14. Caspyn
Chapter 14
The city of Turin had always been a bustling cesspool. The streets were a maze that twisted this way and that, weaving through buildings and enclaves that had been built throughout the centuries. There was no pattern to the chaos of the streets and you would find yourself walking along cobbled roads lined with quaint bakeries that suddenly faded to dank alleys filled with orphans desperate to find food or coins with no warning to the change.
It was possibly the only place in all of Okivo that Requisites swarmed with their Catalysts, the red-robed wielders tailing behind their masters like pets. The haughty Requisites were everywhere, darting through streets and in shops with their noses in the air, anytime they moved too close a familiar chill of a thousand skittering legs jittered up my spine.
The first time I felt the chilled pull of their magic I was sure there was a Fae only steps behind me, but it was only the feeling of the magic that Requisites and Catalysts shared.
In Requisites I could feel their power, the taste of char in fíra, the fresh sharpness of w?der, the sharp taste of soil in a vio. Each one of those powers grew sharper the closer I moved to them, the same sensation present in Catalysts, but fainter, as though it was smothering, as though the sensation of them was caged.
I could usually tell who was matched with who based on that, on the way I could feel their magic pull against each other. None of it was the strength as with the Fae, when that tingling power led me to them like a roadmap. It was enough that I knew if I was walking into something that might be dangerous; which was common in this place.
The first time I had been in this city was to find a swordsmith to train with, perhaps forty years ago now. Then, I had stayed near the edge of the city, in the streets that were teeming with death and starvation. Now, I moved through those twisted streets toward the center of the great city, where the wealthy lived in an effort to be near the royal family, or perhaps to have a chance for some great love affair between their daughters and the Sun Prince.
That chance was over. The streets were lined with roses, banners hung from every window in the colors of the royal family and of the family in Spryv. That poor girl would be married off to the Sun Prince’ in a matter of days. My lip curled at the moniker, at the reality of what he was, and of what would happen to that girl.
Puppets for a Dark Queen, the lot of them.
Even I would be if I did not cut off the head of the snake before she had a chance to strike.
I needed to find the princess; I was sure she was plotting how to end her mother by now. She would need me.
Babbling crowds of women amid their daily shopping mixed with the sounds of men selling everything one could imagine until the sound roared around me. I pushed my way through the busy marketplace, toward the line of carriages that had been placed on the road leading up the great black stone gates of the Runturin as though they were waiting for something. Each ornate carriage was covered with the colors of Spryv, the ground littered with flowers around them. Even as I watched, a mother and daughter dressed in what looked to be their best dresses walked forward and placed a clutch of flowers by a wheel. If not for the bright colors of their dresses, the expensive dies and fabrics on display for everyone, I would have guessed that someone had died.
Perhaps someone still would. Who knew what would happen on that dreadful pilgrimage.
Foolish tradition.
I nestled my way into a small alcove at the edge of the market, my back against a brick wall nestled between two shop sellers. Dressed as dark as I was, when tucked into shadows I was not sure many would notice me, let alone keep their voices down when sharing gossip. If I hoped to make it past the tall black gates of the Runturin, I needed to know what I was up against, this was the perfect place to do that. I could see the high gates clearly, the voices from the market carrying right toward me and providing me with all manner of gossip.
A small cluster of guards in black and purple stood at attention by the gates, their posture rigid as they scanned the crowd. I was sure I could end them easily, but that would only call attention to myself. I needed another way in.
From where I sulked in the shadows, I could see the high spires of the Runturin peek over the high, stone walls, the dagger-like spires cut from stone so dark it looked like streaks of dried Fae blood against the mountains behind.
The first time I had arrived in Turin, I had been in awe of the high spires of the castle, the way they looked to be carved into the mountains. I spent hours staring at the long guard walks, and the high smooth walls. The Runturin was a fortress, one made even more impenetrable after Dalyah took her crown.
After the wicked woman had appeared, I had tried to regain a position inside, I had even tried the old hidden entries into the Runturin I had found, but all was locked. There was no way in. Besides, everyone had heard the wild stories about how the new Queen had changed the interior to keep the King safe. Even if I was to find a way in now, I wasn’t even sure I could find my way around to reach her.
“Take the lot!”
“I need five eggs, you gave me seven, you bloody louser!”
“Bread! Fresh bread! A copper for a half, two copper for the whole!”
“By the Goddess you can’t mean to charge that much.”
The voices rattled, everything blending in a cacophony of noise as the crowds continued to mill and wander around me, no one paying a knicks worth of attention to the man half hidden in shadows, staring at the high spires that had haunted my nightmares as well as my dreams.
There was something different about them, however, as though something had changed. It wasn’t just darkness in there anymore. It was as though some magic was inside me that shouldn’t be; it tingled over my skin, the wicked dark bleeding through me and screaming that I needed to get in there right then and–
“Fresh Ham! Slaughter this morn! Fresh Ham!” The voice cut through the panic that had been winding through me, taking such a tight hold that I hadn’t realized I had stopped breathing. I hadn’t realized I had taken a step forward into the light. I tucked myself back into the shadows, forcing down the odd mix of terror and panic that was still trying to creep its way through me, the unwanted emotions mixing with the heat of a magic that would be more than a little dangerous this close to the queen.
“Ham! Ham!” The man kept yelling until another man with a crook in his back made his way through the crowd, a gnarled hand on a cane.
“Stop your blathering, I’ll take it all.” His snap was gravel as he leaned over the cane, looking at the other meats the seller had laid out as the overjoyed butcher wrapped the pig in paper, a young boy of about ten doing everything in his power to tie the twine around it.
“Do you think the Princess will make the journey?” I nearly jumped at the voice, the woman at the flower stall gossiping with what looked to be the partner of the old man, the woman just as crooked and wrinkled.
“I dunno dear,” she whispered, taking a look around before she continued. I didn’t dare breathe or shift against the slimy wall lest the subtle motions catch their eye. “It’s been a few years since that Queen let her outta there. I know she has no magic, but neither do the lot of us and we get along fine.”
“They say because her Catalyst died the magic that’s still inside of her is like an infection, making her sick.” The younger woman said, now tying together a second bunch of flowers.
“They say a lot of things dear, when you get as old as I am you realize most of them is a lie.”
The younger woman nearly froze at that, as did I, although clearly not for the same reason. The old crone had no idea how close to the truth she actually was.
“You don’t think Princess Elara is sick?” The flower seller nearly gasped the words.
The old woman shook her head, “I don’t, and I’ll tell you, there are days I sit in my window, staring at that horrible fortress and I swear I see a flame of gold on those high spires, yellow and gleaming like that poor princess’s hair, like the light I am sure she has boiling in those royal veins.”
The younger woman stared at the older, her lips pressed together as her eyes continued to dart around.
“You might be right. I had a woman here last week, works in the Runturin scrubbin’ floors. She said she sees that girl everywhere in there. Dressed in rags and–”
The two women shifted closer, their voices dropping lower so as not to have been overheard. I could have still heard them, would have if it wasn’t for the guard that emerged from the black gate, a long cloak draped around him and falling nearly to the slick cobbled road.
That wasn’t what made everything fall away, however. That wasn’t what made my heart hammer in my chest as both my magics rose up as if they were fighting for space to explode out of me.
It was the white snake that was embroidered into the front of this man’s uniform.
Not the royal emblem of wings and crown, but a white snake.
The same snake of the army the queen controlled in the world I was born in. The army that had killed my sister. The world fell to smoke at the memory of the face of that man, the face that had haunted so many of my nightmares flared through memory, the scar that ran down his face, those deaths eyes, the pointed ears of the Fae.
In all my years in the Runturin, in Turin, I had never seen them. But now they were there. The snake guard was there. Things were so much closer to becoming a reality than I thought.
I had been so devoted on finding a way in, of using stealth and will to reach Queen Dalyah, to end her before she had a chance to fight back. But seeing that guard… knowing what would happen if she enacted that plan and how little time I had. How bad would it be if I ended him? If I took his time and used my fire to end them all? To face her.
She was ice, I was fire, there was no way she would walk away from that fight, no matter how strong people claim she is.
I was already walking toward the snake guard, the movement sending the two women into hysterics as I emerged from the shadows dressed head to toe in black, my gold blades glimmering at my side.
Faces turned as I charged through the crowd toward that high gate, toward the guard with the snake on his chest who was laughing at something, laughing as he cleaned the blood off his hands.
The crowd grew thicker the closer I moved, the yelling of the market everywhere as I attempted to shoulder my way through a cluster of sellers, hocking flowers and banners in the color of the Royal family and Spryv. They parted for me as the guard turned, already making his way back into the gate as a slip of pressure pulled against my hip.
I turned, but not fast enough. A boy was laughing victoriously, his smudge lined face looking back in glee as he weaved through the crowds better than I ever could, my belt on his hand.
The golden hilts of my blades cradled in his arms.
“Fuck.” The single word snapped like a whip as I turned, bolting after him. The crowd was near a wall as he weaved through it. Where they were a wall, I was a battering ram.
The boy’s laughs echoed back to me as I pushed and shoved my way through the sellers, leaving a wake of angry women and irate men behind as I raced after the boy who was now through the cluster of the market and was darting toward a darkened alley, steps away from disappearing into the maze that was this city.
If he made it there, I would lose him.
He took one look back, still laughing before he vanished. I barely saw him. I was looking at the seller near the side of the market who was tossing an apple in the air. I was looking at the bird landing on the high wall of the Runturin. I marked them both as I pulled my magic up, ice moving through me as my eyes slid into the white of death’s power. The boy had only barely darted into the dark when everything around me froze and then moved in reverse. Voices lulled into odd noises, as though words spoken backwards were pulled through a hollow cavern before reaching me. A wispy shadow of myself reversed, the people I had thrown to the ground righting themselves as though they were on strings. The boy raced in reverse and then, with a flick of my power I walked forward, everything moving with me as I pulled time in the other direction, the boy ran toward the shadows, still laughing at the shadow of me even as I followed right behind him, right into the shadows where no one would see me reemerge.
The shadows swallowed us as I watched the bird land, the apple hitting the height of its throw. With a sharp exhale, I released the hold on my power and everything snapped back into place. The angry and disgruntled shoppers looked around in confusion at where I had gone, the boy moving into a walk in supposed victory only to scream as I wrapped a hand around his shoulder.
“Those are mine, I believe,” I snarled, yanking my belt and my knives out of his hands before he came to his senses.
“But you… you were… I saw…” he stammered as he looked between me, the line where light met shadow, and the market he had seen me in. “How did you…?”
“How did I what?” I leaned down to sneer directly into his face as my magic slowly slid back into place, my eyes shifting back to their usual dual shade.
The boy had cost me too much of the reserves I had saved from Yersua and his man. Moving back and forth like that always cost me double. I had needed that for the Runturin, something that would have been worthless without my blades. I only had enough for maybe a half a day of a jump now.
It should still be enough.
“You were there, I saw you,” he said, finally recovering from his shock.
“You cost me, boy,” I snarled, shoving him into the wall as I placed my belt and my blades back where they belonged. “I ought to make you pay for that.”
His eyes widened in horror. He was still trying to figure out what happened, but that was enough to make him forget.
“Naw, sir, there ain’t be no need for that. You got ‘em back,” he gestured wildly as I moved closer, his eyes darting side to side as though deciding which way to run.
“Don’t worry, I don’t kill kids,” I snarled, leaning in. “But I will kill everyone you steal for, so you better hope I don’t see any of you or your kind again.”
The dark edge of each word rattled over the stone of the alley, even the shadows quivered in fear as the boy nodded his head and took off before I had another chance to stop him. I hadn’t tried, however, he would carry that message through every street. He would also carry what he had seen, or what he thought he had seen.
That part wasn’t good, but I would rather deal with that than kill the kid. I may be on even more of a deadline now, but that was one rule I would never break.
Tightening my belt, I turned back toward the market which seemed to have forgotten about the man running through them and his sudden disappearance. One step into the light however and I froze.
A rush of stars moved over my skin, the sensation a tug and a pull harder than anything I had ever felt before.
The rumbling pull was familiar. It was the same one that ran over my skin every time I had moved too close to a Fae. Although the strength of this one may have been telling me I was absolutely surrounded by the beasts.
It raced over my skin as though I was caught in a spider's web, the long strands of it tingling and pulling over my skin, telling me exactly where to follow. I turned, expecting one of the monsters to be right behind me with how strong it was, but there was nothing there, only the ash and silt covered walls of the alley.
The shimmering feeling gave a yank and I stumbled forward a step, still staring into the void as though a Fae would step forward. I had never felt it this strong.
This demanding.
It was similar to the wild darkness I felt when staring at the Runturin moments ago, the pull and desperation rumbling through me with the same need.
I took another step.
I wasn’t there to kill Fae; I shouldn’t be following anything but the path to end the queen. But this pull, this desperate yank of powerful magic…
Yersua had said he took the ears to the barracks door at the Runturin. Those old barracks were still connected to the main castle. If I caught this Fae and took its ears to that door, I could find a way in. I could find my way to the queen.
The boy may have cost me time, but he also led me right to what I needed to finish this job.
To gain access to the Runturin.
“Don’t worry Lilly. I am going to fix everything, I promise.” The words were little more than a hiss before I took off running.