Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
MORGANA
T he night went on without fault. They drank until their heads spun, and although I wished I could keep up, I parted ways hours later to escape into the neighboring Rivereast Plains. It was dark and dangerous, but the drinks couldn’t get any cheaper—and the men couldn’t get any dirtier. If it weren’t for my service in the Umbra Guard, I’d be forced to live in one of the hostels with no means of escaping.
If it weren’t for Galen’s disappearance, I would be utterly lost in the shadows. I reached up to rub the still-sore skin at the center of my neck.
It was a tragic thing to accept, but over the years, it got easier to swallow. Thena and Isaac let me slip out of the tavern after a minutes-long drunken battle about whether I should walk home on my own. I wasn’t going home though.
Not yet.
There was a letter from Siren awaiting my return that terrible night, one with a swift apology and what to do next. I was used to him knowing what had happened to me, as if he were a stalker in the night, but this was faster than ever before. If I didn’t have my own motivations urging me forward, I would have ignored him and forgotten he existed. He’d failed me on the one night I truly needed him.
The music was louder here, the tunes dancing through my bones as men, women, and their partners shuffled into the street because the buildings were too full. Not a lick of them were sober either. It made this side of Verdantium almost pleasant. The air grew thicker as I moved beyond the alleys of overcrowded, dusty saloons. I tucked into a shadowed corridor to snake gloves and a bandana from my pocket, first slipping the worn leather over my fingers before tying the material over my nose. I lifted the hood of my cloak and latched my fingers around a metal pipe that climbed the length of a brick wall. It creaked and popped as I hooked my foot into the groove of a large nail head, but that didn’t faze me. I hurried until my fingers scratched the rough edge of the flat rooftop, hoisting myself over and staying crouched as I overlooked the short buildings that surrounded me.
When my brother disappeared, most chalked it up to some brutal death in Vespera that left little to be found. The Umbra Guard sent a few rescue missions to search for the bodies lost, but they came up short. I knew who sent them in—but what I didn’t know was why. My brother studied artifacts that the expedition teams brought back to him. He was a researcher —someone who understood the arcane systems even if he himself could not wield magic.
There was no reason for him to go into Vespera. If I had it my way, I’d get my revenge on the figurehead who led the largest military force in all of the known world, but that was unrealistic. So I’d start small—I’d get my answers, and for those who didn’t want to comply, they didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as me.
Part of me hoped my answers would lead back to Galen—the version of him who was alive. But the more realistic side scolded me for my optimism. For now, I’d exist somewhere in the happy medium. Tonight, that gray area was in the darkest part of Rivereast Plains, coined the Afterdark. The lamplighters didn’t journey into this side of town to illuminate the streets, making it the perfect spot for debauchery and crime. Some of it was petty revenge for lost gambling deals, and some the darker, lustful desires of one too many brothels. I didn’t have an interest in those places—not tonight. Perhaps another.
I feathered my way across the rooftops, soaring between the narrow alleyways and hugging the slanted roofs to remain in the shadows. No one ever looked up, but if I made too much noise, I’d get caught in an instant. I took out the crumbled piece of paper from my pocket and read the scratchy notes I’d taken after getting this lead. Pinned on the bottom left was an old family photograph, torn to focus on the only man I cared about tonight. Francis DeBurne.
Few knew about my motivation—Thena was one of them, but she was the most vocally displeased. She thought it was my one-way ticket to getting kicked in a ditch, but her status in the Umbra Guard was a one-way ticket to getting swallowed alive by that void of death. We were both screwed.
Isaac… Isaac almost found out. I don’t think I could handle the disappointed glimmer in his eyes when he found out how many people I put in a grave in exchange for a little information. Or, worse, because they argued with me. Lord DeBurne should have been added to that list, but I let my nerves best me.
That left one person. I’d never met Siren. I knew him by no other means, but I didn’t need to. He’d gotten me good information, and the only thing that bound us together was our mutual desire to get revenge. If it weren’t for my plea in the papers regarding Galen’s disappearance, Siren may not have contacted me. That, in the end, was why his failure to find me at that party four nights ago stung so badly.
Maybe I’d meet him one day, but our alliance existed only on paper for now. I looked over the edge of the thin page and saw a building that perfectly matched his description: gothic architecture, soiled, dirty pale stone, and a roof crafted entirely of glass. It seemed like it belonged in the crown district, akin to the banquet hall, but that made sense. Rivereast Plains was supposed to be a bustling, wealthy neighborhood.
When Vespera spread to our shores decades ago, that changed it all. People respected the royal family less as the years passed, and when the Ton sought refuge in nations further from the plague that soiled our lands, this place diminished. Not many knew about what resided inside Vespera, but year by year, it inched further onto the lands. Eventually, Verdantis as a nation would cease. From the frigid north to the southern sandy shores. Supposedly, our crown prince was the answer to our demise, but it was all propaganda.
I didn’t believe any of it. He was a faceless figurehead. Rumor was he never left the castle walls. More lies.
So I crossed the remaining buildings until my foot touched down on the slick glass roof. My gloved palms rested on the slanted roof, my gaze dipping into the deep atrium below. I knew about this building’s reputation well—it used to be a museum before the world went to hell. Now it was a series of shoppes. The lower the level, the darker the market. I heard you could get anything you wanted here—from barely beating hearts to women for trade. There were more brothels too, but I’d heard rumors that the selection was otherworldly . Orcs, vampires, Umbran elves. Those who didn’t walk amongst the streets and rather took to the tunnels and underground cities.
Siren’s note said Francis’s interrogation was happening two levels below the roof. Apparently, when not courting once per season for his new and shiny wife, he was a thief who possessed a few artifacts from Vespera’s darkest regions. Those heirlooms could make a man wealthy overnight. If he stole from the wrong person, it’d get nasty— fast .
I shimmied along the glass paneling once I was certain there was no movement immediately below me. My shadow tailed after me, cast over the walls and floor like a bad tell. Eventually, I landed on a thin patch of stone that separated two segments of the panels. In the center was a latch.
I kneeled by it and took the pins and wrench from the small pouch looped around my belt. These locks were rudimentary, and after placing the tension wrench into the keyhole, I was able to twist the pin a few times before the most satisfying click echoed into the air. I let the lock clatter, albeit too loudly, but nothing compared to the gut-wrenching squeak of the rusty hinges.
I winced, peering down into the hole and halfway, expecting to be caught, but like the hallway underneath the roof I crossed, it was empty. I breathed out a sigh of relief. After a few seconds of uninterrupted silence, I hooked my foot against the ladder’s third groove down. Everything about this was loud. The metal ached like old bones and screamed like angry children. The moment I was closer to the ground, I dropped and let my feet thud against the smooth marble tile. I lunged for the wall so I was safely tucked in a shadowed corner.
Again, I waited.
A few levels down, distant footsteps were heard, but it was quiet again when the doors slammed shut. I could hear muffled drunken laughter mixed into sickening screeches. I didn’t know what exactly happened in a place like this after dark, and I didn’t want to know if it had helped coin Rivereast Plains’ infamous nickname.
I slipped into the hallway and ducked down so I was hugging the balustrade. The hallways formed a perimeter around the building, the large opening in the middle chasing my vision down, down, down. I saw bodies shuffling between rooms. A few were scantily clad women—some with horns, others with dark-maroon or light-gray skin and pointed ears—but most were men with alcohol in hand. It was a slightly more refined version of the mayhem happening out on the streets.
I descended the stairwell slowly, making note of every sound my feet made against the smooth, hard stone. It was too quiet up here, and now that the debauchery had transitioned behind closed doors downstairs, I had nothing concealing my noise. I held my breath, pinching the fabric against the bridge of my nose so it didn’t slip. Worst-case scenario, I got caught descending the steps and I’d have to make a run for it.
If I had my face hidden, none of that mattered. If they caught me and found out I served on the guard, my life was over. It was more serious than torture or a bad fight. I’d be locked away and subjected to whatever punishment the crown saw fit.
I made it to the bottom without concern though. Now, nothing but the dimly lit corridors faced me. All of the doors were shut—except one. Warm lantern light bled onto the dark floor. Remaining kneeled, I approached it. Whispering hisses swirled into the air, like a ghost rather than a man’s voice. Then a raspy voice broke the silence:
“... please, please ,” a voice croaked. “I-I d-don’t have what you’re looking f-for!”
There wasn’t much of a response to be heard. I pressed my ear against the wall next to the door, careful to avoid the light so my shadow did not give me away. I was already too exposed out in the open like this—if someone turned the corner, there was nowhere I could go.
I recognized that voice though. It was a more scared version of the prick who nearly ended my life.
Then a deep, guttural hum slithered into the silence. It adulterated it, like a careless bachelor with his mistress—it was cold, dangerous, and, more than anything else, tempting.
With the patience of a saint, I hooked my fingers around the edge of the frame and slowly peeked my head around the corner to see what I was dealing with. There was one light situated near the back of the room, combatting with impossible shadows that shrouded the unsettling corners. There was a man dressed in the finest threads I’d ever seen in the Afterdark, one hand gloved and the other bleeding raw, unsullied darkness.
It was the sort of darkness that could only be conjured in a nightmare. The beasts that existed within the unknown taunted me, but in that chair was the person I’d scaled all those buildings to find.
“Come on, Francis,” the gloved man said with the cold edge of a killer. Slowly, he leaned over, the shadows dancing around him as if they were afraid to occupy the same space as him. Blood bubbled out of the victim’s mouth, his right eye swollen shut. He thrashed, but his voice was muffled by something dark covering his mouth. “I know you can do better than that. You had such a strong voice when you abused that poor mistress.”
My face paled. The darkness spiraled from the four corners of the room and swirled around them, as if to cage them away from wandering eyes. When screams pierced the air, gooseflesh raced across my entire body.
It was then that I realized those cries did not exist to a pained victim. No, they were the shrieks of veiled monsters that could only exist within the gloomy unknown that encapsulated them whole.