Page 2 of Deadly Maiden (Dragons and Darkthings #1)

Wyntre

The jostling is harsh as Landos and I descend the pedestrian ramp. Tens of townsfolk from their town of Bellamy are going up while we are going down.

“Did you see what’s arrived on the trade ramp?” Landos says.

I nod my reply, not bothering to itemize the household furniture, the stone statues, and various other heavy wedding gifts, wrapped in canvas, cloth and ribbons. It must be a big wedding for someone high tier in the Aos Sin to be transporting that much.

For me to miss spotting all that would be odd, but Landos knows this. Observation, analysis, reaction or conclusion are oft-repeated words from my past lessons with him—my extra lessons, apart from schoolwork. The same three keys were drummed into me in his instructions on weaponry handling and fighting. I may not be good at fighting, or even great, but I learned to stick people where it counts with the pointy end.

I used to fantasize that Landos was an assassin in his previous life. Before me.

“Where are we going?” I skip downward to catch up, dodge a bewhiskered, wide-girthed gentleman carrying a valise who tries to nudge me into the safety railing. My legs have grown, but Landos’s strides are still longer. A servant trots after the gentleman. Neither gives me enough room.

I briefly consider tripping one or the other.

“And?” he insists.

A spot of rain splatters onto my face. My boots touch ground—the weird stuff that doesn’t move.

“It was a wedding, of course. Much ado about becoming chattels to each other.”

He cracks a laugh that etches familiar lines about his mouth, strokes his small, salt-and-pepper beard. My father’s grimness is usually fleeting.

“It might rain.” He looks upward. “Three hours and the town starts moving. Four to sunset.”

We take a right-hand fork in the road that puts us on a heading toward the outskirts of the town. How creepily still is this land. My legs want the subtle thump and rumble of the golems beneath our town. For a few seconds, I’m disorientated.

I breathe in and out, remembering my land legs.

The writing on the mold-blackened sign with the thick directional arrow is barely legible.

GRAVEYARD .

At least it is not nighttime. Apart from the tree limbs and storm clouds dabbing us with shadow, light bathes the graveled road. The ruts to either side would be from the carts bringing coffins and mourners. We are alone—no one in front, and no one follows us. A wedding is the opposite to what we are heading for.

Landos never married. I’m not sure how I would have responded if he had chosen to do that. I value his presence, his love. I’ve seen other fathers, what they do with their children, and he is the best. Despite the lack of blood between us, he’s my father and always will be.

“Why are we going to a graveyard? I’ve helped you craft swords, ploughshares, and nails, but this?”

Helped is the truth. Though the sword at my hip did suffer some blows from a hammer I wielded, I’ve never been comfortable with the potent fire that is born and coaxed to great heat in the smithy.

Threat lurks in the curls of those slick, orange tongues of flame.

“Are we testing…shovels?” Gods forbid. I am not digging grave holes.

“No.” He hitches his haversack higher on his shoulder. Something inside clinks.

“Today is my birthday, and I’ve no idea why I said that.”

“Because this is your day? Twenty is a significant number, and it does have somewhat to do with that.” He invests that with weightiness.

“What?” I stop for a moment then hurry onward. “I know you’re not giving me a gravestone as a present. Or…apprenticing me to a gravedigger?” That last is actually possible.

He tut-tuts , shakes his head. “Really? Wyntre, do you believe me so awful?”

I rest my hand on his forearm. “Sorry.”

“Apology accepted. Though my heart feels the blow.” Hand on chest, he mock staggers.

I snort at his antics.

My class has completed its schooling. To their dismay, two of my friends have had outsider employment offered to them—arranged by their parents. There are few places left for us to work on Bollingham and other golem towns. Once a gweller, always a gwelle r is no longer a motto we live and die by.

We. That’s not really me. Sadly. None of my friends were born to outsiders, none came from the Battle of Orish newly bestowed with the orphan label. Parents dead and a mystery. I was lucky Landos found me, but I wish he knew more.

Twenty years. The date of my true birthday is a guess, so we’ve always used the day he found me. That is making me morbid. This should be a day for celebrating, but a crawling notion of some imminent doom hangs in mid-air, behind me, above…somewhere beyond my reach.

I may never know who my parents were, except that Landos believes they were on the side of the Usurper, the Chained King, because of where he found me.

I’m never sure how to handle their allegiance.

“And no. I’m not getting rid of you,” he reaffirms. “Think.”

Think? What have I to go on? Have I seen anything?

This morning…that device he’s been working on for a year, with a curved metal handle and intricate moving parts. It rests near the haversack. Though not bladed, it has a small-bore tube attached to the handle and a crystal slotted into the right side.

A gun, he said it was. I bend my mind to recalling the pieces.

A tilting switch beneath is the same as the trigger on a crossbow.

There is a snake-and-pink-blossom toggle flattened to the left side. He’s been assembling the parts for months, and I know it must be a weapon. Because that is what we make.

“I saw that gun near your pack? Is that something to do with this?” We’ve reached the gates, and I wave at the arched board above us. It displays the name, Bellamy Cemetery . How can that device be connected to this?

“Correct. I wish you to become a partner in the smithy and this”—he pats the side of the haversack—“may become an important part of the business.”

“Oh.” My eyebrows pop up. I know of no other female entrusted with a blacksmithing operation. No matter that he has been training me. I do not to speak about my fear of the flames. He knows of it. “Really?”

“Really.”

The other point niggles at me…that the cemetery is somehow a part of blacksmithing?—

“You are ready. You are a daughter to me and old enough to take on this responsibility. I could not wish for anything more than this—for us to be partners. Come. We are to meet a man in there.”

This has to be illegal. I hesitate before asking, “Necromancy? Hundreds of times, you have told me never to dabble in such magik.” My crap-o-meter stirs.

Since I was a toddler and could speak, he told me this…before the age anyone could be expected to show such skills. If anything, his insistence made me too curious.

“It is not necromancy.”

“Ah. Good.” For a moment, I wondered if he’s seen Anathema. He hides well, but the possibility cannot be ignored. One day it will happen, and then explaining how he was brought into existence is going to be problematic. I’m not sure Anathema is necromancy, but he might be?

Once we are through the gate, the tombstones begin to dot the ground in pale embellishments—I imagine them extruding upward, pushing aside the earth, nightly, when no one is watching. They advertise the inevitability of our demise.

I’ve always been a little obsessed with death. I’m not sure this was normal for a teenager.

We pace by this pallid army of silent soldiers.

Curved grave markers and circles of stone on small pedestals of rock, Xes with circle frames, and off to the left stands a door sunken in a square ashlar wall of dressed stone. That is a proper tomb. Bones are down there, stripped of flesh by time, decay, and insects. Only some of these graves around us are fresh.

You are sure Anathema is necromancy, my subconscious butts in to inform me.

Fuck. I do not want that to be true.

My mind blows awake, starkly bare, to the fact that I know what is beneath each grave. The newly buried, the long-forgotten skeletons, the in-betweeners.

If you’re here and dead, I know you.

This is how stupid my imagination gets sometimes. I reassure myself with that. It’s nothing but fantasy.

Landos speaks, jarring me from my nonsense. “I keep this quiet due to the conclusions some would jump to.”

“Of course.” I clear my throat. “So, we are meeting a man who deals in…”

“Ghosts. The collection of lost souls. Call this whatever you will except for necromancy.”

My stomach tightens, jittering. As we amble closer to this clandestine meeting, I buzz with unasked for energy. My fingertips begin to tingle, my fingers cool, and I clench hands into fists to warm them.

From above, storm clouds rumble. Light rain begins to dot the soft lawn underfoot and the pale gravestones.

Perhaps it is simply colder here. As rain-borne gloom descends, mist gathers in the cemetery’s lowest depression. Gravestones peek above, like ships at sea, lethal ships bearing lost souls who never figured out where they were supposed to go after they died.

I am suddenly afraid, not of what is here, but of what we are about to do. And perhaps of where this is taking me. A precipice is crumbling at my toes…the ethereal winds howling beneath me, screaming for me to…

Jump.

I shudder and crunch my fists tighter. Landos has never been a fae who breaks the law.

We’ve not spoken, for a long time, about how he came to be my father. His strict rule about keeping where we came from a secret has led to arguments, but I’ve come to understand why. The enforcers once dragged a man out of the smithy. They said he was a soldier for the Usurper.

What happened to him was never disclosed. The Aos Sin are supposed to respect the sanctuary of golem towns but in that case, they had permission.

Sometimes, the stoneborn golem-masters cave in to maintain the peace , Father said.

Twenty years is not long enough to forget the Usurper when the man is still alive, on the waterfront at Tensorga, chained and displayed. I guess that’s why they do it—to make us remember what he did and also to remember the punishment. Defy the Aos Sin and King Madlin and you pay, forever.

I heard they gag him with iron so the screams are muffled, and people can rest at night.

That’s not something Landos would ever have divulged to me, or not at a young age. It was gossip that came to my ears when I was ten years old.

I remember the day and his reaction. I told him I’d have let the Usurper die, if I had the power.

My statement upset Father—shock bloomed in his eyes. It was a gruesome thing for a ten-year-old to say. That was the same day I resolved to take care with what I said out loud.

Upsetting my father is not good. It feels wrong, and I want to protect him. He wants to do the same for me. Turn and turn about, as they say.

Anathema is one of those things I must keep from him.

“Here he is.” Father gestures as a man in dark clothes approaches, a bag slung over his shoulder.

“Greetings, again.” He ducks his head. No one speaks a name, as if both are afraid to let the other know their true name. “I have only one for you.” Then he draws from his bag a cloth-wrapped object. It is smaller than his palm, the size of a finger at most. He unwraps it to reveal a glass ampoule stoppered with a cork and bound with wire. The interior glows with a coiling, living blue-tinged whiteness.

Is this cloud? Mist? Some vaporous poison? No. It is not.

I know the contents. I would have done so even if Father had not given hints.

This is a ghost, a lost entity, a soul that has not passed on.

It whispers to me in sibilant echoes that wander into my mind and snake through, winding about my thoughts. The threads mingle and fade, louden and ripple, though nothing stirs the air with any modicum of sound.

It whispers of power and destruction, of the lure of Death and absolute nothingness. Of centuries of…something I cannot grasp or understand. My lips part. To my horror, darkness swirls about my fingers. I tuck my hands into the pockets of my jacket and stay mute.

Efficiently, they exchange goods for coin—the flash of gold awes me. Gold? Then we walk away, returning to the entrance.

What do I do? The question rattles about. Thankfully, the whispers fade once the tube is tucked into the haversack. I say nothing. Torn. Bewildered. Guilt thuds in my heart.

The rain stays light, and we are halfway to Bollingham when Landos lowers the haversack and halts.

“I saw that, Wyntre. I saw your hands. Show me them.”

Trembling, I slowly withdraw them from my pockets. My fingers are simply fingers. No darkness wriggles there. I should have known he would notice. “Observation, correct?” I try a wobbly smile.

“ Shhh. All is fine.” He meets my eyes, sighs, and shakes his head as if to say, well, here we are . “I always knew this might happen, though I thought we were past the dates it might surface. Twenty, hey?” He shrugs. “Yes, this is a significant year. Tonight, after your party, we will talk. Here is not the best place to convey meaningful stuff.”

“You knew ? Was today a test then?” I frown as I walk through the process he taught me. I join up the logic, aiming to draw a conclusion, then I dodge the final step. It cannot be that. “What did you know and why? Is this to do with my parents?”

“Yes.” His own smile is rueful. “Once I say it all, you will understand. We will sort out what to do afterward. And I have one thing for you that I saved. In the lockbox beneath the floorboards there is a key to an inheritance I hoped you would never need.”

I am speechless. I stand there with the trees swaying and swishing in a rising wind. Damp leaves scoot past us.

“I felt the ghost in that ampoule.”

“Yes. I assumed so.”

“And you won’t say more?”

“Patience.”

“Fuck me,” I whisper. He’s lied to me my entire life and now demands patience?

“Wyntre!”

“You’re angry. I swore, and you’re angry, but I have good reason to be angry also!” I draw my hands over my face. “Sorry. I will trust you.”

“Thank you. I wasn’t angry, just a bit shocked. You’re my daughter, still, and I’m having trouble with this, too. I hoped to spare you this.” He pulls one of my hands from my face, and I lower the other.

I haul in a breath. Now that hoped to spare you part, it was not reassuring.

“At least say something about that ‘gun’ as you call it. Yes? While we walk.”

“Very well.” He ushers me forward, and we continue onward, as if this is nothing more than a normal stroll. “Gheist pistol or gun. It is called that, yes. The Aos Sin mages have been researching how to make an object launch itself at speed toward an opponent using a device more compact than a bow. Whatever they did, it succeeded. I heard the rumors and decided to try to replicate this. I was handed a leaked document, a diagram, and I used that. The power source is scarce and hard for most to gather, but…”

I absorb what he is saying, but I’m running through what this means too. So Landos is copying the magetech. For a fae who always preached caution at me…why has he done this?

Curiosity? Need? I cannot imagine why.

“I was going to show you how to load the ghost into the crystal, but I was sidetracked.”

I nod. Almost but not quite necromancy. Hmmm.

“Can you show me now?”

“Here?” He sighs. “I will show the principles.” He lowers his pack, rummages in a pocket and holds up a small steel cylinder the size and shape of a fingertip. “This goes down into the tube, the barrel. The crystal is topped up with the concentrated essence of ghost, and when this…” He jiggles the curl of metal under the tube. “When the trigger is pulled, it causes compression of the crystal which releases energy. And that pushes the bullet of metal from the barrel.”

“And?” I frown at the pistol. “That is damaging?”

“It can drive a bullet of steel or brass through inches of rock, or through timber, or…I assume it could kill. This essence of ghost contains a variation of etharum, and they’ve named it gheist. They used to call it getharum, because its substance is related to the etharum used in most magik.”

“Okay. Tell me more? How does one pull it apart? What piece does what?”

“Curiosity. I like that. Let’s keep walking while we discuss this.”

Ghosts and gheist, getharum and etharum. My head spins. War and killing, always we fae seek better ways to kill. Maybe Landos truly was an assassin?

The rest of the way back to Bollingham, I ponder how this can be worth the bother when getting one ampoule of gheist is so difficult. Easier to hack at someone with a sword or a dagger. Or one could use a bow or a crossbow. A mage with a staff could do far worse, or so I have heard.

If today is a test and I failed it, would Father ever have told me my origins? I’m not sure I can be happy at my party this evening. While everyone sings Happy Birthday , I will be thinking and wondering.

That doom is still out there, waiting to pounce. Ridiculous as it is to think this.

Who were the people who made me?

He will still be my father, no matter what I learn. There is flesh and there is blood, and there is Landos. He kept me safe, taught me, helped me grow into what I am—a good and kind person.

I’m the sort of girl who doesn’t trip rich, ignorant people who elbow her on the ramp. Or mostly doesn’t.

I slip my arm into his and snuggle in as we tramp up-ramp into Bollingham. Sometimes, it surprises me that I have equaled Father’s height. Rhuy is here, waving in greeting, leaning on the railing. His black hair has been shaved at the sides. He’s smoking a cigarillo, also something his parents would disapprove of, and he eyes me up and down as if I’m already his.

We’ve only bedded once, but I can feel myself stir.

That sort of male arrogance is…interesting.

Rorsyd

The horse skitters beneath me. We dragonshifters rarely find a mount that likes us and remains calm. The town is in sight, grinding on its well-trodden, eons-hardened roadway. By late evening, we should catch up to it, leap aboard, and track her down.

Nothing grows on the golem-town routes. No plant would dare to try.

A day has passed since this Aos Sin patrol asked me to join them, to bolster their numbers, and to help them quell any dissent while we arrest a girl suspected of necromancy.

She has clearly done something while I was not watching her.

Is this Fate? It certainly feels so.

I won’t be letting them take her anywhere. She is my responsibility and so ingrained beneath my almost-scaled skin that it would be irresponsible to palm off her execution to these fools of fae.

Mine is the word I will be saying to them, soon.

I will say it as I step from her bloodied corpse.

Mine by right of a vow, twenty years old and cold.

Mine because I am a dragonshifter, and therefore what I claim is rock-solid, flame-hardened truth.

Despite my lack of shifting. And if they require proof?

I can fake it enough to convince them. Painful though it would be.

“There flies the raven!” Davyd, our sergeant-leader, points with his arm at full extension at the sky, at a small black dot of a bird. It heads for Bollingham. In a hushed tone he continues, “Its eye does burn with red.”

Does it? When I study the bird, a spot of bright red leaves a trail on my vision that gradually fades.

I rap the sides of my horse with my knees and draw level with the sergeant. “A raven?”

“Yes.” He frowns, thick blond eyebrows squeezing in. “I suppose it matters not if I say. It is reported to be a raven risen from the dead near the Fortress of Slaedorth. A lookout tower keeps watch on that place. The bird seeks the descendant of necromancers—the girl we are to arrest. Wyntre Diamond.”

“In essence…she committed some form of necromancy, and this triggered the bird to rise?” My innate need to understand the why and wherefore of things nudges me.

With a pointed yet respectful glance, he adds, “Nothing such has been reported. However, our mission is from the king.”

“But how was she identified as the target of this bird? It has not yet arrived.”

“It is said that a knowledgeable person brought out a map and a compass, and predicted the route of the bird and where it must intersect. This is the only place of note. The mountains and desert beyond them are nigh uninhabitable.”

“Go on.”

He clacks his teeth, makes a mildly annoyed smile, saying nothing. Our horses trot onward, kicking up clots of wet clay and gravel. The recent rain has made the trail messy and less safe for galloping.

“Please continue.” If not for my formidable nature, I’m sure he would’ve said nothing more, but my hand makes two of his and my claws have extruded. None of these fae are certain what type of shifter I am, and I prefer the uncertainty.

He notes my claws then clears his throat.

“The records show only one new child arrived in this town near the date they investigated. Her and a lesser fae of no magik who pretends to have fathered her, Landos Diamond.”

I nod and let the horse drift backward. Some clever geographer or mathematician is the reason for this mission. As well as whoever observed the rising of the raven. Diamond is the wrong last name, for both of them, but I don’t bother to correct him.

If the raven flies to her, it must have some message to convey. How it will do so is beyond my understanding, but likely we are too late to prevent that message from being delivered.

However, that she has done nothing save be the end destination of the raven, that does worry me more than any fanciful message.

Twenty years ago, I could have told them she was the child of Aislinn and Sabre Gothschild.