CHAPTER ONE
She’s My Wife
Pytr
“Stop,” the man hisses under his breath. “Please. You can help me.”
I try to pull away, but the man sticks to my side like a burr on my cloak. I glance up, watching my three friends as they continue to waltz their way down the street while twilight swells around them, totally oblivious to the strange man who’s now matching my pace as I thread through the crowd.
Gods, this always happens to me. I must have a target painted on my back. One that reads: Farmer.
No, make that: Idiot Farmer.
“I can’t help you,” I growl, crossing my arms over my chest for emphasis.
I’ve never been small, not even as a boy, and at times like this, I’m grateful for my size. Even though it means nothing ever fits quite right, not even the fancy clothes I’m wearing tonight to blend in.
That must be why this man stopped me. The clothes. I probably look like I piss gold coins. I stare at the receding backs of my three friends, willing one of them to turn around. Even if it’s just to laugh at the way the idiot from the country got stopped by some beggar on the street.
They don’t, of course. And the man pulls even closer.
“You’re from there,” he says, his voice so low it’s almost a whisper. “The Towers.”
I stumble, then stop completely. For the first time, I turn to look at the man.
He doesn’t exactly look like a beggar. His clothes are a bit wrinkled, like he’s been sleeping in them, but they aren’t in tatters.
Actually, from the look of his eyes, I don’t think he’s been sleeping.
I open my mouth, then stop. The ones chosen for training at the Towers are not granted the privilege to leave. This isn’t the first time my friends have snuck me out, but still, coming from the Towers is not something I want to admit in the middle of Silver City’s busy streets.
The man glances to the side, like he’s afraid we’re about to be attacked. When he turns back to me, there’s a wild desperation in his eyes. Some part of me worries that the crazy bastard is about to pull a knife on me.
Gods, my friends would laugh then. Pytr the farmer, mugged in the middle of the street, before it was even dark.
“It’s been over a week,” the man whispers. “Ten days. It’s been—” He stops, runs his hand over his face, and turns back to me. “We went on a tour. The full moon tour, you know?”
I nod. I feel like I’m sinking into something cold and thick. I know what full moon tours are. And I know why the Towers puts them on. To raise money, they say, and to spread the word about their noble mission of capturing magic for humanity.
But that’s not the real reason the Towers open their gates to a flood of humanity once a month.
No, the Exemplars of the Towers use those tours for recruitment. And sometimes the people they take even come willingly.
“I don’t—” the man stammers, then shakes his head. “That’s the last thing I remember, walking through the gates. And she— she smiled, I think. Laughed.” He shakes his head, then waves his hand at an alleyway. “I woke up down there, pushed against a wall.”
Poor bastard. They must have come on the tour alone, or admitted they were travelers just visiting Silver City with no one here to miss them. I bet one of the Exemplars used sleep magic on him.
The man looks like he’s about to break down, right here, in the middle of the street. Nervously, I glance over my shoulder. My friends are gone, of course.
“Well, that’s awful,” I say, as nicely as I can. “Now, I really have to be going.”
He lunges forward, grabbing my shirt in his fists.
“Please,” he says. It sounds like a sob. “You have to help me. She’s— She’s my wife.”
I stop. I know better, damn it. Every part of me knows better. But that word cuts deeper than any knife.
Because I have a wife.
I bend down, until I’m so close I can smell him. Yeah, he’s definitely been sleeping in those clothes for a while.
“Who is she?” I ask. “What does she look like?”
“Kyla,” he replies. “She’s blonde. Short, curvy. Her nose is slanted, it— it broke when we were kids—”
And he breaks down. His next words struggle through sobs, and I manage to catch about half of them. Blue eyes. From Annondale. Came here as a wedding present, I think?
I start walking again, half-dragging the man with me so we don’t cause any more of a damn scene. The few vendors still at their stalls this late are starting to stare at me, and hells, if this stranger knows I come from the Towers, they probably do too.
That’s another thing I hate about Silver City. Of course everyone knew everything about everyone else in my tiny little village. But in the big city?
Well, hells. It turns out everyone knows everything about everyone else here too.
I sigh, then turn back to the man. I want to say something, make some promise, but I know better. Sure, I’m one of the Elites. I get to wear black and get private lessons with the masochists with their silver chains of magic. But I know better than anyone how very little that means.
And I don’t make promises I can’t keep.
Her face flickers in my memory, dark eyes and soft lips in the candlelight. She’d been staring at the window, watching the stars trace their silent paths across the ocean of the night, as tears rolled down her cheeks. I held her so tightly I half worried I’d leave bruises.
“Come back to me,” she whispered. “By all the gods, Pytr Gardnir, you had better come back to me.”
I shake my head. We’re almost to the street with the gaudy, pretentious tavern my friends love for some reason. I’m sure they’re already inside, no doubt placing their first orders and wondering if I somehow managed to get lost walking in a straight line.
I stop, then glance at the man at my side. He’s pulled himself together, a little at least, but he still looks vaguely deranged. I want to tell him to go home, to get some rest.
But is that what I would do if the Towers had my wife?
“I—” I begin, then stop to clear my throat. “I’ll see what I can do,” I say.
And then I practically run into the tavern before the poor bastard can say anything else.