“What happens to them?” I’d heard rumors at the fayre of performers disappearing or suddenly retiring. The tricks had been toned down and the magic dulled but unease had cloaked the air.
I’d never met another who harbored blood magic like mine. Siobhan probably kept me far away from anything remotely resembling a comrade, afraid I’d ask questions. But there must be more to my skills than hunting and embedding the trackers.
“Most are returned if found to harbor just cheap elemental magic or trickery. The others? Well, I hope you never have to find out. So the need for discretion, to keep our little operation fully staffed, is most important. And it’s not just in the North, though the walled town you’re heading to is one of the worst for concealment, second only to the queens’ territory.
“You’re a dying breed, one that is being actively exterminated, and I would so hate to lose my little pet in such a manner. Don’t look so surprised, my love.” She pouted and fluttered her extended lashes, incorrectly reading my expression as fear and not curiosity. “There’s always something being coveted. It used to be seers, then mediums, and now it’s dark magic. Blood magic. It’s a tale as old as time.”
As old as you are then. Thank the Goddess I said it in my head and not out loud. Although she knew what I was thinking. I could see it in the twitch of her lips.
She closed the distance between us, but I didn’t pull back, refusing to cede my airspace. It was a narrow line, but she liked that I walked it.
“Well, here you are.” She withdrew a small portrait from the pleated folds of her skirt, a trail of glitter impregnating the air behind it. “He will be easy to find, and the position is all set for you once you arrive. All you need to do is get in, be discreet, and I’ll find you when you’re done. So, really, you should try and look more grateful my dear, shouldn’t you?”
She’d removed the only parts of the bounty I enjoyed. Given me a stationary target, well-known, impossible to miss. She’d completely eliminated the hunt and the chase, leaving me with only the kill. All I had to do was get in and get out without being noticed? A shiver wriggled down my spine. It would never be that easy.
“What position am I taking?”
“Oh no, no, no.” Her red lips split into a grin, her perfectly straight teeth too bright for the grim night. “That would be far too simple, don’t you think?” She placed a heavy coin purse on the fallen tree beside me and backed toward the far end of the clearing in the way she had come, and the way she knew I needed to go. “But you know where to find me if you need help, don’t you, my dear Tam? And of course, what I would just love in return.”
She raised her palm and blew me a kiss. A puff of lily-sweet scent glided past my lips and coated my mouth. My stomach churned again.
I looked down at the picture in my hand and my heart stuttered. I knew him. Even through the miserable gloom and the rough edges of the glitter, that face was unmistakable. Everyone in the country knew him—Prince Bellinor, the only child of the queens. He was supposedly perfect. Not just in looks, but with a soul of pure diamond. Humble, generous, and more ferociously guarded than the Goddess’s pearly gates.
That’s why she’d given me six weeks. It would be six weeks spent dodging the gallows, wriggling my way out of a charge of high treason. If I were to be arrested, would Siobhan save me? She’d know about it, maybe even orchestrate it. Hidden amongst a distant stone circle, she'd wait for me to utter her name with my dying breath, begging her to save me.
If that was her plan, she’d be waiting a long time.
Although, she could equally just let me die, as punishment for every time I’d rejected her advances. She must have quite a tally going by now. Maybe she’d wait until I descended the brimstone ladder into Hell and snatch me from the very front of the ragged line of people and bind me to her in the nonexistent realm she’d inhabited for eternity. I shuddered. That would be worse than death.
I pocketed the coin purse and threw the portrait into the woods.
CHAPTER THREE
SEVERING THE ILLUSION
The journey north took me three days on horseback. Siobhan had ruined my mood with her appearance and the long trek over empty moorlands ate into a huge chunk of my imposed time limit. If that wasn’t enough, I had to pay for a horse out of my earnings.
The coin purse clinked in my pocket as the mare plodded up and down the dales. Twenty-five gideons, although a pretty generous sum, was already almost half gone. Five for the horse, five for food, a skin of water and hardy wool-lined clothing, then a further five for a myriad of small knives and a leather thigh holster. If I'd been attacked en route, they would have done me little good against the spears and sabers of the Moors people, but I felt safer knowing they were all strapped within easy reach and invisible to an onlooker.
Mist rose amongst the brown gorse and purple heather like specters clutching at the ground, desperate not to be dragged up into the skies. Permafrost leeched into the soil, causing the heavy hoof falls of my mount to crack like ice. I stroked the soft brown fur of her neck, inhaling the sweet smell of hay from her mane.
“We’ll stop for a rest soon, Siobhan.” I patted her gently. “I’ll get you the finest lodgings in the city.” I smiled to myself, content with my choice of name. I’d thought it amusing to imagine riding Siobhan until she collapsed, having her be unable to keep up with me. Me! But then I realized I actually quite enjoyed the horse’s company, her soft whinnies and faithful companionship. Also, she had stubbornly refused to get involved in any of my jokes, which was very sensible. Being trapped between a devil and a human when you were only a beast was a very unsafe place to be.
Just as the cold finally penetrated my marrow, congealing the very essence of my core, the edge of the city arose from the mist. I wrapped my numb fingers around the worn leather reins and urged my horse toward the serpentine path leading up to the wall.
From a distance, the wall looked like any other, a dull expanse of gray that bisected the countryside. Up close, it was magnificent.
Stones of every size and shape, ranging from ebony to silver to gray were stacked baklava style like an expensive pastry that had been shipped from far overseas. Where there should be springy moss and signs of weathering, glittering facets of diamond sparkled, translucent and radiating light like the wall harbored its own lifeforce. A soul.
I whistled and Siobhan the horse snorted her approval.
We continued to the top of the path and halted at what I hoped was the gate. It looked like every other section of the wall, except for a small rectangular hole where a set of suspicious looking eyes peered out.
“Three gideons to enter Prince Bellinor’s land.” A gloved hand appeared in the slot where the eyes had just been. The fingertips poked through the fabric, bitten nails and worn skin chafed to a shiny red.
“Three?” I rarely ventured north. In fact, the last time I was here there was no wall, but it wasn’t three, that much I knew. Probably one, at most. The temples, seers, and blind faith in omens that increased with every footfall up the country usually had me scurrying back to the warm, free lands of the South. I’d falsely assumed their piety would have made them more hospitable to strangers. Maybe Siobhan had told them to up the fee, that they could keep the excess for themselves. She had sway everywhere.
The hand remained, fingers twitching in impatience.
