Chapter 17 #2
“And a sorcerer in a foul mood could be more dangerous than you imagine,” I retorted sharply, doubling the price. “And you’re mistaken.”
“Perhaps. But one thing is certain: good men will always try to impress the one they desire. Even the most devious of them.” She chuckled, her eyes sliding toward the crowd. “Besides, it seems your little mouse is attracting trouble.”
My gaze cut through the crowd. Lempicka was impossible to miss—an irritating glimmer of light in the chaos of the market. Balanced on her tiptoes, she was laughing with a man in a naval uniform, a visitor from a neighboring kingdom.
Her smile displeased me at once. My jaw tightened. I raised my hand, ready to transform, then thought better of it. No. I would cut through this damned crowd like any other idiot. With quick strides, I pushed into the tide of bodies, ignoring the protests of merchants I shoved aside.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” snarled a man, throwing me a dark look.
I barely turned, granting him a glance from above. The man blanched instantly and slipped away without another word.
My fist clenched. Beneath my skin, I felt the familiar burn of my magic.
One breath—just one—and the entire market would vanish from this earth.
The thought was tempting. But I exhaled slowly, and when I reached her at last, it was with feigned calm, a shadow stretching across the corner of my smile.
“Lambs are only beasts, after all,” the sailor proclaimed smugly. “With proper training, they make fine circus performers. Or at best, livestock to be devoured at a feast.”
“You have no heart!” Lempicka screamed, bringing her broom down sharply on his foot. “Oh, what a clumsy mistake. I’m so scatterbrained…”
I arched a brow. I had expected her to bury him in indignant words, not strike first. I couldn’t deny she knew how to defend those she loved in her own way (but was pitiful in defending herself).
Not subtle, no. But entertaining. At least, she knew how to defend those she loved, though she was pitiful at defending herself.
So I leaned back against the wood of a nearby stall.
The sailor turned his ankle, forcing a crooked smile to hide his pain. “It’s nothing… But you should come aboard my ship, my beauty. I promise we’ll entertain you enough to change your poor opinion of me.”
He extended his hand toward her with false charm, but his eyes caught on something behind her.
I hadn’t bothered to remain invisible for long.
The sailor hesitated, whether from the misty shadows clinging to me or from my gaze, I couldn’t say.
Yeun always claimed my eyes glowed with something inhuman, so severe it could freeze even the hottest flame of a will-o’-the-wisp.
“And you are?” the sailor sneered, tossing me a coin. “Find yourself another prey.”
I caught it between two fingers. Copper. Not even gold. Pathetic. “She is mine.”
The words escaped before I could stop them. Lempicka gasped, spinning toward me, her cheeks aflame, a hand pressed to her face.
“She is with me,” I corrected, my tone more measured.
Before the sailor could respond, I returned his coin—with magic so subtle it was imperceptible until impact.
The metal struck his chest with the force of a cannon blast, sending him hurtling backward.
He crashed through several stalls, crates exploding under his weight, glass shattering in a deafening roar.
Lempicka’s mouth fell open, but no sound escaped. A few heads turned, then quickly looked away. Just another brawl in the market. Nothing unusual.
“We said no violence,” she finally whispered, exasperated.
“I threw a coin.”
“You threw it so hard he smashed through stalls! Look at that horrible lump on his forehead!”
I tilted my head, feigning thought. Behind us, the sailor, still dazed, tried to push himself up on one elbow, groaning. A cuff link rolled to his feet. Disoriented, he slipped on it and toppled backward. This time, he vanished into a shadowed fissure, a strangled cry dissolving into nothing.
“That lump was clouding his vision,” I noted flatly. “I fixed it.”
“You—you what—? He’s—?”
“Where he belongs,” I concluded, a smile brushing my lips.
Lempicka opened her mouth, then shut it.
“Besides, I know what you did with that broom you claimed you didn’t want. Look who chose violence first.”
She pressed her lips together. Before she could protest, a vendor marked with a clover smacked my shoulder and shoved the scrunchie into my hand. “Hey, you forgot this.”
Lempicka instantly pointed an accusatory finger at me. I shoved the silk into the bottomless pocket of my coat, where the other objects already lay hidden.
“I can explain,” I said quickly.
“Go on. I’m listening.” Her eyes widened.
“There’s… a rule in the market. Everything you touch, you must buy. Otherwise…” I searched desperately for a plausible excuse.“Otherwise the magical potential warps.”
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, tightening her grip on her broom. “You bought everything I touched?”
I swallowed. Spoken aloud, it sounded idiotic. Perhaps one of my worst ideas to date. “Let’s not lose sight of our objective. I need to retrieve the ingredient and the lanterns for Yeun. Quickly.”
Without waiting, I strode off, hoping to escape the burning shame threatening to consume me.
My thoughts collided as I walked. Yeun was right—I was reckless, wasteful, and now a liar.
I had never seen the use of lying until today.
Worse, I was seriously considering vandalizing the officer’s ship out of sheer envy.
I bought the lanterns quickly, eager to move on. I turned. “Lempicka, we—”
She was gone.
Only the shifting crowd surged around me, loud, insignificant. I cracked my neck, my jaw tightening as a hundred catastrophic scenarios rushed through me at once. I would have to find her before she causes a diplomatic incident, or sells her soul to save some soul in distress.
I plunged into the crowd, my gaze scouring every corner of the market, not knowing which way to run, driven only by that visceral, unpleasant need to find her.
But instinct snapped me back to order. First—the ingredient.
If I went after her now, we would leave empty-handed. And that was not an option.
“I hope you can survive alone for a few moments, little fool,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
After all, perhaps it was better that she didn’t see where I was going.
My steps carried me into a narrow alley, almost invisible to untrained eyes. An arch of shadow opened onto a steep passage. I slipped inside, pulling my hood lower to conceal my face. Figures moved past, carrying trembling cages half-hidden beneath dark cloths.
The name of the Wish Witch was carved into those cages.
The alley spilled into the heart of the black market, where the facade of the sorcerers’ market gave way to the raw truth. A cavern, burrowed into the mountain’s gut, where the darkness came not merely from the absence of light.
The stench hit first. A suffocating blend of mold, rotting flesh, and an acrid tang of iron that clung to my palate. Every breath tasted of blood.
Then came the noise. Hoarse moans, guttural growls, the cruel crack of thunder-strikes slamming into bodies too exhausted to even scream.
Cursed, crammed into cages so small they could not move.
Their skeletal limbs twisted under the pressure, their many eyes glowing with a sickly gleam.
Electricity crackled over their torn skin at each strike of the electrified batons.
A methodical torture. Rhythmic. As one breaks a beast.
I remembered it too well.
Hunger, pain, terror. That was what they sold here.
The trafficking of the Cursed.
A monster like me should have felt at home in such a place. Yet all I felt was a burning desire to see it reduced to ashes. Low-grade Cursed were sold to sorcerers for their experiments. Turned into slaves or tortured for spectacle.
Thorns erupted along my forearm, tearing through the fabric. There were hundreds of Cursed. Too many locks, too many chains. But I was in no mood to negotiate.
“Silence, vermin!” snarled a greasy voice.
The merchant. An abomination sculpted out of filth and fat, a twisted silhouette reeking of carrion. His smile was a gaping cavern, one tooth missing among a rack of yellow rot. At his feet, stunted ostriches gasped for breath, magical collars squeezing their throats to suffocation.
“What can I do for you?” The question carried a criminal indifference, a reflex born of treating life as nothing but coin.
A smile stretched slowly across my lips.
A real smile.
The kind I hadn’t worn in far too long.
“Because of you, I’m going to break a promise.”
I tilted my head, my neck cracking as I savored the mist thickening around me. The merchant blinked, the predator’s instinct faltering in the face of something more predatory still.
He should have run.
I tore off my mask and raised my hand, ready to drive my claws into that repulsive chest, curious to see what would seep out. Would he bleed black, thick and foul, like the mire that had fed him his whole life?
But an image burst into my mind.
Lempicka.
Her irritated frown. Her lips pinched in reproach.
I lowered my hand into a clenched fist.
“W-what are you—”
I closed my eyes and snapped my wrist. My magic surged, sharp and final. The sound that followed was a metallic hymn, cold and flawless. Locks shattered one by one, snapping like bones.
When I opened my eyes, the cages stood open.
The Cursed did not move at first. Instinct whispered this was another trap. But when realization dawned, some fled toward the light like broken shadows. Others chose another path. The shift was instant. The roles reversed in the span of a heartbeat.
The jailers screamed.
I watched, impassive, as the tormentors discovered at last the taste of iron and fear. A cacophony of strangled cries, bones crushed between eager jaws, pleas drowned in chaos.
One did not scream.
The merchant.
He lay on his back, a thin stream of blood pouring from his hollowed sockets. Something stood upon his chest. A small ostrich. Its beak slicked in crimson. It turned its head toward me, strangely satisfied.
I arched a brow, faintly impressed. “You,” I said, nodding at the ostrich. “Yes, you. The one who plucked his eyes. You’re coming with me.”
Then I turned on my heel, walking through the carnage at an unhurried pace, idly avoiding the splashes of blood.
It reminded me of my past centuries.
Except back then, I had been the executioner.
“Damn confectioner…” I muttered with a bitter sneer.
Since when did I have a conscience?