Chapter 2
The mana of sorcerers is a dark, insatiable force. It’s not uncommon for a sorcerer to keep multiple confectioners. After all, only a heart devoid of light can reach into those depths without losing itself entirely.
ARAWN
They were very quiet all of a sudden.
After all, corpses had lost the right to speak. Just as an ambush loses all its flair once its last sorcerer is dead. Once, I might have been flattered. An entire squad, just for me. But this morning, I had other priorities than a bloodbath.
I set my boot on the chest of the last one lying on the cobblestones.
A breath trembled between his split lips.
I did not wait for him to waste it on some useless final word.
I pressed down. His cursed heart, that aberration, cracked beneath my heel like a rotten fruit under a blade. A dark spatter stained my coat.
What was left of him condensed into a hard core, like all the others. I sent the black stone to join the pile, hidden in the mist. I left it to the villagers to decide whether they would burn them, mourn them, or grind them into coal for the winter.
I narrowed my eyes. The first light of morning pierced the fog. Where was I?
I turned, hands in my pockets, and saw the two survivors still standing. Their mission had been to hold my attention this far. They had succeeded in that part. They had so eagerly led me into this pitiful trap, the noble goal of which was to end my life.
If only it were that simple.
“You. The bait.”
The two Cursed shrank back—one behind the bulk of a hunched clay mass, the other hiding behind its tails. I pulled my leather gloves back on and walked between them without stopping.
“Follow me. At the slightest deviation, I’ll impale you with the rest of your kin.”
All I could smell was the rancid reek of cold soot and split hearts. At last, I set foot in this village without someone trying to gut me within the minute.
Click. Clack.
My lighter spun between my fingers in the timber-framed alleys.
That dry scrape rose again, for the umpteenth time.
A breath of mist tried to form, and died as soon as it was born.
It was broken, like the rest. The copper charm wrapped around the glass body hung, frayed to the bone.
The wheel rasped my skin with the affection of a cleaver in a bite.
The mist-essence inside would not deign to come out.
And still, I kept at it. A tic. A splinter I refused to pull out.
The slick cobblestones gleamed under my steps. Not a breath of life. Only a weed.
An older woman with a bent back planted on the pavement, cane in hand, muttering against the world.
“Going to the confectioner’s?” She had the indecency to address me. “She hasn’t put out the candies this morning. I have family, you know! And not a bit of sugar to greet them with! A world without sweets, do you realize?”
I kept walking. Behind me, the two Cursed shifted, their gargles warped by hunger—or perhaps they, too, would rather face death than human conversation. At least they knew how to obey. The older woman did not. She tapped her cane on the ground, bolder and bolder.
“What a temper. She and her lamb threw me out like I was filth!”
I stopped. The leather of my gloves creaked under my clenched fists. A drop of blood slipped from between my fingers, falling to the ground.
“She should sweep her own doorstep! The place is a pigsty, I tell you! A disgrace! No wonder she lives alone… With that kind of—”
I slowly turned my head toward her.
Her breath caught in her throat. Her pupils flickered. Her face drained of color.
“They say,” I murmured, “you can survive with a rotten heart. But you, madam, I suspect you have nothing left but mold.”
She fainted and crumpled to the ground at once, like a poorly tied sack of flour. I stepped over her without breaking stride.
Click. Clack.
This time, the flame held. A butterfly of mist escaped, its wings beating. I followed it with my eyes as it cut through the fog, flying straight ahead.
For once, it knew where it was going.
The little bakery appeared, a splinter of light in the mist.
I passed under the lintel, head low. The bell fell from its hook and landed at my feet.
The sun had deserted the broken windows, but not the mushrooms, which spread thick over the beams. My shadow broke over the shards swept into a corner.
The confectioner had her back to me, fingers clenched on a warped broom. A ribbon slipped from her pink strands.
“We’re closed,” she said without looking at me, her voice like a hard candy.
I raised a hand. Behind me, the Cursed shut the door. “I see. Not surprising. Everything that draws me has the elegance of being out of reach.”
I snapped the lighter.
The butterfly took its last breath, then disappeared the moment it brushed the confectioner’s shoulder.