Chapter Two
TWO
Rumor has it this whole city’s built on ruins from the days of the Old Ones.
I know how to find my way, but not nearly as well as Finn. She moves like these lanes are part of her. I can’t fight the urge to check over my shoulder every few steps.
“There’s no one following us.” Finn raises a brow, as if the very thought insults her.
“You can’t possibly know that,” I bite back, blood racing.
“Maeve Fallon.” My sister grins. “Is that doubt I hear in your voice?”
I grit my teeth. That might be relief swelling through me at the sight of her, but there’s a lick of agitation, too. “There’d be a lot less if you tell me where you’ve been.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She laughs, shaking her head. But a wince pulls at the edges of her lips, and one hand jerks toward her left side.
My stomach twists. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m not.” Finn slings her right arm over my shoulder. “Just a nick.”
Pain wraps around my skull, beating beneath my long dark hair, and I press a hand against the throb. “I’m serious, Finn. What’s going on? Where were you?”
She stops short, grabbing me by both shoulders and fixing her stormy gaze on mine.
“I’m only going to answer the first part of that, and then I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”
I draw in a breath to argue. The tight lines around her eyes and the flash of emotion there kill the burgeoning fight in me. Finn is… scared.
And my sister isn’t scared of anything. So I nod.
She glances over my shoulder. “The gardai marched right through the merchant quarter and didn’t touch a single person. Not until they got to Quayside.” Finn grimaces. “They’re looking for someone.”
My mouth goes dry. “How do you know where they started, Finn—and what were you doing in the merchant quarter? The banks aren’t even open today.”
“I meant what I said, Maeve.” My sister’s grip tightens on my shoulders. “Don’t ask questions you really do not want the answers to. I need you to trust me.”
Everything in me revolts at what she’s asking. There’s never been anything I’ve needed to hide from Finn. Never anything I couldn’t talk to her about. My whole chest aches, and not just with hurt. With a fierce ache to know more, to help her.
I would do anything to help her.
As if she sees the fight rising in me, Finn whispers one word. “Please.”
All the fight rushes out of me. “Fine.”
Finn lets go and steps back with a wince.
I seize my chance. “But you need to find Keeva. Take a balm or a tonic, or something.”
“Why do you think I’m taking you this way?” She winks. “Shortcut. Trust me, I’ve found enough of them over the years.”
That I have zero problem believing.
Nothing in Quayside is higher than two stories, but the deeper we go into the warren of lanes and alleys, the more the glare of Castle Mount above us seems to fall away anyway. Even the reek of the Black Quay and the salt of the icy sea begin to fade.
Chimes with tiny lupine figures carved from protective woods like cedar and elm and rowan, woven among the dull jewels of sea glass and old, bleached bones, hang from doorframes.
Whatever market vendor sold them probably lied through their teeth and claimed the bones came from a dead mage—that there could still be traces of magic in them after all this time.
Fools.
For the many who let themselves hope the Martyr and the mages will return, the wolf is a protector. A subtle symbol of hope—of the Old Ones, of the dream of what our isle used to be—since the uprising was crushed five years ago.
To me it just looks like a waste of someone’s time spent carving the damn things.
We can dream all we want that she’ll come back, but the Martyr is gone.
She abandoned us long before the High King formally banned magic five years ago, when the healer mages and the battle mages and the common mages fought in the uprising and then faced the executions.
But the Martyr had left Eireann the day he banished her almost twenty years ago, just hours after she failed to save his first High Queen from the short, sudden sickness that killed her.
Now there’s nothing left of magic except for the scraps passed down in secret through families—like my mother’s triple knot charm and whatever the Whisperers barter in the shadows, sourced from Old Ones know where. Magic is dead and buried now.
And so are all our dreams.
But Finn—she trails one hand along a window ledge as we slink through a narrow lane.
The wood is thick with heavy, hardened wax, like candles had been lit and melted down on top of it over months.
Someone’s left little staves of wood as long as my fingers with markings carved into their lengths lying there.
A chill sinks into my bones at the sight.
Ogham was once the language of the Old Ones.
Now it’s treason.
My sister runs her fingers over the runic markings. Their short, brutal lines branch out from a central shaft down each stave. And as much as I wish I don’t, I still know how to interpret them. Finn does too. Our mother made sure of that before they executed her.
“You shouldn’t touch those.”
My words come out heavy and cold, but Finn just shrugs.
“Not the first time I’ve done something I shouldn’t. Won’t be the last, either. There’s no one around to see us here, Maeve.”
A sensation like spiders crawls over my skin, close to the way the mist always seems to tingle along my arms. It never seems to bother Finn.
I shift and steal a glance at the lines of grimy, filthy windows with their curtains pulled tight. “You never know who’s watching,” I murmur.
The Lady of Shadows has spies everywhere.
One of them, somewhere, betrayed our mother.
My sister pulls her fingers back with a sigh and shivers, too. “Then let’s get going.”
Officially, Finn’s partner, Keeva, sells herbs.
But behind the baskets of yellow rock rose petals from the western cliffs and wild thyme and hickory from the southern valleys are the kinds of tinctures no one ingests by choice—concoctions so lethal and so discreet that even members of the High King’s inner circle turn to her for help disposing of rivals that shine a little too brightly.
The Lady of Shadows has even been known to stop by personally when Keeva brings in an unusual poison. Shards of the elusive ore cinnabar, capable of driving a person mad. Or rarely, the creatlach that causes excruciating death; even poisoners fear it in high-enough doses.
Each time, the royal spymaster pays in gold coin and promises of immunity from the snooping reach of the gardai. And each time, she leaves a little more terror in her wake.
Keeva never lets us anywhere near when she knows the royal spymaster might come calling. It’s like she thinks keeping us a secret can keep us safe. She might’ve barely known our mother, but they would’ve gotten along.
Secrets are your greatest shield, my mother used to whisper between hums of a lullaby so faint I can hardly remember it. The words always slip from my mind each time I grasp for them in the loneliest hours of the night.
The defiant, aching melody, though—that haunts me still.
Just like her screams when the gardai came for her.
They’d razed the Martyr’s old temples when the uprising collapsed five years ago, ripping the mages and apprentices from their posts.
It wasn’t the first time the High King ordered raids on the temples that sang for the Martyr.
Ever since he’d banished her, they’d hunted anyone who called for her return and for the rise of a new king who would let her restore Eireann’s magic.
As if that was even possible.
But after the uprising backed by the mages and a handful of noble families, the gardai’s brutality turned monstrous. I guess it didn’t help that two of the High King’s children from the new High Queen died during the chaos of those months and her Cymrean allies blamed the mages and the rebels.
So, the High King banned all magic. He executed whatever mages he could find, and wiped out the nobles behind the uprising. Then he named his only surviving child as his heir.
The one all of Dyfflin calls the Bloody Prince.
Just the name sends ice curling down my spine, as if he might find us even here.
The warm, simple scent of soda bread wafts out from a window cracked open to the cold mist as I follow Finn through the lanes. My stomach growls, and she elbows at my side. “Don’t tell me you skipped breakfast again.”
“I didn’t skip it,” I protest. “I forgot. And I was a tiny bit busy worrying you might be food for crows on the Black Quay.”
“You’re never going to pack on the muscle you need for hand-to-hand fighting or a real sword if you don’t eat more.
” Finn taps a finger along the thick ridge of muscles down her arms, then ruffles my dark hair.
Tangles wisp along the edge of my face where they’ve escaped from my long braid.
“I love you, but you’re shit in a fist fight.
Well, unless it’s knives. But your enemies won’t always give you a chance to draw a blade.
You need to be able to take blows and give them back twice as hard.
” Her eyes darken, turning serious. “One day, your life might depend on whether you’re willing to get your hands bloody. ”
I arch a brow. “What kinds of enemies do you think I’m going to make?”
It’s not like I’m going to enter the Assay.
There’s a strange look in Finn’s dark gaze—like she wants to say more but swallows it down. “Trust me, Maeve. You don’t need to make enemies. Most of the time, they find you.”
A long beat of silence stretches out between us.
How am I supposed to respond to that? I’m not fierce or strong like Finn, or brutal like our father, or brave and bold like our mother always was. I survive. It’s what I do best.
Finn coughs and brings a hand to her side again. When I reach out for her, she pins me in place with a look.
“Don’t skip meals. It’ll make you weak. And if you eat breakfast every day from now till your birthday in four weeks, I might just find it in my cold, shriveled heart to splurge on a sword we haven’t stolen from our father.”
The gleam of the short sword at her side is too tantalizing to ignore.
I roll my eyes. “Okay, Mother.”
The word is out before I even think about it, and regret rips at the scar of grief behind my ribs—the one I thought I learned to live with years ago.
Finn’s eyes squeeze shut.
I reach out a shaking hand and fight the wedge tightening in my throat. “I didn’t mean—”
Her stormy eyes fly open, flashing to the silvery gray mist thickening at the end of the lane.
A chill climbs up my ribs. “What is it?”
The dull thump of steel shudders through the hazy air, and the heavy pad of marching boots follows.
Finn pales. Her eyes find mine. “Hide!”
I whirl, searching the lane and alleys for a place to hide. But all the doors are shut, the windows drawn tight. Motes of dust and dirt mingle in the dim light. The mist swallows up any sunlight, and the marching is moving fast—too fast.
Finn’s cheeks turn a sickly gray and her breath catches as she runs her hands along every door we slink past. I can sense the thoughts churning in her mind. Smashing a window would make too much noise; it would only get us caught faster. But if we can’t find a place to hide…
A faint creak sounds beneath her fingers. Without a word, she twists the two of us through a narrow door halfway off its hinges. We scramble inside and press into a narrow space behind the door, mere inches from the mist thickening to eerie fog outside.
My sister presses a finger to her lips.
She doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t need to. I can read her face as easily as the Lady of Shadows tracks down treachery.
If the gardai catch us on the streets so soon after whatever that was in the market, they’ll kill us.
Mercy isn’t a trait bred into the bones of soldiers.
Figures shift outside the slats of the door. Rough breathing and the clang of weapons rise to a din, and the gardai march right in front of us… searching. Hunting.
Wide with terror, Finn’s eyes meet mine. I could reach out an arm and brush the crimson tunics and black leathers of the marching gardai; they’re that close.
Breathing feels lethally loud.
Six. Eight. Ten. Twelve. Fourteen. The column of gardai marches two by two and seems to stretch on without end. My chest burns, and it aches to suck in a full breath; shallow half breaths are all I dare take now.
The gardai mutterings drift through the slats. The same words, again and again, like a chant they’ve been drilled to memorize. “The threat comes in green.”
Finn’s forehead creases.
What threat? Why green?
Outside the slatted door, the gardai’s marching boots fade.
We wait, not daring to move until windows begin to crack open again and the sounds of families spill out onto the mist.
“Come on,” Finn whispers, something heavy and dark weighing in her eyes.
We press forward in silence, passing another small shrine to the Martyr wedged between the rotting timbers of an alehouse.
It’s nothing but loose mortar, melted candle wax, and the dust of what could be ground bones—or ash.
This time, though, Finn doesn’t reach for it.
She keeps her hand on the hilt of the short sword at her side.
I keep mine on the familiar knife at my waist.
The steel might not be worth much, even melted down.
But being the daughters of a weapons trader means we’re never without some kind of blade, and thank the Old Ones for that.
I might not be as good as Finn with a sword yet—she only started training me on weapons after our mother was executed—and even a short sword is heavy for my size.
But at least knives come naturally, and I can defend myself if someone backs me into a corner.
Just ahead, the end of the lane opens.
Finn’s managed to cut us back to the market in half the time it feels like it took us to get away.
Familiar stalls held up by salt-warped old wood rise like wraiths in the mist. The crashing of the sea on the market quay beneath us is a haunting heartbeat.
In the distance, past the craggy hulk beneath Castle Mount, the sea cliffs stretch out as far as I can see.
A thin skim of rain sticks to my cheeks. I suck in deep breaths of cold air, until a salt-tinged tang bites at my nose.
I can’t tell what comes from the sting of the mist and what comes from all the blood soaking the dock.
It’s everywhere.
They butchered half the market and left the bodies lying in the mud.
And still, I have no idea why—or when it will happen again.
We start to pick our way through the massacre, blood squelching under our soft boots. The world sways. I reach out, one arm finding the nearest wall for balance…
And a rough hand clamps down on the back of my neck, yanking me into the shadows.