Chapter Thirty The Crimson Dagger #2
She took a deep breath. “The farmer refused to pay the promised price, but my father gave it to him anyway. I’d worked on that piece myself.
I was so upset when we left that I lost control.
It was just for a second, and I didn’t hurt anyone, but it was bright.
When I looked up, I saw the farmer’s little girl playing in the fields with their dog, staring right at me.
I knew she’d seen, but I didn’t say anything because I was so scared of disappointing him.
We got halfway up the mountain before my conscience finally got the better of me.
My father told me not to worry, that times were hard and we’d done a good thing, and even if the child told her father, he wouldn’t turn us in.
I believed him.” Reya refused to cry. “Blood Watchers came to our home three days later.”
Reya decided that was all she could relive. It was more than she’d ever said aloud. Caelan continued to stroke her ribs. “I’m sorry, Reyanwyn.”
She shrugged like it hadn’t destroyed her. Like she wasn’t broken inside.
“Weeks later, I was sleeping in the woods with Ash when some Mireli nomads snuck into my camp. Their leader, Melinda, took one look at me and knew I was a demi-Sage. I was sure she was going to hand me over to the Rhiterrans for a purse full of coin, but she didn’t.
She took me in. Melinda was the one who gave me the Kellstone necklace and showed me how to mix blood tonics.
She taught me how to hide among humans and take what I needed to survive.
I could pick a pocket before I ever laid eyes on Lennox Raulin.
When I didn’t get caught, I got to keep what I stole.
When I did, she would whip my wrists. Said it would teach me to be quick, and it did. ”
Reya rubbed her forearms as if she could still feel the sting there.
“Every summer, the Mireli travel to Edris for the Lumus Day Festival. On the last night of the celebration, Melinda told me that Una came to her in a vision and told her that I was not to leave with them. That my path was there in the city. So they unhooked Ash from the convoy, and then they left us in the streets.”
Caelan’s other hand tensed on her hip. She turned to meet his eyes and opened her mouth to tell him exactly where to shove his pity. But there was none in his face. “Did you ever see them again?”
She looked away. “I went to the festival every year to look, but they never came back.” Reya hated to admit the sad truth, but Caelan had a way of carving it from her. “I told you, fire fingers. There is no honor among thieves.”
The words seemed to echo between them. He asked softly, “And then?”
He already knew what happened then. Rain slid down her forehead and cheeks, blurring time between then and now.
“I was living in a little hovel I’d made out of shipping crates in the Heap, and I woke to find a man ransacking my camp.
He tried to take the sword. When I fought back with it, he cut me open right here.
” She lifted her sleeve to show him yet another scar on her forearm.
“But I didn’t let go until I put the sword through his gut.
That was the first person I ever killed with my father’s blade.
When I finally crawled out, I saw Lennox Raulin standing in the shadows of the alley, arms crossed and a smile on his face. ”
She blinked and could have sworn she was eleven years old again.
“I probably looked like a hell spawn kneeling there, covered in blood. But he just smiled and said, ‘I had a feeling you’d be the one to crawl out of there alive.’ He told me to follow him, and I didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I did.
He took me back to his townhouse, handed me a bottle of whiskey, and told me to drink.
Then he set out a needle and thread on the table and told me to stitch myself up.
” Reya snorted. “I could barely see straight from the liquor and blood loss. The whole time he just sat there watching me. When it was done, and I was so sick that I retched, he asked me if I wanted a different life. He warned me there would be a price to pay, but I said yes anyway.”
Caelan gently traced the scar, twisted and pinched from her stitching. “Why?”
Shrugging, she said, “At first, I tried to find work as a blacksmith’s apprentice, but no one would take me on.
I must have knocked on the doors of fifteen forges.
Half of them told me to go knocking at a pleasure house instead.
” Caelan’s chest rumbled at that. “Most orphans surrender themselves to the Church of the First in exchange for holy work, food, and a warm bed. But for obvious reasons, that would have been dangerous for me, and I knew they wouldn’t let me keep Ash.
So we lived on the streets. I was starving and I knew if Ash stayed with me, he would die, so I sold him to keep him alive. ”
Reya still remembered how he had looked at her that day, his dark eyes filled, as always, with that strange understanding. She’d expected him to put up a fight, but he’d gone quietly.
“The man I sold him to gave me ten silvers in a small purse. By the time I reached the market to buy myself a meal, the purse wasn’t there.
Someone had cut the strings right off my belt, and I hadn’t even noticed.
I’d sold the only friend I had left, and I still had nothing.
” She let out a long sigh. “Maybe I didn’t cross paths with enough good people.
Or maybe the world truly is as awful as it seemed in that moment.
But that night, when I was crying in a piss-smelling gutter, cold, alone, and starving, I swore by the All-Gods that if the world was going to do nothing but take from me, then I’d find a way to take something back.
“Lennox Raulin turned me into someone that couldn’t be taken from.
And I enjoyed the work. I was good at it—I am good at it.
I realize what you may think of me for saying that, but there it is.
I had money—enough to buy Ash back and take care of him.
I had time and space to read and I never worried about my next meal.
” She took a long breath. “The Crimson Dagger set me free.”
The words sounded pathetic to her ears, but Caelan just hummed low in his throat like he finally understood. “When I realized who you were, I assumed the moniker had something to do with your hair.”
“Not exactly,” Reya said with a sly grin.
Caelan cocked a brow.
She handed him her dagger.
“A gift from Lennox’s private collection. Stolen no doubt from someone lavish and powerful. Though he claims he had a jeweler add the trick stone for me.”
He inspected it carefully and then said, “That’s it? That’s the story? You have an actual crimson dagger?”
Reya kicked him, accidentally nudging Elspeth, too. The mare whinnied and lurched forward, and Reya tightened her reins, apologizing profusely for the accidental kick. Caelan laughed, the sound low and deep and true, and she decided right then it was her new favorite sound.
“Legends don’t just happen, Caelan Halcyon.
I made my debut as the Crimson Dagger on a literal stage—the Royal Opera House.
” Even now, she glowed at the memory. “The theater was a gift from King Rothmire to his favorite mistress. Apparently, she was quite a patron of the arts. On opening night, she loaned out all the jewels the king had ever given her to the production for the premiere. Tickets sold out in hours. The king himself attended the unveiling. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen him in person, sitting there in the shadows of his private box. ”
Reya could still picture the gilded marble, fire-lit crystal, red velvet seats, and pastel painted ceilings. She had never seen anything like it before and hadn’t since.
“I worked slowly—one piece at a time. No one noticed until it was too late that all those precious jewels had gone missing. His imperial majesty found this embedded in the wall of his box with a note that said, Thanks for the jewelry.” Her lips quirked to one side as she retrieved her dagger from Caelan’s outstretched palm. “My calling card.”
Reya looked at him over her shoulder; Caelan’s face was the picture of disbelief. “How?”
She ran her thumb over the ruby in the pommel, grinning. “I was one of the actors.”
When he choked on a laugh, she clarified.
“Technically, I was an understudy. Or rather, parading as one. I spent months sneaking in to watch the rehearsals, learning the steps and memorizing the music. When one of the dancers got ‘violently ill’ before the show, the stage manager was so frantic he didn’t look at my face for more than a second when I stepped in to take her place.
Not that he would have been able to tell the difference with all the makeup.
I was blonde that night and in a costume so itchy I wanted to die.
I wore the stolen jewels right out the stage door. Gave me a neck cramp.”
Caelan shook his head. “Brilliant.”
She gave a mock bow from the waist up. “Naturally, the Silver Guard had my dagger impounded. So I broke in and stole it back. I sold most of the jewelry off in pieces, but I kept a particularly large canary diamond for myself. That was the ring I gave the Savant. I was rather attached to that one.”
“Why does none of that surprise me?”
“Because you know me.” The truth of that should have shocked her. But it wasn’t something she could deny any longer. Didn’t want to.
“What happens when you finish your apprenticeship? Where will you go?”
“My old village. I need to put my father to rest. Set things right. After that…” She had been thinking about it for years. “With the Kraken blood, I’ll have enough coin to open my smithy and then some. I think I want to travel first, though. See more of the world. Keep searching until I find it.”
“Find what?”