Chapter 1 Draven
CHAPTER ONE
DRAVEN
“Tell me what you know.”
Draven Dalmar digs the tip of his onyx dagger deeper into the fidgeting man’s throat. Beads of chunky sweat form along the man’s brow, trickling down into his amber-hued mustache, puddling along the hairs of it as densely as the puddle saturating the front of his pants.
“I’ve already told ya,” he squeaks. “I don’t know nothin’.”
“Liar,” Draven accuses through clenched teeth, his breath hot against the mask covering the lower half of his face. He replaces the blade at the balding man’s throat with his forearm, pushing down on his windpipe so forcefully, gargled choking sounds squeeze out the man’s lips.
Holder Thistle is his name. A pudgy man whose rotten teeth perfectly match the condition of his conscience. Draven has been tailing him for the past three days, after a promising lead pointed him in his direction.
He repositions the dagger in his free hand and swipes the blade down the length of Holder’s forearm.
Without so much as blinking at the bloody gash, he pulls a small vial free from his pocket and pops the cork off.
After, Draven returns his hollow stare back onto Holder, locking his eyes with his.
Then, he empties the vial, pouring the black liquid directly onto the exposed, oozing vein.
Holder screams bloody murder; Draven lets him.
They are marks away from the taverns lining these dirt-ridden streets, and Draven already scouted this particular alleyway.
It is removed from any outpost lighting, any foot traffic, tucked even behind the trash heaps and opium houses and brothels.
Not to mention, he’s erected a dense wall around them with his dark magic, swallowing any noise or signs of life before they can escape.
So as Draven pours the venom into Holder’s veins, he lets him scream and scream.
And when he flicks his eyes down and catches the escaped blood bubbling and mutating to black tar, he growls with satisfaction.
Over these past three days, he has witnessed Holder commit enough sins to condemn him to the noose three times over, and Draven holds no emotions over being this man’s judge and executioner.
He is the worst kind of scum, known around the Three Kingdoms as Skull Traders.
The title has two meanings. Skull Traders are in part called what they are because they trade in knowledge and information.
At surface level, that’s not such a terrible thing.
Until one peels back the outermost layer and learns the truth of how their information is acquired—torture, sexual exploits, blackmail, and yes, even murder.
Over time, Skull Traders somehow discovered their intel market overlapped nicely with trafficking, and as their reputations became more infamous and their activities more frequent, they needed a way to identify themselves.
So they assumed their given nickname as a permanent title, tattooing skulls with some hidden mark within to denote the members of their criminal ring.
Draven relishes in watching the skull on the man’s forearm bubble and bleed, and he hopes this ruins Holder’s skin as viciously as the corrupted ruin Draven has felt living within himself.
Two months.
It’s already been two months since Lyra’s capture, and with every passing day, Draven feels the shadows growing thicker inside him as his desperation heightens.
That familiar stabbing sensation pierces his heart, and Draven digs his forearm deeper into Holder’s throat. “Where the fuck is Casimir Vivaldri hiding,” he seethes through his teeth, his already thin patience fraying.
Holder’s face contorts, though not from his enduring pain. “The First Crowned Prince of Rivara?” he balks, anger seeming to overtake his fear. “What are ya doin’ lookin’ for a dead man? Better yet, why have ya senselessly targeted me over one?”
“You know something,” Draven pushes. “I know you do.” For emphasis, he turns the vial completely upside down, letting all the remaining drops trickle down like acidic rain onto his wound.
“Now speak, Skull Trader. Before I find that vile tongue of yours so useless, I cut it from your mouth and feed it to the crows.”
The man gulps, a small reprieve between his panicked pants. “Alright, alright,” he says, winded. “I know a small somethin’. But I mean what I say when I tell ya I don’t know nothin’ about Casimir Vivaldri. And I’m not gonna ask why ya lookin’ for a centuries dead prince anyhow.”
Draven’s stomach hollows, but he doesn’t let it show. “Speak.”
Holder glances left, then right. He drops his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “In the weeds of the Kingdoms, snakes are leavin’ their nests and movin’ out the shadows.”
Draven rolls his eyes and presses his thumb into Holder’s open wound, letting tendrils of his dark magic fall into it and caress the damaged tissue like a cradle of tiny needle pricks.
Holder gasps with shock before buckling in a near sob.
The only thing keeping him from collapsing is the forearm Draven keeps wedged at his throat.
“What was that for?” Holder croaks.
“I did not tell you to give me cryptic stories or riddles. I told you to speak. Plainly, if that hasn’t been made clear already.”
Holder stares at Draven with the kind of hatred that would have made his father smile, and he flexes his jaw at the sight of it.
Because this version of Draven? This is the version of him his father attempted to forge in the bowels of dungeons.
The sort of ruthless machine Tynan Dalmar always hoped for his son to be.
It disgusts Draven down to his marrow to fulfill the aspirations his father always held for him. Especially after he was beginning to be someone better—a person more whole, worthy of wearing his mother’s pendant once more.
But no matter the cost, he will do as he must to locate Lyra.
To bring her back home. To attempt to right the many wrongs that have befallen her.
And he will slice any man’s skin or cut out any tongue until he can assure her safety.
No matter how much it plunges him into the very shadows he swore to never dance with again.
Holder pauses for a moment too long, and Draven unfurls more of his magic from his fingertips, allowing wisps of his darkness to burrow like worms inside flesh and bone.
A strangled sob rattles in Holder’s throat as he attempts to cry out, but the noise is suffocated like a dying flame as Draven crushes his windpipe.
“I—I’ll—talk.” Each attempted word is nearly drowned out by the sound of his breathless, stuttering gasps.
Draven’s reply comes only in the form of the small reprieve he gives Holder, removing just enough pressure from his throat to allow him to speak freely.
Holder sucks in air, coughing with the theatrics of a traveling troupe. Once his performance has finally ended, he resets his gaze to Draven. “Deep in the belly of the kingdoms, people gather. They gather and speak of the old ways.”
Draven’s brows twitch. “What do you mean, ‘the old ways’?”
“I mean the ways before the Three Kings. Before the Great War and the Accords and before peace found its way to these here lands. A high bidder” —Holder stops, shooting him a pointed look— “and don’t bother askin’ who because I don’t know, and I ain’t tryna suffer more pain ‘cause of it.”
Draven nods his acceptance.
“A high bidder paid a pretty coin for us Skull Traders to find out all we can about the growin’ movement. Made a bit complicated because the head of said movement also paid a bit of coin for information from us. But Skull Traders know no loyalty to no person. Our only loyalty is to our coin.”
“What’s this group's name?” Draven questions, ignoring his spineless commentary entirely.
“I don’t know. I heard through the Trader grapevine once that they pull their ideas from some old-as-dust movement of the past, but that’s all I know. I swear it.”
Draven fights against his urge to hang his head in defeat. He can tell Holder is telling the truth, despite how much he wishes he were lying. Which means another fucking dead end.
His heart shrivels just a bit more.
“So to be clear,” Draven bites out, his tone dry and expression sharp, “you don’t have any information regarding Casimir Vivaldri’s whereabouts, and what trivial information you do have, you don’t even know the details surrounding it?
” Draven drops the vial onto the ground and uses his now free hand to grip Holder’s jaw.
“What the fuck use are you to me, then?”
“I…do-don’t…”
Draven squeezes Holder’s jaw more tightly as his other arm remains firmly wedged against his throat, making it nearly impossible for him to speak.
“You don’t what, exactly?” Draven’s frustration and anger spike, his self control slipping.
He glances down and glimpses the black spiderwebs creeping along his forearm.
One glance back at Holder’s horrified stare also confirms to Draven that his darkness is seeping into the colors of his eyes.
Fuck.
He’s been allowing this to happen far too often lately.
But ever since that terrible fucking day—the day haunting his nightmares and living like poison in his veins, his mind replaying again and again all that he could have done differently to prevent Lyra’s capture—Draven finds his ability to keep a lid on the ferocity of his magic increasingly difficult.
It’s as if dredging so deep into it during his fight with Casimir Vivaldri awakened a slumbering beast inside of him.
He has no desire to be swallowed into the belly of that monster.
Turmoil churns in his chest from another dead end as he grits his teeth and tries to bottle his humming magic.
Yet his magic sings with glee as it cascades from his fingertips, burrowing into Holder’s cut flesh, refusing to be jarred any longer.
Draven slides him a quick glance before scowling and jerking his arm away from the Skull Trader’s throat.