My fingers crawl closer to his pants, and she points her chin to the left. So, this is where he keeps his money. When I landed on the streets, pickpocketing was the first available career option for someone that young, but I never took to it. After completing the training of some older kids with moderate success, it became obvious that I am lacking something essential to be a good thief: inconspicuous looks. People always noticed and remembered the odd white strand in my raven black hair and my unusually bright eyes, so different than the blonde and hazel-eyed Satreyans like Tayna. So, years ago, I dropped pickpocketing for far more lucrative and complex schemes.
My hand snakes into his pocket, and I grin at Myrtle when I feel the cool, hard touch of silver. It’s Free Cities’ money, easy to tell by the relief of the coins, but silver is silver anyway, even if it is not Unseelie money. Half of the dozen coins should suffice, slip my wrist out, and prepare to crawl back into the shadows. That was easy.
Myrtle’s legs, sprawled around the merchant’s bare ass, are suddenly stiff. That cannot be good. Peeking over his brocade jerkin, my breath hitches. The blade is leaving a bloody trail over the olive skin of my friend. Panic creeps into her wide-opened eyes.
My plan to crawl away and then pretend to enter the stables, faking a loud surprise, is immediately abandoned.
I react without thinking and regret it instantly. Acting on impulse, I grab the man’s legs, attempting to yank him off Myrtle. Startled, he drags the blade down between her breasts, cutting deeper before he realizes what’s happening. Then he swiftly rolls over and slashes the air just inches away from my bodice, his eyes mad but sober.
“Are you trying to rob me, you stupid whore?” he snarls, unclear if he means Myrtle or me.
I am on my feet, considering whether to run and call for help—the inn is just a hundred feet away, and the merry music spills into the night. But a bloodied, confused Myrtle, her face twisted by pain, struggles to stand up, and a tide of primal rage floods my common sense.
No way she stays alone with this madman. He is up and slashes the air with his blade, and I almost stumble backward, stunned by his ferocity. “Atos take you,” I curse, and just like that, what was a normal evening turns into a fight for our lives.
He slashes again, a mad smile curling his thin lips. Leaping back, I raise my fists defensively, and he snorts. As if they would protect me against the ten-inch razor-sharp blade.
“I bet you didn’t expect that, right?” He leaps forward, the knife slicing my sleeve open and nearly cutting the flesh beneath. “You think I haven’t figured out the little game you two are playing?” I let him talk and drop to the floor to avoid another swing, delivering a well-aimed punch in his thigh. The man gasps, and for one brief moment, I nearly burst out in cackle. If it weren’t a life-and-death brawl with a madman, it would have looked ridiculous, as the man is naked from the waist down and trips frequently in his pants.
Then he makes an odd gurgling sound and stumbles back.
Myrtle hangs for her dear life on his back, her bloodied forearm pressed against his throat. He recovers fast and throws himself with all his weight to the floor, crushing her under his weight. He swiftly turns around, facing the now unconscious Myrtle, and raises his blade.
This could end so badly.
“I will cut you open now, then your friend. And rest assured, nobody would miss two thieving whores; even if they do, I will pay my way out, just like I always do—” He hisses through clenched teeth, pure hatred lacing his voice.
There has to be a way to clean up that mess, as there are certainly people who’d miss us. Myrtle’s young son, who has just started walking and is the main reason she’s agreed to that little scheme of ours, and my gentle, golden-haired young sister, who would be married off to the highest bidder if I don’t find a way to get her out of the greedy claws of her adoptive family. If only this rabid dog could see this; if he could understand that the brutal life out there has shaped us into what we are, that without money, we are all doomed, stuck and waiting here for the Fae to summon their mage back and leave us unprotected in these long, hopeless nights.
Yet, I decide to save my breath. Men like him have preyed on women like us since the dawn of time. He thinks himself superior, a predator, stalking the nameless and voiceless people like us. If we die, the City Guard won’t waste time investigating. One wrong step, and we will be just two corpses carted to the Gallows Hills’ pits—the mass grave for poor sods like us.
Death comes quietly and swiftly for the commoners of Tenebris. And in some cases, it is even welcomed by the deceased one’s family and neighbors. One less mouth to feed, less precious space to occupy under the magical halo.
Well, if he’s a predator, he’s a weasel, not the lion he thinks he is, and it is time to teach him a lesson. The streets are a hard teacher, a brutal lover; they beat into all of us the simple lesson to never show vulnerability. There are too many like this bastard who get drunk on the feeling of being in charge. Myrtle knows that very well, too; that’s why she didn’t fret when the weasel held the blade to her throat.
It’s time to show him that he has picked the wrong nameless women to mess with.
Fists against a knife are bad odds, so it’s time to fight dirty, too. Time ceases to exist when I close my eyes. The stables dissolve into nothingness. Ancient power thrums from the depths of the silvery lake in my mind. Its still, heavy waters reflect strange constellations, spelling my name. The magic within calls to me, tempts me, stirring a visceral hunger for something indescribable—like the cryptic message of a dream that seeks one out every night, elusive, yet persistent.
This magic simmering beneath the heavy waters is a tantalizing promise of power that I have struggled to resist since childhood. Mother and Father, aware of the danger it poses, had taught me to conceal my gift.
When you’re born with the rarest commodity on Phyllesia, you have a bullseye painted on your back. Not all mages end on gilded palanquins like Eloysse.
But right now, a blade hovers over Myrtle’s heaving chest, so I let the deep hum of the waters resonate with my bones, down to my marrow. Answering its siren’s call is easy, and its power crawls along my veins, fills my insides, and blurs my mind.
The world quickly gains its shape back; its contours are sharper than ever. My fingers flash shimmering claws as I unleash the scorching power thrumming within me. The merchant is hurled across the stables and lands against a wooden beam, snapping it like a toothpick. His knife is lost somewhere in the straw. He lets out a pained gasp and then lies sprawled like a rag doll.
By the Elders, is he dead?
Silver sparks still shower in the stale air like specks of dust in the sunlight, and the horses have grown unnaturally still.
“Talysse,” Myrtle calls me softly, struggling to stand up. I kneel next to her, pressing my sleeve to the cut on her chest. “Did you kill him?” she asks, shaking just a little. Terror surfaces in her last words, visions of gallows and nameless graves, of our loved ones tossed into cruel fates.
Overcoming my natural instinct to run is not easy. Helping Myrtle up, we drag ourselves to the motionless man. She disgustedly pokes his pale thigh with her red slipper.
“The bastard is still alive, Talysse.” She spits on the floor and points at his evenly rising chest. She drags a bloodied hand over her face and brushes the straw off her skirt.
“Let’s pray he won’t remember a thing. He can twist the story and tell that we have attacked him, and the City Guard would rather favor his version than ours. Did you,” her voice drops to a whisper, “use your gift?”
