Chapter Twenty-Five #2
Shadach’s mouth twisted like barbed wire.
“Even me. Like the other children, I mocked him as a half-breed. Told people he was a fake Halcin and not to be trusted. Back when I cared a lot about what the Halcin thought of me.” Shadach sighed, sitting on the bed.
“The worst of it is if I had befriended him, undoubtedly a lot of others would have, too. As the son of the leader of the Halcin council, I had a lot more power than I realised.” Shadach’s gaze was distant, his tone pained.
It seemed Hallus hadn’t forgiven Shadach for his past, and Shadach hadn’t forgiven himself either.
“When Hallus declared he could see Shadows being made, he gained the respect of most Halcin. He gained the respect of all of them by acting more Halcin than any full-blooded one of us. Now, no one is foolish enough to even mention his Selat mother let alone insult him with it.”
“We shouldn’t count him as a friend then.” Aoife’s smile was half-hearted.
“He’ll slit our throats in our sleep if its serves him.”
“Wonderful.” On instinct, Aoife glanced at the door, checking if there was a lock. There wasn’t.
“But, thankfully, slitting our throats in our sleep only serves him if we fail,” Shadach said.
“We best not fail then.”
Now, it was Shadach’s turn for a half-hearted smile. They sat, silent. Shadach seemed lost in his thoughts, the determined look in his eyes telling her he was still trying to figure out how not to fail. How not to get their throats slit.
Aoife felt the weight of a boulder pressing on her lungs. This wasn’t supposed to be Shadach’s fight alone. She was supposed to help him. That’s what she had told him. That he wasn’t alone.
But what good was she?
She didn’t know anything about this city, about Lord Patin, about how to be shrewd and crafty. She had no connections and no resources to offer. The only thing she had was the hatred of the Halcin, because they thought she was a Selat.
The weight on her lungs eased. A little. A Selat. They all thought she was a Selat.
“I can help,” Aoife said.
Shadach blinked, snapping out of his reverie. “What?”
“I can help you with this.”
Shadach’s gaze was soft. Loving. “You help just by being here.”
“No,” Aoife stood, “I can help. Practically. Everyone thinks I’m a Selat, which means I can go places you can’t.” Aoife took a turn about the room, getting more excited. “I’ll go into the city, ask questions, try to get information. Maybe I can get something useful.”
“No.” Shadach stood, shaking his head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I’ll be perfectly safe.”
“You don’t know this city. You don’t—”
“Shadach, I’ve lived all over the world. My world, anyway. I know how to cop on to where I am. Or at least how to not get killed.”
“Like with Aristen?”
Aoife paused, taken aback by the force of Shadach’s words. But it wasn’t anger she saw in his eyes. It was fear. The fear of losing her. Her heart melted as heat pooled in her body.
“I’ll be careful.” Her words were soft.
“It’s too dangerous.”
Aoife crossed the room, taking his hands. “I told you that you weren’t alone. So let me help. It’s as dangerous for me in here as it is out there.”
Shadach started to speak. Stopped. He knew she was right. Bringing her hands to his lips, Shadach kissed her fingers, his breath on her skin whipping fire into her blood.
“You are incredible, you know that?” His words were barely a whisper, his eyes locked on hers. Those eyes of infinite depth, of infinite beauty.
Of infinite seduction.
Aoife felt herself melting into him before her mind could process she was doing it.
He pulled her to him, his strength washing over her with the force of a waterfall.
And then Aoife felt it. Felt what she had been needing to feel since they’d come here.
As Shadach laid her on the bed, kissing her, tasting her, loving her.
As he entered her, making her writhe, making her body scream from the passion. The power. The pleasure.
As he consumed her, and she consumed him, Aoife found what she needed most: a ray of hope in a passionless wasteland.
~*~
Day 1 - Afternoon
“You want what?” Aoife stared at the Halcin man in Hallus’ kitchen. He sat across from her at the sleek stone table, a grin as wide as the ocean on his grimy face. He had at least two teeth missing that Aoife could see.
“A lock of your hair.” The man spoke Selatian with such a thick accent he was barely intelligible. He leaned forward. Aoife instinctively leaned back as if she could sense the bad breath waiting to escape him. “It looks like it could’ve come from a red dragon.”
“There’s red dragons here?” Aoife leaned closer, despite her better judgement. “Actual dragons?”
Hallus’ laugh bellowed from the other room, growing louder as he came down the hall and into the kitchen. “Prayers of the God,” he said, “of course not. You plan to be the Empress of this Kingdom and you don’t even know there’s no such thing as dragons?”
Hallus’ judgment of Aoife’s intelligence should have been easy to shirk. This was a man who despised the man she loved, after all. But instead, his words hit her like a blade of ice to her throat. A chilling, brutal death.
You plan to be the Empress of this Kingdom.
Aoife did not, in fact, plan to be Empress.
Did she? She only wanted to be with Shadach.
But if Shadach was to be Emperor and she was to be with Shadach then that would make her …
Empress. Aoife felt cold and hot all at once.
She and Shadach hadn’t actually talked about their future in certain terms. They’d been too lost in now.
Too lost in desire. Too lost in staying alive.
What would it look like for Aoife to be royalty?
What would be her responsibilities? Would she ever get to see Shadach? Would he be too busy for her?
Taking a breath, Aoife tried to calm the spike of panic. These were thoughts for another time.
“He said there were dragons,” Aoife said, her voice weak as she tried to push away her anxiety for the future. “I’m not from here.”
“This is what Bremlin does.” Hallus motioned to the man with the decaying teeth.
“He sells fake magical trinkets to a gullible public. And to gullible would-be empresses, it seems.” Hallus pulled a small, jagged knife from his boot and in one savage movement sliced off a chunky lock of Aoife’s hair.
Aoife clutched her wounded locks. “What is wrong with you?”
“You need money to help your hopeless boyfriend,” Hallus handed Bremlin Aoife’s hair, “and Bremlin wants an insignificant piece of your hair. What exactly are you complaining about?”
You. I’m complaining about you, Aoife thought.
Aoife and Shadach had agreed to divide and conquer.
Aoife would do her own reconnaissance while Shadach looked for a man named Weis who might have been able to help them steal Lord Patin’s jewels.
But the places Aoife needed to go in order to do reconnaissance required money.
Which she didn’t have. Or at least, she didn’t until now.
Bremlin laid a heap of coins on the table then started stroking Aoife’s hair in a way that made vomit claw up her throat.
“You’ll need this, too.” Hallus reached into a thin closet off the kitchen. Grabbing a weighty piece of clothing from inside, he tossed it to Aoife.
Uncrumpling it, she realised she was holding a cloak. Mauve purple with gold trimming at the bottom and the edge of the hood.
“Colourful cloaks are ‘in’ for women,” he said. “You’ll be laughed out of every building without one.”
Aoife stared at the cloak, the fabric well-worn but not unpleasant to the touch. Why was Hallus being helpful? Everything about him, and everything Shadach had said about their history, suggested he had no interest in Shadach succeeding.
“Are you sure your girlfriend won’t mind me borrowing this?” Aoife watched Bremlin leave out of the corner of her eye.
“It isn’t my girlfriend’s, it’s mine.” Hallus tone was sharp and sarcastic as he opened a cabinet, looking for something. “I like to look pretty on the weekends.”
“I’m sure you’re the prettiest in all the land,” Aoife said without an ounce of emotion.
Hallus laughed. “Also, you’re going to need to do something with that hair.”
Yes, her hair. Her very noticeable, very memorable hair.
Although it was Shadach hiding from a murder charge, Aoife was hiding, too.
She was still a threat to Aristen and if an asset of Aristen’s saw her, the consequences could be lethal.
For the sake of this Halcin trial, neither she nor Shadach could afford to hide.
Neither could they afford to be too noticeable.
“Shadach said to go to Litha down the road,” Aoife said, “and she’ll give me a dye.
” Something apparently made from the midnight-black oils of a flower loosely translated from Halcin as “Midnight Morgue.” Shadach had assured her it wasn’t poisonous, but with a name like that, she couldn’t help but wonder.
Hallus pulled a clay mug out of the cabinet. “Good.” The word came slowly out of his mouth, like venom dripping from the fang of a snake. “I’m glad that useless boyfriend of yours didn’t leave it entirely up to me to take care of you.”
“Nobody asked you to do more than put a roof over our heads. And Shadach is out there trying to save all of us.”
“Ah, yes.” Hallus pulled a jar from a cupboard with a dull blue powder inside. He put a spoonful into the mug then splashed a bit of water in after it. “The mythical threat to the Halcin from the great General Holt.”
It’s not a myth, Aoife thought, but did not say. There was no point. Not with a man like this. Instead, she said, “Why are you helping me?”
Hallus threw a glance at her over his shoulder as he mixed the powder and water together with a spoon. “I’m the enclave leader.” His eyes glistened with a wretched amusement that made Aoife’s stomach flip. “It wouldn’t suit my reputation if you died on your very first day.”
~*~
Day 1 - Evening