I’m not so lucky this time.
Or am I?
My instinct to flee remains strong, every muscle poised to obey as soon as I give the command.
But what about my second option? In exchange for six months of service as the shadow hunter’s Summoner, he’ll give me freedom. He promised. Sinless supposedly can’t lie—being Absolved of sin and all that—so does the same go for Shadowbanes?
I can’t imagine serving that asshole, not after how he pinned me to the ground and threatened me with his Shades.
Still…
If I accept his offer, I could be on a ship off this continent in six months’ time. The mere thought has me shivering with a mix of terror and elation. No one knows what’s out there, only that there is at least one other land that hasn’t completely fallen to lawlessness and Shades. Our only evidence is Port Belfair, the sole port city on the Holy Continent, the sole source of outside trade. Rumors say there you can buy passage on a homebound trade ship if you speak to the right personand offer the right price. What happens after is a mystery. Maybe the other lands are brimming with war and sin and Shades. Maybe my chances of survival won’t be any better there than they are here. But I’ll take danger and mystery if it means freedom. I’ll face war and shadow monsters if it means liberation from the Sinless.
I can ally with a dangerous man, play along with his rules, and serve him as he demands. It doesn’t mean I have to trust him. I don’t know what exactly a Summoner does, but I am an artist, just like he said. And what do artists do? They attract Shades. The very monsters he hunts. If his promise proves false, I will draw every Shade to me and laugh as they pick the meat from his bones. Even if it’s the last thing I do. Even if they devour me next.
The medley of hope and violence steadies my nerves, enough that I manage to finish changing with only the mildest of tremors. Dressed in my common garb—an olive-green bodice and a brown skirt with a patched hem—I nod to my companions that I’m ready. They may have surmised my time with them is at an end, but routine kept them from leaving me just yet. We always return to the barracks as a group on performance nights. Safety in numbers until the bitter end.
The Lover raps his knuckles on the door, and Rockefeller opens it, allowing us to file from the room. My heart slams against my ribs as I trail at the back of our retinue.
I reach where the Shadowbane waits; my last chance to change my mind.
With a slow exhale, I halt in place. Shift to face the towering male while the other performers continue down the hall. Leaving me behind.
I lift my eyes to the Shadowbane’s, finding his are already roving me from head to toe, as if memorizing every stitch of my drab clothing, every freckle that dots my upper chest and face, every strand of my strawberry-blond hair spilling loose over my shoulders. His attention sears me to the bone, an unspoken reminder that if he couldn’t hunt me down by sight before, he can now. His dark eyes lock on mine, studying my gray irises now, and it’s all I can do not to avert my gaze, not to shrink from his scrutiny—
A subtle shift of movement steals my focus, and I glance to theside. That’s when I notice two figures standing farther down the corridor, half hidden in shadows. I recognize them both, the towering middle-aged man with the scarred face and the petite young woman with hard eyes. Fellow performers, Bard and Harlot. But what are they doing here? Only a fool would have stayed behind out of solidarity, which means…
“You weren’t hoping it would just be the two of us, were you, Seamstress?” The Shadowbane’s tone is dry, a corner of his mouth lifting in a taunting grin. My eyes track the angle of his lips, the way his dark lashes cast shadows over his cheekbones as his gaze burrows deeper into me. For whatever asinine reason, my stomach flips in response. Before I can compel my eyes away from that smirk that has my body doing traitorous things, he pushes off the wall and brushes past us. “Welcome to my crew, sinners.”
Chapter Five
Inana
The tension in the air is as thick as the silence that blankets the streets of Nalheim, punctuated only by the rhythmic beat of horse hooves and wagon wheels on cobblestones. The Shadowbane manages the reins at the fore of the wagon, while Bard, Harlot, and I sit in the back. The vehicle is no different from those used in rural villages like the one I grew up in, with an uncovered bed, a wooden perch for the driver, and two horses hitched to the front. Not the grand hunting carriage I pictured someone of his rank owning. Since the Shadowbane commanded us to leave the city with him at once, we’re the only souls on the road. Anyone seeking evening amusement knows better than to use the main streets. All to keep up appearances that Nalheim is home solely to saints.
I lean against the inner wall of the wagon bed, legs pulled to my chest, head tilted back as I watch empty storefronts and grand manors give way to clustered row houses, then factories. Night has fallen, but our surroundings are almost as bright as day. The astrotheurgical dome of light blazes from every angle overhead, leaving hardly a sliver of shadow between buildings or beneath the manicured greenery. My eyes glide to the center of the city, where Nalheim Palace towers from the summit. Its silver turrets shrink farther and farther into the distance, yet the glow that emanates from the tallest spire remainsundimmed, the Holy Brazier an ever-shining beacon of safety. During the day, the dome cast by the brazier is invisible beneath the sun’s rays, but at night, it maintains a twilight haze over the city, regardless of how dark the sky is beyond it.
I scowl at the blinding pinprick of light shining from that far-off tower. The brazier’s secrets may be unknown to most citizens, but not to me. I know the price of its safety: a human heart. It isn’t just in Nalheim. Every brazier in every protected city, whether walled or not, requires such a price. And now I know the secrets of the Sacred Cities too. They aren’t the perfect havens I was raised to believe they were. The royals may reward those who prove themselves devout by inviting them into these walled cities, but once inside the silver gates where Shades can no longer follow, there’s nothing to keep citizens from reverting to sin. Not if they hide it well enough.
It’s that dichotomy that makes a Sacred City such an ideal environment for an outlaw. It’s the one place we aren’t supposed to exist.
When Rockefeller purchased me from the textile mill’s proprietress, I thought he’d drop me off at a labor mine at best. When I realized he was taking me to a Sacred City, I imagined being fed to a prince. Gods, the dread I felt when I considered that my master maybedidknow who I was. That he’d purchased me knowing I was a bigger investment than the proprietress had surmised. But that wasn’t the case. If he’d known I was guilty of far worse than telling stories while sewing daisies on stolen silk, he wouldn’t have given me a bed in his barracks, a job, and a clear path to buy back my freedom. Not to say I’m fond of having been bought and sold like property, but laws against human trafficking don’t apply to criminals. So for me, twice convicted of forbidden art and lucky to be alive, my situation in Nalheim was as good as I could hope for. I had a plan. An outlet for my art.
Now…I don’t know what I have, aside from the Shadowbane’s promise of freedom in exchange for six months of service. But can I trust him? Can I even trust Bard and Harlot?
“Get some sleep if you can,” comes the Shadowbane’s voice over his shoulder. “We reach the city gates in an hour, and we’ll remain on the road until daybreak.”
None of us answer, nor do we ask where we’re headed once we leave Nalheim. I posed a similar question when he first loaded us into the wagon, and all he said was “Somewhere else.” A fucking wordsmith, this one.
My gaze flicks across the wagon to Harlot, who picks at her nails, a glower on her pretty face. She can’t be older than seventeen, with ash-brown hair and blue eyes that hold too haunted a look for someone so young. Bard sits closest to the front of the wagon, his broad back facing our new master. The way he positioned himself between us and the Shadowbane feels almost protective, though there’s nothing to suggest Bard is alert. His gaze is hollow, distant, strands of thin salt-and-pepper hair hanging over his forehead. One hand rests on the cloth-wrapped mandolin tucked close to his side while the other strums absently over strings that aren’t there. Everywhere from his face to his hands bears deep scars, which makes me wonder about his story. What’s the truth behind the sorrowful songs he sang at the Wretched Lair? And what about Harlot? What led her to choose such a moniker, to draw caricatures of her patrons living out their sexual fantasies with her while she gripped her pen like she was strangling it?
I know nothing about these two whose fate I now share. Or the mysterious hunter who calls us his crew.
My lashes flutter open to the most beautiful sight—the night sky.
I rub sleep from my eyes and tilt my head back, drinking in the inky black expanse speckled with glittering stars, and the moon at the center of it all. It’s been a whole year since I’ve seen night. Not just darkness, but the true night sky. It’s a comfort I didn’t think I’d miss so dearly. No decent person would take comfort in the dark, in leaving the safety of one of the eight Sacred Cities. But I’m not a decent person, and perhaps I never was.
Even my mother called me a cursed child. Born on winter solstice—the longest night of the year, and a new moon at that—I entered this world a bad omen. The way Mother told it, Shades were clawing at the door despite the silver-lined walls of the midwife’s birthing roomfor all forty-six hours she labored. And after I was born, they continued to screech and claw the remaining hours until sunrise. Were she not such a devout woman, I’d think maybe she had her own knack for storytelling.
