36. Caspyn
Chapter 36
We arrived at the small town before the sun had crested the tree line. The tiny main street was nestled beside a river port already bustling as the barges were unloaded, loaded and sent on their way. Long straight logs, bags of grain, caged animals, and other lines of goods were ready to be sent up and down the river to Turin and beyond. I had been in many towns, villages, Qits, and cities, but somehow this tiny port town was more bustling than most. The scent of the river was everywhere, the wet smell of wood and moss mixing with the tang of fish so acutely that reminded me of home. My gut clenched.
I didn’t have a home.
Not anymore.
“Alright, everyone has their lists. Stay in pairs and come back in thirty minutes, we don’t want to be here when the villagers start waking up,” Lyani’s voice barely carried above the din of the river dock as she looked around the small group, each of them nodding before quickly departing.
It was only then that I noticed what I had apparently missed before. Their sleeves were rolled down, their necklines high and hems low. I couldn’t see a single tattoo among them.
Lyani tugged at her sleeve as she turned, her eyes nervously following the others before she finally looked to me.
“You’re with me,” she hissed before she turned, already making her way toward the one building that was open this early in the morning.
The tavern.
She walked straight and stiff as she beelined for the ragged door, the low noise of the morning river workers grabbing food and drink before they went their way excreting through the haggard wood. With each step toward the dilapidated building she seemed to grow stiffer.
“Are you scared of taverns?” I asked, catching up to her. She nearly jumped at my question.
“No, I am not scared of taverns.” She was firm. She was also a terrible liar. For all her stubborn sass, it wasn’t doing her any favors.
“Well, then what are you scared of? Because you seem near ready to piss yourself.” I tried to dart in front of her, to slow her down before she barged in there and did exactly that. Not that anyone would notice with the smell that was already drifting our way.
“People do not like us, Caspyn. You know this.” She continued forward, although her pace had slowed slightly.
I slowed my gait, magic rustling over my skin as something deep inside of me went on high alert. Instinctively, I searched for that tingle of warning I usually felt before an attack, feeling nothing but the warmth that I usually felt radiating from Lyani. A warmth that I was suddenly desperate to protect.
That feeling wasn’t normal, and I was sure it should have pissed me off more than it did.
“Will they do something?” I hissed, feeling my magic flare angrily at the thought.
“No.” She shook her head, as though that would make her more convincing. It did not. “They have before.”
“Well, you did say you wanted me to come for protection.” Goddess, what I wouldn’t give for my blades right about now. Thankfully, my magic was already rumbling beneath my skin. The rolling rage of it screaming for release.
I hadn’t used it since my injury, it hadn’t felt strong enough yet. Now, it did.
“Don’t tear something,” she hissed, all of that sass coming back full force as she stepped into the tavern, her head held high.
Every head turned as we entered, eyes dropping to our arms and our necks as though they already knew what we were. No. What she was. Thankfully, there was nothing there, although that didn’t stop the scowls and glares that followed us as she made her way right to the bar, me close on her heels.
I snarled and scowled at each and every one of them, the warning dripping from me. A few steps in, however, and I realized that while the darkness of my scowl was effective, without the inky shadows of my clothes and lethal weapons I was little more than a dirt covered Lighten with black curls and haunting eyes.
There was nothing deadly about me right then.
“I need two bottles of Tak, please,” Lyani’s strong voice echoed through the suddenly silent tavern as she reached the bar and ordered the drink strong enough to knock a man out, or clean wounds, which I was sure was exactly what she was going to use it for. The bar keeps’ lip curled in clear disgust as he looked her up and down.
His eyes lingered in all the places they shouldn’t before he turned his head, spitting into the filthy jug there with a sound like a rock against mud. He turned back, his eyes drifting right to her breasts as it took every ounce of my control to keep the fire that was now trying to melt its way through my flimsy cotton clothing from ripping through him.
“We don’t serve your kind here,” he drawled before spitting again.
“I would like–”
“What kind would that be?” I interrupted them both, the warning in my voice rippling through the air as I leaned over the bar, pulling the bar keeps’ attention for the first time. “Women?”
For a breath, something like fear crossed his eyes, and then he looked away from the glare I was fixing him with to the soiled shirt and the smudges of dirt on my jaw.
“Women we serve. Lightens we don’t. You better get on outta here before you regret stepping one vile foot in our town.” He spat again before leaning back over the bar, breathing his threat in my face with a voice that smelled worse than the piss and shit smell that made up his tavern.
Goddess, how I wanted to make him regret his words right then.
“We’d be happy to be on our way,” I didn’t lower my voice as I leaned in to him as he did to me, wrinkling my nose at the vile aroma that was emanating from him. “But first we will take two bottles of Tak.”
“We don’t serve your kind–”
“Oh, I’m not asking. We will take those, and we will be on our way. If you would like us to pay you for them then it would make things a whole lot easier.” I ran my finger over the filthy bar, only looking away from the barkeep long enough to wrinkle my nose in further disgust. “If I owned a shit hole like this I wouldn't say no to the money.”
I curled my lips, settling back into the game I had played so many times before. My soul prickled with excitement at the danger of it. I had missed this.
“Cas–” Lyani started, but I held up my hand, cutting her off before she said my name. I didn’t need this lot knowing my real name; and I really didn’t want her stopping this.
“What are you gonna do if I say no?” he snarled, his hand slipping beneath the bar to some weapon.
“Do you really want to find out?” I gave him a wicked grin and he flinched, hesitating before he shifted, bringing out whatever weapon he had stored beneath the bar.
“I’ll take my chances rather than sell to a vile Lighten,” he snarled, pulling his arm back to reveal a long rusted knife.
I didn’t give him a chance to use it.
He jabbed forward as I swept Lyani behind me with one hand, the other grabbing his wrists and pushing the blade to the side before pulling him forward all the way. His head slammed into the bar as I gripped the hilt of the blade, the slightest bit of pressure on his wrist releasing the rusted weapon into my hand. Another yank, and a leap and I was over the bar, the man twisted in front of me, his own blade held against his neck.
Lyani hadn’t even recovered from where I had pulled her when she looked up, eyes wide to see me standing on the other side of the bar with a knife to the man’s neck.
I couldn’t decipher if she was looking at me with awe, fear, disgust or a combination of the three. It didn’t matter, though, that burning look in her eyes plunged right into me, flooding me with that warmth and pushing me on.
“Do you still want to take the chance,” I hissed in his ear, grabbing his other hand and twisting it behind him until he winced. Although that wince may have been more from the pressure of the blade that was trying to slice through the grit and stubble that coated his neck.
Damn thing wasn’t sharp enough to do more than nick him.
What I wouldn’t give for my blades, to be able to slice and scent blood. That threat would linger much longer than whatever threat a dull blade could produce.
“No… no, sir,” he stuttered, and I pulled him tighter, the blade firmer against him lest he change his mind.
“Good. Now, say sorry to the lady and get her two bottles of Tak.” Keeping my grip on him tight, even as I let him grab for the bottles, I looked around the bar at the wide eyes and shocked stares. I was sure they had never seen a Lighten act like this.
They never would again, either.
Because I was not a Lighten. I never would be.
I continued to glare at each person in the bar, my warning clear as the bartender finally placed the second bottle on the grime covered bar top.
“Good. Now the apology.” I pressed the knife harder, looking from the barkeep to a man and a woman who were staring with wide eyed horror.
“So – sooo…” he stuttered before any words petered out in a sound near a sob.
“Come on now, you can do it.”
I gave the couple a wink as the bar man continued to stumble over his apology, the woman backing up a step before they both darted out the door.
That couldn’t be good.
“Sorry, lady.” He finally got the words out and I released him, the large man falling to his knees with a gasp.
“That’s better. Knew you had it in you,” I pat him twice on the back before vaulting back over the bar, Lyani giving me a look that was more that ‘don’t tear your wound’. I grinned at her, well aware the smile that dripped from my lips was one of malice and death.
She didn’t even flinch.
She glowered and grabbed the bottles, dropping the coin she had intended to pay with on the bar before storming out.
Well, that wasn’t the reaction I expected.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” I said, bowing to the bar man and then to the patrons before I followed her out at a run.
She was still storming away, leaving a plume of dust behind her as she kicked and ran along the old road.
“Lyani!” I called after her, she didn’t even turn. “Lyani!”
Only when I caught up to her did she slow, her eyes wide and full of tears as she faced me, her tiny frame not even coming to my chest but bowling me over all the same.
“Lyani, I–”
“Do you ever stop thinking of yourself?” She hissed, her voice low and threatening.
“What are you–”
“That’s all you do. You think only of yourself. You don’t even care about what you did. You are only proud that you won,” she snapped, stepping so close that I had to look down to see her. It didn’t matter how small she was, there was more power in that gaze than I could feel boil under my skin. “You never see what others need, or think of the consequences of your actions, Caspyn.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying. After all that, she was again accusing me of being selfish. Again. The accusation brought all of my flame to the surface until I was boiling as much as she was.
“What the hell, Lyani? I thought of you, I got you the Tak.”
“At what cost?” She pushed the bottle against me, shoving me back.
“Three silver coins by the looks of it.” At least that was what I had thought I had seen her put on the bar before she stormed out.
“That’s what it cost today, but what about tomorrow when they come to get retribution. Or two weeks from now when they follow us and attack in the middle of the night?” That fear from before came flooding back, a pain and panic I didn’t understand filling her eyes.
“They won’t be doing any of that.” I promised, although I didn’t know why I did. I couldn’t promise that. Looking at her now, I didn’t know why I didn’t think of any of that before. They were scared for a reason, they had come in a group, in pairs. She had quivered like a leaf as she walked toward the tavern. This beautiful, spunky, powerful woman, had been genuinely scared.
I might as well have prodded that army they were all afraid of to come running.
“Why? Because you did more than just glare at them? That was all you were supposed to do, Caspyn. Glare. Protect. But… that…” she gestured wildly toward the tavern, the bottles clacking together in her arms. “That will get us all killed.”
The cold chill that accompanied those words should not have frozen me as they did. They should not have incited the rage at the thought of her body cold and dead against blood soaked dirt. I slammed my eyes shut, forcing the image away.
“I won’t let them hurt you.” I said it before I could stop myself, before I could even think on why I would say such a ridiculous thing. Any fire that had been boiling under my skin reduced to a simmer as I held my hand out to her. She stepped away from it as though it was poison.
“What about the rest of us? I sure hope that whatever trick you pulled in there can save us all when they come to make us pay for you humiliating them. Because they will.” She spat those last words, leaning into me as her jaw tensed and pulled, all the hatred that she had spread in her words flashing through those eyes.
“You think only of yourself, Caspyn,” she snarled the same words as before. Just like last time, they boiled right up to the surface. The accusation of what I was, of what I would never be.
“I do not. You have no idea what I have given up. What I have lost. What I have done.” She would never know, but I couldn’t let her spout those lies again and again. “I have given up my entire life to save all of you. To save everyone from what is coming.” I yelled right back at her, all my fury matching hers as we glared and scowled and snarled.
“What do you mean ‘to save us from what is coming’?” The fury was still there, the heat of it reducing a simmer as she took another step back. “What have you done, Caspyn?”
“I haven’t done anything.” I didn’t know how to explain the cold chill of panic that ran over me, the icy flood of worry at the look on her face. At what I had almost revealed.
For one shiny moment I had wanted her to know what I had given up, what I lost, what I had done to save them all. I wanted her to know everything about me.
But knowing everything about me came with a million more, much darker, truths. Truths I could never reveal.
Truths I never wanted her to know.
Perhaps she was better off thinking of me as a selfish monster.
“Then how are you going to save us? Did you do that on purpose so that you could save us?” She gestured toward the tavern, all of that rage coming back.
That cool panic continued to wash over me in waves, drowning the fiery heat of my magic that had been rippling over me only seconds before.
“No. They will not come for you. I will not let them.”
“Let them?” She was laughing again, the bite of her mockery washing away some of that icy fear and letting the fire return. “So, you do think you are going to save us?”
She didn’t even care what I had let slip, she was more concerned for her people, and for what she assumed my actions would bring to the Lightens.
She knew nothing of the dangers outside of their precious circle of wagons. Not really. They feared angry villagers when death was coming. The death that I devoted my entire life to stopping.
We did not have Lightens when I was a boy, because they had all been wiped out.
They had never been on my list to save, but perhaps now they were. Perhaps now she was.
She had saved me after all, I was doing nothing more than returning the favor.
“Yes, Lyani. I will save you… I will save everyone, I mean. I hope you never find out the true dangers that are waiting for you out there. Let us all hope that I stop what’s coming.”
“We will have to see, won’t we Caspyn Light Bringer. Let’s see if you can actually think of someone besides yourself when the time comes.” The slice of her words cut through me before she stormed off to where all the others stood, some carrying bushels of wilted vegetables or grain, others with nothing.
I stood there, watching her go, trying to make sense of what had happened.
And what I had done wrong.
Damn Lightens.
This woman was driving me crazy. I needed to get out there, get away from them and all their stories and songs and every other bit of crazy that was infecting me. And soon. I needed to find my blades. Tonight. I was done.
At least now I knew something that I hadn’t before. My magic was at full strength.
And now I had a knife.