Chapter Fourteen
It occurs to me once I make it into the market that tracking Soren down might not be easy.
There are even more people here today than the first time I came, and I only know the places he showed me. I don’t even know his last name.
If he even has one.
I’m not sure why I’m so desperate to see him again. The thought that he might truly be Ronan unsettles me. If it’s true, I can’t even begin to imagine what I would say to him.
I realize what I’m really hoping is that he isn’t Ronan at all. That I can find some comfort in him, in someone whose life isn’t woven into the web of lies and schemes that surrounds me.
“Have you seen a man with a scarred face recently? Or a woman with red hair and pierced ears?” I try asking each vendor I visited with Soren, but no one has seen them.
Or at least no one will admit to having done so. I’m certain some of these people must know or remember Soren. Maybe they’re refusing to help me because I’m Nithyrian.
I stop by a clothing vendor and pick up the trousers I told Adria I was here for and a couple of light dresses as well. They’re nowhere near as nice as what the rest of the court wears, but they’re in the Selaran style, which should help me blend in better the next time I return here.
I’m thinking of what else I could do to find him again when I realize I’m being followed.
The past few days have left me increasingly paranoid, always wondering if someone is lurking just out of sight behind me.
I recall the lessons my mother taught me when I was a child about how to discreetly check for a tail using reflections.
I scan the market with careful intent, peering into the many gleaming surfaces around me.
I check a silver service, then a glass case holding jeweled necklaces, then a looking glass with an ornate rim, and finally a vase made from polished brass, before I see him.
It's a boy, and though it’s difficult to make out his features in the distorted yellow reflection, I think it may be Nico. Did Soren ask him to follow me if I came back here?
I decide to keep browsing to see if he follows.
I head from the vase seller to a stall with a metal cart, a water-born selling an ice-cooled cream dessert.
The metal is frosted at the bottom, but at the top, I see the boy again in the reflection.
Definitely Nico. I’m glad he’s recovered from my stabbing.
I consider confronting him, but I decide to let him get some practice in.
He’s darkening the shadows around us a bit too much to look realistic, but it’s not a bad effort for someone so young.
He vanishes eventually, and I debate how long to wait here, wondering if he even has a way of communicating with Soren, or if they only check in periodically. Would Soren come even if he had a way to tell him I was here?
The answer is no. I wait until the market closes, but he never arrives.
Then the next day, and then the day after that, I do the exact same thing. Larus has roped Adria into discussions with Felix, but he’s kind enough to keep me out of it, and I have nothing better to do.
And I like the market. I like the movement and the noise and the way I melt into the crowd there, unseen and unremarkable.
“I thought it was you,” says Soren, seeing me.
It’s nearly nightfall by the time he arrives. Soren stands before the bench in the central plaza where I’ve been sitting, looking almost exactly as he did when we first crossed paths in that shadowy alley. He’s wearing the same brown tunic and trousers, the same patch on his eye.
I’m determined to discover whether Soren truly is the person I suspect him to be, the person I don’t dare name, but before I confront him, I allow myself to have a moment to just enjoy his company.
“I’m glad to see you. I was hoping you’d come back,” he says, winking his good eye at me.
Damn that wink. “I thought I might see you at the Festival of Sport registration,” I say. “Are you not competing?”
“No, I’ve had enough of all of that.” He gestures at his scars. “But I was hoping to know if you saw Vesper there. She’s good with a throwing knife.”
I ignore the tinge of jealousy that hits me when he talks about Vesper. “No sign of her at the registration, although I’m not sure I would have known her if she did show up. She still hasn’t turned up, then?”
Soren drops his gaze to the dusty ground, slowly shaking his head. “No. I’ve asked around in every tavern, inn, and watering hole in town. And even some beyond Faros’s walls. And worse, she’s not the only shadow-born missing.”
Dread cuts through me. “More of yours?”
“One of them. Her name is Marcella, and I have a lead on her.”
That’s all I need to hear. “Where are we heading?”
Soren smiles grimly, taking my arm in his gentle, familiar way and pulling me off the market square into an alley. “It’s not that simple, I’m afraid. It’s going to be dangerous. I don’t know what they’re doing, but there’s a chance they’ve kidnapped these women.”
“Who? And where?”
“It’s an importer with a warehouse down by the docks. They deal mainly in spices and exotic goods. Someone saw a woman matching Marcella’s description being dragged into the warehouse.”
“Lead the way,” I say.
“Hazel,” says Soren, and I forget for a minute that it was the name I gave him.
His voice is gruff, but the intimacy is alarmingly familiar.
“We can’t just run in there, swords screaming.
There will be a dozen people working there at least, many of them armed.
Spices are expensive, and they’re sure to have them well protected.
I don’t doubt that you’re capable—I remember what you did to Nico—but we need some kind of plan.
I need some kind of plan. You don’t need to do this at all. It’s not your problem.”
“They’re like me. And even if they weren’t, how can you expect me to do nothing after you’ve told me this? I can help. You said you wanted to see me again. For what other reason if not this?”
“There were other reasons,” he admits, and something stirs within me.
Not now.
“The plan is I find a way inside and sneak in there and tell you what I find. Then we can come up with something—”
“Absolutely not. I’m not letting you go in there alone.”
“But I can move in complete darkness. I can stay hidden. You’ll be blind.”
“You led me out of the tavern.”
“Barely!”
Soren crosses his arms, standing firm. And tall. Standing taller than he ought to be able to with his shoulder injury. “You don’t know where to go, and I’m not going to tell you if you don’t agree to take me in with you.”
“Fine,” I snap. “But if you get us killed, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“If I get us killed, I doubt I’ll be saying much of anything.”
“I will,” I say. “I’ll bribe Vahlo and haunt your reborn self from the underworld.”
The death god is choosy about who he allows to leave his domain. The best souls are reborn into a new life, but some of the worst are sent to haunt the living to remind them of what they’ll miss out on if they don’t behave.
“You don’t believe you’ll be reborn yourself?”
Not a chance. Not after I do what I’ve been sent here to do. “I’ll be lucky if my soul isn’t devoured.” A fate that awaits the very worst of us, those who fail Vahlo’s final judgment.
I only hope Vahlo understands that the ends justify the means.
“Let’s go,” I say, not wanting to discuss my anticipated sins any further, and I try to lead us off in a direction Soren still hasn’t given me.
He takes the lead, and I follow him through the bustling evening streets, weaving between tired shoppers and vendors hurriedly packing away their goods as colorful awnings come down for the night.
When we finally leave the main thoroughfare, the noise drops away, replaced by a heavy, unsettling silence.
The alleys Soren guides me through feel unnaturally deserted, their shadows stretching long and deep as we near the docks.
Every movement startles me. The brush of a cat against my leg.
A door opening, a man sweeping dust outside.
A woman drawing laundry in from a clothesline.
“Are you alright?” asks Soren, and I jump at his voice.
It’s a bit of a slip. There’s no way for Soren to know I’m afraid. It’s too dark for him to see my face.
But Ronan would be able to tell.
“Fine,” I say, although I’m not. I had been too focused on the missing girls before to think of it, but it occurs to me this could be some kind of trap Ronan set to expose me. He could be leading me into danger on purpose in hopes of getting rid of me, or of finding out what we’re up to.
Or what if Soren isn’t Ronan, and he’s leading us into danger he’s really not prepared for? I have my sword and my dagger. I have my shadows. I’m wearing my armor. But is it enough? There’s no way I could beat a dozen people on my own.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I know,” I say. “But I sort of do.”
The girls are shadow-born like me. My age, give or take a few years.
Soren told me about them. Vesper: a red-head with a love of beer and breaking the rules.
Marcella: a scrappy girl who wears her hair in braids to keep it out of the way when she fights.
They’re gone, and no one else is looking for them.
They could be in the warehouse. They could be frightened or hurt.
It also occurs to me that Ronan, if Soren really is Ronan, could use the immense power at his disposal to find them. But there must be a reason why he hasn’t. Maybe, after we’ve found them, he’ll tell me what it is.
“Just down there,” says Soren, pointing to a large building at the bottom of the hill.
It’s close to where we met Felix earlier in the day, and a couple of new fears make themselves known: that we might encounter Larus or Felix nearby, or that the plot we’re uncovering might involve them in some way.
This is a disaster.
“Hazel,” murmurs Soren comfortingly. “You can just go home. I’ll go in and scope it out.”