14 Hourglass #2
A riot of color bloomed behind her eyelids. The barn and its stall doors vanished. Sights, sounds, and smells warped in a frenzied scream before her knees suddenly hit cobblestone.
What in all ten hells is this? Standing up, she dusted her palms and jumped when a raeda whizzed by, narrowly avoiding running her over.
“Watch where you’re—” the words stuck in her throat as she took in her surroundings, “going.”
She stood in the middle of a bustling street, somewhere in Komis.
Raedas trundled in both directions on the wide road lined with sellers of every good under the sun—bladesmiths, jewelers, potters.
The women behind her were selling roast duck, their weathered faces breaking into identical grins as a customer approached.
Crisp morning air whistled between the marketgoers.
It was lovely. And entirely wrong.
Panic wove through her ribs. This isn’t a mind.
Minds were stationary places, receptables for information.
Their owners may unconsciously express them as bookshelves or museums or wine casks, but the basic underpinning of storage never changed.
But it isn’t exactly a memory either. To Probe someone was to see their memories from their perspective.
It was the worst part of the job, having to relive exactly what had gone through a defendant’s head as they committed an atrocity.
Sarai stared at her crooked quivering fingers and thin scars webbing all over her skin. Why am I myself?
She stood on her toes to peer above the crowd and gasped when a figure emerged through her. The pedestrian continued walking without concern. She stared at her chest, then at the people passing through parts of her as though she didn’t exist. Because she didn’t. Not here.
SHIT. Fear banded cold arms around her chest. The air suddenly felt too thick.
Don’t panic. Don’t you dare. She coerced in a breath.
This was going to be fine. She simply had to understand what this was.
It felt like the blurry dreams she’d been having since the deaths in Edessa had begun.
Glimpses of two abused boys plotting freedom. But this felt infinitely more solid.
She inched down the street and spotted the farmer chatting with a fruit seller. This was his memory then. Why did he seem a stranger to it? Telmar had spoken of similar cases where Petitors had Probed folk who were losing their memory to age. Had the beetles done the same damage here?
The farmer hefted his box of fruit and turned to leave when the blood suddenly drained from his face. She followed his gaze to a familiar woman standing by a Guild wagon. Sarai blinked at the familiar Guild crest burnt into the wood. Grains Guild.
“Dalvia Am Semni,” the farmer muttered to himself.
Wait, what? Sarai angled for a closer look and gaped upon sighting the pale-haired woman again. Hers was the sort of beauty that historians struggled to put into words. The farmer seemed to believe the same, because he sidled over to the stall behind the Guild wagon and pretended to browse.
“What harm could a few hours of dinner do?” A Guildsman by the wagon grinned up at Dalvia. “I’ll give you a discount on anything.”
Dalvia took a quick step back. “That’s kind of you, but I couldn’t.”
Cold irritation bloomed in the Guildsman’s eyes. “Come now, I don’t bite.” He seized her wrist with a snakelike lunge when she tried to dart away.
“No—no thank you.” Dalvia tried to extricate herself. “I’ll pay the full amount.”
“But you don’t have to,” he cajoled loudly. His colleagues guarding the wagon perked up. “She doesn’t need to deplete all her coin, no?”
Sarai’s nails bit into her palm at the carefully blank gazes of those passing by as the men circled a glassy-eyed Dalvia with easy smiles. Even the farmer whose head she was in seemed fascinated with his feet. Shit, poor thing.
“Never had a Clanlady.” The first man whistled. “Though I warrant you’re better than the Magus Supreme’s mountain girl.”
Sarai glowered. Leave me out of it, asshole.
Dalvia stopped tugging her wrist loose. “You don’t like her?” There was an oddly familiar note to her voice. Something sardonic and pained. “They say that she summoned Lord Death himself to save your Magus Supreme.”
The Guildsman snorted. “Wasn’t there. Didn’t see it.
He probably wasn’t injured that badly, but why not add the Elsar to the tale?
Gives the murder of the two Tetrarchs a seal of divine approval.
Point is that I can Summon you a bigger monster.
” He wiggled his eyebrows as the group of magi laughed uproariously.
Rage pulsed in Sarai’s chest. Spotting movement at her shoulder, she blinked at the farmer, still standing there. If he’d been pale before, he was white now. Then, do something, for the gods’ sake!
His jaw slackened, pupils widening in horror. Unnerved, she followed his gaze and found that Dalvia hadn’t been alone. A cloaked man came over to her in what Sarai could only describe as a glide. He inclined his head. “Evening.”
Sarai went stock-still. His voice was mesmerizing.
Icy yet alive with warmth, it slid like silk across her senses.
She felt the weight of the word down to her toes even though it hadn’t been directed at her.
Gods, Kadra has competition. She tried to get a better look at the man when he turned to the Guildsmen.
“Strike this place with all you have.”
The order slammed into her, brought her to her knees despite her having no ability at lightning.
Clutching her head, she gasped as the words seemed to slap her, demanding her obedience.
Above, the group of men paled, sweat pooling on their hairlines and sliding down.
Their eyes turned eerily empty. Then, in a graceful coordinated movement, they pricked their thumbs, set their armillas alight, and raised their hands to the sky.
A breath. A second. A spark in the sky.
Lightning slammed into the marketplace. And the street exploded.
Clapping her hands over her ears, she and the farmer dived for the ground as a fiery orange cloud bloomed around them, spreading fast. Embers rained down from splintered stalls, produce and pottery charred black.
Screams rose from the crowd caught in the strike’s radius. Others fled the spreading blaze.
Sarai clutched her ringing head. What in hav?d just happened? Glancing up, she realized that Dalvia and her companion hadn’t moved a muscle during the explosion.
“Not very powerful, are they,” the hypnotic voice noted. Its owner bent toward the frozen magi. “Now, race out in the pandemonium. You will recall nothing of the past hour. Nothing of me. All you saw was an unfathomable amount of rioting.”
The Grains Guildsmen turned and ran like puppets, motions strained and jerky, eyes still blank.
A magus who can mass persuade others. A Coercer. Sarai recalled Telmar’s description of the magic with dread. Who are these people?
Dalvia quietly examined the red marks the Guildsman had left on her wrist.
“You’ve outdone yourself with this formula, Dalvia.
” The cloaked man chucked her under the chin.
An edge of amusement underlay his speech.
Sardonic. Familiar. “And you make excellent bait. If a group of fools can do this much damage, Edessa’s best will give us the city itself. ” He drew back his hood.
Blood rushed in Sarai’s ears. She rose slowly, staring at the man’s now-uncovered face.
Silver eyes not black. Delicate features unhardened by ruthlessness. But they had the same aquiline nose, the same dark, wavy hair, the perennial glint of amusement as though they’d seen through the world a long time ago and found it a game.
He looked like Kadra.
But that was impossible. Kadra was a former street rat, an orphan like her. And Kadra never lied.
Rooted to the ground, she’d forgotten the farmer’s existence until he whispered, “Noceo.”
Kadra’s lookalike—Noceo—spared a glance at the floor, silver gaze passing through her to find the farmer. “Now, we can’t have that.”
The farmer crawled back. “I won’t tell anyone. Please spare me!”
“Shhhh.” Crouching, Noceo placed a finger over the farmer’s forehead. “You’re in luck.” His voice took on a tender timbre. “I was never here. You never saw me. You don’t even know who I am.”
Foreboding crawled through her as the farmer blinked.
An eerie blankness settled on his face. Taking in his surroundings as though he were waking from a dream, he gaped at the wall of flame.
And this too was familiar. Like a book on a hard-to-reach shelf or an overlooked corner that rarely saw a broom, something lurked in the periphery of her mind, screaming in warning.
Telling her that there was something she had forgotten.
Telling her who that voice in her memory had been.
I’ll see you soon, Death-Summoner. Fear bloomed cold at the base of her skull.
“We just killed a few of our own,” Dalvia said dully.
“Entirely necessary.” Noceo shrugged, and the easy elegance of the motion sent Sarai’s heart to her throat for how often she’d seen Kadra do the same. “You’ve done well.”
Tears slid from Dalvia’s eyes, all the more eerie for the lack of sobs accompanying them.
“Or not,” Noceo mused. “Get us out.”
Dalvia stuck the pin from her armilla into her thumb like she wished it was her heart.
She pressed the blood into a strange rune, all sharp, curving edges and half circles unlike the angled double lines of Urdish runes.
A portal split the air before her. The burning Grains Guild wagon disappeared in favor of a forest of snow-brushed evergreens.
She’s a Bridger. Sarai watched them enter with dawning horror.
Noceo caught the farmer’s gaze. “And you didn’t see this either.”
By the time the portal winked out of existence, the farmer was already staring at the blaze as if for the first time again. Seconds later, he was fleeing with the crowd.
I have to get out of here. A thousand questions boiled in Sarai’s head. She could barely voice half of them.