Such a Daring Endeavor (17 page)

How could she have thought this would work? Current history should be proof enough that rescue attempts never work—look at Ambry now stuck in the dungeon with Talon. Solomus doesn’t dare attack with what little magic he has left, Talon’s legs are broken, and now Ren has run off like a coward.

She was so sure he would help too. But why should he? He only met her a handful of minutes ago. And Solomus…

She remembers the time he tried to rescue Jomeini. The time his bleakfire burned the poor girl because Craven ordered Jomeini to block him with her body. Shasa shivers away the memory of the screams.

Craven hasn’t moved from his boat’s side. He still clings to it—one hand purpled like lilac petals—as though he’s in the water instead of standing firmly on sand. Wind whips the tendrils of hair along Shasa’s neck, and she clenches and unclenches her fists, trying to figure out what to do now.

“Hasn’t it been long enough?” Shasa demands, whipping a knife from her weapons belt. “You’ve gotten your vision out of her. Let her go. Let me go.”

Craven shakes his head, scaling his way along the boat’s outer edge hand-over-hand, never releasing his grip from its sides. Waves worm up and pool around his boots. “Tyrus is crossing the ocean—she told me. She Saw it! And I can’t follow without her to guide my way. She is my compass, Elmscar.”

“She told you everything you need to know. You don’t need her anymore!”

Craven’s eyes darken, and he lowers his arms. His coat lashes around him and he steps onto the sand, away from the lapping waves.

Shasa’s throat squeezes. The churning nausea in her stomach heightens. The last segments of banshing powder fizzle away, and while she tries to keep her gaze on him, to not show the fear streaking through her chest, she has a desire to step back, to maintain the distance between them.

I won’t let him get to me. Not now or ever again.

Solomus sidesteps as Craven closes in on her. She forces her eyes away from the wizard, to give him time for whatever it is he’s trying.

“It’s you I don’t need,” says Craven. “I only got you to keep her company, Shasa. But you betrayed your friend; you left her to fend for herself.”

The thought of killing him as purchase for freedom has been fleeting at best. She considered it when he first took her. She even attacked him once, causing him to give that ridiculous order that neither she nor Jomeini could ever harm him. Shasa thinks it through, trying to figure out the best angle to take.

“Your thirst for revenge has driven you to madness. You’ve let it control you and keep you in the past. You’ve kidnapped Jomeini for her power, tormented her, demanded visions to somehow fix your mistakes and get the revenge you crave.”

“Stop it. Stop!” Craven yells.

“Jomeini Saw into your memories once, did you know that? You’ve spent all this time blaming Solomus when he never made you hurt that girl. That was all you.”

“Shut up!” Craven screeches. His eyes are wild with fury.

“You’re worthless,” she goes on, “and this little trip you’ve got planned is your worst idea yet.”

Craven goes rigid. He claws at his face, his arms stiff, eyeballs bulging out. “You shall not speak, Miss Elmscar!”

“What makes you think—?” Shasa tries to say. Though her mouth still moves, Shasa’s voice escapes her. And in that moment, she feels the last of the banshing powder wear off. It trickles from her body, expulsing like sweat and tiring her energy as though her blood has been drained.

Craven responds immediately, a smile spearing across his ancient face and cracking out a few more wrinkles. Jubilation glimmers in his eyes, and he arches his back in a strange, victorious stance.

“Faded off, has it? Come here.” His long fingers circle her wrist.

The touch sickens her. Biting down her rage, she charges at him. She reaches out her hands, willing them to land around his throat. But they don’t, as she knows they won’t. Craven manages to grab her by the hair; it’s falling loose from the buns she twisted it into earlier. The action makes her scream with pain, with fury, with hate.

“Ren!” she calls out.

Craven drags Shasa down into the sand. She digs for her magic, scraping for it, but not even an empty stream responds. There’s nothing in her bones but marrow.

A loud crack resounds behind Craven, and the old man staggers to the sand under the pressure, releasing his hold on her.

“Let her go!” Solomus cries, dropping the oar in his hands.

Craven’s purple hand snarls with glittering magic. With a sneer he dives for the wizard, shoving Solomus backward. Shasa crumples and attempts to run, but Craven directs the glowing hand at her, luring her back to him.

Shasa fights. She forces her feet to go the opposite direction, but it does no good. Soon Craven leers over her, his deep set blue eyes burning from beneath a heavy brow. His fingers dig into her scalp.

Shasa lets out a cry of rage. She scans the shore with pleading desperation, but Solomus lies feet away, unmoving after the blow of magic to his chest. Nor can she find Ren. Reality stabs harder than a knife point. No one is going to help her.

Her eyes sting as a feeling she swore she’d never harbor breaks through the barrier in her chest. Defeat. It wins out, and she blinks, sensing the strange lack of wetness at her eyes.

She writhes, but the old man arches her head back, his foul breath striking her ear. “I have one more command for you, Shasa Elmscar,” he hisses. “I command you to die.”

Shasa crumples, the power of his words folding her in half from within. Her pulse stutters, her throat squeezing, fending off the salty air. She hadn’t thought it possible, that her body could voluntarily end itself, but it’s doing so now, agonizingly. Shasa lets out a scream as the awareness builds, as her heartbeat begins to dawdle, the pulses coming slower and slower.

Lub.

Dub.

Wind flurries around her ears, but none of it makes its way in her nose. Her lungs have stopped pumping. Her throat is closed off as surely as though someone slid a door over it. Her head blacks out, and she falls to the sand.

J
omeini lifts her face to the sky, and Ren fights the urge to stare at her. He wonders when the last time she saw the sun was, or how she got the burn marks bubbling on her arms and cheek like grafted-in branches on a tree.

She panicked when he first pulled her away from that shed, prying at his hold on her wrists, fighting to get back, but it’s gotten easier since he began carrying her. His boots thunk heavily on the boardwalk, and he ducks into the shadow of small stands every few feet to check for soldiers, to check for anyone who might care about a man carrying a lost maiden wizard in his arms.

“So you’re from where?” Ren asks, his voice showing no sign of strain beneath her weight. She’s much lighter than he expected. That must be all those years of living half-starved in a boat shed, though from the sound of things, she hasn’t lived there the whole time.

Jomeini’s grip on Ren’s shoulders tightens. She trembles in his arms, wincing as though he has knives instead of hands at her back and beneath her knees.

“What is it?”

“Take me back,” she says.

He tightens his hold. “You’re doing great. My friends will have their van at the end of the boardwalk—we’ll get you away. They’re Black Vault gatekeepers, they’ll have something that can help you—”

“I can’t leave. Can’t leave.” Her fingers dig through her hair and she fights against him like a trapped badger, her body flailing.

Ren’s arms tighten, but she flops, going board-stiff and then completely limp and back again so that Ren nearly drops her.

“Hey,” he says in frustration. “Hang in there.” He dips to hug around her waist, but she hits him, thrashing and punching his shoulders with more force than he thought possible.

Up ahead, at the end of the boardwalk, a familiar van pulls up and the passenger door window rolls down. Micro glares out.

“Help me!” says Ren, but Jomeini writhes, kicking him near enough to the crotch that he buckles over, and she slips from his grasp.

“No!” he cries, bolting after her.

Two figures dash out from behind a silver stand selling some type of cinnamon rolls, and Ren raises his fists in automatic defense when the smaller of the two barrels into him and throws her arms around his waist.

“Ambry?” he says in shock.

“Ren!”

“How did you get out of there?” he demands, pulling her back to get a good look. Both of them are covered in slime and straw from the dungeon floor. Blood gels the side of Ambry’s head and around her neck. Dried dark spots mat down Talon’s pant legs and his torn shirt. At least he’s walking now.

“You okay?” Ren asks, but Talon’s attention is on the horizon.

Jomeini is nearly back to the shed, and from this point on the sand he can clearly see the boat, see a body slumped over in the sand.

“Is that—?” Ren asks, but Talon’s face deepens into a scowl. He breaks for the boat, for the two old men circling one another, for the small, dark-haired girl banking toward them as though a single runner in a race only she can win.

To Ren’s surprise, Dircey and Micro trace after them, looking formidable in the heat of the day. Dircey’s knife is in her hand, and Micro’s thick torso and arms are a threat all on their own. The five of them cross the sand to the older men.

Talon takes in the sight of Shasa’s prostrate body on the sand and, with a snarl, stalks straight to Craven. Jomeini rushes to stand between the two, looking so childlike it’s almost laughable.

Almost.

“What have you done to her?” Talon demands.

Craven, of all things, grins at Talon. “She did as she was told.”

Voices call across the breeze. Ren and Dircey follow the sound, glancing back across the sand at the soldiers circling the van. The descending sand shields them for now, but it won’t be long before the Arcs spot them. Dircey pulls Ren’s elbow, tugging him down so he meets the agitation in her eyes.

“We can’t stay here,” she says in her scratchy voice. “I don’t know what you have going on, but if you’re coming with us, you’ve got to come now. Otherwise, we leave you here.”

Ren opens his mouth to reply when Talon reels back and punches Craven in the face. Jomeini pushes against Talon, and it’s clear he’s trying not to shove her out of the way. “Then undo it,” Talon demands, threatening the older man with a finger in his direction. “If you ordered her to do something to herself, undo it.”

Despite the blood on his face, Craven cackles from his lower vantage point on the sand. “Too late,” he says.

Talon kneels on the sand and punches Craven again. Over and over. “I never wanted to kill you, old man. Looks like you’ve helped me think otherwise.”

Ren darts forward, unsure how to stop Talon, to get his attention. Soldiers swarm around the van, and Micro and Dircey are trotting back to it to ward them off as a second van pulls up beside it. Vreck. Once they get there, the Black Vaulters will leave. Then they’ll have no way out of the city.

Ren pulls the knife he nabbed while in the boat shed, ready to use it in any way he can. To threaten them, maybe, get them to see reason. Solomus crouches on the sand, nursing a wound in his side; Jomeini keeps fighting to get to Craven and Talon, but Ambry is holding her down, she and the wizard both attempting to keep her out of the battle.

And Shasa.

He barely knows her, yet the thought of someone so strong, someone so fearless being gone, is almost unbearable. He should have stayed with her. He should have helped.

He approaches Talon, ready to shove him if necessary. “We’ve got to go now!” Ren calls.

Talon eyes the knife and snatches it from Ren’s hands. “Then there’s only one way to solve this,” Talon says. He whips the knife around his hand, catching the handle, and stabs the blade straight into Craven’s chest.

***

One hand on his injured side, Solomus releases a gasp. The blade sinks straight through Craven. Finally. Solomus himself tried to end his life, not figuring the other man would have conditioned Jomeini to step in, and the resulting scars on Jomeini’s cheek torment him even in sleep. Never had he imagined that his own bleakfire would injure her instead of his foe.

But now Craven is dead. Which means Jomeini is her own person once more.

The thought brings tears to the wizard’s eyes. It’s ironic, really, that the curse he struck so conclusively those years ago didn’t apply to him. Jomeini lifts her head to the sky, exulting in the freedom coursing through her, and Solomus takes a step in her direction, wincing at the pain.

Commotion catches his eye. He wipes away a tear and glances toward the boardwalk. A handful of soldiers are breaking away from the others at the white vans parked beyond a stand selling knives, beads, and jewelry. They’re heading for the shed.

Indecision tears through him. He looks at Jomeini once more, then the shed. Craven wouldn’t have left the books somewhere else, would he?

The Great History
was the only copy of its kind left. Aside from Jomeini’s disappearance, it was the hardest for Solomus to accept when he returned home to find his granddaughter gone and his bookshelves raided.