Chapter 12 Nes
Nes
It was magic.
Of that much, Nes was certain. Only it was magic like she’d never felt before. It called out to her, not in the greedy manner she’d come to expect but as if it were screaming for help.
She didn’t trust it. Magic was coy and mischievous. That was why it so often smelled like something sweet or pleasant first—like the scent of hyacinths grasping for her now—to fool her into thinking it was something she wanted.
Toran stuck close as she followed the trail, moving quickly through the sparkling, cobblestone streets of the Ring. His exhales were sound and sure, even over the pounding of her heart in her ears.
Part of her hated how confident he was. What she wouldn’t give to feel such confidence, to feel that sort of control. Often her own courage was a farce. Fear ran circles inside her, but she could never let it out. Showing her insecurities would lead to one of two things: death or servitude.
Already, Toran had taken her love for her father and used it against her. The ring he’d reluctantly loaned her was a surefire way to retaliate—if she knew anything about the meaning behind it. Until she did, she’d have to find another way to make him squirm.
With the clocktower ahead and the Ring behind them, the magic’s scent—fading into dying hyacinths with her every inhale—led her past the first few stalls showcasing the expensive goods of the Prime Market to a narrow pathway lined with tall opaque hedges.
On instinct, she quieted her footsteps upon entering.
Toran, too, was silent behind her as the hedges engulfed them and the rest of the city fell away.
At the end of the path stood an iron gate, fencing stretching out on either side.
She took a deep breath in. They were close—the magic was strongest beyond the gate.
Toran stepped around her. His shoulder swiped hers, and tingles spread down from the contact. Part of her hated his confidence, but another, much smaller part of her whispered of its allure. She lifted her shoulder and shook off his touch.
Both hands on the iron rods, he rattled the gate. “It’s locked.”
She lifted her knee high and placed a foot against the side of one of the spokes. “Watch and learn, Cap. I’ll teach you the art of fence-hopping.”
Toran glanced around like he expected someone to emerge from the bushes to chastise them.
Hand braced on one of the fence’s horizontal rods, Nes stood up onto her raised foot before swinging herself over the top of the fence and setting two feet back on solid ground. “See?” she said, turning to face him. “Nothing to—”
The ground shook slightly, chipped pieces of stone jumping, as Toran landed hard on both feet beside her.
“—it?” he finished, raising a brow at her.
Scowling, she continued up the path, rounding the corner of another tall hedge. On the other side of the bush, the path opened into a large clearing filled with luscious green grass and a dozen trees.
And beneath the trees, twelve dead guards.
Nes froze.
“Are we alone?” Toran breathed.
She inhaled and caught nothing but sea and the chill of winter on the wind. There was no trace of the magic that had so desperately called out to her. No trace of any magic.
Something brushed her arm, and Nes glanced down. Toran’s hand shook—the only part of him that moved.
“Yes,” she answered and shoved her own hand deep into her pocket. “The Witch is long gone.”
Just as she would be once they completed this mission.
Toran stood stock-still beside her as he took in the corpses.
She’d led him to the Holy Triad, an area just outside the castle and the entrance to the Ring.
It was an ethereal sort of ground—kept by the Brothers of the Capital Monastery and surrounded by iron gates—with beautifully blooming peach blossom trees and a delicately bubbling fountain, known as the Prime Fountain, in the center.
Or it had been.
Now the area was desecrated. At the base of each tree trunk lay the body of a guard.
All twelve had had their throats cut clean, smooth lines of blood still running down the sides of their necks.
The trees cast the bodies in shadow, the lines of the branches running over the faces of the dead like prison bars.
Toran clenched his fist. “Why is she doing this? Why target guards?”
He was right—only guards had been killed. First Mikaud and the two with him, then the four in the Drowning Square, and now this.
Nes didn’t have any answers. Had Toran not come to her, she wouldn’t have given the murders of a bunch of guards a second thought. Maybe that made her callous, but she was better off keeping her head down around the King’s Guard.
Still, something about these murders bothered her. “This didn’t start with the guards at the Northern Gate, did it?”
Toran shook his head. “The first body was discovered two weeks ago.”
“And how many guards have died in all?”
“Twenty-one.”
She nodded. Twelve here, three at the Northern Gate, four in the Drowning Square. And two others she hadn’t heard about.
Toran leaned close to one body, studying the man’s face. He frowned then swiveled to examine the next corpse. Seconds passed before he stepped back. He kept stepping back until he stood in the middle of the circle of trees.
He craned his head one way then the other. “Do you see that?” He beckoned her forward.
She followed his hand, stepping close enough to smell the musky scent of his sweat alongside hints of something sweet like powdered doughnuts. Goddess, she loved doughnuts. In the chaos of the other day, she never did get some with Suri.
“Here,” he said, positioning her so she stood in the same spot he’d been in. “See?”
Nes turned in a careful circle. All the corpses had their eyes open and their mouths shut. All stared up at the sky with empty expressions.
“This is where she stood,” she said. She glanced down at her feet and the trodden grass beneath them.
“Not just that,” Toran said. “Look at how each of the guards fell—straight backward. They were converging on her when they were struck. Not one of them turned away from the Witch to check their fellow guard. Each kept his attention on her up until the second he died.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means this is where she killed them. All of them,” he explained. “At the same time.”
A dozen armed guards killed at once. That spoke of a level of power she hadn’t expected. Far more than what had been needed to kill three already incapacitated guards.
But it was more than that. Because the guards weren’t the only casualties in the Holy Triad.
All twelve trees surrounding the Prime Fountain were dead. Black and charred, their branches brittle, their leaves shriveled or turned to ash.
She stepped out of the circle of bodies.
The magic she’d followed here was gone. But there was something else missing.
Where before this area of the city had always felt brimming with strength, had always made her feel alive whenever she passed by, it now felt like a void.
She placed a hand against one of the burned tree trunks.
“The magic from the trees,” she said. “It’s gone.”
Toran sucked in a breath. “No one knew,” he said.
“The magic on these trees was the most carefully guarded secret in the city. The King’s Guard has a special unit whose job it is to remove the magic lichen from these trees and dispose of it so addicts like Kile Pinyak don’t desecrate this sacred space.
But you knew,” he whispered. “Didn’t you? ”
Of course she knew. With the city infested with magic, it was nearly impossible to find one specific person among thousands.
But it was not impossible to find an unmoving source.
She’d long ago logged where magic resided within the city.
And the trees in this area had sheltered more magic than even Phineas’s distillery—a distillery she knew well, given that she’d just stolen from it to fill her flask with diluted magic.
She swallowed. Phineas had been right. There was no one like her. Nobody else could have known about the magic in the Holy Triad.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Toran said. “Why would the Witch kill the trees?”
She pressed a hand more firmly to the bark. There was nothing left. Though she would never call magic a friend, part of her still felt saddened by the emptiness.
The answer was obvious. “Their magic.”
Toran ran a hand through his hair. “You think the Witch didn’t want to give the guards a chance to fight back?” He blew out a harsh breath. “That she thought they would try to fight magic with magic?”
She hummed. It was possible. But unlikely. If their attacker knew anything about Orlonea, then she wouldn’t fear a magical counterattack, especially from a bunch of guards who enforced the laws against magic consumption. She had to have another reason. Nes simply couldn’t fathom what.
She crouched down beside a corpse, studying the spot where his back met the tree trunk. “Maybe these will help tell us what is going on.”
With care, she pulled one of the bodies away from the tree. At the tree’s base, a symbol had been carved into the bark. Though not identical to the one found among the debris in the Drowning Square, this symbol felt similar, as if crafted by the same hand.
“I’m willing to bet this symbol is on every one of the trees here,” she said. “Have you ever seen it before?”
Toran bent close, studying the lines. He shook his head. “No, and it’s different from the one the other day. Do you know what either mean?”
“No.” She straightened and grimaced, hating herself for her next thought. “But I know someone who might.”