Sunbolt (The Sunbolt Chronicles) (2 page)

I stumble slightly, trying to drop into a casual walk. The leader of the guards looks me straight in the eye. His face is long and sharp, his eyes a little too small, too deeply set. His gaze skims my body before returning to my face. A mean, tight smile stretches his lips.

Damn. Damn damn damn.
I drop my chin, glancing quickly around to get my bearings. There’s no escape down a side aisle here, the stalls packed tightly together. I’ve come too far to chance turning and running—because turning tail is an admission of guilt. They would be after me with their daggers drawn before I reached the corner. I’m not about to chance my speed against theirs unless I must. So I keep walking, keeping my gaze down, staying so close to the stalls on my left that I graze my hip against the chipped wood of the counters.
 

“Look what’s here,” the leader says, calling the other soldiers’ attention to me. My steps falter as they veer towards me, quickly closing the distance between us. “What do you think she is? A mutt or a half-breed?”

A half-breed they might not bother because those who are half-human and half-something-else often have a strength or ability that could cause more trouble than these men are looking for. Unfortunately for me, the secret I guard is fully human. I glance sideways at the fish seller in the stall beside me, wondering if I can count on her. She is young, no more than a handful of years past my own fifteen, her eyes wide with panic. No help there. I swallow hard, trying to ease the fear thrumming through my veins.
 

I begin to back away, offering a hesitant smile to the soldiers. A smile? What am I doing? I should run—

But it’s already too late. Two of the soldiers have moved ahead of the others, circling past me. I’m surrounded.
 

“Mutt,” says one of the soldiers, taking in my features. I feel myself flush slightly. My parents may have been from different lands, but a good number of islanders have other blood in them, even if it dates back a few generations. How else did the noble women come by their sleek hair? Their problem isn’t with my bloodline. It’s with the fact that I’m a misfit—a foreigner in local dress—and I make an easy target.
 

“Half-breed,” two others posit, their boots sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet. No one wears boots in Karolene, not unless they’re soldiers.

“Definitely a mutt,” a soldier behind me says. He’s come to a stop a couple paces away, no doubt waiting for his leader to make the first move.

“Well, girl, what are you?” the leader asks.
 

I refuse to answer in the words they’ve afforded me. “Human,” I say. “Sir.”
 

He laughs, sauntering up to me. “Human! Imagine that. What a mess of features you are.” If the market aisle was quiet before, now it has gone silent.
 

I need to find a way out. My eyes flick first one way then another, tracking the guards, looking for an escape route—and fasten on a middle-aged woman across the aisle. She holds something up—a charm?—then points to the next stall down from the one beside me. How I’ll get to it, I have no idea, but I suspect I just need to follow her lead.

The soldier reaches forward and grabs my headwrap, yanking it off. I stumble, banging my hip against the stall, and the girl in the stall yelps with shock. The other guards laugh. I grip the counter tightly with one hand, looking him straight in the eye. I have to lift my chin, because unlike the local men, he’s tall. Probably a mainlander recruited for the job.
 

“I’ll have that back, please,” I say, trying to keep my voice even.
 

He ignores me, tossing the wrap to the dirt beside his boots. “Scruffy as a dog,” he says, eyeing my short, wavy black hair with disgust. The other soldiers hoot with laughter, and I have no doubt that in a moment they’ll take the dog analogy a step further. And what they’ll do after that …

Skreeeee!

The soldiers shout, ducking down. A small dark object whizzes past over their heads. I leap onto the counter and jump to the next stall from there before the soldier even realizes he’s lost me. The woman there grabs me by the waist and swings me down, using my momentum to shove me out the back exit of her stall. I stumble slightly as I hear her screech, “My fish! You stepped on my fish! You better run, girl, or I’ll pull your ears off! You scared of soldiers? I’ll give you something to fear!”
 

She’s protecting herself, I realize. Grinning fiercely, I sprint between the backs of two other stalls and emerge into the next aisle. The woman’s shouts have alerted everyone in the next aisle to my running. They are tense and quiet, watching me as I leap into the center aisle. The sellers bend over their counters to see; the customers turn to stare at me.
 

“Mercenaries,” I call. “Blackflame’s!”

“
Here,
” a woman selling shrimp gestures to me. I race to her stall, the crowds parting and then closing back up behind me. I slide over the counter, dropping to a crouch. The guards tear around the corner after me, but they have to shove their way past the men and women in the aisle, granting me a few precious moments. Once more, I find myself careening through a back exit, this one nothing more than a bit of cloth tacked up over a gap in the wooden planks.
 

I sprint down the aisle, leaping over a broken crate, and duck through another back exit into a stall in the next aisle.

“What? Who—” An older woman this time, her face lined. A boy stands on the other side of her counter, a coin in his hand. He gapes at me as well.

“Blackflame’s guards,” I gasp out.

She yanks open a crate hidden beneath her counter and pushes me in, slamming the top down as soon as I pull my head in. I lie on my side, my cheek pressed against … smooth rocks? In the fish market? As my breathing slows, I take in the faint, woody scent of green coconuts. Of course. I’ve left the fish market, crossing the invisible line into the fruit and vegetable sellers’ section. Karolene’s local markets run together, bleeding into each other. It’s only the import and export markets, carefully regulated by the sultan’s palace, that each have their own special streets.
 

Curled on top of the fruit-seller’s wares, I listen for pursuit. I still have one weapon left: a secret I have kept and guarded my whole life. My friends think the charms and magical items I own come from a connection to one of the mage families living here. It’s not an unlikely scenario: that’s how most people get such things.
 

But the truth is that I’m a Promise, a young magical talent, trained in secret by my parents. At least until they died. While I’ve continued training on my own, I don’t know any defensive spells that would do me much good right now. I’d have to make something up, and that could endanger the people who have sheltered me. So I lie as quietly as possible, ignoring the pain of cramping muscles, and hope the soldiers don’t find me.
 

Twice I hear boots pound past. I hear shouts, but no one responds. No matter how many people had seen me, and no matter the color of my skin, they will not betray me now. Not to these men.
 

Slowly, the market noises resume. I lie in the coconut crate, fuming, thinking of Mama Ali. Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies … Run and keep running.
Well.
If I hadn’t started out running, I wouldn’t have needed to keep running.
 

The lid of the crate creaks open.
 

“Come, it’s safe now,” the woman says, offering me a hand. She helps me out, and I sit on the floor of her stall, blinking in the bright light.
 

“Are you well?”

“I’m fine,” I assure her. I may have lost my head wrap, but I only ever wore to fit in better.
 

“Your hands are shaking,” she says, and taking me by the arm, helps me to her own stool.

I look down, surprised to see that they are trembling. I open and close them a few times, squeezing my hands into fists as if I might forcibly regain control of them.
 

“Here,” the woman calls. I jump, then realize she is only hailing a coffee seller. The man serves us each, pouring the cardamom- and ginger-scented brew into the miniature cups set out on his tray. The woman pays him with a coin and he continues down the aisle. He’ll stop by on his way back to pick up the empty cups.

I drink the coffee slowly, savoring the rich flavor. The woman leans against her counter, sipping from her own cup, lost in thought. I wonder what she’s thinking of, if perhaps she has lost someone herself. So many have disappeared, taken from their homes, the markets, the street. Most made the mistake of voicing dissent, but not all. Sometimes you just have to attract the wrong kind of attention.

I look out to the aisle. A few of the other sellers, those who aren’t busy with customers, nod towards me. I smile my thanks. Each of them had the chance to tell the soldiers where I hid, who had hidden me. But they didn’t.

I set my cup down on the counter, and notice the shadows on the street—or rather, the lack of them. It is near noon, the market slowly growing quiet as people head home to eat and then rest through the hottest part of the day. Near noon—I bite back a curse as I remember where I’d been headed in the first place. I’m most definitely late now.
 

I stand up from the stool. The fruit-seller swivels towards me. “Thank you, mother,” I say respectfully. I take her free hand and bend over to kiss it.

“Oh, child,” she says. “Be careful here. A darkness has taken hold of our island.”

“I know, mother,” I say. It seems I will always be the foreigner. “Karolene has been my home for four years now.”

She nods, warmth lighting her face. “Then go in peace, and do not forget your own mother, who waits at home for you. Stay safe for her.”

I force a smile, nodding. She ushers me out the back of her stall, and I follow the tight path down to the end of the aisle, her words echoing at the back of my thoughts. She doesn’t need to know that my mother isn’t waiting for me, that my mother disappeared a long time ago, when we first came to Karolene, when the darkness that grips this island had only just begun to spread its roots.

I plunge into the winding streets and familiar alleys of Karolene. Here, there is no such thing as a straight road—at least, not for long. Each street makes its way around the corners of the buildings that shape it, shifting first one way, then another. The smaller alleys make full turns at what might at first appear to be dead ends, descending sidestairs and passing through buildings that have grown up over the alley itself.

As I turn another corner, I nod to two men chatting in a doorway. The alley beyond them lies deserted. They hesitate, then nod back. I hide my grin. I know they’re acting as lookouts today, but they know me only well enough to believe I might have been invited. The alley shifts a little, the men dropping out of sight, and I spot the great wooden double doors I have been seeking. They are gorgeous, carved in a floral pattern, inlaid with bronze and painted a vibrant turquoise. Unfortunately, lounging on the steps before them is the one guard it
would
be my luck to meet.

“Going somewhere?” Kenta asks, cocking an eyebrow. For once, he doesn’t have a bottle of wine and a frybread at hand, which could mean he’s taking his job too seriously to humor me.

“Tell me they didn’t put you out here as a guard dog,” I say, dropping down beside him as if that had been my intention all along. “Isn’t that demeaning?”

He grins, showing teeth that are a little sharper than the average man’s. “Better than not being invited at all, Tomi.”

I grimace. “I’m planning on discussing that with—him.” We both know whom I mean: our friend, and the leader of the Shadow League, a man known only as the Ghost.

“You can certainly discuss it,” Kenta agrees. “Later.”
 

“That would defeat the purpose.”

“You should have come earlier, then.”
 

I shake my head, exasperated. “Believe me, I tried. Has the meeting already started?” At this point, there’s only a very small chance that it hasn’t, even taking into account how late everything runs here.

He shrugs, a graceful rise and fall of his shoulders. He is short but slim, with a shaggy chestnut mane mingled with black, and a set of dark brown eyes that dominate his face. There is no question that he resembles the sure-footed, black-masked tanuki that is his natural form. “Almost everyone’s here.”
 

“Almost. The meeting won’t have started yet. Plenty of time to discuss what I need to.” I hop to my feet. Kenta rises with me. We’re of a height, but he’s faster than me and he loves a good fight. In large part, that’s because he loves making fools of his opponents, tripping them over their own feet and knocking them onto their rumps. I’ve often enjoyed the spectacle, but I’m not interested in taking part.

“Oh, come on,” I grumble. “Do you really think he can’t handle me? Because if he can’t, this whole,” I wave my hand vaguely, “
venture
is doomed. Believe me, I am nowhere near as difficult to handle as some people.”