Chapter 7 Jace
JACE
“Where in the seven hells are you taking us?”
I glance at Zadyn through the corner of my eye. We’re in Solmead, the slums of Vod, filing through the overcrowded streets. The stifling heat mingles with the smell of unbathed bodies, rotting garbage, and utter hopelessness.
“We’re going to visit a lead,” he says, his focus fixed ahead.
Zadyn leads us into a dirty old tavern sandwiched between a meat shop and what’s likely the only tailor in this sad excuse for a village. We slide into a booth in the corner, and I swat away the horde of flies gathered around the ale and crumbs littering the table.
The funny thing is, this feels like home.
I grew up in a village not much better off. After living behind the sparkling walls of Derek’s keep for so long, I almost forgot what this was like.
“Your lead is buried in the heart of the slums?” I look around incredulously.
“Who are we looking for, Zadyn?” Mar asks.
“I heard from Ilayna that an old ward mason who helped construct the wards at the castle is a frequent visitor of this…establishment. I’m hoping he’ll be able to offer us some insight.”
Dover waves over a barmaid and orders us a round.
“If Ilayna and the other courtesans are going in and out of the castle, then how are we not seeing it?” I think out loud.
Zadyn answers, “The wards only permit those already approved by Kylian. She’s told us all she knows of the entrances. The illusion around the perimeter must span for miles.”
“That’s insane. Do you know the kind of magic you would need to generate something of that magnitude?” Dover pitches.
“There’s only one person who can answer that question, and it’s who we’re waiting for. The good news is that Ilayna hasn’t seen any Stryga buzzing around the castle.”
Every time I hear that word, I’m transported to that first attack in the maze.
I’m standing in a fountain, bruised and bloody, fighting to get to her in time, praying I taught her well enough to stay alive.
And then that scream. That earth-shattering, heartbreaking scream when she thought I might die.
The one that decimated those monsters and saved us all.
Serena’s magic has always been fueled by her emotions, by anger and fear. But in that moment, it wasn’t fear that fed her power. It was love.
“This tastes like actual piss.” Mar’s face contorts after one sip of ale, trying to clear the sour taste from her mouth. I shrug, having had worse.
“There he is.”
Zadyn leans forward, bracing his elbows on the table.
I follow his gaze to the male slipping through the crowd to take a seat at the bar.
He might have been handsome in his youth, but now his jaw is shadowed with stubble, bags droop beneath his eyes, and his slightly overgrown head of salt and pepper hair hangs limp around his shoulders.
He slumps onto a stool, his back to us. Zadyn and I lock eyes and are on our feet instantaneously.
“Let me do the talking,” he mutters.
“Fine.” I crack my knuckles. “I prefer to do the torturing, anyway.”
He shoots me a dark look as we sidle up to the male. “Excuse me, are these seats taken?”
The seats are in fact taken. I reach forward and grab the collars of the two males seated on either side of our target and yank them backward. Their asses hit the ground with a thud.
“Looks like they’re wide open.”
The old male turns in his seat, glancing between Zadyn and me with a moderately horrified expression. Zadyn shoots me daggers as we slip into the empty seats.
I shrug. He has his methods. I have mine.
The old male looks uneasy, but says nothing as he sips his drink. There’s a slight tremble in his hand as he lowers the pewter mug.
“You’re Loryn, aren’t you? The Blockade.” He looks surprised for a moment as he regards Zadyn.
“No one’s called me that in a long time,” he rasps.
“You built the wards around Castle Illona.”
“Rebuilt. But yes.” He looks haunted, his eyes sunken in. “Who are you?”
“Your reputation precedes you. They say you’re the best ward mason to ever live.”
“It was a lifetime ago. I don’t build anymore.” Something dark shadows his brow as he hunches over his drink.
“Even so, I think it’s the Fates’ design that our paths crossed today.
It just so happens, my friend and I here are in need of a ward mason.
Specifically, the one who designed the wards around Illona.
” A crackle of threat looms behind Zadyn’s warm tone and kind smile.
The male—Loryn—starts to stand, but I reach out and shove him back into his seat.
He has the good sense to look fearful as his eyes dart between us.
“Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“We’re the kind of people you don’t want to make enemies of,” I answer for Zadyn.
“Relax, Loryn, we just want to ask you some questions,” he says. Loryn swallows tightly, his throat bobbing as a thin layer of sweat beads on his forehead.
“Settle in. Get comfortable.” I offer him a threatening smile.
“We have this friend,” Zadyn begins again. “A very powerful friend, who has found herself in a precarious situation at the castle. She requires our help, but the wards—your wards—seem to keep getting in the way of that. We need to get inside.”
“You—you want to get inside Castle Illona?”
“Precisely. That’s where you come in.”
“No, no, no. There’s a reason I stopped building wards. I don’t work for the Trioris anymore. I don’t work for anyone—”
“Oh, Loryn.” I chuckle, discreetly drawing my dagger beneath the bar. Loryn freezes, his gaze dropping to the knife now pressed against his balls. “That wasn’t a request.”
He looses a tight sigh, glancing over his shoulder at the unassuming crowd of wayward drunks. “We’d be better to discuss this in private.”
“Here seems intimate enough.” My patience is waning quickly.
“Even if I could get you in—and I’m not saying that I can—you’ll never make it out alive. No one does.”
I give a half-assed shrug. “They haven’t met us yet.”
“I understand you want to help your friend, but whoever they are, if they’ve been taken by the king…you’d do best to let them go.”
I press the tip of my knife in deeper, and he straightens.
“I speak the truth. I learned the hard way.”
“I don’t care about your sob story. What I do care about is the female they’re holding captive inside their keep. You are trying my temper, and you don’t want to know what happens when I lose it,” I growl in his face. He shrinks back, and Zadyn claps a hand on his shoulder.
“We don’t want to hurt you, but we will if we have to. We need your help.”
“It’s always a girl, isn’t it?” Loryn hangs his head, and I can see the echoes of a man who once held pride and promise. Time has not been kind to him, and from the way his shoulders slump, the deflated air surrounding him, it seems life hasn’t either.
“This is no ordinary girl.” I eye him sharply.
“The Trioris will kill you both. And then they’ll kill me for helping you.”
“Let us worry about the Trioris. You don’t know us yet. But they’ve taken something that belongs to us. It’s they who should be afraid,” Zadyn says.
Loryn chews his lip for a long time. “What do you want to know?”
Loryn leads Zadyn and me to an apartment on the second floor of a decaying sandstone building.
The space is small—an unmade bed shoved up against a dark green wall, a kitchen table with chunks of wood missing, and a rickety uneven paneled floor.
We move to file through the door, but an invisible shield bars us from the threshold.
“Old habits. I never have company.” Loryn’s hand twitches at his side, his fingers shifting in a quick series of gestures that reminds me of signing.
The barrier falls, and we step through. The mangy dog lounging on the bed shakes itself off and dashes for Zadyn, panting and nearly pissing himself with excitement. Probably sensing his kin is near. Zadyn bends to ruffle the scruffy hair on his flea-infested head.
I roll my eyes.
Loryn moves over to a wobbly bookcase in the corner, its top shelf slanted, resting on the books below.
Dust leaps out as he removes the loose shelf along with the stack of books to reveal a small hole in the wall.
He dips a hand inside and then sits down at the table holding a rectangular black box.
Zadyn takes a seat across from him, and I remain standing, a hand on my hilt.
“What is that?” I toss a nod at the box.
Loryn pries back the lid to reveal a small crystal wand about three inches tall with a tapered point. A powerful aura rolls off its cloudy density.
“This”—he holds it up to the sliver of light pouring in through his shuttered window—“is celmillene. One of the rarest crystals in the world.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Not many have. It only grows in a few locations. The ancient ward masons used to mine it, but now that they’ve been dissolved, the whereabouts of the caves have been lost. The only remaining stones are the ones passed down through the generations.”
“What’s so special about it?” Zadyn asks.
Loryn takes the fraying edge of his tunic and polishes the enigmatic rock.
“It has many uses. With its help, an average ward maker can build an impenetrable fortress. It can disable wards and illusions too, without any detectable sign.” He glances at us. “Temporarily.”
“This will lower the illusion around the castle?” Zadyn asks.
Loryn nods. “I’ll do my best to help you, but it’s been many years since I’ve been near that castle. I don’t know what’s changed in that time.”
“Your best is all we ask.” The dog pants at Zadyn’s feet, eager for more pets.
“You’ll have it. As long as I’m promised protection. I want your word that I will not be harmed. The king will know it was I who helped you.”
“Of course. You have my word,” Zadyn says. “We’ll secure you safe passage from Vod.”
“I want his word too,” Loryn slides a mistrustful glance my way. I laugh, oddly flattered by his fear.
“Jace,” Zadyn urges.
I purse my lips. “Sure, fine, you have it.”
“Very well,” he says, closing the crystal inside its padded box. He bends to scoop up the dog’s empty bowl and refills it with a pitcher of water.
“So this ‘friend’ of yours,” he starts. “Which one of you belongs to her?”
Zadyn and I lock eyes.
“Ahh.” The old male straightens, suppressing a smirk. “I see. Never ends well, let me just say that.”
“Maybe not for you,” I snap.
His loud laugh turns into a wheezing fit. Clapping a hand over his chest, he regains his breath.
“You’ve got that right.” He gestures around the one-room apartment. “Well, whoever she is, she must be a very special girl. To have you both risking your lives for her.”
“She is.” Zadyn stares at the table. “She really is.”