Chapter Four #2
This one was greasy and smelled like mint. It chilled my fingers when I touched it, but I could still feel the heat of Innis’s skin. The Aetheric—or the Anima—had done unkind things to his body.
The sudden knock at the door nearly had me jumping.
“I’ll get that,” I said, folding up the packet and setting it aside. I rose to answer the door, pulled it open…and stared.
I’d known that guards were going to visit Innis and Ferren today; I’d warned Wren about it. But I hadn’t expected it would be him.
And yet Nik stood in the sunlight that managed to slant through the narrow alley, blue eyes shining. His dark hair was untied today and fell to his shoulders, framing the line of his jaw and sharpening his features. It made him look more dangerous—as did the narrowed suspicion in his eyes.
“Fox,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
I didn’t mind getting another look at Nik but was feeling protective of Ferren and Innis; they’d been through enough. I stretched an arm across the doorway.
“Helping strongholders. Innis is still sick, and my friend Wren knows how to make remedies. A little early for the prince’s henchmen to be pounding on doors and harassing people, isn’t it?”
Nik glanced back at Galen, who stood behind him. “Did I pound on the door?”
“I heard a very polite knock.”
Nik turned back to me, his smile thin. “Polite knock. As you know, we need to speak with them.”
“Try again later. They need peace and quiet.”
Nik leaned down, keeping his blue eyes on me. “While your protectiveness is very admirable, he’s the only one who really knows what happened, so we’ll be talking to him now. Would you rather step aside and let us in, or should we move you aside?”
I sneered. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t,” he agreed, then gestured to Galen. “But he would.”
If I had any doubts Galen would toss me out of the way, his look guaranteed it. I bet I could outrun him. But since starting a fight in Ferren and Innis’s doorway wasn’t going to help, I stepped back. The guards followed me in.
Ferren looked back at me, and I saw the fear come into her eyes.
“Ferren,” Nik said. “We met yesterday. We’re bodyguards for the prince.”
Her gaze slipped over them before settling on Innis again.
Wren ignored them until the ointment was applied to her satisfaction. Then she replaced the linen gently atop it, rose, and gave the guards a look. “They don’t need harassment.”
“Good,” Nik said. “We aren’t here for that, so no one will be disappointed.”
Innis moaned, and his eyes fluttered open. He looked terrified until his wife touched his arm, and his body visibly relaxed. That was a rare kind of love.
“You’re safe,” Ferren said. “You’re home and safe. It’s all over.”
“So hot,” he said.
“You’ll cool down,” she said, adjusting the cloth on his forehead, her lips tight together, as if to hold in a ragged sob. “You’ve gotten some remedies, and you’re going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine.”
He nodded, swallowed. Then he realized there were soldiers in the room, and his eyes widened.
Nik moved closer, crouching down to meet the man’s gaze. “Innis, we work for the prince. He was concerned about you.”
“I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t want to do it.”
“We know,” Nik said. Then he looked at me, apparently expecting me to explain the situation. I hadn’t signed up to take orders from the prince’s guards but understood this wasn’t the time to argue.
I shifted so Innis could see me. “We think you were…possessed,” I said. “By an Anima.”
“A ghost?”
“Yes. We think the Anima, or someone helping the Anima, found you before you entered the market. Do you remember anything?”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “I was at the garden.”
“The communal garden,” Ferren clarified. “Everyone who agrees to work it for three years gets a plot. Helps those of us without land grow a bit, make extra coin.”
Nik nodded.
“It’s too early for much, but I thought there might be a few early radishes, and the innkeeper buys what we can grow. Found a handful of wee things,” Innis said, holding his index finger and thumb a scant width apart, “but coin is coin.”
That it was.
“Weren’t no one else in the garden that late, but I saw something move past. Thought it was Old Cleary come to complain.”
“Old Cleary?” Nik asked.
“He shoed horses ’til he got too weak for it. Now he roams about and checks on people.”
“He’s nosy,” I translated, while Ferren dabbed Innis’s forehead again.
“I looked back, but no one was there. Figured it was a bird.” He paused. “I don’t remember anything after that. Just heat everywhere. Like I’d swallowed fire.”
“Did you see anyone?” Nik asked.
Innis shook his head.
“What about an Anima?” I asked. If I had any hope of shielding Luna from the practitioner’s grasp, I needed to find the Aetheric practitioner.
“I’m not one of the ones that can see,” Innis said. “You are?”
I nodded. “I can see a bit.”
“What happened next?” Nik asked quietly.
“A dream. No, a nightmare. There were soldiers, and I was trying to kill someone. Only it wasn’t me trying, and I couldn’t make my arms do what I wanted.
The heat—it was so hot. And the world kept flashing.
” He took a breath, the edge of it ragged with emotion and exhaustion.
“Then there was such a pain as I never felt before.” He moved a hand to his wound, his fingers grazing the linen.
“The fire cooled a bit, and I could feel my body again.” He wiped at his eyes, unwilling to let the tears fall, at least in front of us.
“I injured you,” Nik said. “It was the only way we knew to stop you, to make the Anima leave.”
Innis nodded. “Then I guess I’m grateful for it, as long as it heals.”
Ferren looked pleadingly at each of us. “Will it heal? Will he be healthy again?” There was real fear in her eyes now, that his suffering would continue, or she might lose him.
“It’ll be fine,” Innis said. “I’m already feeling better. Must be the poultice.” Another harsh breath, and he closed his eyes again. “Think I need a little more lie-down.”
“We’ll leave you to rest,” I said, giving the guards a look that said they’d be leaving with us.
We walked in silence through the passageway and back to the main road, where a soldier stood with two very large horses that nosed at the grass growing at the edge of the road. When we stopped, Nik turned his gaze on me. “You told Ferren everything?”
“Yes. She deserved to know.”
“You’re a ghostfinder?” Galen asked with a condescending sneer in his voice.
Most ghostfinders pried coins out of strongholders with the promise of finding malevolent Anima in their homes and banishing them with a few clangs of their “resonance bowl.” Fancy words for a bell that made coins for the frauds and did nothing else. That was unrighteous theft.
“I’m no grifter,” I said. “I can see Anima and Aether.”
“How do you see Aether?” Nik asked.
“It leaves a visible trace.”
Galen muttered something about grifters.
“Have enough wealth,” I said, “and you can afford to believe the world is only what you see and hear, and not worry about ‘peasant magic.’ ”
“You don’t know us,” Nik said, his voice sharp. “Don’t pretend that you do.”
“Don’t pretend the prince cares about Innis,” I said. “He cares about his own neck.”
“This may come as a great shock to you, Fox, but he’s capable of caring about more than one thing at once.”
I crossed my arms. “His predecessor wasn’t.”
Nik stared down at me. “The prince isn’t his brother.”
Galen must not have liked the heat in my eyes. “Please step back.”
I looked at him, then back at Nik. Like circling predators, we’d moved so close our knees nearly touched. We both stepped back, but my heart still thudded harder than it should have. I felt a little better when I noticed that he looked as disconcerted as I did.
“Apologies,” Nik said. “We spend more time than we like battling assumptions about the prince.”
“I’d love to be proved wrong,” I said, and meant it.
“How long,” Nik asked after a moment, “do traces of Aether remain?”
I lifted a shoulder. “It depends. There’s still a trace on Innis, but he was permeated with it. There wasn’t a trail in the market after it happened. Which means you’re looking for someone very powerful—powerful enough to have learned how to force a possession, and to have concealed their escape.”
“Someone wants your prince dead because he’s a Lys’Careth,” Wren said. “They said so in the market.”
I nodded. “And that someone has powerful magic, the coin to hire a dozen assassins, and the confidence to attack him in public. It’s someone who doesn’t care how many commoners get hurt.”
“The list of the prince’s enemies is long and distinguished,” Nik said. “Enemies of Carethia. Enemies of the Emperor Eternal. One of the prince’s brothers. The Emperor Eternal separates his sons, sends them to the gates; they still look for ways to kill each other.”
“Sounds like being royal is a shit job,” Wren said.
“Watch the insubordination,” Galen warned.
Wren rolled her eyes. “Can’t be insubordinate when I’m not your subordinate in the first place.”
Nik held up a hand to stop another argument. “Enough.” The word fell like an order, and even Wren shifted her gaze to him.
“The assassin failed,” Nik said, “but only just. He’ll probably try again, and the prince wants to be ready in case he does.” He looked at Wren. “Would you share your elderbalm remedy? It seems to help.”
Wren gave him a considering look—she didn’t like sharing her secrets—but she nodded and pulled a scrap of parchment from her tunic. “I brought this for Ferren, but she memorized it.” And probably couldn’t read it anyway. Learning letters was a luxury many strongholders couldn’t afford.
“Thank you,” Nik said, tucking it into his uniform. “I hope it won’t be necessary, but it’s better to be prepared in case we can’t find the practitioner—and stop him.” There was a severity in his tone that said he’d do whatever necessary to accomplish that.
He looked at me. “I want to see the communal garden. Do you know where it is?”