Chapter 51
T he aurora sits low, edging toward the west as we move between rounded buildings the color of burnt clay. Urns sprout from the ground, gushing plants and trees and vines that climb all over the rich, organic city, buskers perched within sloped corners blowing tunes from copper flutes.
We jostle through a bustle of folk clothed in garments that drape, pinch, and twist around their bodies like cleverly worn veils, and I can’t help but wonder if everyone in Dhomm has the same garment in brown, black, or rust and just wears it differently—a pin here, a clip there, a copper belt looped around the waist.
Seems likely.
Parchment larks flutter in the space above our heads, diving into the outstretched hands of smiling, laughing folk. Nobody appears starved, homeless, or has a clip in their ear. Not that I can see, anyway.
“Folk appear to enjoy existing here,” I muse, watching two younglings dash after each other, their lilting giggles hitting the most beautiful notes. Two folk I suppose are their parents watch on from beneath a crooked tree, licking at dollops of something creamy-looking that’s cradled within coiled black cones. “It’s nice.”
And I couldn’t have been more wrong about this place.
Pyrok cuts me a sideways glance. “I hear you lived in Gore until you were—”
“Offered to the dragons?”
“Yes. That.” He pulls a flat gold token from his pocket and flicks it through the air, snatching it. “Have you traveled elsewhere?”
There’s an easy lightness in the way he hands me the question, but it still feels like catching an ember.
I consider the cold journey north toward the wall after I finally escaped from … there. Consider the horrors I encountered.
Fought.
The loneliness that bit so deep it gouged bone.
“Just here,” I say, batting the memories aside. “Though I was mostly unconscious or inside Rygun’s mouth. I wouldn’t exactly call it sightseeing—unless you count the ball of flame in the back of his throat that kept threatening to incinerate me.”
A perfect reminder that this city may glow with a happy radiance, but its beautiful king still toted me around like a toothpick. Perfect reason not to fall too far in love with the place. And it’s hot here—I hate the heat. And Rekk needs to be skinned alive, cured, then used as a fucking floor rug.
“You seem to be taking me on a tour,” I mutter, pointing at a tree that’s woven its way around a building like a gnarled crown, boasting big coppery blooms that look like flapping wings. “I’m certain we passed that earlier, when the aurora was sitting much higher in the sky.”
“Relax,” Pyrok drawls, pausing by a market cart. “Unless you’ve got somewhere you need to be?”
Not here. Not in this inviting, wholesome city where folk are too easy to be around. Too easy to want to be around.
Too easy to grow attached to.
“There’s always somewhere to be. What are you buying?”
“Molten Mead.” He swaps his token for a terracotta mug ladled with a red-toned drink. He looks at me over his shoulder, brow popped. “Want one?”
“Maybe later.”
More small gold tokens glint in the sun as the merchant drops them in Pyrok’s hand. His change, I assume.
Pyrok threads in beside me, whistling to the sway of his steps, leading me on what I suppose will be another lap of our tour.
“Gold is your currency here?”
“Sure is.” He draws a deep sip from his mug, releasing a satisfied hiss. “This kingdom doesn’t support the mining of fossilized dragon blood,” he says, a hardness to his tone that wasn’t there before. “Mining it promotes spilling it.”
My brows pinch together. “Is it used here? For its medicinal purposes?”
He shrugs. “What finds its way into the city wasn’t mined by folk under this kingdom’s protection.”
Interesting.
I move around a busker plucking a pretty tune from a large emberwood string instrument that draws my eye.
My ear.
That makes me want to stop, sit, and listen .
“So The Burn has untapped reserves of bloodstone?” I ask, looking left, only to find Pyrok nowhere.
Just … gone. Like the ground ate him up.
I whip around, catching sight of his blaze of hair down a side alley, standing at least a head taller than everyone else. He waves a hand for me to follow without bothering to turn, and I roll my eyes, pushing through the throng to catch up.
“Thanks for the warning,” I mutter.
“You got one. Not my fault you weren’t paying attention.” He pauses, leaning against a wall clothed in more of those russet vines bearing the bold black flowers, one hand still in his pocket while he sips his mead with the other. “Through there,” he says with a jerk of his chin. “Tell Vruhn I say hi.”
I spin, turning my attention to the wooden door of the domed building opposite him, an aged sign hanging from the awning.
I smile and grab the handle, pausing to glance over my shoulder. “Need anything?”
“Not unless Vruhn’s decided to stock brandy alongside his collection of bug wings,” he says, then takes a deep drag of his drink.
Shaking my head, I shove into the rounded store, drawing the smell of leather and dust. I glance around the curved wall of shelves stacked with books, tinctures, etching sticks, and bits of volcanic rock. Sabersythe tusks hang from the ceiling, suspended from lengths of copper chain, each bearing price tags that mean nothing to me since I’m not used to dealing in gold.
Fingers crossed this heavy lump of a thing I’ve been lugging around the city is worthy enough to fetch the supplies I need, hopefully with some coins left over so I can hire a carter back to the wall.
I move through a labyrinth of shelves until I reach the back of the store pinned with a mosaic of small, medium, and large bug wings, making me frown.
Wonder where the armory is …
My gaze lands on a male with wiry white hair that sticks out in all directions—presumably Vruhn. He’s sitting behind a cluttered stone counter mixing tinctures, white and blue beads threaded through his rebellious locks.
A line forms between his brows, and his hand stills, gaze lifting. His airy eyes cast my feet in stone and pitch my pulse.
They’re milky like the Sól’s—such a contrast to his dark skin—and they’re staring straight through me.
My heart flops into my gut as something flashes to the forefront of my memory, like a piece of flesh thrown on a bed of flaming coals:
A big pair of ivory eyes stare blankly in my direction, a blow of icy breath battering my face as a cold, luminous, leathery nose nudges my chest. My chest that’s so full of love. So full of …
Hurt.
So much hurt—
“Welcome to The Curly Quill,” a serrated voice says, snapping me back to the here.
The now.
Shoving the unsettling image toward my icy lake, I clear my throat, looking at the male, struggling to hold his milky stare. “Hi. I’m—”
“Here to hock off a candlestick you stole from the Imperial Stronghold. I’m quite aware, Raeve.”
I frown, narrowing my gaze on the male’s white robe, searching the many buttons down the front of his seam, seeing one that boasts a branded knot of threads.
“You’re a Mindweft,” I murmur, my voice hitched in awe. “I thought your lot were hunted and forced to work for the imperial families?”
“Painfully aware,” Vruhn says, his voice like a scratchy string. He tips his head sideways, metal mixing stick held between his thumb and finger. “You, my dear, have a very interesting mind.”
His words stuff me full of mortar, making my body feel heavy.
Laden.
“There’s a hidden … depth packed with more hurts and secrets than I can count,” he says with a swift shake of his head. “How do you manage it?”
I force my lungs full. Convince them to work.
“I ignore it,” I rasp. “Mostly.”
“Ahh.”
He sets the stick on a piece of folded cloth, wiry brows pinching together. “You’ve come for a flush of dragonscale blades, six iron ones, a bandolier, a handful of iron pins—regular size—and you’d like to be fitted with appropriate garb you can carry with you in a small, manageable bag to The Fade where you intend to hunt the bounty hunter Rekk Zharos.”
Well. This is handy.
“Correct.” I dip my head in respect of his abilities.
“Quite a list.”
“Yes, well. I had a house fire. Lost—”
Too much.
The vision of Essi too still on the seater strikes me like a shiv between the ribs, and it’s an effort not to flinch.
“I can see that,” Vruhn tells me, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m sorry, Raeve. For Essi. Regret is the heaviest burden to bear.”
I turn my stare to the mosaic ceiling.
The shelves.
My hands.
“I’m also sorry for your little Nee. I know how hard it was to activate the return fold.”
“Your mental fishing rod is very good at catching things,” I say with a forced laugh, pushing the shackle farther up my wrist to give my skin some room to breathe.
“It is. I’m sorry. It’s more a compulsion than a gift, I’m afraid.” A brief pause, then, “You also want one of my metal mixing sticks to punch that iron cuff from your wrist …”
I look up, brow lifting. His own is hitched in a quizzical arch.
“An idea you got when you walked in here. You’re going to pluck a stone from the shore and use it to tap the linchpin free.” He flashes me a mischievous smile that’s immediately infectious.
“Think it’ll work?”
“I do, though I have something more appropriate that won’t bend beneath the pressure. You also want a few things off the shelves to maintain the vision that you came in here for regular supplies. I can help with that, too.”
“Thank you,” I say, followed by another dip of my head. “Pyrok says hi. He’s right outside.”
“Tell him he needs to lay off the mead. Oh … ” His eyes widen, then squint again, like he’s peering through the folds of my brain. “I see why you brought the candlestick rather than make use of your reserves …”
Yes.
That.
“The Fíur du Ath believes I’m dead. My page should state as such. I’d like to keep it that way. At least—”
“For the time being.”
“I’m sure you can understand why.”
“Indeed,” he muses, nodding slowly. “This Sereme is quite a nasty piece of work. I see she’s kept you on a very tight … leash …”
Choker collar more like it. But sure.
All the warmth falls from his face, his eyes glazing with a sheen of tears. “You’re missing something, but you don’t know what …”
A bolt of chill shoots through my veins, boring all the way to my marrow.
“I—”
“Oh … my dear.” His face scrunches, hand clutching his chest as a tear slides down his cheek. “Something so … special ,” he sobs, his words a convulsing ache in my belly.
A swift stab to the left side of my chest.
“The answer is within you. In the place where you hide everything. I could help you drain the—”
“That’s enough,” I snap, thumping the candlestick on the counter.
His eyes widen, breath shuddering. For a long moment, he just … s tares —all the color leaching from his face, more tears gathering in his eyes that fall freely down his cheeks. Drips of a truth I don’t want to look at. Don’t want to see.
Not when I can already imagine the sad sounds his tears are making just by looking at them.
“I said enough .”
Please …
He blinks, crushing his brow together, not bothering to wipe the trails of sadness from his cheeks. “Of course. I’ll do my best to stop. I just—” He shakes his head, then stands, moving out from behind the counter. “I’ll collect your decoy purchases so you can be on your way.”
My knees almost buckle the moment he’s out of sight, my hand coming up to rest on my hammering heart as he shuffles about his store, pulling things from the shelves.
I don’t watch. Don’t pay attention. Just stare at the back wall and pretend I’m somewhere else where my mind’s not being picked at.
It was nice when he began plucking through my thoughts, leaving my words redundant. Like a convenient tickle.
Now it stabs .
He returns with a black leather-bound book with a pearly Moonplume embossed on the cover, a pot of ink, and a bundle of coal sticks. He also has a small metal sharpening tool that looks capable of withstanding the force of the stone I very much intend to use to punch the linchpin free of my shackle.
He piles some gold coins into a pouch I suspect is my “change,” packs it all into a brown leather tote with a flap that buckles into place, then slides it across the counter. “Your measurements are in the ledger?”
“I believe so.”
“Then I’ll send a lark once your purchases are prepared and ready to be collected.”
“Thank you.” I take the bag, the leather supple beneath my grip.
Such a beautiful, high-quality knapsack. It seems wasted on m—
“It’s not,” he says, garnishing me with a soft smile. “Rain is coming. I don’t want your diary to soil. It’s such a beautiful one, and I want you to be able to enjoy it.”
Frowning, I look to the ceiling. To where a round window is spilling a bold beam of sunlight that ignites eddies of dust. “It looks perfectly fine to me.”
“You’d be able to hear it coming if it weren’t for the iron cuff. And if you bothered to listen.”
His words pinch all my tender spots, my blood chilling as I realize how deep he’s dug. “It’s easier not to,” I bite out.
“You listen to Clode.”
I grind my teeth so hard I fear they might shatter, feeling like a skeleton picked of all its meat—just bones left to bleach in the sun. “Clode’s playful, wild and vicious. Strong and feisty. She doesn’t wallow or sulk or feel sorry for herself.”
“Rayne is—”
“Tears. She’s bloodshed. Rayne’s the frost that sticks to the skin of the dead who are tossed over the wall for the beasts of The Shade to feast upon. Rayne’s the snow that coats the shaded half of this fucked-up world. Rayne’s—”
“Power, my dear.”
My next word sputters on my tongue.
“Rayne is power ,” he continues. “Half a world coated in powdered power no one is strong enough to wield. Though you could, if you did not tuck sadness into that icy lake within you, along with—”
“Thank you, kind sir. For accepting my candlestick as currency.”
There’s a stretch of silence before he dips his head so low it could almost be a bow. “It’s been my greatest honor, Raeve.”
With the leather satchel clutched close to my chest, I spin, making for the door, feeling like a sour bogsberry was just squeezed all over my brain and rubbed between the folds. Massaged real fucking deep.
This dae may have started off on a high, but it’s swiftly losing its luster.