Chapter Fourteen #3
This is our chance. We could knock these two out and then wait for the others to check what happened to them, picking at least a few of them off one by one.
I put my hand underneath me, beginning to push myself up.
Soren grabs me by my shoulders, pulling me to him tightly so I don’t lose my balance from the loss of momentum.
I can barely breathe, for a couple of reasons.
There’s the terror of being caught, of knocking something over and getting their attention before we’re ready to take them on.
And there’s the physical sensation of being crushed against Soren, robbing my lungs of the space they need to fill but also sending a rush of excitement through me.
It's hard to focus when he’s holding me this close, when I can smell him, incense and spice.
But his action works: they don’t hear us.
“One more,” says the woman.
“Don’t bloody remind me,” grumbles the man.
Their footsteps retreat, but they don’t shut the door behind them.
“Quick,” says Soren, pulling me to my feet. “Before they return.”
We rush over to the crate. It’s large and unmarked, roughly the size it would need to be to hold an adult woman. But there are no air holes.
I’m terrified to see what’s inside. Soren looks around for something to open it while I peek through a hole in the wood.
“It’s not the girls,” I say. “It’s…bricks of something.”
Soren pries the crate open with a crowbar and then removes one of the bricks from its paper packaging, smelling it cautiously. “Joy plant,” he says, dropping it back into the crate in disgust. “Dried and purified.”
A powerful alchemical ingredient. I’ve seen Hermes use it to ease the passing of the horses. “For the Guild?” I suggest. Perhaps they’re only intending to sell it to the alchemists. There has to be a trade in it, and it’s likely a lucrative one.
He shakes his head. “Only the Guild can import it. Come on, before they come back.”
We slip through the open door and onto the deck. There are barrels and columns of wood here that offer cover, so we crouch behind them to get a better view of the dock.
“It’s Marcella,” says Soren.
“In the crate?” In front of a small sailboat at anchor sits a single large crate, identical to the one we saw brought into the warehouse earlier.
And in front of it are all the guards. I scan their faces and bodies as quickly as I can, grateful not to see Felix among them. Whatever is in that crate, it must be so valuable that everything else in the warehouse pales in comparison.
Soren shakes his head. “I thought I recognized her voice earlier, but I didn’t want to believe it. It’s her. The one in charge.”
The woman who was giving the orders. It’s one of the missing girls.
Marcella stands tall and commanding at the end of the dock, conversing with the captain of the sailboat.
Her dark hair is in braids as Soren described, and she’s wearing tight leather pants and a leather chest piece over a dark red tunic.
If I hadn’t already heard her voice, I might have guessed she was Nithyrian.
She’s certainly ready for a fight.
“What do we do?” Could Vesper be here too? Is it possible that they’re working together doing whatever this is?
Or maybe Marcella could have kidnapped Vesper and is holding her against her will.
Or maybe Vesper isn’t here at all, and we’ve stumbled upon a dangerous smuggling operation manned by people willing to risk everything for a bit of coin.
“We get out of here,” says Soren. “Vesper isn’t in that crate. We can figure the rest out later.”
Around the corner, there are two more guards positioned at the end of the deck to block access to the dock from the street. “Not that way.” The only way back is through the still-open warehouse door behind us.
I lower the shadow to lead us through it.
“Soren,” calls Marcella from below just before we reach it. Ice runs through my veins at the sound. “Did you come to make me an offer?”
Of course. She’s shadow-born. She can see us through my shadows.
Down at the dock, the captain and crew of the sailboat hurry to launch. The warehouse guards rush over to Marcella, but she stops them before they climb the stairs.
Soren steps forward. “I came to rescue you. Though it appears I’m a little too late.”
Marcella’s laugh is melodic and dark. “Poor na?ve Soren. A man who thinks he’s his own master, and yet he’s nothing more than the God-King’s slave. Or did you think I didn’t know who you were working for all these years?”
“What do you want, Marcella?”
“The same as you. I’m just doing business. I’ll give credit to Ronan for one thing: the man knows how to create a black market. I would have cut you in only—well, you would’ve just run right back to your master, wouldn’t you?”
She doesn’t know who she’s talking to. She sees the connection, but it doesn’t occur to her that she’s talking to Ronan himself.
His fingers twitch for the blade at his side. He shifts his weight, blocking more of me from sight.
“Don’t think I don’t know you have another shadow-born back there. It’s a nice little trick that she has, but it won’t work on me.”
She’s right. Against another shadow-born, the only weapons I have are my blades. And we both know how good I am with those.
Well, those and the uncapped elixir I’m still holding.
“Lift your shadow,” Soren mutters to me, and I understand why he asks.
It’ll weaken his light.
“I’m sorry it went this way, Marcella,” he says, and the quiet scene turns violent all at once.
Soren raises his hand and fires off a tiny burst of magic which only misses Marcella because a guard rushes up in front of her, falling to the ground before he can even pull his sword.
Marcella plunges the area around her into darkness, causing another guard to stumble and trip over the first one as he falls.
She flings a knife, which narrowly misses Soren and clatters somewhere within the warehouse as he takes my hand and flings us back behind the barrels.
The guards from the street race down the deck, and I drop a shadow over them just before they reach us.
They stumble forward, and Soren impales one with his dagger while I shove the elixir into the other one’s face.
The guard collapses to the deck, and I take the dagger from her hand and throw it into the fray on the staircase, almost striking another advancing guard but just missing to the left.
The guard who had been carrying the crate makes a dash for the dock and leaps from it, swimming after the rapidly escaping sailboat. Marcella ducks behind a pile of crates.
Soren takes out the guard I’d missed, who had nearly made it to the top of the steps in the darkness, with a bolt of magic.
It’s as precise as Adria’s tiny burst of flame, hitting him in the side of the head and dropping him instantly.
“Come on.” Soren grabs my hand and pulls me towards the deck that leads to the street.
“What about Marcella?”
“The guards can deal with her. There are too many of them left. We’ve got to go.”
We round the corner into the street, but there’s movement to our right, near the alley where we entered the warehouse. Some of the guards from the dock have come around.
There are so many of them. Six, at least. I drop the shadows around us to give us cover.
“Run, Sylvie,” says Soren.
My real name.
My heart stops.
He said my real name.
The guards stumble forward out of Marcella’s shadow and begin to charge, flinging flame and lightning at us as Marcella retreats towards the alley. Soren fires off a bolt of light at her and misses, but he doesn’t run after her.
He stays at my side, preparing for the incoming assault.
Run, Sylvie, he said. I wonder if he even realizes he said it.
I don’t run, though. I draw my sword, keeping the vial of elixir in my other hand, covering it with my thumb to keep it from spilling.
I lift my shadows as the first three guards reach us.
Soren lunges forward, his sword flashing through the air to cut down the first guard in a single, fluid motion as a flame dies in his hand.
The second doesn't even have time to raise her blade before Soren releases a bolt of crackling light, striking her square in the chest and sending her sprawling backward.
As the third guard swings his sword at me, I meet his attack with a swift parry, the clang of metal ringing in my ears.
Before I can counter, Soren spins around and dispatches the last guard with a clean strike.
“Good gods,” I say, looking at him. He was definitely holding back when he fought me. He turns and takes out another advancing guard with another bolt of light.
There’s a delay between the bolts, and it seems he can only send one bolt at a time. So it works similarly to Adria’s fire magic, then.
“Don’t follow her,” he says, as he sees me eying the corner Marcella retreated to.
But who else will be able to track her? It’s not like he needs my help here.
In the time it takes me to decide, he takes out another guard, leaving only one remaining.
“I think you’ve got this,” I say, and I head for the alley behind the warehouse in pursuit of Marcella.
As I round the corner, an arm reaches out and grabs me.
“Too easy,” says Marcella. “Disappointing, really.”
I thrash against her. I drop my sword, which is useless in these close quarters, and go for my dagger.
“Let’s not,” she says. We struggle with it, but she manages to get it away from me. Then I jam my elbow back into her ribs, and she doubles over, letting me go. “Bitch!”
I hear the front doors open into the street and then the clash of steel as Soren fights what must be even more guards. I have a choice: back into the street to help him, or try to take Marcella on my own.
I know what I should do. If he dies now, if Ronan dies now, the plan fails. I should protect him.
But Marcella is right here. If she gets away, we may never find her again. And we may never find Vesper.
I retrieve my sword from the ground and hold it out at Marcella, keeping her at a distance.
She laughs at my hesitation. “Another one dumb enough to fall for Soren’s little game. You know what he’s really after, don’t you?”
I don’t, but I do want to know that. Would he tell me? I’m not sure. He’d said my name, so the rules had changed. But would he tell me the truth? Or would he go on keeping his secrets?
“No? Drop the sword, and I’ll tell you,” says Marcella.
“No, thanks,” I say. I’m not that stupid. “Kick me the dagger, and I’ll let you live.”
She also declines. Fair enough.
She lunges for the dagger just as I sprint toward her, sword raised and ready. She makes it there first. I try to dive out of the way, but she’s too close for me to dodge.
The dagger flashes through the air, spinning toward me.
My breath catches, expecting the cold bite of steel, but in the split second before it hits, something impossible happens.
The dagger stops mid-flight, suspended just inches from my cheek.
A tendril of darkness shooting out from my chest holds it there. The air hums with its power.
My shadow.
“What the fuck?” says Marcella, as shocked as I am.
The dagger hangs there in the air, and I realize I’m controlling it. I can feel it, just like it’s in my hand.
I could stab her with it. I could end this right here.
Instead, I let it clatter to the ground.
And I grab the vial of elixir with my shadow and shove it in her face.
Marcella’s knees buckle, and she collapses onto the cobblestone pavement as Soren rounds the corner.
“What the hell—what’s that?” he asks, seeing the tendrils of my shadow given form retract back into me.
“I don’t know.” It’s the truth. I have no idea what just happened.
I retrieve my sword and dagger from the ground. “The rest of them?”
“Dead,” says Soren. “Or near enough to it. A damn shame.” He shakes his head as he approaches me, hands out, “Sylvie, I—”
“Don’t,” I say, backing up with my weapons still drawn. “It’s time for you to tell me what the fuck is going on, Ronan.”
His hand flinches at the sound of his name. “As you wish,” he says with a sigh. He fires a burst of light into the air, a smaller version of the spectacle he created at the opening ceremony of the Festival of Sport.
When I look back, Soren is gone.
In his place is the God-King of Selara.