Chapter 4
The Archon’s secret wagon returned to the palace, and we were hastily ushered out. There was no time to dawdle—a manhunt would begin once the fake Bloodstone was discovered.
Equipped only with bags of supplies and the clothes on our backs, we slipped out in the thick of night and made for a hidden exit that Ainwir had shown me years ago.
I felt silly, fleeing through dark streets wearing a noble’s fanciful toga, my flower mask hanging around my neck. Four people composed our merry band: myself, Eleos, Seraphim, and Perse.
We were neither priests nor nobles, but criminals escaping our sentence by pursuing a fool’s errand.
Following a channel that flowed to the city’s northwestern edge, I guided us toward a large grate at the base of the walls, where refuse from the sewer trickled into the surrounding marshlands. It wouldn’t be pleasant, but this was the only exit where guards did not keep rapt watch over the roads.
Though the bars of the grate were too close together for a person to slip through, one in the center was loose. Finding the rusted pole, I dragged it out of place and pushed it aside, creating a gap just wide enough to shimmy through.
I allowed the others to go first, taking one last glance at the city lights before squeezing through. My sandals sank into the marsh, soaking me to my knees.
Grimacing as the ends of my dress clung to my legs, I pulled up my skirt and trudged forward.
Everything had happened so fast. I wanted to lie down and process the abrupt change, not wander through the wilderness.
The four of us remained silent until nothing but willows and damp soil surrounded us.
The man in the purple doublet fell into step with me, lifting his low-brimmed hat to reveal part of his face: affable, with a nose that curved upward at the tip.
He was far paler than anyone I’d met, with a mouth curled in a permanent smile, though his hat concealed his hair and eyes.
“Apologies for the lack of introductions,” he said, bowing like a stage actor. “I’m Percy. Pleasure to have you on the team, lady. . .?”
Perse must’ve been his nickname. Staring at his hand, I considered ignoring it. No sense being rude, I supposed. Shaking his hand, I narrowed my eyes. “Aethra. How do you people know who I am?”
Seraphim spoke without turning around. “Chance, really. I need someone skilled at dealing with nobles, and the Guild recommended you.”
“So you know that I’m-”
“A con woman?” Eleos finished. “Yes. That’s just what we need.”
“What for?” I asked, staring at Seraphim’s back.
“We’ll go over the plan later,” she called. “By a fire with good wine.”
“Fair enough,” I agreed, glancing between everyone. Much could be gleaned about a person from a cursory glance.
Eleos wore a blue scarf and white cape: the colors of the clergy, though he lacked their metallic insignia. He seemed so soft, a typical pretty boy I might cast as the shining prince in a play, but his hands were calloused. A frequent traveler?
Seraphim looked to be in her forties, a scar rising from her collar to caress her neck. How many more hid behind the surface?
Percy seemed like a performer; he walked with a lively jaunt, had a permanent grin etched on his face, and dressed like a blindingly colorful beacon meant to light our way.
Eleos watched me with sharp eyes. “Trying to figure out what we were thrown in the dungeons for?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “The Archon implied you were already criminals.”
He chuckled. “Seraphim and I had been detained for questioning when the Archon recruited us. Percy happened to be in the neighboring cell.”
I raised an eyebrow at Percy, who turned several shades of scarlet. Whatever he’d done to earn a dungeon cell must have been terribly embarrassing.
“Well, spill it,” I said. “What did you-”
“Sh.” Eleos grabbed me and dragged me behind a tree.
The distinctive sound of horses forging through water caught my ear, and I chanced a glance around the willow to see a unit of men, torches glowing in the night, riding through fog settled on the marsh’s low waters.
I snapped my head back around cover. “They’re already looking for us?”
“Hm.” Eleos seemed unbothered. “Two hours earlier than I expected.”
“We’ll never outpace them on foot,” I hissed.
“Luckily, we don’t have to,” Eleos whispered back. “Come. Not much further.”
Darting out from behind cover, we fled deeper into the marsh, listening intently for activity. Wandering west would lead us toward the world’s borders and into the Empty. We’d have to wind back around to the main road, where the guards would await us.
A knoll rose from the marsh in the center of a copse, granting respite from the muck. Three horses gathered around a rather unhappy-looking older man.
Seraphim tossed the man a sack of coins. “Thank you. Take care heading back.”
The old man grunted, stuffing the sack into his pack. His eyes skimmed over us before he trudged through the marsh. “You’ll never hear from me again.” He promised.
“Percy,” Seraphim ordered. “Lay a false trail. Make them think we’re heading east.”
“Must I? In my finest?”
His finest? I shuddered to think what the rest of his wardrobe looked like.
Seraphim slapped his back, pushing him in the direction the soldiers had ridden. “You two. C’mere.”
Resigned to his fate, Percy grabbed his horse and led it away. I watched him go, startled by a bundle of rags that struck my chest. Catching it clumsily, I turned the tattered thing over, realizing it was a patchwork bag.
“Carry that,” Seraphim ordered. “Make yourself useful.”
“I’m good at nothing if not being useful,” I murmured.
Satisfied, she turned around and grabbed a horse, tightening its saddle bags. Glancing between the horses, I counted them again. Only two remained.
“Hm.” Seraphim glanced at me with a smirk. “Seems our man miscounted. I asked for four steeds. You’ll have to ride with Eleos.”
Wandering over to the green-eyed man, I tugged on the knapsack’s strings. “What’s in this?”
“I’m, ah, not sure,” Eleos admitted, untying the other horse. “Percy’s effects, most likely.”
As I pulled the bag open to peer inside, he grabbed the strings and fastened them closed.
“Better not to look, in that case,” he warned.
“Well, now I’m curious,” I said, throwing the pack around my shoulder.
An enormous horse dappled with spots of white and brown sloshed through the muck to Eleos’ side. I swallowed, trying to figure out how I would mount it. Ainwir had always hailed carriages. I had never ridden a horse by myself before.
Eleos always knew what I was thinking. “Don’t worry,” he said, grabbing the reins. “I’m experienced. You’ll be safe with me.”
“If you say so.” I chewed my lip nervously as he knelt and made a step out of his knitted hands. Hesitating, I cautiously stepped up and floundered when he boosted me. Grabbing the saddle, I gracelessly pulled myself onto its back.
Mounting effortlessly, Eleos sat in front of me, glancing back to ensure I hadn’t fallen off. “Hold on tight. You’ll get the hang of it.”
Sloshing water drew my attention east, as Percy rode back to the knoll. “Our pursuers have been taken care of,” he announced. “If they don’t hear that, they’re idiots who won’t catch us anyway.”
“Hear what?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t given Seraphim’s order to ‘leave a false trail’ much thought.
“Magic, my dear.” Percy smiled.
“Let’s go,” Seraphim said, riding north.
The dappled horse took off, and I lunged forward, grabbing Eleos’s waist tightly as the horse bucked back and forth, lifting its hooves to escape the piles of mud.
The scholarly-looking man felt firmer than expected.
Though his build was lithe, I could feel taut muscles in his arms and core.
His brown hair brushed against my neck, luxuriously soft and smelling of parchment and sandalwood.
An image nestled in my head of an armchair resting before the fire, warm and inviting.
Eleos tilted his head to look at me. “Not all scholars are pudgy old men.”
“What?” I asked, surprised.
“Nothing,” he said, turning around.
Had he read my mind? Or had my shock been apparent? Gods, had I felt up his abs like a perverted wench?
Nuzzling my face into his scarf, I blocked my view of both the horse and its rider. “The Bloodstone. Do we need it for something?”
“Yes,” Eleos answered. “Supposedly, it emanates a sacred aura that protects one from the atrophying effects of the Empty.”
“Has that been tested?”
“Of course not. The stone would be lost forever if it failed.”
“Oh, good,” I mumbled, trying not to think about it. Seraphim said she would explain everything when we stopped. Good enough for me.
Silence consumed the marsh save for the sound of crickets and the sloshing of hooves.
My heart started beating faster as fear set in.
Pockets of the Empty could appear anywhere in the wilderness.
I’d seen one as a child. A shadow within a shadow, the world itself warping as it was torn away and turned to dust. It had spread, like hands reaching for me, trying to pull me in.
Staring over Eleos’ shoulder, I watched the woman named Seraphim warily. She was a chthonic mage. Abyss-cursed, some called them. Those who used their blood and the blood of others—life itself—to fuel dangerous spells.
A deadly game, when death beget the end of the world.
“Calm down,” Eleos said softly, “We’ll be alright.”
Were my hands trembling? Tightening my grip, I clung to him like a frightened child, though I probably should have done the opposite.
“Percy is a mage, too,” he said. “We aren’t helpless.”
That gaudy charlatan could use magic, too? Three kinds of magic existed, each gifted by one of the gods—a rare blessing few obtained. Ainwir had been a mage, but he’d never told me which kind.
First, there were the psyches, born of Psythos, the goddess who governed and endowed humanity with their emotions. They could read minds, and alter emotions.