8. Invitation to an ution
8
INVITATION TO AN EXECUTION
When Anahrod opened her eyes again, she was indoors. The moment she drew her first conscious breath, she also knew she was no longer in the Deep.
The air was too thin. Mountain thin. Dry and sharp and cold in a way no sea-level air could ever be. A weak, gelid broth compared to the Deep’s warm honey syrup. Uncomfortable as she had often found breathing at sea level, to wake in this flat, wispy sky was like discovering that she had been a fish all this time, and could never breathe air at all.
She began coughing, daggers in her throat, each pulled breath scraping razors inside her lungs. Breathing was both too easy and too hard. She rolled over, holding her breath, fearful that the coughing would take on its own momentum, rattling through her until she heaved.
Interminable seconds later, she righted herself, inhaling in slow, shallow breaths to stave off another coughing fit. Everything was still and quiet in air too thin to carry sound the right way.
She’d sat up during her coughing bout, which meant they hadn’t tied her up. She’d been sleeping—if that was the right word—in a comfortable Skylander bed, layers of quilted wool padding over a poured stone base.
Anahrod had questions.
How long had she been unconscious? Not that long: she wasn’t weak from hunger or shaking from thirst. Her bladder wasn’t full to bursting. Either they’d taken care of all her needs while she was unconscious, or she’d been asleep for less than a day.
Had Naeron attacked her? She’d leaped to that conclusion, but she’d been incapable of thinking clearly. If Ris’s group had meant her harm, they’d had a hundred opportunities to kill her more conveniently along the way. But if they’d meant to kidnap her…
Ris and Gwydinion had both known her real name. So had Claw, she realized. They’d all known who she was.
She rubbed her brow. Just her luck to get rescued from one kidnapping by a second set of kidnappers.
Peralon must have arrived in time to save them. That flash of metal she’d seen—that must’ve been Ris’s dragon. He’d pulled them all from the waters and brought Anahrod here.
But why?
A pang twisted in her chest as she pulled herself from the bed. Not hunger or issues with breathing, but the dull, flat resignation of knowing she’d been betrayed. Could she even go back? That would depend on whether Sicaryon’s people had set the targrove fire intentionally. Since there was no way to find out that information without committing herself, it was safest to assume the answer was “yes.”
So she couldn’t return. She’d already lost Overbite. Now she’d lost… everything else. No matter what happened next, she would have to start over.
Assuming she survived whatever these people wanted from her. A question she admitted she had no ready answer to, given the state of her newfound prison—if that’s what it was meant to be.
The bedroom was beautifully appointed, but the furnishings were too generic, too lacking in personality, to be someone’s private chambers. Everything felt worn around the edges—the tattered dissipation of a room continually used by people with no emotional attachment or concern for its upkeep. Customers, not tenants. This wasn’t a room where anyone lived, only stayed at for a short stretch before moving on again. A guest room, rented by the day.
She traced the motifs carved into the white polished walls, an endless geometric repeat of stars, while she tried to slow her runaway heartbeat, the spikes of panic drilling through her skin.
This wasn’t just Seven Crests. The walls gave it away. There was only one city in Seven Crests that used that technique of carving polished clay over poured stone.
They’d known her name was Anahrod. They hadn’t stumbled across her by accident. Somehow, they’d known who she was, and where she came from.
The sweet incense drifting in lazy curls was a choking fume as she lunged for the window. She couldn’t escape that way: the window was capped with soapstone latticework, the star-shaped gaps large enough for fingers, but not an entire hand. She grabbed at the sharp edges of the stone screen as she gazed out at majestic mountain peaks and the violet-blue sky of early morning.
Anahrod knew that view. Seventeen years gone and she knew that view. Breathtaking in every horrible and ironic definition of the word.
This was Crystalspire.
She pushed down the panic, shoved it into a dark corner of her mind. Why bring her back to Crystalspire and put her in a very nice room? Why wasn’t she in a jail cell?
Why wasn’t she already dead ?
She concentrated on her breathing, her heartbeat, the scent of halanwood incense, the clatter of traffic down on the street below.
She wasn’t dead yet.
Anahrod calmed herself and focused on what she did best: surviving.
She started by searching the room. A flight of shallow stairs led to a plastered alcove that sheltered a deep bathing pool—more evidence that this was a guesthouse room. Someone had filled the bath and heated it; steam rose from the water’s surface. Either someone had made a good guess on when she’d awaken or the pool was inscribed to keep the water hot. The latter seemed more likely. The room was chilly enough to make that steam very enticing.
Looking around, Anahrod found a clever little hallway tucked behind the alcove. That’s where they kept a squat toilet and a small, tiled fountain for washing one’s hands.
Anahrod looked down at herself. She still wore what she’d been wearing previously: green body paint and Gwydinion’s borrowed shirt, now filthy. The green paint was hardening in the dry Skyland air. Pieces were falling away in ragged sections. The bed was an embarrassing mess.
The only door locked from the outside.
There was an eerie quietness in the air, with no nearby noises to hint at the existence of other prisoners or any dubious behavior. No one laughed or gasped in pleasure, either. No music. No sound of dice, of bets, of drinking. If this was a ring house, it was a ring house that had taken a vow of silence. If it was a public house, then someone had rented out the entire space, leaving her as the establishment’s only “patron.”
Her search also uncovered fresh linens, towels for the bath, and a generous selection of bath soaps and oils, but the last two discoveries surprised her.
First was a wardrobe, and the clothing inside confirmed that the word in front of house was “ring” and not “guest.” None of it was suitable for wearing in public. Or rather, almost none of it. By carefully matching parts of different outfits, Anahrod assembled an ensemble that wouldn’t break public decency laws—but it wasn’t easy.
Second were her belts and bags. The salty seawater had left its mark on both, causing the leather to twist and shrink. They hadn’t been taken away, though, nor emptied. Both her sword and her knives were gone, however.
Using a chair to smash through the delicate soapstone window screen held a warm appeal. She could tie bedsheets together and climb down, like the heroine from The Grey Fortress of Silence . But the air was cold and she was still covered in green paint. She couldn’t go anywhere looking like this.
Fortunately, that was a problem she could actually solve.
Anahrod took a bath.
Anahrod refilled the bath twice in the process of removing her green body paint. The water stayed hot the whole time and she gave silent thanks to whomever first discovered the inscriptions for hot water. Dragons, if one believed the Church’s canon.
She stayed in the bath for longer than necessary. She wouldn’t apologize for it. Nor did she suffer any guilt for the no-doubt terrifying plumbing repairs the body paint might cause.
Her hair needed help, however. The Scarsea shaved theirs off save for small strategic sections, but most Deepers took a different approach. No doubt a healthy part of the “troll” legend came from the tradition of matting hair into locks and weaving leaves and plants into the strands. Anahrod could testify from personal experience it worked splendidly as camouflage in the jungles of the Deep.
It would be the opposite of camouflage in Seven Crests.
Last she knew, local Crystalspire fashion preferred layers of neat braids pinned close to the scalp to form intricate patterns—that had certainly been true of Gwydinion’s hair. Not something she could do herself.
Anahrod changed into her mismatched outfit, a combed doeynd ivory shirt with cloud violet–gray wool trousers and a lighter gray mantle woven with white and blue strands. The ivory shirt was nicer than she would’ve liked, decorated with Crystalspire’s distinctive smocking. She twisted her hair out of the way until she could figure out what to do about it.
Anahrod had just finished dressing when a man entered the room.
She didn’t recognize him. He was a handsome man in his early fifties, with dark brown skin and curly black hair streaked with silver. His tailored clothing lacked the ostentatious detailing Anahrod associated with the wealthiest citizens of Crystalspire, but the shimmering silk mantle he wore draped around his shoulders left little doubt he came from money. As did the two guards who hurried in after him, halberds in hand. Mid-level merchants rarely afforded or needed bodyguards.
The man came to an abrupt halt when he saw Anahrod, nostrils flaring and a look of unquenched fury in his eyes. There was recognition there, although of what she couldn’t tell.
He spun on a heel and pointed to the door.
“I told you to wait outside,” he said to the guards.
Anahrod stepped backward, putting a small, tiled table between them. The spin had shifted the man’s mantle enough for her to see the chain of office around his neck. Actually, the movement had betrayed two things normally hidden under the man’s mantle: it had also revealed a sword.
Anahrod wondered if he could use it.
The mayor’s presence made her gut tighten: all her attempts to calm herself vanished under the weight of his appearance.
“Sir? But we—” Anahrod almost laughed at the scandalized look on the guard’s face as he gestured toward her. Anahrod wasn’t even tied up, after all.
A troll might do anything.
“Wait. Outside,” the mayor repeated. “Don’t make me say it again.”
The two guards retreated, leaving Anahrod alone with the mayor. She inventoried any object in the room useful as a weapon. A shocking number of potential candidates were within easy reach: a hand mirror, the soap dish, an incense burner. Even one of the small side tables.
He wasn’t the predator in the room; she was.
His jaw worked against his throat, the anger still sharp and cutting as he ground his teeth.
“Have they told you why you’re here?” he asked like he already knew the answer.
“No, I imagine they didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”
He only scowled harder. Then he unbuckled his belt.
Anahrod reached for the soap dish.
But he wasn’t removing his trousers; just the belt, or rather, just his sword. He wrapped the belt around the scabbard and tossed the result on the table in front of Anahrod.
She stared at the weapon. It wasn’t a Skylander style, for all that such weapons hadn’t been popular in the Skylands for decades. This was a gently curving blade, and very familiar.
Mostly because it was her sword.
“That’s a well-made weapon,” the man told her. “From the Fire Peaks?”
Her smile turned bittersweet. “The boy who gave it to me claimed it was from Viridhaven.” A ridiculous notion. The sword was too new, too well made. Any weapons from the real Viridhaven would be, oh, copper or bronze or something, made in an age before they’d learned to use inscriptions to make fires hot enough to forge steel or titanium.
The mayor raised both eyebrows, as though he actually believed her. “Must have been expensive. It would be a shame if you lost it.” He walked over to the window.
Anahrod picked up her scabbard. Now she had a weapon and he didn’t, after sending his guards away. He was either very arrogant or very confident of his own abilities. Possibly both.
“Thank you?” She had no idea how to react.
The man turned his back to her as he felt around the edges of the window trim. “My wife taught me this trick,” he muttered. “It’s a safety precaution. In case of fire, you know.”
“Mind explaining what’s going on?”
A small, neat click sound came from the window. The whole stone grate swung open on a hidden hinge. The mayor nodded in satisfaction.
“Scales,” he muttered. “You’re going to need money…” He reached into his coat.
“Mayor,” Anahrod said loudly. “What are you doing? And why ?”
He glanced over then. He still looked angry, but there was a hint of something else in his furrowed brow.
“We have little time,” he told her. “Not much at all. My people can only keep that dragonrider distracted for so long.”
“Explain it anyway,” she told him.
He swallowed, gave the tiniest shake of his head. “They’re looking for Anahrod Amnead.”
She held herself still. “I see.” Suddenly she wished she hadn’t taken the bath, hadn’t cleaned off the mud. Accusing a green-skinned woman of being a Skylander was a far more ludicrous proposition than what was currently happening.
“That’s why—”
“And who is that?” she asked.
The man’s eyes widened. “You don’t know who—?” His gaze flitted about the room, as if searching for the right person, who would no doubt pop up from behind a curtain any minute now. “But you—you have to—” He floundered.
“Who is this person?” she asked again, more sharply. “Some criminal?”
“Yes.” His eyebrows drew together before he pulled himself up, stood straighter. He fell short of commanding, landing instead in the territory of confused. “She was from Crystalspire. My son…” He gritted his teeth, looked away. “Eannis help me, I thought I’d raised him better than this. My son wanted to help me by bringing her back.”
Her stomach crumpled into something small and tight and painful. “Your son—” The answer was obvious enough. His son took after him, at least in appearance. “Gwydinion.”
“Yes. I’m—Eannis. You don’t even know who I am, do you? I’m Aiden e’Doreyl, and—”
Something ugly crawled along her spine. He looked so uncomfortable, and she recognized what that other emotion might be: guilt.
Her heartbeat quickened. She glanced down at the sword, then back at him. “What,” she asked, “do you want from me?”
“Nothing. Truly. But you have to understand: a little over three weeks ago, a dragon interrupted my son’s birthday party to tell us that Anahrod Amnead was still alive. That we’d all been part of some conspiracy to fake her death and we had a month to turn her over to the dragons or face their wrath.”
Every muscle in Anahrod’s body clenched. A giant wave of bitter anger washed over her; the world spun.
The boy she’d liked so much had played her for a fool more effectively than any of Ris’s flirting. Not that Ris was absolved. It appeared that both were comfortable delivering a stranger to their execution.
The thought shouldn’t have upset her as much as it did. She’d long since grown used to the idea that Skylanders were capable of the most vile perfidies. She knew they couldn’t be trusted.
She’d let down her guard. Let down her guard, helped her kidnappers, survived the Deep—hell, she’d even confirmed her identity to them, hadn’t she? That little anecdote about her second mother engineering a rival’s embarrassment would have been as good as a confession to anyone familiar enough with Crystalspire politics—and the boy was the mayor’s son. No wonder he’d thought it so funny.
The Crystalspire mayor was too busy grappling with his own issues to notice hers. “My son overheard my wife and I discussing our options and decided that the obvious solution was to travel to the Deep and bring back, well, you . I am… appalled. Truly, I know my apology means less than nothing, but you have it. A hundred times over, you have it.”
In other circumstances, she might have laughed.
“So, what are you doing now? Helping me escape?” Anahrod’s hand tightened on the sword hilt. She wasn’t seriously considering drawing on the man, but it was a nervous habit. “Why would you do that? That’s not in your best interests.”
Aiden e’Doreyl pulled a large leather pouch from his coat and tossed it to the table. “I refuse to send an innocent person to their death just because the dragons waved a tail in this city’s direction.”
An innocent person. Anahrod blinked at the words. Was it possible that the man didn’t think she was really Anahrod? She couldn’t imagine him walking into that room and offering her a weapon along with enough money to book passage away from Seven Crests otherwise. No, he thought his son had dragged back a sacrificial yearling, someone guilty of nothing more than having the wrong name and bad luck.
Although, that last part was still true.
Zavad’s dick, how had Crystalspire politics not eaten this man alive?
She glanced down at his silver rings. She didn’t remember how to interpret the garden rings—she’d been too young to have any when she’d been tossed into the Deep—but the social rings were obvious enough: male, both by birth and inclination; in a committed, monogamous relationship; extroverted. No doubt he was a hugger and always offered to pay for lunch.
Anahrod buckled the scabbard around herself. She was used to carrying her sword across her back, because traveling through the Deep was easier that way, but at her waist would draw less attention in the Skylands.
“My son meant well, but—” The man shuddered. “I only see three options here. I can hand you over to the dragons, healthy and alive, and spend the rest of my life pretending my son didn’t kidnap a woman just so I could send her to her death. I could hand them a corpse—woah!” He flinched as her sword blade appeared under his nose. “That was… fast. That was very fast.” A thin sheen of sweat broke out along his hairline. “Not your corpse,” he elaborated. “Someone else’s—but even if I could find a dead body, there’s no guarantee the dragons wouldn’t have a way to tell if I was lying or if it’s really yours. I mean, if it’s really hers. Her body. Anahrod Amnead’s body.”
She lowered her sword but didn’t put it away. “And the third option?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Lord Tiendremos,” the man said in a mocking imitation of sincerity. “We found her, just like you ordered, but she was just so wicked and full of guile that she escaped immediately. But we did do what you asked.”
“Don’t recommend you try to win an argument with a dragon using sophistry. You won’t like their rebuttal.” There was also the matter of how the mayor would be the very first person questioned by the dragons about the manner of her “escape.” The man—what had he said his name was? Aiden?—was still signing a different death warrant: his own.
He had to know the consequences.
“Let me take care of those details,” he ordered. “You take care of making sure they don’t catch you.”
Anahrod grabbed her bags from the closet. As she did, the door opened a second time.
Ris walked into the room.