15. Kira
Chapter 15
Kira
WE NEED YOU
T holious looks like the negotiations with the Godkiller did not go well.
He’s scowling when he comes back down the stairs, and he pulls Zayne outside without a word for the rest of us. Matius ignores him, like he’s been doing ever since we dragged ourselves inside this stone tower last night, and I wonder if the icy distance between the two of them bothers Zayne and Girwin as much as it’s bothering me.
Not that I care about Tholious’s love life, particularly. It’s just awkward to feel like I’ve wandered into the middle of someone else’s relationship problems, and the only escape is pouring rain and possibly wolves.
“We’re leaving,” Tholious announces.
I look up to see him standing in the arched entryway with his arms crossed over his chest. Zayne slouches next to him with a pout. I frown. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Zayne slouch before.
“Why?” Barrance asks. “We ain’t got the amulet, right?”
Tholious looks up at the ceiling, then turns back to Barrance.
“He said he doesn’t have it,” Tholious replies, in a voice that’s a bit too loud.
Ah. He’s not talking to Barrance. He said that for the benefit of the Godkiller, who’s probably listening in on our conversations. The thought makes me feel uncomfortable, like my skin is too hot even as I shiver in the cold wind blowing through the doorway.
Gods, I hardly slept. I spent most of the night staring at the door Reznyk closed when he left, torn between hoping the Godkiller wouldn’t come through looking for me and hoping that he would.
Shit. I’m an idiot, and I’m lucky the Godkiller didn’t murder me in the hunting lodge. The gods know he had ample opportunity.
“So that’s it?” Barrance says, coming to his feet. “We’re just gonna leave? Go back to the Towers empty-handed? How are they gonna like that?”
Tholious rolls his eyes, then points at the ceiling.
“What the hells is that supposed to mean?” Barrance replies. He steps forward with a scowl. “I don’t know how they do things in the Towers, but in the Guild, we don’t leave the job half done.”
“Barrance,” Zayne growls. “Stand down.”
The two men lock eyes. For a moment, the air inside the old tower feels thick and heavy, ready to explode. Then Barrance turns away, spits on the ground, and kicks his backpack.
“Anybody else have a problem with the plan?” Zayne asks.
His smile is tight, and his eyes are hard. By the time it occurs to me to ask what the plan is, we’re walking down the ridge in a thick, gray drizzle as the old tower vanishes in the fog behind us.
“This is probably far enough,” Tholious suddenly announces, with a glance over his shoulder, as if he’s expecting Reznyk to suddenly waltz out of the freezing mist.
Zayne makes a sound in the back of his throat that could be taken for agreement. Tholious drops his pack to the ground. We’ve stopped in a little hollow just below the lip of the ridge. The Godkiller’s tower is out of sight, and the forest drops away beneath us, one long, steep, and muddy pitch to the meadow where everyone but Tholious wanted to spend last night.
“Kira,” Tholious says.
I turn toward him. Tholious looks like something hurts, and for a moment I wonder if Reznyk did something to him this morning. Did he get some sort of magical injury? Is he about to explode and take us all out? Gods, from the look on his face, that’s a real possibility.
“Yeah?” I ask, wondering if I should take a step back.
“The Towers need you,” Tholious begins, in a halting voice that makes me think this conversation is about as much fun as the fight he’s having with Matius. “We all need you, I mean. For this.”
He falls silent. Rain drips off the pine boughs all around us, and somewhere a bird calls out, the same rapidly falling four notes, over and over.
“Okay,” I say, when the silence starts to feel awkward.
Tholious sighs, then looks down the mountainside and toward the meadow. The clouds are beginning to lift, although tatters of mist still hang heavy over the forest. Maybe he’s estimating how far we are from the hunting lodge. Or maybe he’s just trying to avoid making eye contact. When he finally turns back to me, there’s a hard edge in his expression that I’m not sure I’ve seen before.
“Reznyk does have the amulet,” Tholious whispers.
“’Course he does,” Barrance grumbles.
Tholious ignores him.
“That whole place feels like magic,” Tholious continues. “Especially Reznyk. I think he’s wearing the thing, but if not, he’s at least got it somewhere close by.”
Zayne snorts. “If only someone had seen him naked,” he mutters under his breath.
I scowl at Zayne like I’m trying to set him on fire with my mind. Tholious makes an awkward cough. Hells. At least Zayne didn’t tell Tholious that the Godkiller was in the hunting lodge with us. With me. Naked.
Still, Tholious’s words burn. The whole place feels like magic? Really? Shouldn’t I have noticed magic buzzing around the old tower last night? Or what about the night before, when I had as much of my body as possible pressed against the man who stole the amulet?
Although I could swear to the fact that Reznyk was not wearing an amulet that night. Not that I’m about to bring that up just now.
“Kira, that’s why we need you,” Tholious says.
I glance up and blink. How much of this conversation did I just miss?
“He’s lonely,” Tholious continues, “and he’s got the amulet. One person might succeed where a group did not.”
That bird calls again, four sharp notes like glass falling against stone.
“Excuse me?” I finally say.
Tholious makes a face like he’s about to be sick. “We need—” he begins. “I mean, I need, uh. You need to hurt yourself.”
Barrance grins. Matius looks horrified.
“What?” I say.
Tholious’s neck bobs, like he’s swallowing poison. “You need a reason to go back there,” he says, “and to stay there. Maybe a twisted ankle?”
“That’s fucking absurd,” Matius snaps, glaring at Tholious. “How is this easier than the two of us leaving now for Cairncliff?—”
“I’ll do it,” Zayne says.
His face is a closed door. Something deep inside of my chest curls in fear. I’ve laughed with Zayne quite a bit since we left Silver City. I’ve gotten to know him, and some part of me has come dangerously close to considering him a friend.
I almost forgot who he actually is. A hired mercenary from the Guild. The leader of a group of hired mercenaries.
“What?” I say again, only this time it’s less of a question and more of a wheeze.
“You fuck him,” Barrance replies. He makes a disgusting hand gesture, just in case I wasn’t sure what those words meant. “Then you take the amulet back.”
“One of us will be waiting for you in the hunting lodge,” Tholious says. His face has gone so pale I think he might pass out. “I’m sure you’ll be able to sense the amulet. That much magic can’t be hidden for long. Once you find it, come down the mountain.”
My mouth falls open, but the scream building inside my lungs doesn’t come out. Instead, I stare at the five men around me and suddenly wish I was the one who had some sort of magical injury that was about to explode. It’d be worth it just to take them all out.
Instead, I try to smile, to be the polite and invisible Kira from the Towers, but my mouth refuses to cooperate. What I’m actually thinking bursts out instead.
“You’re sending me up there,” I snap, “just because I have tits?”
Barrance shrugs and nods.
“You have Towers training,” Tholious replies. “You can find the amulet and bring it back.”
“You have more training than me!” I say. “Why don’t you go up there and fuck him instead?”
“He already knows who I am,” Tholious replies. “He doesn’t know who you are.”
I take a breath. I need to tell Tholious everything; that I’ve never had any magical training in the Towers. I’ve never sensed so much as a spark of magic, ever, in my entire life.
And that the Godkiller does, in fact, know who I am. He knows quite a bit about me that these five men will never know.
A hand closes around my arm. I jump. The words die in my throat as I meet Zayne’s eyes. He’s frowning, but his grip on my arm is gentle.
“Kira,” Zayne says under his breath. “Let’s go.”
There’s something behind those words, something more he’s trying to tell me. I shake free of his arm, then glare at Tholious.
“Fuck you,” I snap at him.
Tholious recoils, but it’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough. I try to think of the worst insults I’ve ever heard, something that will haunt this son of a bitch to his very grave.
“You—” I begin. My vision blurs, and my voice cracks. “You’re a bad person!”
Gods, that was pathetic. I turn away and wipe my sleeve across my face so Tholious won’t see my tears. Then I grab my pack and stomp off, toward the ridge, my breath catching in the back of my throat and my body trembling.
What in the hells am I going to do? Find my way down the mountain alone? Return to the Towers empty-handed, with no magical potential, no amulet, and Tholious there to say I didn’t do my part? Hells, after years of sneaking around at night, digging for the truth, and acting invisible, the last thing I need is a reputation as a troublemaker.
Fuck. Fuck them all, every single son of a bitch who dragged me from the Towers when I was so close to finding what I needed.
And fuck me too for not recognizing the name Reznyk. For not finding it even mildly suspicious that a gorgeous man traveling alone in the middle of a storm would be so interested in my life story.
“This is far enough,” Zayne says from behind me.
I collapse on a rock, my chest heaving and my eyes burning. Zayne sits down next to me. For a moment we’re both silent as patches of sunlight race across the valley that’s spread out before us.
“Look, sweetheart,” Zayne finally says. “I’m going to hurt you. But before I do that, I want to give you an idea.”
I sniff, then wipe my eyes. Zayne brings a hand to the back of his neck as he turns toward me. The clouds lift, and in a sudden burst of light I see the stubble on his cheeks and the fine lines tracing paths out from his eyes like rivers cutting through the forest.
He doesn’t look like he wants to be here. And that’s not much consolation, but I suppose I’ll take it.
“Don’t come back to Silver City,” Zayne says.
I blink. “What?”
Zayne shrugs, then glances out across the jagged peaks that rise to scrape the clouds behind him.
“This guy,” Zayne continues. “Reznyk. We already know he likes you well enough. Ask him to take you somewhere else, to help you get set up. You play your cards right, and I bet he will.”
“What?” I say again. “Why?”
Everything I know is in Silver City. Before Fyrris chose me for this godsdamned expedition, I’d never even left the city.
“Because I wouldn’t even want Barrance to go join the Towers,” Zayne says. He’s smiling, like always, but his eyes are hard.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. My shoulders curl forward as a gust of wind blasts down the mountain, carrying one final smattering of rain.
“The Towers took one of ours,” Zayne continues, in a low voice. “Years ago. His name was Aveus. They turned him into one of the Elites.”
He says Elites like some people say shit. I stare at him. I know the name Aveus, vaguely at least. He was another one of the boys in black who we were all supposed to ignore. And now there are no Elites, and we’re supposed to pretend there never were.
“What happened to him?” I whisper, as though the Towers could hear me asking forbidden questions all the way up here.
“Gone to chase the moon, I suppose,” Zayne replies, with a shrug. “We didn’t exactly keep in touch.”
Zayne stretches, then shifts on the rocks until he’s sitting directly below me. He bends forward to pick up the heavy boot holding my left foot.
“It was a power move,” Zayne says. “The Towers wanted to show the Guild who was really in charge, so they took the boss’s favorite. And it worked.” He rolls my boot back and forth in his hands, like he’s warming up to give me a massage. “The Towers are shit, sweetheart. Don’t go back there.”
“But you still work for them?”
“I work for anyone who’s got the shills,” Zayne replies, with a grin. “But you aren’t getting paid, now, are you?”
I frown. Of course I’m not getting paid. No one gets paid; serving in the Towers is honor enough. Isn’t it?
“Look at me,” Zayne says.
I meet his eyes. In this light, they’re a strange, murky green, like water at the bottom of an abandoned well.
“Scream,” Zayne says.
He twists my foot. Something pops. A bolt of pain howls up my leg. My vision goes white, then red.
I scream.