On the steps of the craggy orphanage, Nathis sits stripped of his armor, watching the sun slide down the skyline. In the last few days, the light of Tauris had scalded the weathered skin of his arms and head. He’d become accustomed to the stinging pain, but the heat was something he felt he could never recover from. His tunic was stained with sweat.
Around him, scores of children play in the sand, chasing each other, their shouts and screams of joy echoing through the alleyway. He’d watched as they poured pails of sea water into the dirt to build castles as tall as the first-floor windows. He laughed as they had defended their keeps from thrashing raids, but in the end, the castles had been demolished under giddy feet, smashed back into the earth and forgotten.
He’d been without drink for two days. The pain in his stomach had lessened, but his hand trembled when he buckled his armor this morning. He woke from a fretful sleep with a pounding head, a great pressure pushing against the backs of his eyes. Anarah had fussed over him, but he waved her away, smiling. He had yet to plan out their assault on the dome, and he wished, regretfully, that the Grand Master had accompanied them. Argos’s fervor was what the party needed.
He had sent Drair to scout early in the morning, after the evening ceremony, in the hopes that the alchemists slept unguarded. He knew better. Watches were posted at all hours. The king’s brother had been distraught since the ceremony, reverting to the silent shadow of a creature that Nathis had kept in a cell long ago. He knew that killing the alchemists would not bring the resolution that was needed. The hundreds of children playing in the sand, missing their limbs and digits, deserve a second chance. But the alchemists would never allow the power of the Lynac to escape their grasp, nor would they relinquish their position in society. A happy ending for all required sacrifice.
Nathis sighs, his arms on his knees, hands intertwined against his cracking lips. He shakes his head. His stomach growls. Down one of the darkened alleyways, Drair emerges, carrying a linen sack. She removes her eyepatch, stuffing it in her pockets. It still struck him to see the delicate mark, once a sign of danger to Vaeba.
Nathis nods, pointing vaguely. “Whatcha got there? I hope for my sake it’s a stiff drink.” He chuckles, watching her approach.
“I managed to find something without fish or pigeon,” she grimaces, taking a seat beside him and tossing the bag into his lap.
His brows pinch together, but a reply never makes it over his teeth. After a pause, he fumbles with the strings, his hands shaking. Drair snatches it from him, wrenching the mouth of the sack open, and throws it back. Inside, he finds a small crock of honeyed figs and a pouch of rabbit jerky.
“Those were expensive.” Drair tilts her head, meeting his eyes briefly. Nathis can feel the pity rolling off her, and it makes his stomach turn faster.
“What about yourself?” he asks, pulling the crock of figs from the bottom of the bag. He picks apart the beeswax seal, letting each piece fall into the sand at his feet.
“I ate in the marketplace."
She postures herself to mirror him, hands clasped, elbows on her knees. She watches the children as Nathis pulls a soft, sticky fig from the wooden pot. The sweet smell piques his appetite, and he places the fig on his tongue, relishing the thick honey. An exhale flows from his nostrils as he chews. He gazes through the alleys at the sun, now slipping below the horizon.
Another day without a plan.
“Anarah tells me I can perform alchemy,” the assassin’s low voice seeps in through his disjointed thoughts and under the din of shouting children.
Nathis nods, swallowing. “Do you know how?” He clears his throat.
The woman unties a soft buckskin bag from her waist that sloshes as she moves and tosses it toward him. Before he can speak, she makes hard eye contact and shakes her head. “Just water.” A sober upturn of her lips. “And no,” she continues. “I don’t.”
“Thought so. You were my last hope, you know?” he chides, nudging the assassin’s arm. He smiles over at her, noticing the gentle arch in her nose, and takes the waterskin. He studies the younger woman a bit longer. Her dark lips are full, usually cradling a hand-rolled cigarette between their cracked exteriors. Her eyes are inky, like wet soil, her hair several shades darker. Her arms and shoulders are built like a boxer, so stiff and sinewy that she looks perpetually tense. She must be approaching her mid-thirties. Though not unalluring, her bearish exterior is off-putting to most. Befitting an assassin, he huffs. He takes a drink from the waterskin and hands it back.
Tying the skin to her waist again, she drawls, “What’s the plan, General?”
He chuckles, popping another honeyed fig into his mouth and chewing delicately. He shakes his head, gazing down the alley. “Don’t have one.”
A low grunt is the woman’s reply. They sit in silence for a few moments. Nathis eats two more figs, then reseals the crock, sitting it on the steps below him. Children run up and down the steps beside him, slinging sand onto his feet. He opens the bag of rabbit jerky, marveling at the spices clinging to the meat. Drair breaks the silence as he rips a jerky strip apart.
“What does Anarah need to teach me alchemy?”
“A grimoire, I suppose,” he hums, chewing. “Particularly the one of the High Alchemist.”
She nods. “How does this work anyway? The alchemy.” She waves a hand, looking at the steps.
“Ah...” he starts. “I couldn’t tell ya. You’d have to ask her to explain. She didn’t get her smarts from me, for sure. Wanna pass that water over again? This jerky is drier than this whole damn country.”
She unties the skin again, handing it to the general.
“Why?” he asks. “What are you thinking?” He takes a deep drink, rivulets of water trickling down his stubbled chin. As he wipes the moisture from his whiskers, the assassin shakes her head.
“Maybe there’s a way around all this nonsense,” she says, rubbing her forehead.
Nathis suddenly feels foolish for his wish to involve the Grand Master. Argos was capable of nothing but force and violence. Of all the people to wish for an amicable resolution, he never suspected Drair. “You know,” he looks at the woman, “You never said a word on the way to Erah. I got the feeling you didn’t like the horse, but I knew you weren’t dumb.”
Drair looks at him, her eyebrows cocked.
He sees the dark pigmented Lynac mark on her browbone, wrinkling with the skin at the corner of her eyes. The sun has slipped below the horizon and her dark skin is shadowed. “I remember the Xelinites,” he continues. “They were self-sufficient, resilient. Didn’t speak a word of our language, but you wouldn’t have known because they didn’t say a thing as we were cutting them down. I think you’ve grown out of your restraints a little, Drair. It’s unbecoming of you.” A soft smile graces his lips. He looks down at his hands. “But that self-sufficiency of yours is going to get you killed. I don’t know what you’re planning, but we brought the whole team for a reason.”
With a small chuckle, she replies, “Anarah got plenty of smarts from you, General. But maybe this is something only I can do.”
Nathis repacks the linen sack with the leftover figs and dried meat, pulling the drawstring and shifting a hand under him. He pushes off the steps with some difficulty, standing in the sand. “Come on,” he says, waving.
“It’s nearly dark-”
“You have the eyes of a cat, woman. Come on.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
They traipse through the alleyways as the last of the sunlight fades from the horizon. The city is dying down. Market tents are abandoned, children returning home. Countless fires are lit for supper, their smoke rolling through the sky. Nathis leads them past the northeastern border of the city. The smell of rotting fish disappears as the breeze changes direction, flowing off the sea up ahead. Slowly, stars emerge in the pitch above.
Drair trails behind him, her hands in her pockets. Nathis can see a soft glow ahead where the sound of waves calls louder. The two crest the top of a shallow dune, their feet hissing through yellow sand. The older man stops at the peak, waiting for the assassin to follow. His gaze is pointed out toward the sea, his arms held limply at his sides. He hears her footsteps approach, stopping near him, then a sharp exhale escapes her throat, lips parted.
Below them, the waves are inlaid with a sheet of bright blue lights shimmering under the surface. Waves move up and down the beach, leaving behind tumbling shells. Tiny white crabs skitter across the sand, unearthed by the water. The sound of the waves is hushed, overtaken by the wind in their ears, cascading over the dunes. The woman steps down the ridge and Nathis takes a heavy seat, laying the food beside him in the sand.
“What is it?” the woman calls. She steps close to the glowing waves, dodging them as they rise.
“Anarah calls it ‘luciferin’. Tiny plants in the water that absorb the light of the sun and reflect it back. Or something like that,” he scoffs. “I’ve never seen them on the beaches of Larynth.”
“I don’t remember Xelinite’s beaches.” Her voice is hard to hear, muffled by the wind. “Too young.”
A wave crashes onto the beach, bringing the glittering light with it. The woman kneels. Nathis watches as she reaches delicately toward the glow to scoop up a handful of gleaming water. She spends some time walking up and down the beach, touching the glow with her feet and staring off into the dark outer waters. Nathis leans back, looking at the blanket of stars above them. The breeze becomes cold and biting as the night deepens. After a while, the assassin walks back, turning to face the water.
“It’s cold out,” she mumbles. “You’d better head back.”
“I want you to remember this place,” Nathis shivers, heaving himself up and brushing the sand from his hands. “There’s something good out there for you. Maybe not here, maybe not in Erah, but...” He struggles with his words, feeling a wave of nausea come over him.
“You should take your own advice once in a while.” She turns to meet his eyes, scarf whipping about in the wind, before leaning to pick up his bag and nodding her head toward the city. “Let’s go.”
------------
In the morning, Drair is gone.
“That bitch.”
Kelo snorts from a dark corner of the room. Nathis shoots the small blonde girl a sinister look before turning back to the open window.
“What?” Lark spits back, shaking her head. “We can’t do this without her, can we?”
He says nothing.
Anarah whispers, “You don’t think she means to go in on her own?”
He sighs, grabbing his breastplate from against the wall and heaving it over his freckled shoulders. “I’m not sure.” His fingers struggle to tighten the straps, hands shaking.
Tygoh, fully dressed, his straight hair pulled back into a sleek ponytail, places a tanned hand on his forehead. “She’s a liability to the team, as usual. Remind me to keep spies out of military business when I’m Grand Master.”
“When you’re Grand Master?” Anarah chuckles.
“I tried to avoid this,” Nathis says, buckling his sword to his waist.
The others are silent, strapping weapons to their belts and tying boots onto their feet.
“What do you mean?” Tygoh asks.
A deep sigh leaks from Nathis’ chest. “Stupid girl. She intends to give herself up.”
“WHAT?”
The word rips from Kelo’s mouth. “She can’t! We need to get to her before she-”
Nathis explodes. “Boy, if she’s already gone, we’ve already failed! That woman is insufferably strong-willed.” He gazes out the window, rubbing a heavy hand over the close-shaven stubble on his head. The skin burns. “Much like the rest of this group.”
There is a long pause as the group stills, eyes cast downward. A minute of silence passes until a clatter shakes them from their thoughts. Lark begins ripping her armor from her pack, tossing each piece to the floor and hastily buckling them to herself. She picks up her sword from the wall, slides it into the sheath at her side, and throws her pack over her shoulder.
“Lark, what are you doing?” Anarah, her eyebrows knitted, speaks gently as if to not scare the girl away.
“I’m going to get her.”
“She’s probably already been taken,” Tygoh’s grunts. “The ships come early-”
“I don’t care,” the blacksmith snaps. “The ceremony isn’t until tonight.” She looks toward the militia general, snarling, her scarred eye crinkling. “I can’t believe you would give up so easily. The man who had the gall to bring criminals and outcasts into the castle is going to let one of us die.” She takes a breath. “I’ve watched you lately, your drinking, feeling sorry for yourself. It's disgusting. You’re not the same person I met so long ago.” She turns on her heel, bursting through the door and into the hallway.
Nathis leans into the windowsill with a huff, his hands braced against the sandstone.
“She doesn’t mean that,” Anarah says gently, wringing her hands.
“Yes.” The word scratches his throat. “She does.” He heaves himself up, stuffing his sleeping furs into his pack. The others follow suit in silence, the tension in the air settling heavy.
The sun rises from below the sea, blanketing Izevel in heat. By the time the party reaches the center of town, Nathis can feel the sweat soaking his tunic, sticking to his skin. Past the market, the alchemists’ domed structure comes into view. A haze of warmth wavers over its head. The market is lively, a cacophony of shouting vendors and running children, and Nathis feels a rise of acid in his throat and a tumbling of his stomach.
“Has she already made it to the dome?” Anarah asks, a headscarf wrapped about her nose and mouth against the spraying sand. Her pale hand is intertwined with Tygoh’s. The cavalry general looks at home, his tanned skin and dark hair illuminated by the sun.
“I hate to say it,” he says, “but I almost miss the attitude.”
Kelo, dragging behind the rest of them, his cloak whipping in the wind, scoffs. “Of which one?”
Nathis smiles from the front. “You’ve spent too much time around Lark, boy.”
They approach the dome, observing the front door, open to the air and dark from within, as well as the smoke rising from the middle of the roof, presumably where the alchemists reside. Nathis continues forward, peering into the opening. It is empty, save for the flickering of lamps. The alchemic circle painted on the ground is scuffed and broken, footprints heavy in the sand. He shakes his head to the others, waving around the building.
“Check around,” he locks eyes with Tygoh. The dark-haired general bobs his head, slipping his hand from his fiancée’s and disappearing around the eastern side of the dome. Nathis turns to his daughter. “She’s not here. Either of them. I’d imagine the Xelinite is caged in the back with the others.”
Anarah points vaguely toward the door in the rear of the chamber. “During the ceremony, they pulled the Xelinites from there,” she says.
A hum comes from Nathis’ throat. “What time does the ceremony start?”
“Dusk.”
“We have time, then. I’d imagine they’d expect us to start here, so we use this door as an exit only. Hopefully Tygoh can find another way in,” he turns his grizzled face to the corpse boy hiding behind Anarah. “You were a sleuth, boy. Know how to pick a lock?”
The prince’s brother flinches at the term, but nods. “I can try,” he murmurs. “Though I successfully opened maybe one during my... career.” He stresses the word, looking disgusted.
“Better than me,” Nathis smiles. “What a time to lose my blacksmith.”
“What if she’s already picked the lock?” Anarah grins, a knowing look exchanged between them.
An answering scoff comes from deep in his throat as Nathis turns around, stepping gingerly over the foot of the doorway and into the pit. “Of course,” he mumbles, booted feet hissing in the sand. Walking to the door, he pulls the iron handle, cold in his hand. The door yields. “Sloppy,” he growls.
From the exterior doorway, Tygoh appears. “Another opening on the eastern side,” he says, his voice low. “Leads to an inner hallway.”
“Good,” Nathis says, facing the cavalry general. “Anarah and Tygoh, take the eastern entrance. Kelo and I will look for Lark. I’m certain she entered this way.”
The couple nods, taking off east.
Face shaded by his hood, Kelo’s great black eyes meet Nathis’ own. The boy shrugs. “I’ll just be a burden,” he says.
“Young man,” Nathis chuckles, turning to face the unlocked door again. “You’ve shown more loyalty, persistence, and patience than most of my Guard members on any given day. Not to mention the quiet, which an old man can appreciate. You’ve made it this far looking like that in a country full of intolerant sods.” He winces at his own bluntness. “Apologies. I think you’re more hard-nosed than you believe yourself to be.” The old man’s gray eyes shift to the gaping hole where Kelo’s nose should be. “Figuratively speaking, of course.”
Kelo’s grin is all the answer he needs. Nathis breeches the doorway, the boy a wraith behind him. Inside, a hallway stretches along the outer wall of the dome, turning left toward the south side of the building. The ceiling hangs low, the walls close, stirring an unsettled feeling in his chest. His lungs fill with thick, hot air. Nathis listens, hearing the faint clatter of dinnerware. He slips through the doorway, allowing Kelo to shimmy inside, and shuts the door carefully. His hand finds the pommel of his sword, a familiar companion, and the two make their way along the inner wall.
