“Why? You didn’t kill him,” I snarl. “And he’s not my father.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Still, there’s no need for more bloodshed. We can all benefit here.” He motions at the barrel with his raised hand. “Let’s just split whatever’s in there and call it a day. I’m sure there’s enough in there for all of us. Cut our losses.”
I stare at him, unsure of what to do.
In the distance, the sound of boots echoes through the inner streets of the Sleeve. The Blackcoats are on the way.
CHAPTER SEVENEBAN
I circle the girl. Curious faces pop up in windows across the road. The commotion is drawing an audience. I need to make a move, now. I could get rid of herandclaim the entire treasure for myself. It wouldn’t even be hard. One swipe of the blade and me and Vergel would be set for life on this trove of riches. Only, I’d vowed I’d never to do anything to harm one of my own people. The girl is Ophir, that much is obvious, being a desperate thief. And I’m not one to break my promises, especially those made to myself.
Although with the way her eyes are flashing at me, I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t surprise me with a quick stab to the throat. She’s a slight thing, scrawny, with a fierce look to her face—all angles. Nut-brown skin and dark hair like mine. More striking than pretty. Not like the delicate flowers of the Laconian elite. She’s a vine, tough and twisted. I can’t help but admire her courage.
Another blare of the whistle. The din of heavy boots on cobblestone grows louder. The Blackcoats will come crashing around the corner any minute.
I point to the barrel. “Open it.”
At first, she looks surprised at the change of tone, then sort of satisfied. Like she didn’t think much of me and she was right. I’m just a jerk like everyone else she’s ever met. Around here, even the smallest shred of kindness is seen as more suspicious than charming.
Zagar better not have lied to us. There should be a king’s ransom in there. He said he expects mountains of gleaming gold coin, but it’s equally possible the barrel is filled with dirty old pyrite dredged up from the sewer. Maybe some broken costume jewelry, snatched off middling merchants and their wives. Which would still be a respectable haul regardless; it could be sold in the marketplace, or even to one of the pawnbrokers.
The girl hasn’t budged. “I said, open it,” I command again, louder this time. All I hear are the pounding boots.
She glares at me.
She obviously has some experience with night work; I was surprised to find we weren’t alone. I never even heard or saw them until they pounced. If that wasn’t her father, likely she’s been apprenticing under the dead old man for a while.
She relents and inches toward the barrel.
“Come on, open it and take what you want, or do you really want to hang?” The sun is just about to peek over the horizon. We’re wasting time, standing around with a barrel full of stolen goods and dead bodies strewn at our feet with the Blackcoats thundering our way.
She gives me a wary look but obeys, grabbing the end of the barrel and twisting the handle to loosen it. The first try doesn’t do anything, so she tries bracing her bootheel against it and using all her strength to turn it. I have to admit I’m impressed—I didn’t think she was that strong.
Another whistle blares.
This time, the lid to the barrel loosens. She spins it the rest of the way until it pops off, then jumps back, as if she expects it to explode.
“What is it?” As I ask the question, I notice an incandescent blue light glowing from within that feels oddly familiar. Still, there’s something otherworldly about the light coming from the barrel. I’ve seen wood and metal glow. Sometimes a flame that burns brightly is blue in color, but this is no flame and the hue is deep and dark like the endless ocean depths. And the light does not flicker like a fire; instead it pulses and shimmers, awakening something within me. I have never seen a light like this, yet it feels somehow familiar.
“What is it?” Vergel asks, incredulous.
I don’t answer him. I approach the barrel cautiously. The girl stands farther back, staring at the open barrel. The glow gets brighter. There seems to be a faint hum along with it.
An ornate glass bottle rolls out of the barrel, and I pick it up and look at it carefully.
There’s something inside it—something alive—and I nearly drop it. But no, I’m wrong, it’s not alive. It’s something ethereal, trapped in the bottle. Like a ghostly spirit.It can’t be.
Once she sees what I have, the girl rushes forward and reaches inside the barrel and pulls out a similar jeweled bottle. She holds it up to look through it. “I can hear it,” she whispers. She turns to me, eyes wide, her wariness forgotten for the moment. “I can hear a voice!”
I don’t know what to say. This can’t be what I think it is. In the kingdom of Ophir, before the fall, such things were said to exist. Spirits of ancestors that lived in jeweled vessels. Spirits that linked our people to the power of the gods.
But those were only stories. Legends.
I only half believed them.
Ophir spirits were a source of magic that was said to be more powerful than an army of pikemen in plate armor, more devastating than an armada of gleaming ships stocked with soldiers and cannons.
Inside the barrel are more glowing jeweled bottles. Unless I’m hallucinating, the barrel is filled with relics from the lost city of Ophir. Our stories said that spirit vessels were once kept in the kingdom’s Grand Hall, but they were destroyed or lost in the war.
