Chapter 8 Lena
EIGHT
LENA
“This is where you live?” Lena asked, trying to keep the judgment from her voice.
There was nothing wrong with the small house Casimir had led her to.
Tall and narrow, it was made mostly out of a mixture of dull, gray brick and paneled wood, all topped by an angular, straw roof which had seen better days.
It looked exactly like every other building crammed onto the dirt-trodden streets of Deyecia.
The smuggler’s brow furrowed. He looked genuinely offended. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s just so …” Lena waved her hand in the direction of the house, struggling to find the right word. She’d expected the infamous Raven’s hideout to be, well, hidden.
“Normal.” She eventually settled on.
“Has anyone ever told you your observational skills are astounding?”
Lena huffed. She didn’t have time for this. Every second they spent arguing was another second the Ehmar boy had to find her.
And another second for the ancient power in her veins to grow.
Is that such a bad thing? The ancient voice she’d heard in the forest asked.
A shiver ran down Lena’s spine. “Let’s just get inside,” she said.
“As you wish.” Casimir strode up to the front door, pulling a rickety old key out from somewhere inside his woolen cloak. Lena kept her distance until the door was open—until she could peer into the hallway beyond and see what awaited her.
It didn’t look like the home of someone secretly working for the emperor. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t a trap. That someone wasn’t waiting for her on the other side of that doorway with chains ready to wrap around her wrists …
Lena’s chest tightened. A heartbeat passed before the smuggler cleared his throat.
“You first,” Lena said, clutching the hilt of her blade.
He raised an eyebrow but said nothing, instead sauntering into the hallway with all the grace of a dancer.
Lena followed after him, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end as the narrow walls of the lantern-lit hallway closed in on her.
She hated small spaces. There was no room to draw her bow here. No places for her to hide.
“May I?” Casimir’s voice cut through her panic.
It took her a moment to realize he was referring to the still-open door at her back.
The one he’d have to brush past her to close.
Lena stiffened. He was already too close.
She could taste the leather and fresh-air scent of him on her tongue.
The air around him shifted, and the mark on her wrist emitted a teeth-clenching throb as the bright, almost luminous lines of his threads flared into view.
Lena’s muscles tensed, and despite years of relying on her survival instincts, she turned her back on him just to avoid looking at them.
She closed the door, taking a few seconds to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth, until the pain in her wrist began to fade. When she finally turned around again, Casimir’s threads had thankfully faded from view.
The smuggler was already moving toward a paneled wall at the end of the hallway, the echo of his footsteps bouncing off the stone walls, giving Lena a few more seconds to compose herself.
Being trapped in this house with a stranger wasn’t exactly her ideal scenario, but she’d be damned if she let her anxieties ruin her only chance of escaping her fate.
Casimir paused for a brief second, looking over his shoulder at her as if he was the one who had reason to be cautious here. And then, seemingly deciding she wasn’t about to stab him from behind, the smuggler pressed his hand against the wall and pushed.
The wooden wall slid sideways, and Casimir didn’t wait before ducking into the darkened space, leaving Lena with little choice but to follow after him.
Keeping her hand close to the hilt of her dagger, the first word that came to Lena’s mind as she stepped into the hidden room was cluttered.
Every space was filled with leather tomes or rolled-up pieces of parchment.
At one end, a wooden desk littered with scraps of parchment and a half-empty glass of golden liquid took up most of the space.
The wall behind it was lined with shelves of dozens of glass vials filled with various liquids.
Without looking back at her, Casimir gestured toward a small, fur-covered bench beneath a boarded-up window, his hands already riffling through the papers on his desk. “Take a seat.”
Lena didn’t move. She kept close to the door, giving herself the space to flee if Casimir turned out to be a fraud.
“How did you know I was looking for you?” The question had been gnawing at her since they’d left the alleyway.
The smuggler’s lips twitched. “I happen to spend a lot of time at the Bear.”
Panic settled in Lena’s chest. “You overheard me?” she asked, her mind already replaying the moment.
She couldn’t remember seeing the Raven back in the tavern, but it had been so busy. Had anyone else overheard her? And if they had, did they know enough about the infamous Raven to realize what she’d truly been asking?
The room suddenly felt too small. The walls too close. Lena tried to focus on her breathing, but the familiar urge to run, to escape, was making each breath harder than the last.
“I have an agreement with the owner, Orva. She told me you were looking for me. Don’t worry,” he added, clearly sensing her growing panic. “She can be trusted.”
Lena nodded. The smuggler’s threads were already starting to fade back into the world, a web of shimmering silver weaving itself before her very eyes. Lena’s hands curled into tight fists at her side. Go away.
And then that voice, stronger now than it had been before—
Why do you fight who you are? it asked, genuine curiosity lacing the words. When it is who you were always meant to become?
No. This isn’t who she was. Fate or no fate, she would not—
“Hey.” The smuggler was standing before her, his brows drawn together in a way that made him look surprisingly young. “Are you alright?”
The concern in his voice, more genuine than she’d expected, brought Lena back to herself. She gave a sharp nod. “I’m fine.”
Her attention shifted from the smuggler and his threads to the paper in his hands.
To the tomes and maps cluttering the small wooden room.
Like the stories she kept in her heart, they were all tools of a trade that painted a target on his back.
Even with the hidden room, having them in his house like this was a huge risk.
She swallowed the urge to tell him to be more careful and instead asked, “So, can you help get me out of here?”
“Of course I can,” he said, leaning casually against his desk. “The question is whether you can afford my help.”
Lena kept her expression blank, her stance relaxed, hoping he hadn’t already realized just how desperate for his help she was.
Her fingers brushed against the lining of her coat, catching on the handful of coins she had left.
There was little need for silver in the Wilds, where the people traded in favors and skill, but Lena always made sure she had at least some marks in her pocket.
She looked at the map above his desk, her throat tightening at the sight of it. At the promise it held. “And what, exactly, does your ‘help’ encompass?” She wasn’t agreeing to anything until she knew what she was getting.
Casimir’s eyes glistened. “Smart. I can offer you safe passage to the Queendom of Verlond and papers of citizenship once you arrive. It’s one of the few lands that has not yet been conquered by the Ehmars, so whatever crime they’ve accused you of, you should be safe from them there.”
“What makes you think they’ve accused me of anything?” she asked, unable to keep the bite from her voice.
“You wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t. The people who seek me out are either desperate or reckless, and you don’t seem the reckless type.”
“And you don’t seem to care that you’re helping criminals.”
Again, that infuriating half smirk. “Let’s just say the Ehmars’ definition of criminal … differs from my own.” He leaned back against his desk once more, arms folding over his chest, head tilting as he watched her.
Verlond. She’d heard whispers of the southern queendom before, a free land where the Goddess Naebya’s powers were at their weakest due to lack of worship. If the rumors were true, then it would be the perfect place for her to hide.
“How much?”
“Thirty marks.”
Lena clenched her fists to stop herself from throttling him. She couldn’t afford that—and by the smirk on his face, the smuggler knew it. “Aren’t you supposed to help people? The rumors say you’re an ally to heretics, but all I see is a man who’ll do anything for some extra marks.”
Casimir paused, his expression darkening for the briefest moment. And then he merely shrugged. “Alright, twenty-five marks.”
Lena sucked in a breath through her nose, trying to calm her rising anger. Fates, this man was infuriating. Part of her wanted to twist his threads into submission just to spite him. Instead, she ground her teeth together and said, “Fifteen.”
“Fifteen …,” he agreed after a moment’s pause, his eyes trailing to the blade tucked into her belt, “and your blade.”
Lena’s hand instinctively wrapped around the hilt. It was all she had left of her mother—the only piece of her that this world hadn’t taken. The thought of giving it up made her blood run cold. “It’s just a simple dagger. Why would you want it?”
“I have an eye for rare pieces, and that dagger is worth a lot more than you think. Besides, I became rather fond of it after you used it to try to slit my throat.”
Lena hesitated. She brushed her thumb down the length of the carved hilt, each groove as familiar to her as the surface of her own skin. It’s just a blade, her mother would have said, the carefree smile she always wore crunching the corners of her dark eyes. You worry too much, Lenora.