A Dance of Cloaks (25 page)

The dagger yanked out. Gileas clutched his arms against his chest, rocking back and forth as pain shot through his body. Warm blood ran down his spine.

“Hello, Vel,” he said as Veliana sat down opposite him. Twirling in her left hand was a bloody dagger, flecks of it splattering across the table. The tavern owner neared and started to speak, but a single glare from Veliana shut him up.

“This is guild business,” she said. That was all the tavern keeper needed to hear.

“I just saw a Spider Guild officer leaving the bar,” she said, when the man was gone. “What did you sell him, Worm?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Only lies and promises and empty air.”

She grabbed his hand and thrust the dagger through his palm. To his credit, he didn’t scream.

“Try again,” she said.

“You’re a bloody fool,” he said. “I wouldn’t have killed you. I never would have. So angry…”

“Look at me!” she shouted. She jammed a finger toward her scarred eye. “Look!”

The pupil was milky-white, the outer edges rimmed with blood. From her forehead to her cheek, the inflamed scar ruined whatever beauty she might have had.

“You think I give a rat’s ass if you meant to kill me or not?” she asked.

Gileas coughed. He felt like his back was on fire. With how wet his cough sounded, he wondered if she had pierced his lung. It wasn’t fatal, not yet…

“I can pay you, enough for a healer. They might not remove the scar, but heal the eye enough--”

Veliana yanked the dagger out and then rammed it back downward, this time penetrating his wrist. He screamed.

“What’d you sell him?” she asked. “You already sold me out to Thren. Who else did you ruin? What remains of my Ash Guild?”

Gileas laughed in spite of the pain it caused him.

“They’re hiding, Vel. Hiding. But worms crawl everywhere. Thren knows where they are now. He knows, and you’ll all die. He’ll have his plan, his stupid, idiotic plan.”

Realization hit Veliana like a cold fist in her gut.

“You told Gerand the truth,” she said. “You didn’t lie like we paid you. You told the king’s advisor the goddamn truth.”

Gileas’s black-toothed grin was all the answer she needed.

“You son of a bitch,” she said, her voice seething with rage.

“Who knows who Gerand’s told?” Gileas said. He coughed, and blood spilled across his lips. “Who knows what plans they’ve spun? The Kensgold will be a fun night. I can’t wait to watch.”

“You’ll watch nothing,” Veliana said. “You’re going to do Dezrel a favor and fucking die.”

She yanked her dagger out and thrust for his chest. The dagger punched through his clothes but pierced no flesh. They were empty, and already falling as if dropped from the ceiling. The clothes piled on the chair, looking like some strange joke. Veliana stared at them, her mouth open in shock. She had thought the first time she had been delusional from her pain and trauma. This time, she knew magic was at work.

She picked up his shirt and shook it. Nothing. She used her dagger to shift his trousers side to side. Still nothing. Curses on her lips, she turned to leave when something caught her eye.

Crawling on the floor toward a small crack was an eight-inch black worm. As it flexed, she saw a thin cut along its side.

“No way,” she said. No wonder he had been nicknamed the Worm. He’d probably given it to himself to mock every single person he dealt with. Every joke about living in mud, digging through walls, listening with ears clogged with dirt…it was all true.

It was almost to the crack. Veliana hurled her dagger, wanting to get nowhere near the strange creature. Purple fire swarmed around the blade, created by her meager magical talent. The dagger pierced the worm just above its midsection. It twisted and squirmed, its body cut in half. Still it crawled toward the crack, leaving its lower half behind.

Veliana crushed it with her heal. Innards spurted across the floor. She held in a wave of vomit. For some reason, it reminded her of when he had kissed her. Pieces of the worm sizzled in the purple fire of her dagger. She pulled it free, wiped it clean on her pant leg, and then sheathed it. It took a couple kicks to get the worm body through the crack. The carcass was shockingly heavy for being only a worm.

When done, she turned and saw the tavern keeper looking at her with wide eyes.

“Burn the clothes,” Veliana said as she tossed him Gileas’s bag of coins. “Consider that ample payment for keeping your mouths shut.”

With no time to waste, she hurried out the door. Everything was a mess. Whatever plans she had made with Eliora were shot. If the king knew of Thren’s plans for the Kensgold, then most likely the Trifect did too. Everything would change.

Before she could worry about that, she had to deal with her most pressing danger: Thren knew where the Ash Guild had holed up to hide. Once he found out, he would assault immediately. Felhorn had long learned to never let an enemy last a second longer than necessary. She ran a list of safehouses through her mind, trying to decide which one James would flee to first.

Faster and faster she ran, praying no guild caught sight of her desperate run. Her guild was dying, and the scent of blood would bring every last cutpurse down on their heads.

13

W
hen Aaron arrived in his father’s room, Kayla was already there, waiting.

“As I was telling Kayla, this was a perfect hit,” Thren said to his son. “Delius is dead, in the middle of a crowd in daylight, no less. No one saw the killer. We’ve heard confused reports already claiming it was a man instead of a woman. No court will find a guilty member, yet the entire city knows we were responsible. That is how you send a message, my son. That is how you frighten a population, by showing that even with common knowledge of our guilt, their justice will never reach us.”

“Yes, father,” Aaron said. His voice was barely above a whisper. Thren noticed his subdued nature, something his son had been steadily growing out of, and then rubbed his chin. He stared into Aaron’s eyes, trying to decipher the reason.

“The girl,” he asked. “Did you kill her?”

Aaron shook his head. He almost lied. He wanted to claim she’d died, and the trauma of killing a young girl in cold blood had left him ill. But he couldn’t. His entire insides chilled at the very thought of his father finding out he spoke a lie.

“No,” he said, stealing a glance at Kayla. “She ran away while the crowd was still gathered. I failed.”

Thren caught the glance and turned his attention to Kayla. She only shrugged as if she didn’t understand.

“No matter,” Thren said, storing the information in the back of his mind. “Kayla, go fetch me one of our cutpurses. I don’t care who.”

Aaron waited with his eyes downcast. His father never said a word.

“You called for me?” asked a clean-shaven man with thick circles underneath his eyes. His black hair was cropped and pulled back into a ponytail.

“I did. Dustin, this is my son. Have you met him before?”

Dustin looked at Aaron, his mouth locked into a frown.

“Don’t think I have.”

“Look at him,” Thren said to his son. “And listen carefully. Instead of spending time thieving, assaulting caravans, or working the streets, he will instead track your failed target. He will spend our money bribing men and women to find out the girl’s name and location. He’ll risk his life in these endeavors, to both rival thief guilds as well as the Trifect’s men. Coin, time, and manpower, all wasted because you couldn’t do one simple job.”

Aaron’s downcast eyes finally looked up to Thren’s, and a bit of life sparkled inside them, as if he had just learned a secret.

“I understand,” he said.

“Good.” Thren turned to Dustin. “Her last name is Eschaton, daughter of a priest who died earlier today. Find and kill her.”

“Am I allowed to have any fun with her beforehand?” asked Dustin.

“I want my message hammered home,” Thren said. “Do as you please. Make sure she dies afterward.”

Dustin’s grin was ear to ear.

“Be a pleasure. I’ll leave her bits on Ashhur’s temple door.”

Aaron felt his neck flush. He desperately hoped his father wouldn’t notice. But of course, he did.

“You have plenty of growing up to do,” Thren said to him. “You wanted to be at my side, and now you are. Start living up to your expectations.”

“Yes, father,” said Aaron.

“Be gone,” he said, waving a dismissive hand.

Aaron didn’t go to his room. Instead, he went to Robert Haern’s.

“Come in,” the old man said after Aaron knocked. The boy crept the door open, slipped inside, and then shut it. When he turned around, Robert was staring at him.

“What is it that troubles you?” Robert asked.

Aaron bit his lower lip. He so badly wanted to ask a question, but he knew the potential danger. What he wanted to know, his father would disagree with. But he had to know.

“I saw a priest today,” he said. “He wore a symbol, like this, around his neck.”

Aaron drew a single line in the air with his finger. It looked like an ‘M’ with one side much higher and sharper than the other. Robert picked up his cane and walked over to his desk.

“Did it look something like…this?”

Robert opened a drawer and pulled out a gold medallion hanging from a silver chain. It also had the strange line. Aaron nodded.

“That line is the Golden Mountain,” Robert explained. “It has two peaks. The lower one represents Dezrel, and the height we can ascend to in our lives. The higher one represents the Golden Eternity. As you can see, nothing on this world can ever make one rise as high as in the afterlife.”

“Who is Ashhur? And why do people pray to him?”

Robert raised an eyebrow.

“Where have you heard people praying to Ashhur?” he asked.

A brief memory flashed before Aaron’s eyes, that of the red-haired girl sobbing in front of him as she called out to Ashhur.

“Nowhere,” he said.

“Hrmph. Ashhur is brother to Karak, who I’m sure you know a little bit more about, considering who your friends and associates are. He represents Justice, Mercy, Grace…things that most would consider the finer parts of mankind. That is why someone would pray to him. They seek comfort, or forgiveness, or protection.”

Robert went to put the amulet back into the drawer, then paused. He saw how Aaron was looking at it, and his curiosity kindled.

“What is going on, boy?” he asked. “Why do you come in here asking about gods?”

He didn’t want to answer, but Robert was his master. If he refused, then the next time he came in asking questions, he might get only silence.

“Kayla killed a priest of Ashhur today. I was to kill his daughter, but I failed.”

“Failed?” asked Robert. “Or refused?”

Aaron felt his cheeks flush. If his father had read him as clearly, then their conversation might have taken a very different turn when scolding him for his failure.

“She was crying,” he whispered. “She didn’t even know I was there. Her father, killed right in front of her. I’ve killed before, I’ve, but she’s not like us, not like, not…”

Tears swelled in his eyes. Aaron couldn’t believe it. He wiped them away, the blush in his cheeks fierce. He felt so stupid, so young.

“I’m an embarrassment,” he said.

“No,” Robert said, putting his hands on Aaron’s shoulders. His beard wasn’t tied behind his head like normal, and with it loose it stretched down to his waist. It made him look older, less controlled and more grandfatherly. His whole face seemed to sag a little, as if he had dropped a layer of armor from his flesh.

“Listen to me, Aaron,” he said. “Your father is raising you to be something terrible. He’ll deny you everything, even his love, to make you into what he wants. Do you know what that is, boy?”

Aaron went to say no, but he remembered what Robert had always said: any question he asked, he should already know the answer. And Aaron did know the answer. It scared the abyss out of him.

“A killer,” Aaron said, his voice once more a whisper.

“The perfect killer,” Robert gently corrected. “He’ll starve you of love, affection, friends, faith…everything but the blade and the shadows.”

Aaron sniffed and rubbed his nose against his sleeve.

“What should I do?”

Robert handed him the amulet. The boy took it as if it might burn him. His eyes were wide as he traced a finger over the gold.

“Pray, Aaron. Pray for anything and everything. We live in a harsh world. One day your father will place you at the edge of a cliff. I’ve heard the stories about you. I know you killed your brother when you were but a child. You can jump down that ravine, or you can stand tall and refuse him.”

“I know what happens to people who refuse my father,” Aaron said. “They die.”

Robert smiled.

“We all die, son. The question is, who are we when we do?”

Aaron lifted the amulet before his eyes.

“Everything good about mankind?” he asked.

“Everything we wish we were and most often fail to be, Aaron,” said Robert.

But he wasn’t Aaron anymore, not then.

He put the amulet in his pocket, where his father wouldn’t see it. When he turned to leave, he paused, then glanced back at his teacher.