “Where are they now?”

  “They disappeared.” Grandpa Markise tried to look annoyed, but Josen could see the amusement in his eyes. “Someone stole them right out from under my nose, right out of the Protector’s vault.”

  “What do you think he would have done if he had used those last three?” Josen asked.

  Grandpa Markise smiled sadly. “I wish I knew.”

  “I bet he would have stolen them all back. One at a time, just like he did to the Aristonia.”

  Grandpa Markise laughed and put an arm around Josen, pulling him in tight. “You know, I think you’re right, Josen. I think that’s exactly what Lukas would have done. Even with the pearls scattered all over the Passbound Union, I’ll bet he could have done it, too. I know I’ve told you this before, Josen, but I believe that Lukas Thorne was one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known. Dania was smarter, even if she didn’t have Lukas’ sense of flair. I mean, he stole one pearl every single night. Didn’t miss one. Do you have any idea the kind of planning, the foresight that must have taken? I can barely begin to grasp it, and I don’t think it’s an understatement to say that I understood Lukas better than anyone else, save maybe Dania.”

  He paused, growing somber. Josen sat rapt, not daring to speak.

  “No one ever understood them. Not really. Not Lukas, not Dania, certainly not Shade. It’s a shame I had to . . .” Grandpa Markise’s eyes seemed to be watching something far away for a moment, and Josen knew he was remembering Lukas Thorne’s execution. Grandpa Markise had been the one to catch Lukas but had then advocated for leniency. No one had listened, and Grandpa Markise still blamed himself, Josen knew.

  Grandpa Markise shook his head as if to clear it. “It’s a shame they aren’t still around. Not that I could have overlooked what they did, but the more I learned about them, the more I came to know them, the more I realized that Dania and Lukas and Shade were three of the bravest, most intelligent, and, oddly, most honest people anywhere. What they di
d—the heists and the cons—was wrong, but I still can’t help but feel that they were some of the best people I have ever known.”

  Josen sat speechless. He knew his grandfather wasn’t contemptuous of criminals the way some other Protectors were. Grandpa Markise even held a quiet admiration for a few of them—Shade, Lukas, and Dania in particular—but Josen had never heard his grandfather this direct, or . . .

  The sound of the study door opening brought Josen’s head up sharply, heart in his throat.

  “Grandpa? Mom needs . . .” Vale trailed off, mouth open in confusion, then surprise. Josen’s older sister narrowed her eyes as she stood in the doorway, taking in the sight of Josen sitting next to their grandfather in the middle of the night.

  “Oh, dear,” Grandpa Markise said.

  “You are in so much trouble,” Vale said.

  “Vale! Why are you here?” Josen asked, jumping to his feet. He glanced around the room, considered the window briefly, but the rain was still coming down in sheets. And Vale had already seen him.

  “Are you serious?” Vale said. At four years Josen’s senior, she was taller than he was by quite a bit, and the look in her eyes made him feel smaller still. “What am I doing here? I’m here helping Mom take care of Grandma. So Grandpa can get some rest.” She shot Grandpa Markise a flat look.

  Grandpa Markise grinned.

  “Mom’s here?” Josen asked. He looked back toward the window; the wet climb back down the side of the building suddenly seemed the better option.

  “Steady, Josen,” Grandpa Markise said, putting a hand on Josen’s shoulder. “What does your mother need?” he asked, turning back to Vale.

  Vale hesitated for a moment, her outrage still unspent, then deflated. “Yallinseed oil,” she said. “Grandma’s fever is rising again, and the bottle in Doctor Roetu’s pack is broken. The lightning spooked his horse, and he dropped his bag on the way here. Do you have any in the house?”

  Grandpa Markise thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “I’m sure I do, but I couldn’t begin to tell you where. Have you asked Master Porsio?” Master Porsio was the head of the house staff and had an excellent memory. If anyone would know where the Yallinseed oil was, it would be him.