Jaxon jumped in between the two, just in time. “What’s done is done. The job in Stonegrave went south, but we got out alive, and now we’ve got to honor our deal with Markam.”
“We don’t owe him anything,” Sonara said. “The ring he made wasn’t even real.”
“And yet,” Markam said, lifting his right hand with a flourish. Out of thin air, a black-banded ring materialized onto his thumb, the fat diamond near-identical to the one he’d fashioned to give to Jira for the swap. “The ring I made was worth a barrel full of coin at market.”
He shook his hand and with apoof,the ring was gone again.
Sonara glared down the hill towards the saloon. It was steep and sweeping. If she could only get her foot behind Markam’s ankle, perhaps she could send him rolling. Perhaps there’d be a happy accident, and he’d break his neck on the way down.
Sonara crossed her arms. “You lost out on nothing but time.”
“But the pain it caused me to create it,” Markam said with a dramatic sigh, “along with the loss of what would have been true profit once we sold the king’s actual ring, was real enough. Now… the ladies are eager to get started, and you wouldn’t want to keep a client waiting, would you?”
Sonara and Jaxon used to work for Markam, for years. He’d been their trusted informant, a laughable thought, because he’d damned them far too many times for Sonara to count on both hands,and there was hardly a shred of trust left between them. They’d had a falling out, when Sonara and Markam’s relationship crashed and burned… and kept burning. They’d only contacted him again for the job in Stonegrave because they’d been desperate for coin, practically starving with a lack of jobs to be found.
With his curse, Markam had a way of sneaking into the most secret of places, of gathering information from the most private of conversations. He caught wind of the greatest catches in town, wagons hauling coin that were an easy snag, a shipment of steeds from the southern kingdom that could be captured and sold off. A group of rich merchants whose caravans could be blocked, cleared out, and sent on their way.
With his intel, Sonara and Jaxon stepped in and got the job done. They got coin and more wanted posters placed across the Deadlands, and Markam kept his name clean. No matter the job, no matter how interested Markam seemed in helping, the moment he smelled danger, he’d push down anyone in his path in order to save his own skin.
Even family.
At the base of the hill, the saloon doors swung open, and music filtered out. The sad twang mixed with the setting suns as daylight grew tired and weary. Sonara’s own weariness tugged at her. She wanted to fall onto a bar stool and drink until her daylights went out. But first, she’d have to learn whatever hellish deal Jaxon had roped them into.
Sonara simply raised her chin a bit higher as she turned to Markam. “What if we refuse? What if I break the deal?”
Markam picked at a loose thread on his duster. “I’ll turn you in for your crimes against the king.Now… shall we? Drinks are on me, as a token of my good will.”
With a wink, he started down the hillside, leaving Sonara and Jaxon alone with the wind.
Chapter 6
Sonara
The swinging doors of the saloon slammed against Sonara’s back as she and Jaxon entered.
The place was near empty as usual, the road-weary patrons already several drinks in. Everyone’s aura was bright and scrambled together, too many emotions dancing across the room for her curse to devour. She settled it with a wince, her head already spinning. She’d given it too much freedom lately. Too long of a leash.
The town sherriff was there, a man with his buttons threatening to explode from his worn brown uniform. Across from him, a young blonde woman sharpened her dagger and glared at anyone who passed by. In the corner of the room, beneath the stuffed head of a desert pig mounted to the wall, a wrinkled storyteller sat, telling her tales. Laughter erupted from the patrons listening in.
Music played from a small stage to their right. Suzie Quick and the Lightning Girls, who were never on key enough to make it in the king’s Traveling Troubadours, were still the main act.
Sonara hated music. It made her feel things, made her think of memories she’d rather keep long forgotten.
A hand reaching out.
A scream that split the sky in two.
She couldn’t block the memories of Soahm, but she could try to drown them. So she headed towards the only sanctuary in Sandbank.
The bar.
It was a place where secrets were spilled as often as drinks. And there just beside it, seated furthest from the rest of the patrons, was Markam, along with the two ladies who’d joined their troupe. They sat at a table near-covered in shadows, moth-bitten curtains drawn to conceal the window behind them. Holes littered the surface of the fabric, enough to shed sunlight in strange patterns across the room.
“Ah,” Markam said, standing like the gentleman he pretended to be. He already had a bottle of oil in his hand, the dark liquid sloshing out as he bowed. “Ladies, may I present, better late than never… the Devil of the Deadlands.”
The woman in deep red robes was seated in her chair with such impeccable posture that she may as well have been sitting on a throne. Of noble class, certainly. Her dark hair hung from the shadows of that large hood, which still concealed her face. Her hands, covered in smooth silk gloves, were folded before her on the table.
Those hands held the power of the storms. Sonara’s curse hissed as she watched the woman, as if it knew it was in the presence of a power unprecedented. Reluctantly, she eased it out of its cage, the tether lengthening as she breathed in the woman’s aura.Dark, robust. The promise of life and death all at once.
