Chapter 13 Aforementioned Dangerous Pursuit
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Aforementioned Dangerous Pursuit
Saffron wandered the streets of Atherin for days, but did not stumble upon a stray Whitewing organically.
She wore her scarlet cloak brazenly, beckoningly, knowing the scarlets were targets, knowing she could be jumped at any moment for the audacity of existing in red.
She stalked Dubias Row and Buckbeak Place and Arollan Mile with her shoulders hitched up by her ears, wand in hand, nerves fizzing through her like sherbet, a low clench to her belly—but, as so often happened when one went looking for trouble, trouble averted its gaze.
Time to force the matter.
Despite her bravado while taunting Levan over her murderous threesome, returning to Golden Hour brought Saffron little arousal.
She was here because she had a job to do, and though the danger did heighten her senses somewhat, she was too focused on staying alive to feel any sort of erotic charge. This was business and business alone.
Just as she was paying the lofty cover charge, however, she spotted a potential mark.
Another male Whitewing, this one short and dark-skinned, with a barrel of a stomach and an imprecise gaze, black eyes blurred with liquor.
He stumbled out of the pleasurehouse with his white cloak askew, the strings of his tunic still untied and his belt dangling limply by his crotch.
Saffron made a show of not having enough coinage, nodded her feigned apology to the doorman, and set off after the drunken foe.
Silencing her boots, she clung to him like a shadow.
The Whitewing staggered down Broad Row, but rather than heading for the portari gate or another tavern, he cut a strange path through the city’s darkest alleys, muttering into his wand as he walked.
His words were slurred, his sentences both incoherent and incomplete, but Saffron picked out enough detail to add color to her report of the evening’s investigation.
By the time she eventually lost her mark in the bustle of Velclaw Street, she was both excited and afraid to tell Levan what she’d learned.
Levan was not alone when his wand tip crackled.
He and Segal were going over a set of gamehouse accounts in the kingpin’s office, ensuring the loxlure earnings they’d laundered through the roulette wheels were not so plentiful as to raise flags with the city auditors.
Beneath the desk, Levan was idly pressing the nib of the quill into his thigh, but the cutting sensation was barely enough to impact his magic.
Pain was like that; diminishing returns.
“Et vocos, Levan Celadon.” Killoran’s voice was accompanied by the vague din of a busy street.
“Go ahead,” he replied evenly. Segal watched him with equal parts curiosity and impatience—he hated going over the accounts, and every passing second was another in which he was not inhaling bitterale.
“Dismissed,” he added, and the Risen henchmage slipped out of the office without so much as a farewell.
“I have good news and bad news.”
Is the good news that you had another orgasm at the hands of my sworn enemies? Levan thought, with a bitter stab of jealousy he did not care to examine.
“Alright.”
“The good news is that I have not perished in the line of duty. I know you’re probably wringing your hands with worry, peering out the library window like a mother whose son has gone to war, et cetera.
As for the bad, well—do you recall that I slew a Whitewing in a bold effort to regain your favor? ”
Do I recall that you slew a Whitewing during a hellsdamned threesome?
“It rings a bell.”
“The raised black shoulder pads on his cloak were not, in fact, a fashion statement. It was the Whitewing leader.”
Cold prickled over Levan’s scalp. “You murdered their leader?”
Saffron, for whatever absurd reason, burst out laughing. “I can’t tell whether it was an extraordinary stroke of good fortune, or hilariously bad luck. The latter would be in keeping with the general trajectory of my existence.”
“Did you happen to glean this leader’s name?”
“Avar Martou?”
Everything in Levan froze.
His ribs became brittle ice, heart throbbing against them like a pickaxe. For several moments, he could not speak, could not process.
“Levan? Did you hear—”
“Yes,” he choked out, recovering enough to add, “I heard” with a little more dignity.
“What is it?” Saffron picked up on his rattled tone even through the faint hum of the wand connection. “Why is Avar Martou significant?”
A memory lit up behind his eyes, bright enough to make him flinch.
Riding atop an axelmare through the Wolfwoods one late spring, spores drifting on the golden light, the canopy trilling with dawndoves.
The feel of her back pressed against his chest, long black hair tickling his cheek.
She was telling him that though Lost Dragonborn had never appealed to her, Avar lived for the books—modeled himself on the protagonist, even.
Levan thought, with a mundane and childlike excitement, that he looked forward to meeting Avar one day.
They could share theories, discuss their favorite chapters.
“Alucia’s brother,” he muttered, digging the quill tip so deeply into his thigh that warm blood seeped through his black wool trousers.
Saffron blew air through her lips. “Saints. I retract my churlish laughter.”
Levan forced himself to treat this like any other piece of intel on a rival organization. “How long had he been in command? And who has replaced him?”
“I didn’t discern much more. The Whitewing disappeared out of earshot. I think he—”
There was the sound of a scuffle, a clashing of bodies, a low grunt from Saffron, a panting huff from her—assailant? Boots dragged into an alley, heels kicking and bucking against cobbles. Levan stood abruptly, though to what end, he did not know. He was powerless only to listen.
“Why are you following me, scarlet scum?” came a snarling male voice, consonants slightly blurred.
“How long was Avar Martou in command?” Saffron’s tone was stupidly chipper. Levan imagined she’d been grabbed from behind, a forearm pressed over her throat, a wand to her temple. His blood flared hot and bright.
“Sen ammorten.”
Levan’s stomach lurched at the sound of the man’s curse, but there was another scuffle, overlapping gasps and footsteps, as though they were now circling each other.
“Who replaced Avar Martou?” she asked calmly, that absurd, nihilistic fearlessness.
“Sen ammorten,” the male mage hissed.
“My, what a temper. Can’t we have a civil conversation?”
“Die, cunt. Sen ammorten.”
More tussling fracas, more heavy breathing, more grunts of—pain? Was that pain? Was she hurt?
Levan’s mind wheeled as he wondered how full her well was, how long she could defend herself. Some dark, helpless part of him wanted her to fire her own killing curses, to flee unscathed.
Moments later, she’d either cast something or been killed. The wand connection dropped, and Levan was left with the sound of his own uneven breathing.
“Sen doloran,” Saffron slung out, surprised by the malice coursing through the words. Her lip bled from the fist she’d taken to the face—the taste of salt and metal had clearly riled her up.
The torture curse buried itself in the belly of the drunk Whitewing. Thank the Saints he was so inebriated, so sloppy, or dodging his errant ammortens might not have been so straightforward.
His roars of pain filled the alley as he staggered backward, fell heavily to the ground. His pine wand clattered to the cobbles, and she tucked it in her belt before standing over his writhing body, wand trained over his heart. He bucked and brayed, but nobody from the street came to investigate.
“How long was Avar Martou in command, and how long—oof.”
He kicked out at her ankles like a bucking steed, and she stumbled.
Her concentration lapsed, and the spell broke, and the second he was no longer in mortal agony, he found his sobriety.
Sensing defeat, he did not try to disarm her, to win back his wand, but rather took off back to Velclaw Street with surprising speed.
Saffron considered pursuing, but she was winded, her struck ankle throbbing like a second heartbeat. She had the sense of a narrow escape, the instinct that she should fold the hand.
Then again, Levan did not seem to care overly whether she lived or died, and it was to him she now answered. She lifted her wand to her bleeding mouth, reestablished et vocos.
“Killoran?” She could’ve sworn there was a note of relief in the word, but this was perhaps wishful thinking. The do as you must command still echoed through her like a funeral song.
She climbed to her feet, stalked toward the mouth of the alley. “I lost him. I had his wand, but took a kick to the ankle while trying to wrangle more information out of him. My concentration lapsed, and the curse fell away, and he ran off drunk and wandless. Should I pursue?”
“Don’t push your woeful luck.” A heavy pause; she could picture him smoothing the front of his robes. “Good work, Killoran. But for now, stop following the Whitewings. Focus on Marriosan—whatever it takes.”