1
Superstitions
Most days, Brela woke up and chose violence. Today was proving to be no exception.
She cursed for the fourth time. She only knew because Elias was counting, those fingers flashing up before she’d even finished hissing the four letter word. That sly grin also meant he had taken the higher bet against Farrah.
Seeing as they had only just broken into Lord Gerrart’s townhouse, that number was guaranteed to increase exponentially. Especially because that burning on her hand and over her skin could only mean one thing.
Hellthorn.
If Gerrart was superstitious enough to have hellthorn laced into the woodwork around his windows, he was definitely hiding a treasure inside. Not that his superstition was needed nowadays, seeing as the shadow-kind were either dead or safely hidden behind the Veil wall. Even the Worshippers never left the ruins of Valisea, but their obsidian pieces wouldn’t react like this to the hellthorn poison.
Brela checked the fabric around her chest, even though she knew that her shirt and mask covered the obsidian embedded in the skin below her collarbone. She was halfway through inspecting her outfit when she remembered the emergency shadow stone she had hidden in the pocket along her wrist. No wonder her hand had burned more violently than normal.
She gripped her fist and glared into the room at Elias. His grin remained, as did those four fingers he held up, almost like he was tempting her to swear again so he could add his thumb to the count.
She couldn’t even remember the first two curses—probably something to do with the muggy weather and the all black and stuffy mask that made breathing nearly impossible. The third was because she was positive that she’d seen something lurking in the gardens as they snuck through the gates of Gerrart’s home. Only a fool would ignore moving shadows, so she delayed their heist another twenty minutes while she scoured every inch of that shrubbery maze just to make sure they weren’t being watched.
It’s not like they didn’t have time. Gerrart was painfully predictable in his excessive alcohol consumption. Plus, tonight fell on the start of the Earth Festivalandhis weekly visit with his lovely courtesan Lorana, so he wouldn’t be returning any time soon.
Elias finally walked back to the window, his massive body not making a single sound. Just like Brela, he was in a sleek black suit, fitted with more deadly knives and poisons than the entire Rooke Guard combined. Not that he needed any of those blades when his earth-blessed strength resided in the very defined muscles that were visible in that black outfit, even in the dark. Sometimes Brela forgot how big he was when he moved so gracefully, but those broad shoulders were impossible to ignore and easily the highlight of his features. It was a miracle he fit through the window in the first place.
He leaned forward and inhaled the windowsill, his square jaw tensing at the subtle pine and pepper scent. Elias would go to the grave before admitting his affinity was for herbal magic, not brute strength, but the cringe of his nose was enough to make him feel guilty for teasing her earlier.
Brela turned back to the gardens, rubbing her palm as Elias dug his dagger into the wood to break the seal. It’s not that she couldn’t handle the burn, if she was prepared for it, but diving through the window without knowing how much hellthorn had been used could leave her sick for weeks. She couldn’t afford the risk. Not when she had debts to pay to Ovir.
That’s part of the reason they were here tonight. Gerrart was an easy target; he wouldn’t miss the gold and silver they stole tonight. He hadn’t noticed the missing coins and jewels Farrah had stolen the last time she was here—enough to feed the three of themandthe kids for a month—but the presence of hellthorn meant he knew what sort of artifact he had in his possession.
That was the second reason Brela wanted this job, not that Ovir would give it to anyone else when he knew what it meant to her. Gerrart was an outspoken supporter of the King of Anfroy’s bloodlust against Valisea. His riches fueled the raids on the capital and the Veil Worshippers, he even joined those raids on occasion like it was a sport. Then he’d turn around and auction the spoils of her home to the highest bidder in Anfroy. After that, the bastard would use those profits to fuel another attack.
This time, Gerrart had been foolish enough to keep one of those artifacts for himself, or maybe to sell to the Prince of Severina who was rumored to be growing his own collection of Veil history. The young prince was also staying with Lord Gerrart during the Earth Festival. Knowing the man had an eye for wealth, he was probably trying to start a bidding war between Severina and Anfroy for the object.
But whatever Gerrart had in his possession didn’t belong to him, and it was valuable enough for the superstitious monster to protect his home against a magic-kind that no longer existed. Even if her reputation as a thief and assassin—the Night Terror—had spread through Rooke, no one suspected where she came from or what cursed magic that Veil shard had burned into her blood, so what was he so afraid of that he resorted to hellthorn over armed guards?
Elias finished breaking the seal. He gave the wood a few more scrapes as a joke, making it look like the claws of the mythical celvusa had scratched the windowsill—which would undoubtedly add to Gerrart’s irrational fear when he discovered the break in—before tucking the blade away at his thigh and motioning for Brela to take his hands.
Shoving down her grumbling about the most undignified break in she’d ever participated in, she let him grip her wrists as she nodded, diving forward as he pulled her through the threshold.
The burn of hellthorn hissed against her skin, traveling from her scalp down into her toes as she passed through. She tensed, trying to keep her focus on clearing the wood because touching it would only make that pain worse.
She wasn’t small or light—and definitely not with all the weapons strapped to her body—but Elias caught her as if she was a twig. His arms could have folded around her waist twice as he held her against his chest, her legs wrapping around his torso to avoid kicking the desk behind him and making more noise. It was all she could control since the hellthorn still had a dizzying effect on her mind, even with a broken seal.
That left her staring at Elias’s dazzling emerald eyes—a stark difference from her pale gaze that luckily passed as blue when she didn’t use her cursed magic.
As if she wasn’t already the most wanted assassin and thief in Rooke, those crimes would still only get a woman thrown in the dungeons or sent to the Boneguard labor camps between Severina and Itherel. At least there would be a chance of escape there. Imagine if they discovered that her eyes were really purple thanks to the shadow-cursed magic that had infected her from the embedded Veil shard in her chest. She’d be hunted by everyone in the empire. There would be no escaping that death—she’d rather hunt beasts in the Crystal Desert sands than face the torture of being a shadow-cursed.
“You guys really couldn’t wait until we were done before jumping each other? At least have the decency to invite me next time,” Farrah teased, strolling through the doorway as she flipped a poison dart between her fingers. Her blue eyes glinted with mischief, though it probably had more to do with her itching for another target with that poison dart in her hand. “The entire house will be asleep for two hours at least. I can’t wait to see the wanted posters for Warley and Ripley tomorrow morning.”
Brela blinked away the stinging of her eyes as the burning turned to a light tingling through her body. She tried to ignore Elias as he continued to study her, not willing to release her knowing she’d just fall flat on her face once her legs touched the floor. She’d never admit that she needed his stability, and he’d never say it out loud either. He knew the fear and survival instincts that would kick in if he let go, and that would only put her in more danger.
The fog in her mind was dull, but she still went through her process to push the rest of the dizziness out. She ran through the plan just like she had done while the three of them had made enough poison darts to put the entire street to sleep.
Farrah was the smallest of them, and the most skilled with her blowgun, so she had entered through the kitchens. It had been her idea to use finola poison to knock out the staff, since that was the calling card of their rivals Warley and Ripley. Gerrart would be hiring every private assassin and collector to hunt them down once he discovered his stolen treasure was missing.
Hells, he might unknowingly hire the Night Terror—the very woman who stole from him—to hunt those men. How exciting wouldthatbe?
Brela and Elias were supposed to have already finished searching the library they had entered in, but the delay wasn’t anything to be concerned about yet. Now that Farrah had finished with her tasks, they had an extra set of hands before they moved to Gerrart’s private office. Things were still going smooth enough.
