Page 1 of The Malice of Moons and Mages (The Broken Bonds of Magic #1)

One

Audra

Western Thief

W ith its clean, tiled floors and bland but edible food, this was by far the most luxurious jail Audra had ever been in, and she’d sampled several. Even the guards were decent; none had raised a hand to her yet. Yet despite those small luxuries and the island’s temperate climate, Audra hated Callaway.

A small, gray shape skittered across the cell floor. Audra caught the thin mouse by the tail and held it aloft. Its broken whiskers danced, small teeth gnashing as it squirmed at the insult. Gently stroking its head, she pursed her lips. Maybe they weren’t that different. She released it, watching it dart toward the cracked mortar between the wall and the floor. The mouse flattened itself and disappeared with a small flick of its tail, as if it had never been there at all.

“Fine. That’s fine. Just like everyone else,” she whispered. “Leave me to find my own way out. Coward.”

She rolled onto her back. Starling’s bright morning shine cascaded through the window high above, ushering in a mild sea breeze that failed to clear the stench from the adjacent cell. Though she was only a short distance from the dock, getting there would be a challenge.

Traq, her oldest friend, had sailed away on a Starling ship before dawn, taking any evidence of what she’d stolen across the Empyrean Sea in his safekeeping. As a mage, he’d escape the usual scrutiny that the soldiers experienced. And thanks to the mage wind, the ship would reach Oxton in a few days, though the journey might take a standard vessel twice as long.

The Callaway guards had no evidence to hold her, and they knew it. Only an old man’s accusations kept her where she was, but authority on the islands moved notoriously slow unless you had coin to hasten it.

While the archipelago’s other islands were small and sparsely populated, Callaway was ruled by merchants loyal only to coin. Their wealth stemmed from other tribes’ stolen art and history. That they’d had a hand in taking nearly all that remained of the Western tribe’s dragon-eye jade was what had brought her to this wretched place. And though it would be easy to blame the southern Starling tribe for pilfering her culture’s treasures, the northern Moon tribes were certainly no better.

There wasn’t any need to rush for a drab Westerner such as herself. Which was unfortunate since the smuggling vessel she’d been counting on to take her back to the mainland was due to disembark in the morning, and she needed to be on it.

The cell to her right had been empty since they’d dragged Audra in the day before. The cell to her left, however, housed a Starling tribe couple brought in for drunken brawling late in the evening. They’d refused to be separated, promising the arresting guards they’d settle. Then they proceeded to spend several hours hurling accusations of cheating at each other before their dispute dissolved into tears and apologies too garbled to quite make out. Eventually, they’d passed out in each other’s arms as the flicker of the all’ight dimmed, their backs pressed against the bars shared with Audra’s cell. One of them had vomited sometime later, and the stench of piss and excrement grew stronger with every passing hour.

They’d died while Audra slept. She hadn’t realized it at first. It wasn’t that she was unaccustomed to death, more like she didn’t expect it to come quite as often as it did .

The Callaway islands’ best export were their wines—rice, blackberry, hibiscus, and the infamously daring and insultingly expensive liger’s bane. Liger’s bane was a poisonous flower, but the islanders had deduced a way to remove the concentrated poison for wine because, Audra supposed, there must have been little else to do while their neighbors warred. The real danger with that wine was that its toxicity returned about four hours after it was uncorked.

The islanders had spent generations building up a solid resistance to the poison and sometimes neglected to emphasize that information while the less worldly foreigners didn’t pay attention to this small—but incredibly relevant—detail. Since the jugs were small and went down so smoothly, there wasn’t usually any threat of it not being consumed before it turned. Unless, of course, there were several bottles open at a time and people were already drunk. Then time was lost as well as lives. There was an antidote that barkeeps held, but it was three times the cost of the wine.

The couple’s lifeless arms were drawn tight around each other. At least they’d made amends before they died, and they’d be able to do one last good deed with their deaths.

Thick brown hair hung to her waist. She considered pulling it back, but it was important they remembered her this way.

The guards, Hana and Lot, were talking across their desks. Having already discussed their welfare, woes, and wages they now sank into gossip. Their voices lilted toward Audra as she stared longingly at the cracked mortar where the mouse had gone. Her escapes were never so easy.

“I’m telling you, he said the tyrant was dead. Insisted the Moons were keeping it hushed until the dual eclipses or until they caught the murderer.” Lot was the youngest of the guards and spoke with an overconfidence that took an obvious toll on his companion.

“You’ll believe anything. And who would trust you with such information?” Hana asked.

“A captain. Said they’d just come from Uduary with a shipment of silks. Heading to Oxton tomorrow.”

Audra had listened to the gossip with half an ear but stiffened at the mention of the Moon tribe’s capital. The Requin ’s captain was a crooked trader named Chon Gioni who’d returned from Uduary and the northern tribes two days ago and was set to sail in the morning. Knowing Chon kept several guards on the payroll to get through customs made her plan to stowaway only slightly inconvenient. Still, she was small enough to squirm into tight spaces and go unnoticed, much like the mouse.

“And who did they theorize could kill someone so high and mighty?” Hana asked.

His nails scraped across his patchy beard. The length of Lot’s pause defeated the conviction of his next statement. “Maybe one of the bastard’s children?”

Hana shook her head. “Don’t believe everything those swindlers say. Next thing you know, you’ll lose a month’s wages thinking it’s going toward the promise of a spouse. Besides, you can never believe the mages. Everyone knows that. Not the Moons or Starlings. They probably spread those rumors on purpose.” She glanced guiltily toward the cell and lowered her voice. “Just look at how they destroyed the Westerners.”

Audra shifted awkwardly at the truth of that statement. Her people had been crushed between the Moons and Starlings for centuries.

Alver, the third guard, returned with an older man nagging at his footsteps. Audra licked her teeth, watching the antiquities dealer storm in. Claude Suna was in good health for his years. His white hair contrasted pleasantly with his oaky complexion and fanciful orange and yellow silks. The garments were meant to flaunt his wealth but only made him appear somewhat ridiculous when contrasted with his surroundings, like someone who required a good deal of attention. He had the smooth hands of those unaccustomed to labor and the dour expression of one used to obedience.

“What do you mean you haven’t found it?” Claude’s husky voice rose indignantly. “Do you know how much it’s worth?” Alver gave nothing away in his look as Claude continued. “More than you three make in a year combined.”

The other guards rose to their feet with a sudden need to be busy. Audra stood and stretched while the old man rattled them. Her naked feet chilled against the tile. They’d taken her boots when they brought her in. Just as well, they’d be useless where she was going.

Sometimes opportunity came in unexpected ways, especially when combined with a host of lies, opportunities like poisoned wine and bright colors that sung with audacity.

“I need to use the latrine,” Audra said loudly. All eyes turned to her. She made a point of meeting the old man’s gaze before turning to the guards.

“You!” Claude shook his fist in the air. “Where did you hide my jade, you filthy bitch? You don’t know who you are trifling with. My husband?—”

“I need to use the latrine,” she repeated louder. Hana squirmed beneath Audra’s stare while the merchant’s face darkened with affront.

“There’s a bucket in the corner,” Lot said.

“Where is it?” Claude started forward, but Alver held him back with a light hand on his chest.

Audra turned to Lot. “Not for this. And I’d rather a woman escort me if it’s all the same. Unless Callaway men are more comfortable with feminine issues.”

Color crept up Lot’s cheeks and reddened the tips of his ears. He looked sheepishly at Hana. She pursed her lips and moved toward Audra’s cell.

“Make her tell where it is! Give her a sound whipping if you must,” Claude said.

Alver sighed with more patience than Audra had given him credit for. She liked Alver. He seemed to hate the Callaway merchants almost as much as she did. “We don’t torture prisoners here, Mirz Suna. You’d have to return to the southern lands for that.”

Hana opened the door enough for Audra to wriggle through. The guard’s eyes darted toward the couple. Audra nudged her.

“Please.” Desperation oozed through Audra’s voice.

With a last glance at the couple, Hana gripped Audra’s elbow and hauled her through a rear door to a small outside enclosure. Claude’s threats followed them into the bright Starling light. The walls were disappointingly flat, too smooth for handholds, and rose twelve feet high, where iron spikes jutted inward at the top. Two stone seats with hip-sized oval holes were set along the perimeter. At the bottom of those holes, the drainage system connected to the rest of town and, eventually, out to sea. She went to the one furthest away, closest to the main drain.

Audra undid her breeches and sat, massaging her abdomen, and working a dramatic grimace. Hana sighed and looked away.

“They’re dead, you know,” Audra’s voice trembled in feigned fear.

“What?”

“That couple. Before you came on shift, the guards last night made a bet.”

Hana’s eyes narrowed. “What bet?”

“The big guy with the beard bet that the man would die first. The smaller guy put his money on the woman.” The story sold itself. They had been gambling, and it was safe to think they were known for it, but it was not over a game of death. “I think the bigger guy won.”

Hana blanched. Larceny or drunken violence wasn’t rare on the island, and the unintentional poisoning of tourists was an occasional issue, but guards betting on tourist deaths went against all the islanders’ beliefs of their moral superiority.

Audra watched the options ripple across Hana’s face. She couldn’t leave a prisoner alone out here and didn’t want to call to the others since the old man was there. If Audra was telling the truth, then it would need to be kept quiet, and Claude Suna lacked the personality for discretion.

Audra groaned and clutched her lower belly, squeezing her eyes hard enough to create tears that trickled from the corners. Hana’s gaze darted from the door to the prisoner.

“I should have said something earlier, but I was so scared. I think she, that woman might still be alive.”

Hana reached for the door.

“But her breathing was so ...” Audra’s voice broke.

Hana leveled an authoritative finger at her. “You stay right there.” The door closed behind her.

Audra cinched her pants tight and tied her hair back with a bit of string yanked from her hem. She stared into the hole and shuddered.

It would be a tight and disgusting fit.

She perched on the seat’s edge and dangled her feet inside. The stench made her gag. It didn’t matter if swimming through shit would be justifiable for what might be nothing more than another fool’s mission. The jade was already on its way to Oxton, and getting it to her brother was imperative. Even if she wasn’t wholly responsible for Ferin’s injury, their well-being was connected.

Auntie Zin was waiting for the jade in another attempt to heal Ferin. Plus, Traq would worry if Audra didn’t show in Oxton within a couple of weeks. She’d had a plan. Crawling through sewers hadn’t been part of it, but she’d survived worse.

Taking a deep breath, Audra squirmed down into the muck, scraping the backs of her arms and shoulders in the narrow descent. Slime oozed between her toes as her feet hit the bottom. The drain’s ceiling was low, forcing her onto hands and knees. As bile burned her throat, Audra crawled. Filth seeped through the linen shirt to coat her skin. She barely kept her chin from skimming the muck when she vomited.

Three hours later the tunnel widened. She sucked in a breath of fresh air as the sewer opened onto the cliff side. In the sky above, the remnants of Raia’s broken moon ringed the planet, illuminated by full Starling light. Parts of the ring shone like the brightest emerald in places and the darkest moss in others, shifting as it rotated slowly with occasional gaps. No one valued the ring as much as Starling or the Song and Silence moons. People always seemed inclined to deny the power of broken things.

It was a thirty-foot drop to the bay, and, from this height, impossible to tell the depth of the water below.

Audra crouched, letting the liquid flow past her feet and fall to the sea. Scaling the cliff wasn’t an option. The handholds were too loose, the face too steep. She’d tumble backward and probably break something on the way down, leaving her body for the crabs to feast on.

“Shit.” The irony of the curse wasn’t lost on her. She’d have to jump. At least she’d be clean. Or her corpse would be.

Her dive was graceless. The water broke like a pane of glass, equal parts sharp and brittle. The landing punched the breath from her chest, but the water was cool and deep.

Gasping, she broke the surface a few moments later. Audra scrubbed the filth from her skin before dragging herself to a pebbled shore. Thick trees grew bent by the eastern wind, providing a curtain of lush foliage as she moved inland. The nearby homes belonged to the island’s poorest inhabitants, most of whom were scraping for coin to feed their families at this time of day. Save for a few small children and their elderly caregivers, the huts were empty.

To reach the Requin , she’d have to move unnoticed back through town.

After donning a set of men’s breeches and two linen shirts pilfered from a line, she slipped on a pair of abandoned straw shoes. Guilt churned her stomach. Stealing from the poor wasn’t something she’d done in a long time, and there was nothing to leave by way of compensation. She’d just have to add this place to her growing list of those she owed favors to.

Inside another hut was a set of shears gone nearly dull. Placing them at the base of her ponytail, she hesitated. Traq would be disappointed, but his opinion didn’t matter as much as he wished it did anymore. Mages never cut their hair, but Audra had no magic of her own to speak of.

It was just hair.

The shears shook as she cut too close to the scalp, nicking her head in places. Everything would be worth it if she could get home.

Months of malnourishment finally came in handy. No one spared her a glance as she walked through town: another young man looking for work, too poor to afford a proper pair of shoes. His collar bones jutted through his shirt.

There was commotion in the streets of the merchant district. Claude Suna was yelling as guards ran past, his cheeks deeply flushed. Audra hoped that Hana’s punishment wouldn’t be too harsh.

She ducked her head and angled quickly away from the crowd. It was too early to think she’d gotten away with anything. Chances were all departing vessels would be searched before dawn. However, the Requin was carrying reams of northern silk, and they’d avoid damaging such finery. If they did more than glance at it, they’d be careful in their handling. The captain might even slip them some extra coin to avoid the mess entirely .

Getting on board was easier than expected since nearly the entire crew seemed to still be sleeping off the previous night’s booze in the late afternoon. No one on the Requin ever expected stowaways, not unless those people were looking to feed the sea dragons.

The silks lay neatly folded in two large chests in the cargo hold. The fear of being trapped made her breath quicken. When a heavy voice spoke with a familiar one—Lot—above, she scrambled inside and tugged the lid closed. Audra burrowed beneath the cloth, flattening herself like the mouse had earlier, and waited for the voices to pass.

In the darkness she allowed herself to imagine a future outside of stealing and jails. If the jade broke Ferin’s spell, it might change everything. Maybe restore her tribe to their former glory and return the dragons to the skies. But first, she had to reach Oxton. And no one would stop her.