Rites of Possession: The Complete Series

Chapter 1

One

The scars on my back scrape the wagon’s underside through my hooded tunic. I creep onward in my hunched pose, absorbing the prickle of pain.

It’s a reminder of where I came from.

The heroes in fables and histories don’t scuttle around beneath horse-drawn wagons in the shadows and dirt. They stride forward under the sun to carry out their virtuous deeds.

If the stories are true, you’d figure most of them stood ten feet tall and shone sunlight out of their exalted asses too.

But I’m not any kind of hero. I’m a monster with a broken soul.

I’d like to think that qualifies me to identify other sorts of monsters. Like the charm merchant who owns this wagon, whose soul I’m willing to bet is at least badly smudged.

He’s parked off to the side of the ramshackle square on the fringes of the city, and a small crowd has already gathered to ogle his wares. With every false promise that rolls off his lying tongue, my grimace deepens.

The trinkets jingle as he holds up one and another. “Blessed by Elox himself! Keep this charm close, and you’ll be free of illness for a year. This one, touched by Prospira’s promise—plant it with your gardens for twice the yield.”

Sure, and my spit turns shit into gold.

The arid breeze sends a tickle of dust into my nose. I stifle a sneeze and ease even closer to the swarm of legs just beyond the wagon.

The shadows and the dirt-brown fabric of my tunic make me all but invisible. Just in case, I tug the hood farther over my pale face and tuck back a few stray wisps of my reddish-blond hair.

A voice I recognize speaks up, sweet but thin. “Will the Elox-blessed charm help someone who’s already sick? My son—he’s been down with a fever.”

I wince. It’s Zuzanna—the housewife with the dotted curtains and Elox’s sigil carved into every wall of her rickety house. Her appeals to the godlen of healing haven’t brought any miracles yet. Her frail son is ill more often than he’s not.

But she can’t help grasping at any slim chance she gets.

The merchant answers in a tone slick as oil. “Oh, for one already ill, I have a stronger charm. It only costs a few bits more.”

Murmurs ripple through the gathered onlookers. I can taste the tang of hope in the air—but it’s all in vain.

Charms imbued with godlen-blessed magic exist, but not for the prices at which the merchant is hawking his fakes. The residents of this neighborhood could never afford the real thing.

I’ve crossed paths with legitimate relics a few times, and they give off a thrum of power that quivers right through the center of me. From the trinkets hanging from the display over my head, I sense only a brief tingle.

It’s probably a dusting of conjured happiness that will satisfy the buyers for the first week or two.

A deeper prickle races into my skin whenever the merchant speaks. Most of the scam artists who prey on the city’s poor have gifts of their own: a knack for encouraging trust, a talent for persuasion.

They can always find new customers. Hope is in awfully short supply on these streets. Plenty of people can’t resist the gamble.

I blink, and an image of my father flits behind my eyelids. Years ago, setting a charm on the foot of the bed where Ma lay wasting away.

The sham didn’t so much as quiet her whimpers.

This fraud’s current targets can spare far fewer coins than Da was able to. But Zuzanna is already fishing in her purse.

She’ll be skipping dinner for weeks.

My fingernails dig into my palms. I picture myself leaping out and condemning the fraud directly, but the weight of experience holds me in place.

It’d be nowhere near as simple as popping up to say, “Hello, I’m Ivy, your hunter of scams. This man is a crook!”

I have no proof I can present to the crowd that will conquer the hope the conman has stirred up. I learned long ago that the guards supplied by city’s elite care more about keeping tax-paying merchants happy than protecting the needy.

And when I try to set things right head-on, there’s too much chance of it going horribly wrong instead. It’s safer for all of us if I stick to the shadows.

I can deal out justice my own way.

As the merchant accepts Zuzanna’s payment, I palm my favorite knife. He drops the smaller coins into the change purse at his hip—and a larger piece of silver into the broader pouch at his back, bulging with the earnings from past sales.

He thinks his money is safer back there, out of reach of the people he can see. A smile curls my lips.

He’s all but handed the loot to me. So kind of him.

The crooks who prey on the fringes of the capital have become warier as word of vanishing money has gotten around. But I never leave an obvious sign of exactly when or where I’ve done my work, and I’ve got a multitude of tricks up my sleeves.

I wait until the merchant turns to face the rest of the onlookers again. With his billowing trousers hiding my slight frame from view, I tip out of the shadows and flick the blade of my knife across the pouch’s side.

As the merchant answers a man’s question about strength-enhancing charms, I give the leather bag a gentle palpitation. Several thick coins, each enough to feed a family for a day, roll from the small hole into my hand.

While I slide my first plunder into a hidden inner pocket by my waist, the merchant swivels to pluck a charm off his display. I hold still, crouched beneath the wagon.

A flash of sapphire blue at the edge of the crowd catches my gaze, and my body goes totally rigid.

Heart thudding, I track the soldier’s stroll toward the wagon. His glossy black boots and trim pants gleam in the late-afternoon sun.

The capital city’s official police force, the Crown’s Watch, doesn’t patrol the outskirts of Florian often. They’re more concerned with protecting the gentlefolk in the buffed stone houses closer to the royal palace.

But if this soldier notices me at work, he’ll feel the need to intervene. And if the Watch gets their hands on me, they might realize there’s a whole lot more than petty thievery they can charge me with.

One wrong movement will mean a trip straight to the gallows.

The shiny black boots come to a stop less than ten feet away. I grit my teeth, bracing myself to bolt.

Anyone else might pray to the godlen for luck or protection at a moment like this, but the last thing I’ll ever want is their attention. Our lesser gods would be the first to punish me for what I am.

I can’t even say I wouldn’t deserve it.

The hiss of my mother’s voice rises up in the back of my mind. You brought a curse down on our house. It was all you, wasn’t it?

The scars on my back itch. I swallow thickly and shove the memory away.

Maybe I can never make up for the horrors I’ve committed. Maybe my soul is forfeit. But I need to live if I’m going to write a new story for myself.

I’m never going to be a hero, but when I meet my end, I want to be sure I was more than a villain. No matter what anyone else will see when that noose tightens around my neck.

The soldier’s voice rings out, arrogant and bored. “No one here’s giving you any trouble I hope, good merchant?”

“I’ve received an excellent welcome,” the merchant replies smoothly.

The boots turn. The soldier ambles off, and I gradually let out my breath.

The conman goes on plying his wares. He is making good business, cajoling yet another customer into handing over their sparse earnings.

His success makes him confident—and careless. While he deals with a lonely spinster and then a struggling shopkeeper, I massage more coins out of his pouch. Taking the silver a few coins at a time ensures he doesn’t register the lightening of the weight at his back.

The crowd thins. I slip a final bunch of silver into one of my pockets before feeding a few handfuls of pebbles into the merchant’s pouch to replace what I’ve stolen.

If he gives the bag a pat, it’ll feel suitably full.

May it take him until nightfall to realize that he’s lost nearly all of his stash.

With another grim smile, I pull back. I have to slink well clear of the wagon before the merchant sets off.

I’m just drawing my body around when something spooks the horse.

At the gelding’s squeal, my head jerks around. He rears, and a brief twinkle of light darts beneath his flailing forelegs.

It could be a trick of the eye—or it could be a daimon making mischief, as the wandering spirit-creatures so enjoy doing.

I don’t have time to contemplate the possibilities, because as the horse’s hooves hit the ground, he springs forward, dragging the wagon.

My stomach lurches. In a second, I’ll be exposed.

An urge punches me from the inside out, as if an impatient hand has wrenched through me from gut to sternum. It thrusts toward the world outside, determined to fling forth the supernatural power coiled within my body and latch on to the fastest way to save my skin.

No!

I slam down on the impulse with all the self-control I’ve spent years honing and whip myself around. My back jars against the hard-packed dirt with a pang of my scars, but I’m already heaving upward.

My fingers and the toes of my boots snag on the nooks in the underside of the wagon. Every muscle strains as I cling to the shaky handholds I’ve caught.

My shortened right forefinger wavers in the air. A half-bit crime lord cut it off at the first knuckle years ago when I hadn’t yet learned all the lessons of the streets, but I’ve never missed that fraction of a digit more.

The wagon jolts with the gelding’s next yank. He hurtles forward with a frantic whinny, leaving the charms clattering on their shelves and the merchant cursing. Someone shouts advice from the crowd while a child bursts out laughing.

An ache spreads through my limbs with the effort to hold myself off the ground—and a sharper pain lances through my chest. I clamp my lips against a gasp of agony.

Gods smite me, not again…

The pain ignores my silent plea. It sears up to my shoulders and down to my pelvis, lashing this way and that like a bonfire in the wind.

Fuck, this is even worse than the last time.