Page 32 of Mistress of Bones
XXII
AZUL
Azul regained consciousness as she was being carried over someone’s shoulder.
She could barely breathe, the constant jostling making her head swirl and her stomach roll.
Escaped tendrils from her braid did their best to obscure her vision, but she still spotted the high boots of her captor, caked with mud—dry, unfortunately, and leaving no trace on the mosaic of beige floor tiles.
Pushing against her captor’s back, she managed to lift her head and saw a second kidnapper. Lo and behold! The woman wore a mask hiding the upper half of her face.
“She’s awake,” the woman said.
“I know,” the one carrying her answered between huffs.
The position she had taken was too straining and not all that useful, so Azul allowed her head to droop again and closed her eyes against the nausea.
Her hands fisted onto the man’s waistcoat.
She sensed a breeze and heard street noises below—they must be going through one of the high bridges connecting buildings—then it was back into a closed hallway.
Time to bring in reinforcements, she decided.
Hadn’t she already planned for this very contingency?
Concentrating on one of her two remaining tethers, she followed the tugging sensation all the way to the small mouse.
It could sneak into any building and gnaw her free of any ropes they might use to bind her, as well as provide a good distraction for her to break away.
But the mouse was looking at the woman Enjul had contacted, so Azul hesitated to call it back.
Had the small rodent kept track of the woman, instinctively following Azul’s wishes to know more about Enjul’s business with her?
She was dipping bread in a bowl of soup at a bare-bones kitchen, the scents waking a hunger in the animal.
Azul got the feeling that the place was familiar to the mouse already, so it must be the woman’s residence.
A sudden halt had Azul bounce hard against her captor and snap her attention back to her body. She peered around. They had stopped in an unfamiliar corridor. She heard a door open.
She was lowered to the floor and helped toward a chair. Azul dropped onto it, hands covering her stomach and her mouth as she waited for the room to stop spinning.
“What’s this business?” she managed.
The other captor, the one who hadn’t been carrying her and thus wasn’t panting and wiping sweat off her own face, flicked Azul’s earring.
Azul reeled back, too shocked to swat the woman’s hand away.
“We must ask you to stay put,” she said politely but with plenty of amusement, for, really, where would she go? “while our employer requests an audience with the Marquess de Gracia.”
“Couldn’t they simply ask?” Azul retorted.
“Oh, they’ve tried, believe me. My employer is regretful that such measures must be taken to secure your brother’s cooperation, but there was no other way.”
Azul narrowed her eyes. “And if my brother refuses?” They hadn’t taken her dagger, though they could’ve. They hadn’t harmed her, other than by the nature of jostling her over a shoulder.
“Then I guess you’ll grow to enjoy these quarters.”
With that sentiment, they exited the room. The snick of the lock was loud in the following silence, and she had no doubt at least one of them would remain behind to guard the door.
Sancia, a land where who you were, what you could achieve, was nothing compared to what you could do for others. Azul massaged her forehead. She had no qualms in using others, but it was wearing thin that what Azul could do for others far outweighed what anyone was doing for her .
Once her head cleared and her stomach settled, she leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes again.
The woman had finished her repast and was now out of her house.
The mouse followed, hungry and fearful of possible predators but stubborn in its pursuit, and Azul felt a pang of guilt.
She hadn’t meant to impress her will quite so forcefully on the small animal.
She had assumed it’d be fully its own after she had withdrawn from its mind.
Something to be watchful for, and something she was grateful hadn’t happened with Isadora.
Isadora’s will was indomitable, her zest for life and adventure unparalleled. No one could control her mind.
Azul followed the mystery woman for as long as she dared, noting the streets she passed, distorted through the mouse’s sight, trying to memorize any recognizable spot.
Then, returning to her present predicament, she abandoned the chair and approached the window. She was on a second floor, facing a shadowed alleyway. Climbing down would be a tricky endeavor.
But no need for such extremes.
Taking out Nereida’s dagger, she went to the door and banged on it. “Open up!”
“Be silent, you screech,” was the response.
She kept up the banging, then stepped to the side. “Open up unless you want the whole town to hear!”
She heard the bolt sliding back. The door opened inward to reveal the man who had carried her, his expression irate. “Shut up, or I’ll make you.”
Azul slid into the opening and slammed into the man with her shoulder. He grunted in surprise and stumbled back. She used the opportunity to twist and bring the pommel of the dagger right into his groin. And when he doubled over in pain, she brought it down on the back of his head.
The man dropped to the floor. She considered dragging him into the room not to arouse suspicion, but then, if this hallway had any visitors, they wouldn’t have chosen it for keeping her prisoner.
Hiding Nereida’s dagger, she stepped over the man and hurried down the corridor until she found a set of stairs that led into the streets.
It had begun to dawn on Azul that it wasn’t such a good idea that only her brother, Nereida, Enjul, and a mouse had any sort of vested interest in her existence.
Truthfully, Azul wasn’t sure how much her brother would give up for her safety, for all that he appeared happy to have her around.
He wasn’t trying very hard to grant her wish to visit the ossuary.
And although she was fairly certain Nereida would give finding her a try if Azul were to disappear, how long would that last?
And the emissary? Enjul would likely thank his god for saving him the effort of having to do away with her.
That knowledge somehow smarted the most.
No, better to have one more person, someone unrelated to her small group, who might find it curious if Azul were never to be heard from again.
Once she had put some distance between herself and the house, Azul picked one of the girls peddling wares and asked her to deliver a message.
“You’ll know he’s the correct one because he won’t answer you, no matter how much you ask, but he might look alarmed once you tell him who the message is from,” she told the girl. “And tell him to bring his boss along.”
The headquarters of the blue tabards was an elegant building forming an L around a small plaza.
Situated on the west side of town, not too far from the Temple, it was two stories tall and reminded her of the ambassador’s sprawling estate, only smaller and more concentrated.
A handful of trees, such a rare sight in this crowded place, shadowed some tables on one side of the plaza.
Blue tabards were making good use of them, while others lounged in what few other shadows they could find.
Azul supposed most guards were inside with the cooler air, or performing their duties around the city.
Dusting the front of her skirts, she walked up to one of the tabards guarding the wide main entrance.
“What do you want?” he asked, not very politely.
Making sure her head was tilted just so, Isadora’s earring on full display, she answered with, “I am the Marquess de Gracia’s sister, Azul del Arroyo, and I seek an audience with Captain de Macia.”
The piece of Anchor did the trick, and she was ushered into the great entrance, where a few wooden benches had been provided for waiting visitors.
She sat, tucked away against a wall, and studied the magnificent staircase leading up to the second floor, its faded rug silencing the noise of blue tabards’ boots as they hurried up and down the steps.
A few other civilians milled around with worried visages, their mouths set in tight lines.
Soon, she focused on the hardwood of the floor under her ankle boots.
Such a strange thing for it not to be tile or marble or some other polished stone.
It was beautiful, even if scratched and scuffed with use, but so odd. And Azul, so cowardly.
She didn’t want to know if the necromancer’s victim wearing a blue tabard she had spied during the exhibition was around. She didn’t want to know if she was in the building or what she looked like up close. She didn’t want to unintentionally run into her, chance a bump of their skins, and then…
Then another corpse due to her.
The thought gave Azul pause. Zenjiel and the two people at the exhibition… If there were three victims, there were likely more. How powerful was the other necromancer, to raise all these people? Did this person have any soul left?
And more important, if the necromancer were to see Isadora once returned and recognize her for what she was, would they end her life in retribution for Azul ending Zenjiel’s?
Azul swore to herself she would not allow this. She would hide Isadora from Enjul and from the other necromancer, have her smuggled out in the middle of the night so nobody would see.
But Enjul’s search might be for nothing. The other necromancer might already be dead, soul spent, and those they had brought back gone on without them. What a relief to imagine that Isadora could remain were Azul to meet her end.