19. NINETEEN #2
Pinto’s spine stiffened and then slumped as he released a sigh. “Pragmatics, pragmatics. Of course, you must get what you came for, eah?”
A sudden knock came at Pinto’s door. Both jumped, Attilatia so much that she knocked into a side table, casting a bowl of trinkets to the floor. They scattered across the plush carpet in every direction—hardly her fault Pinto had to keep things so overcrowded.
Ignoring the mess, Pinto drew a dagger from beneath the tea table, and her mouth fell open.
“Who’s there?” His voice held nothing of its usual sweetness.
She never would have guessed anything could make him act like that. Not Pinto. Attilatia found her feet and backed away from the door until she was against the doll shelves.
“I’m here from Harbent Alchems,” came a boy’s muffled voice.
Attiltatia’s shoulders fell. She’d pulled a doll from a shelf and clutched it to her chest, prepared to hack at their impending foe.
“I have a transcript for Mesu—” The voice hesitated, before making mincemeat of Pinto’s name. “Peento… Erayt–ieeohs.” Why the Nelfinden could never pronounce Azadonian terms never ceased to vex her.
Pinto unbolted the door and cracked it. His demeanor returned to placidity. “Many thanks, and my regards to your master. Tell him I’m sending Fekkas. Happy Fates.”
Pinto sighed as he closed the door and bolted it, a piece of paper clutched to his chest. He put his back to the wall and slid to the floor.
In that moment, Attilatia saw Pinto for his body, not his mind, and realized just how aged he was.
Older than her father would have been by now.
All that over a mention of the Shadewalker.
She set the doll down and hurried to him. “Are you—?”
Pinto waved her off. “Fine. Fine.” He held up the paper. “This is the screening you requested of me.” He opened the letter as though it were a scheduled ledger with nothing of interest.
As he scanned it, he tensed way a cat might in the face of a stray dog. Very suddenly, it was hard to breathe. He didn’t need to say anything. She already knew.
“Atti. Where did you get that wine?” The edge had returned to his voice, sharp enough to open a vein.
“As I told you. It was a gift.”
The old man’s eyes hardened. “From whom?”
“Tell me what it says,” she countered.
Pinto swallowed. His eyes searched hers for answers before he spoke. “It was tainted with veilstrike.”
Attilatia’s hand found her throat. “It—it’s poisoned, then?”
“Veilstrike is not just poison. It’s a very expensive and very deliberate way of making someone’s death look like an accident.
And it’s a hallmark of the Shadewalker’s Ghosts.
” Fates help her. She’d nearly drunk the wine on multiple occasions.
“It lies latent in the body for almost a ten-day before it is fully metabolized. At which point it stops a heart in an instant.”
“You’re saying he did try to kill me.”
Pinto’s jaw jutted forward. “And he spent a lot of resources making it look like he didn’t.”
She’d thought she was paranoid—falling back on survival tendencies. But Roskaad Thyatira had indeed brought death to her doorstep… So why bother sending a coded letter with yet another mystery? “He did tell me not to drink it.”
Pinto shook his head. “I never wanted it to come to this, but I think we need to discuss your taste in men.”
Attilatia paced, hands caught in her short hair. He might have been given the bottle by another party. Instructed to give it to her. The note could be his way of telling her who it was. She tried to think back to their last conversation. It all seemed so fuzzy now.
“Thedexemore is in trouble,” she’d told him.
“I know,” he’d responded.
She’d sent Thedexemore into the Red Wing under his watch, sure that Roskaad found value in her as a political ally—perhaps more.
If the General Prime had wanted her to be long dead by the time he returned to Seraphinden, why had he agreed to help protect her brother?
Could he know who Thedexemore was? If he had any affiliation with Thacklore, he very well might. She considered the Ratka on his chest.
“Pinto, I think he’s working for the Shadewalker. And I need to know why they are trying to kill me.” Just another fan to add to her list.
Pinto paled. “Hashod?”
When she had first shown Pinto the Ratka weeks ago, she had told him Hashod wore it, but chosen not to reveal that Roskaad did as well.
“Not just Hashod. I only gave you his name to cover my bases.” It was a funny way of saying ‘I didn’t trust you before but I do now,’ but Pinto seemed to understand, forgive, and appreciate all in one grandfatherly gesture. He pulled her into his chest.
“Atti… no one is coming to tell you about the Shadewalker,” he whispered hoarsely. “I was putting you off.”
What? She stepped back from Pinto, and he paced toward the window.
“But, given the present situation, I will tell you the things I know.”
Attilatia tried not to let her irritation show. Pinto loved gossip. He loved sharing his knowledge and connections—it was what he lived for. If he was sheltering her, it must be with good reason.
He took long moments to watch the steam curl from the teapot. To let another layer of dust cascade and settle over his countless treasures. Attilatia was about to clear her throat when he jumped into a nervous speech.
“The Shadewalker… let’s begin by saying I have not met him. And what I know of him is conflicting in nature. But if there is one thing to be said, the Shadewalker is orchestrating a dangerous game—and he’s been very successful at amassing his players.”
He shifted his robes down one shoulder and pulled at their hem, revealing the space beneath his collarbone to show that mark—the same as Roskaad’s. His expression was like a snake poised to strike.
“This mark is my tender for secrets,” he hissed.
It should have caused her to backpedal into the shelves. But, Fates, she was so well over the turning of events these past few weeks, it honestly just made her want to go to sleep.
She crossed her arms and sighed. “Fates behave.”
“I—I expected you to be more alarmed.”
“I’ve seen more twists and turns these past months than a Shrokan whore’s seen one-eyed show-stoppers. I’m honestly shocked you didn’t admit that you are the Shadewalker.”
He brought a wrinkled hand to the back of his balding head. “With that out of the way… Let’s talk about the Shadewalker’s silent rise to power and the Ghosts he commands. Maybe then you’ll know why one of us wants to put you under, eah?”
She could only hope to learn something.
“It starts with the mark—the Ratka—he imparts on his own.”
Year: 742 Post Cataclysm: 6 years previously
Location: Casowhatan Sea
In her quarters, Fankalo wrung her shirt into a rope and pulled it firmly between her hands.
“Do it, Mitek,” she commanded from the floor.
Mitek’s hand trembled on the knife. “Let’s take another few days to think about this.”
Even a few seconds put her farther from stopping Cul’Mon. “We have do this. We can’t just pass rumors to every Shrokan slick and Korshuva qahuaist and expect to buy widespread belief. But there is no stronger currency than blood.”
“Brat—”
“Don’t make me do it myself!”
She took the cloth between her teeth and bit down hard. Mitek brought the blade closer. He nearly closed his eyes until she glared at him. Then he moved: three lightning-fast cuts, splitting pain, blood in the air.
But it was done—a mark, just the same as Calver’s. Mitek had already pulled back the blade.
He worked his jaw and nodded. “Alright. If we’re doing this, I’m going to make this fucking thing look good on me.”
Pinto’s hands laced in his lap. “Any who swear fealty to the Shadewalker are instructed to speak of him—to tell any and everyone they can about him—but to not disclose their allegiance to him, under penalty of death.”
“Seems counter-productive to a secret organization.”
“Not one that’s actively recruiting.”
“That contradicts what you told me only a month ago,” she scoffed. “To not speak about the Shadewalker to anyone.”
“That’s because I know you. You don’t spread petty gossip. You try to ask the wrong people questions that make you look suspicious.”
“Suspicious?”
“Suspicious. Like you’ll take any inch of thread they give you and have them hog-tied with it by sundown.”
Attilatia tried not to read too far into that.
“The Ghosts wear the ratka. They proliferate the Shadewalker’s stories, and in return they receive security for their families.”
“What kind of security?”
“Work. Food. Shelter. Medicine. Wealth like you couldn’t conceive. The Shadewalker has recruited men from all walks of life. He has his hands in the oligarchy, the slums, the moss trade, the water supply into Shrokan—”
Attilatia raised a skeptical eyebrow. “The flow of milk from every mother’s tit?”
“I say this without exaggeration.” As of yet, she wasn’t aware Pinto could speak without exaggeration. “They’ve even recruited the raiders and united them under one flag.”
Year: 745 Post Cataclysm: 4 years previously
Location: Casowhatan Sea
The Captain of the Kanter Breach eyed Fankalo warily. “I know why you’re here. And I will not bow to an ill-mannered teenage gangster.”
“Ill-mannered? Forgive me for not raising my hand. I’ve been too busy raising an army.”
“The answer is no. The Kanter Breach has always lived independently.”
“And you have always died independently.”
He shook his head. “I will pay no tithings to a queen in return for protection.”
“Then pay none. You may keep your autonomy and your hauls. I am offering only to put Nelfindar’s border patrol in your pocket. I will grant you protection from persecution for any of your raids, so long as they come without casualties.”
His eyes narrowed. “All things come with a cost.”
“Indeed. The cost is impossibly lavish, and impossibly cheap. You bear my name, you bear my mark, and you and your crew perpetuate, embellish, and sensationalize talk of the Shadewalker to anyone who will listen.”
The captain’s eyebrows snapped together as understanding dawned—they were all in on the ruse.