Chapter Two No Good Deed #2
“There is only one way out of this city that will allow you to leave unseen, and you’re not going to like it,” Reya said as they walked, keeping to the shadows and peering around corners before they turned. “But it will not be half as bad as what will happen if you’re seen.”
Across the Heart Sea, it was not uncommon to have a magic-born serve your food or pour your ale, live next door, or wave to you in the streets. But here, walking out in the open was as good as a death sentence.
Like she’d summoned them, a unit of Silver Guardsmen turned down the street opposite them.
Reya shoved the Sage into the darkness of the nearest alcove and flattened herself over her, shielding them both from view with her cloak and holding her breath.
They were liable to find the Sage by her smell alone.
Only after the guards were long out of earshot did Reya pull back from the Sage to look down the street.
What she was about to do was risky. But she needed answers, and she couldn’t weather Lennox’s wrath without them.
“Are you all right?” Reya asked.
The Sage nodded, glancing down the street as if surprised they’d pulled it off.
“Good.” Knowing she would never get another chance, Reya freed her ruby dagger and pressed it below the raw skin on the female’s throat.
Those strange eyes went wide with fury and betrayal.
“Relax. I didn’t break you out of there just to kill you.
I’ll take off those chains in a second. I just have to ask you a few questions, and I don’t trust you not to cook me with”—she nodded in the Sage’s general direction—“whatever it is you’ve got. ”
“Why would I tell you anything?” the Sage seethed, voice husky either from screaming or disuse.
“Because you want that collar off, and I can pick a lock faster than anyone in this city.”
Anger raged against desperation in the Sage’s eyes.
Then they fell to Reya’s neck, saw the simple gold chain and green pendant that lay there.
Reya had not taken the necklace off in ten years, not even to bathe.
The Sage’s nostrils flared and her pupils dilated into the silver of her irises in surprise. “You—”
“Don’t,” Reya warned.
The Sage’s eyes narrowed. “Do you really think that Kellstone trinket will protect you?”
Reya didn’t know. She’d never tested it like this, and even without her magic, the Sage could be lethal. Hence the dagger, which Reya pressed in as far as she dared. “If it doesn’t, this will.”
“What do you want?” the Sage demanded with the confidence of someone who had indeed seen centuries of this world.
Gone was the terrified creature from the carriage.
The lion had emerged from its den, and she was exactly as all the stories claimed—beautiful and terrifying and everything the King of Rhiterra feared.
“I assume you have a name.” A simple question to start, Reya decided. “What do they call you? And don’t lie. I’ll know if you do.”
There were very few people from whose lips Reya couldn’t discern a lie. Lies all felt the same—like someone had lodged a hook in her gut and pulled. Sometimes she even swore she could taste them.
“Stellene,” she bit out.
“How long have they had you, Stellene?”
“I don’t know. I lost track of time.”
Truth.
“Why does my boss think you’re so valuable?”
“How should I know?” Stellene looked right at her as she said it, but it didn’t matter. Reya’s stomach tightened.
“I warned you not to lie.”
Indecision was a storm on Stellene’s gaunt face as her eyes flicked from the blade to Reya’s face.
“King Rothmire thinks I have something I don’t.”
Reya studied the Sage’s features carefully in the light of the moons.
Something in the line of her jaw, the angle of her nose, had been bothering Reya.
“I know your face.” It took her a moment, but then she stumbled on a memory.
“You’re the one on the wanted posters.” Reya had seen Stellene’s likeness mounted next to her own bulletins; the female was wanted in connection with attacks on multiple Rhiterran outposts—and for freeing the magic-born detained there.
“You’re the one they’re calling Sancta.” The Saint.
Stellene cringed. “It was not my intention to earn a reputation.”
The posters, of course, had not mentioned she was a Sage.
The king wouldn’t want anyone knowing that a magic-born was evading the Silver Guard.
There was something more the Sage wasn’t telling her.
But Reya didn’t want to escalate this any further.
Their situation was already precarious, and time was of the essence.
Reya shrugged. “Why not? Saint Stellene has a rather nice ring to it.” Those silver eyes flared in irritation, and Reya snorted. “Calm down. Your secret is safe with me.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
Reya wasn’t certain why she asked her next question. “Why did you free those magic-born?”
The Sage’s reply was full of metal. “Because it was right. Why did you?”
Just because Stellene answered didn’t mean Reya had to, and so she ignored her. “I’ll remind you, there’s only one way out of this city. And you won’t find it or get that collar off without me. Remember that as I let go. If you want my help, you’re going to refrain from any sudden movements.”
A muscle flexed in the Sage’s jaw. “I’d nod except there’s a knife at my throat.”
Reya almost laughed. It was a shame she would never see Stellene again. Reya was starting to like her. “You’ve got steel in you. That’s good. You’ll need it for what comes next. But I’m going to need a guarantee in words. Explicit ones.”
The Sage smirked. “I won’t kill you, today.”
Truth.
Slowly, so as not to scare her, Reya returned her namesake blade to its sheath and took hold of one of the Sage’s wrist manacles. It was a screw key lock. Simple enough, if impossible to open without the right tool, which Reya had.