Page 15 of Deadly Maiden (Dragons and Darkthings #1)

Wyntre

Venin

The cobblestones under our boots are irregular, and a few are missing in this gap-toothed street full of farmers, tradespeople, and others who seem a little downtrodden by life. The stone-and-timber houses and shops crowd in, leaning from their upper stories, and a few are in ruins. At least Venin doesn’t smell of sewage and rotting food like some of the villages I visited with Landos.

We’re relieved to see no evidence of wanted posters, and we’re ahead of the enforcers. This has to be good.

“Your friend works here by choice? An illusionist?”

Rorsyd places a hand on my back, steering me around a pile of droppings—donkey or similar. “He’s hiding here, he told me. From an irate ex. I guess he thinks they won’t come looking in Venin.”

“Yet he finds customers?” I frown at a sign we pass. BOSWORTH, BOTTOM & RAMSBOTTOM . To the right of the text is an illustration of a toothily-grinning ram showing its bottom. “I’ve no idea what’s in there.” The windows are dirty as hell. “But I hope it’s bottoms.”

“Definitely. Illusionists find customers anywhere, Wyntre. I should put your bottom in there and see what I get.”

“ Pfft .” I poke my tongue at him. This is a new and wonderful thing—being able to joke with Rorsyd about almost anything. “So this Hunder can disguise us both?”

“He can. Here.” He speeds up, heading to the right where a small sign sits above a red door. ACCREDITED ILLUSIONIST.

I guess we aren’t going to an inn first.

Within is well-lit due to the big glass windows to left and right of the door actually being clean. Behind a desk, painting her arm, sits a young fae. Her face is pixielike, pointed of chin as well as ears. She lights up with a smile and rises as the door tinkles.

Her arm, I realize, as we near the desk with rucksacks in hand, has an animated scene of baby hedgehogs bouncing about. It repeats, looping over and over.

I peer at it. “Wow. That’s enchanting.”

“Hunder’s work?” Rorsyd enquires.

“Yes, it is. Beautiful, no?”

“Yes,” I butt in.

She looks from me to Rorsyd. “Would you like an appointment to see Ser Rekson?”

“To see Hunder?” Rorsyd raises his voice and shouts down the hallway behind her. “Hunder! Are you there? Come out or I’ll do something terrible to your waiting room!”

My blush strikes. The receptionist is equally shocked, from the widening of her eyes and fish-gulping mouth.

“Insufferable, isn’t he?” I shrug at her. Rorsyd has leaned on the right-hand corner of her desk and ignores us both as a door opens, a few yards in.

“Hunder!”

“Rorsyd, you bastard!”

They shake hands and thump each other’s shoulders while Daisy and I wait for them to settle—the name on her other arm is spelled in flowering blossoms. Least, I think it’s her name.

She sighs, smiles at me, and returns to dabbing at her arm with a small brush.

“Come in!” Hunder beckons to us. “Daisy, the next client isn’t for an hour. Keep the time clear. I’ve catching up to do. Rorsyd’s an old friend.”

“Yes, Ser. I’ll close the front door and put up a little notice.”

“That sounds grand, Daisy. You two can leave your gear here.”

Rorsyd shakes his head.

“Or not.” Hunder smirks. “I should have thought harder on that one.”

I decide to hold onto my rucksack too.

Gold, Rorsyd has gold in his. The sun exploding is more likely than for him to leave that where he cannot see it. Unless, I suppose, he can lock it up.

The open door in the hallway leads to a square room with a wide, timber-framed window. It holds a pair of brown leather couches, a large bookcase, silver sculptures of birds, and a white display plinth with a large globe in the likeness of Artreos. His illusionist art shows there, for it appears to revolve. The continents show the seasons changing—snow slowly spreads over the miniscule mountains, as does greenery. I swear a teensy herd of something gallops over one country.

We sit on a couch opposite him, and I let my hood fall back for the first time since we entered Venin.

“Rorsyd, am I detecting a hint of something between you two?” Hunder’s eyes are bright with curiosity. He adjusts his position on the couch and waggles thick eyebrows.

The illusionist wears grey stovepipe pants with a matching coat and a crisp white shirt. He has gorgeously thick black hair that haloes his head and brings out my hair envy. Silver cuffs and shoe buckles, the many rings on his fingers, these speak of wealth or the illusion of it.

How can one tell what is real? One of the golden rings changes as I watch.

“You do.” Rorsyd stretches his arm across the couch behind me, lets his hand drape over me at the angle of shoulder and neck. “This is Wyntre. Wyntre meet Hunder Rekson.”

The owning gesture instantly warms me, everywhere. Strange yet wonderful how easily his touch stirs me. I smile and hold his fingers for a moment, letting them slide through my finger and thumb.

“Excellent. Pleased to meet you Wyntre. Never thought I’d see you as a lovebird, Rorsyd. Make that a love dragon.” He winks at us.

So Hunder knows what Rorsyd is. He hasn’t shifted in twenty years. How old is their friendship? “You two know each other well?”

“Yes.” Hunder nods. “Forty years?”

“Forty plus,” Rorsyd rumbles. He looks to me. “Hunder is one of the few who knows me from before I was wounded at the Battle of Orish.”

“Mmm. Yes. Terrible day.” His face falls, and I decide not to probe that.

If Hunder was there, too… He will know who killed Orish. I’m not asking that. I’m still afraid to. My parents’ actions echo a long way through time.

They talk for a while about what they did together and how things were, and though I’m asked minor things, I mostly listen. This is the first moment where I’ve felt the weight of Rorsyd’s past, and it’s a revelation. Immortal, he can live almost forever, depending on circumstances. I don’t, cannot, really understand how that must feel.

To live forever.

To have a friend, who should have been around forever, die in front of you. I wrap my mind around an inkling of a suggestion as to why Rorsyd wished to kill me. And I forgive him completely. If there were a shred of blame left in me, it has gone, whisked away, stamped out.

I snuggle into his side, and eventually the conversation veers into why we are here.

“To get a disguise? Should I want to know why?” Hunder is looking at me more than Rorsyd.

I don’t dare to say anything. I don’t know what he can be trusted with.

Rorsyd clasps my knee, squeezes. “You know that I worked with the enforcers? I quit with extreme…actions. People died.”

“I do know this. That you were one. And they are not the force they used to be. The Aos Sin, the king, and his enforcers are doing bad and naughty things. To put it somewhat more lightly than they deserve. People are impoverished, suffering, and are being persecuted for doing almost nothing wrong.” He frowns. “Am I surprised? No. And what about Wyntre? May I ask?”

Another knee squeeze. I purse my lips and wait.

“I trust you, Hunder, but maybe you shouldn’t know why? That way you can easily deny knowing?”

“Very well.” He nods then whips into business. “Then onto the disguise. The blue hair. Easy. I will keep the length. Small changes in the face, pointier ears, as that’s more the average fae. Nothing else needs altering?”

“I don’t think so?” When I look to him, Rorsyd agrees.

“Then there is you, my dear boy. Hmmm .”

I bite back a laugh at my Rorsyd being called a boy. My Rorsyd. Where did that come from?

I’m pulled back into the chat by Rorsyd exclaiming, “My eyes? Why my eyes? Just my build lessened, my hair a bit duller. That should do it.”

Hunder switches to me. “Has he not seen it?”

I’m lost then understanding hits me. “Wait. Did he not always have those eyes?” I’ve missed something, but I don’t know what it is that I do not know.

“They were brown, since the battle.”

My mouth is a huge O . Rorsyd is squinting and scowling at us both, his brow furrowed.

“There. Look at yourself.” Hunder points to where a half-length mirror hangs on the wall behind to a decorative table.

As if fearing a bite, Rorsyd rises and approaches cautiously. Then he stands before the mirror, wordless for ten or twenty seconds. “Fuck.” The whispered curse carries.

A little confused, I join him. Shoulder to shoulder at the mirror, I stare at his reflection. “They’ve been like that whenever I saw them—on fire.”

“Oh, Wyntre.” His smile is weak, and thoughts are obviously chasing about inside his mind, ones I must wait for him to say aloud. Whatever this is…

“Is it something dangerous?”

“No.” He pulls me to him and plants a sweet kiss on my forehead. “Let’s get this done. Not a word, Hunder, I will tell her afterward.”

“Of course.” He speaks to me. I must look upset. “Sorry, my dear. Now. Let me get my gear. Haha. Please wait in the middle of the floor, both of you.”

When he leaves the room, I look askance at Rorsyd.

“Later.” His shoulders heave as he draws a long breath. “Once we have a room at an inn, I will explain. Okay?”

“Okay.” My mind is boiling with questions.

I have ideas, make that one idea, but surely I’m wrong? Shifters are known for what I’m thinking. I detour about the thought. No. I will wait. Dragonshifters, there are too few of those for much to be known about their…innards, by anyone, even me.

Hunder returns, arms full of pots of what appears to be paint, brushes, and a basket with two fine, chain necklaces. He brings one to each of us. Below a gold medallion a crystal hangs by a gold link. A warnite crystal. I can detect the etharum seething within the green-hued stone.

“This will still cost you, my boy.”

“I know.” Rorsyd is gruff, taciturn. “I have gold.”

“Of course. Now, be still. Neither of you will move unless it is to breathe. I need to hold this within my head. To see what and who you are.”

Knowing I can’t move, suddenly I have an urge to pee. I grimace. I will have to wait.

He extracts a pot and a brush, paints small designs on us in black and green, beginning at our feet. The symbols swirl and interlink. Mists infuse the air, swirling, conjuring new forms. Rorsyd transforms as Hunder dances lightly about him, exposing more of his skin, murmuring and painting, drawing more and more intricate pictures.

Hunder comes to me and rolls my leggings to knee level, apologizing as he does so.

Soon I am covered to my knees with his paint. My arms suffer the same fate, my face, my ears. The paint warms then cools. The air before my eyes blurs. Etharum is pulsing from the very floor itself, exuding upward from where Hunder pulls it—from deep within Artreos. The crystals, already fully charged, are ignored as the magik feeds into what is inscribed on our skin.

After an interminable period of this treatment, he steps back, paintbrush poised at neck height as he studies us. Then he deposits the brush and pot on a side table and wipes his hands with a rag.

“Done. My best work for you, Rorsyd.” He opens his arms and blows him a kiss. “You are both wonderful! Slightly smaller and less imposing, less colorful, but still pretty.” He grins.

Rorsyd grunts. “I’d eyeroll and smack you, but the paint might crack.”

“What paint? It’s no longer visible.”

I look down then across at Rorsyd, where the last traces are sinking into him. “Impressive.” Though probably not as impressive as reviving a dead man.

Or killing a dragon. Dang.

Rorsyd looks a tad shorter, a little less muscular, and his eyes are now a boring brown. I bite my lip, wishing this were not necessary.

I’m being ridiculous. I go to him then turn to the illusionist, a man who is perhaps one of the few people Rorsyd trusts.

“Thank you. For this. Truly.” I gesture at my front from breast to knees and bow to him. “You are a life saver.”

“Yes. She speaks the truth. We couldn’t travel onward without great danger without this.” Rorsyd enfolds me and pulls me back into him, crossing his arms over my breasts.

I tuck my face into his yummy arm, smelling him and, somehow, I resist licking him or nibbling. The glow this hug creates in me…if I were a cat, I’d be purring.

“I am a life saver?” Hunder says it slowly. “I’m not going to be depressing. I am not going to think further on that. I am happy to help. Now. Remember this. You will need to replenish the etharum if you need the disguises for longer than a few days. The crystals will use up all their power in that time. Take them off whenever you don’t need the disguise. The magik will not consume etharum if you are not wearing the crystals.” He sucks on his teeth. “You could ask any mage to do this, to replenish them, but then he will see your real selves.”

That is a limitation. I’m not sure where Rorsyd is aiming to go next, but three days is not much time.