Page 9

Chapter Nine

Victor

I pace across the length of the lower deck of the ship. The boards creak under my feet. Outside I can hear the lapping sound of the still water.

I’m fortunate that this is my patrol route or else I would look ridiculous and nervous. But I’m being paid to pace, which is just as well because my mind is uneasy.

I try to keep my gaze focused straight ahead, but every few seconds I find my eyes turning to the woman towards the back of the ship, sitting next to a redheaded man who doesn’t look like he has ever done a day of manual labor. The woman is unassuming enough, I might even say that she is beautiful if Estelle had not ruined me for all other women.

She has short black hair, a tad unfashionable, especially for a Lowlander, but it seems to compliment her features well. Her eyes and mouth are both wide and they frame her small button nose. Gold eyes of a powerful magic wielder flash with panic.

Meruna Kotov.

That is what she said her name was.

She is not supposed to be here.

That’s all I can think about. I had thought that these prisoners looked different when we were loading them aboard, when I confronted my superior, I’d learned the ugly truth. There had been an epidemic at the Spice Isles, and with so many dead, the jails along the coast had been emptied of all their prisoners so that the spice quota could be met.

That meant that everyone who was in jail was being shipped off, even angry drunks who were cooling their heels after a raucous night.

I’d tried not to let it bother me, after all they were still criminals, but then I saw her. There had to have been some sort of a mistake for someone like her to end up in prison, let alone being shipped to the Spice Isles.

She is clearly a gentle soul; her hands are unmarked by harsh labor. If she is to be believed, she is a noble lady. There’s absolutely no way she will survive a day on the Spice Isles.

I give my head a sharp shake. It isn’t my problem.

But it feels like my problem. This young woman, who must be only just in her second decade, is going to die out there. What a waste of potential. She told me she was going to the Academy of Magickers, hallowed halls that she will now never see. All she will see are the dust riddled caves of the mines on the Spice Isle, before a more dangerous prisoner takes her life, or a cavern collapses, or she dies of a lung infection… honestly, the list could go on.

But on the other hand, there isn’t actually anything that I can do. I’m just a lowly guard who hates his job and is trying to impress a girl. I don’t control sentencing. that comes from far above my head.

As I’m trying to deliberate the moral dilemma, suddenly the ship comes to a jolting halt. I pitch forward, managing to catch myself on the bench where two women prisoners sit. Now unlike Meruna, these women both look like they should be here.

While one is a fair skinned, light-haired Highlander with cold blue eyes and the other is a dark-skinned foreigner with ebony black hair that cascades down around her shoulders there is something that these women seem to have in common.

An unmeasured fierceness that they both share.

But at the moment I have a larger problem than these two prisoners, namely what caused the ship to stop. For a second, I think that the prisoners had stopped rowing, but then I look over and see that some of them are still pushing on the oars. Besides, even if they had stopped oaring, we would have gradually glided to a stop, it would not account for the abrupt stop.

Have we run aground on some coral reef?

I hear a shout above deck and tilt my ear trying to listen. It sounded like whatever word was shouted ended in “and” perhaps a brigand attack? But that still wouldn’t account for our sudden stop.

Suddenly the door below deck bursts open, I have just enough time to see the terrified eyes of one of my fellow guards as he shouts, “Kraken!”

I don’t even have a chance to process how ridiculous his statement is that we could possibly be attacked by a creature that went extinct a thousand years ago. I see something move out of my peripheral vision as a strong grip wraps around my head.

There is a sharp snapping sound.

And then absolutely nothing.

I don’t think that our wine cellar has ever been this crowded.

Really, it’s a popular time to be a fermented drink. Or a dead body.

I stuff my hands into the pockets of my coat. It’s too cold in here for my liking, but apparently, we are all amateur guards today, and we are going to do the town watch’s job for them by apprehending the killer tonight.

The dead man is laying sprawled across a table in the wine cellar, one of his hands dangles off the edge while the other is carelessly draped over his bloodstained chest. We are all in here except for my father, and Vera and Mika who thought it was best to wait just outside so they didn’t have to see the body again.

We have a nicely sized wine cellar, enough to store the drink needed to keep our patrons happy, and to keep our extra food stores. Along the wall are barrels full of salted meat and dried herbs hang from the ceiling. Still, I don’t think our cellar was meant to hold eight people and a dead body. We are all standing shoulder to shoulder as we are gathered around the corpse.

I hope no one gawked at me like this while I was dead.

I feel someone grab my arm and look down to see Estelle there. “He bought me a drink just earlier this evening and now…” She gives my arm a squeeze as she stares in horror at the body. It’s a familiar gesture, one I’m sure I’ve received many times as we grew up, and I made sure to always be there for her. Every broken heart she experienced from lying sailors and I was there, lending a shoulder for her to cry on. But now it’s a bit different.

I notice Lek giving me the evil eye. Once I would have relished it, took it as a sign that I had a chance with her, but the truth of the matter is that neither he nor I ever stood a chance with her. She craved the exotic too much to ever consider the boys from her hometown.

She will only turn to turn to us when the going gets rough, then she turns those deep brown eyes our way before she sits back and waits for us to do everything in our power to make it right.

It took dying to get me out of that cycle, but I sure as the jetting gods am not going to let myself fall back in.

“Who could do something like this, Victor?”

I pull my arm out of her hold, ignoring the hurt look she throws my way as I step around Talyria to my right, situating her between me and Estelle. Talyria watches me with a raised eyebrow. When she sees me watching, she quickly glances away but not before I catch a smug smile pull her lips upward.

Estelle notices it too, drawing her lip in between her teeth as she stares after me.

I turn my attention to the matter at hand. The body. His skin is so pale, and for some reason, his eyes are back open even though I’m sure that I closed them when we found the body. The front of his tunic is riddled with many stab wounds, they range in depth. Valentine leans over them, examining them closely, his stringy gray hair almost falling into the dried blood staining the victim’s clothes.

I’m so engrossed in the study that I jump when I feel a new set of arms wrap around my arm. I glance down to see Talyria. She gives my bicep a slight squeeze, and I can’t help the smile that sprawls across my face. It’s nice to be someone’s first choice for once.

Hey, at least I did manage to get married today. It’s not a complete ruination of a day.

“I do think…” Valentine says straightening. He clears his throat when he sees us all looking at him. “That I can determine the blade that did this.”

“How could you do that?” Talyria asks, her eyebrows furrowing.

“I’ve been a healer for a long time,” he says with a soft smile. “In that practice, I’ve become very familiar with wounds and what weapons cause them.” His eyes roam over us, and there is something about them that I failed to notice before, an intelligence but also an agelessness. It makes me wonder what this man means when he says long time .

Because despite him being a human it almost makes me think he means more than the forty or fifty years that he must be.

“I notice that many of you have daggers on your belts. If you will permit me to see them then I can ascertain whether or not any of them are the murder weapon.”

“Of course!” Ibram says with a clap of his hands. “It may not immediately identify the killer, but who knows, maybe they were dumb enough to keep the murder weapon on them. After all, whoever did this was dumb enough to mess with a member of the guard.”

I notice Talyria roll her eyes at the guard’s words and swallow nervously. She really doesn’t like guards, does she? I doubt her nervousness if because of Valentine’s words. She doesn’t even have a dagger.

I pause, trying to figure out how to hide the fact that I was once a guard. It’s a ruse I’ll have to somehow keep up for the rest of our lives, but I guess that’s a small price to pay to make sure that that my wife doesn’t hate me.

It may prove difficult when I have a father as talkative as I do.

Valentine holds his hands out. “I’m ready, just show me your knives and this can all be over fairly quickly.”

Ibram places his hand on the sword at his hip. “I suggest you listen to the little man.”

I roll my eyes. “He’s your same height, Ibram.” I step around Talyria as I pull my dagger out of my sheath. I always keep it on me; indeed, it would be folly to not keep some sort of knife on you around here. Especially with guards like Ibram on the job.

Not that I probably need it now that I have Likho in my head. I wouldn’t know for sure though since I’ve always done my best to keep all the chaos at bay and not unleash it upon an unsuspecting Ruskhazar.

But I may be the most powerful being in this room.

May? Don’t insult me. You certainly are, without a doubt. Even if there is another sorcerer, I guarantee that they don’t have the same connection to their demigod patron as you do.

I hand Valentine the knife. It’s a sign of good faith so that people won’t start trying to back out of this, but also so that I can go about clearing my name as quickly as possible. Anything to put aside the doubt that Likho placed on my mind that I could actually be the killer.

Valentine bends over the knife studying it. He turns the blade to study the edges. “Hmm,” he says. He looks toward me and opens his mouth, but whatever he is about to say is cut off by a dagger flying through the air as if moving of its own volition. It slams into the priest’s throat, cutting his words off into a gurgle.

I feel my eyes widen in horror as I lunge forward grabbing the priest by his shoulders and gently lowering him to the ground. Did Likho do that? Or someone else?

Ibram yells. “Sorcery!”

Estelle screams like that is going to help the situation.

I look up, feeling the heavy cloak of shock settle over me followed closely by panic. Last time I was in a panicked situation like this, my neck was broken.

Worst day of my life.

Although this is trying really hard to claim the second spot.

I feel something nudge against my hand and look down to see that the priest is still alive. If just barely. He hands me a book that appears to resemble a spellbook. It has a neatly bound yellow cover with embellished corners.

I take it from him, a bit confused as to why he is handing it to me. His mouth moves, as if he is trying to say something, but nothing comes out. No words can make it past the dagger embedded in his throat.

I open the book, feeling my eyes widen as I scan over the spells. I was a terrible study at the Academy, but I know enough about Spellcraft to recognize these bear the markings of healing spells. They are not like any I have ever seen, extremely complex, far more than any spells that I learned.

Perhaps even strong enough to heal a mortal wound?

However, with my entanglement with sorcery I can’t just go around spouting spells unless I know that they’ll actually do some good. Spellcraft and sorcery are not meant to mix, and I’d rather not test my tenuous sanity, but I will if it’ll save him.

My eyes flick back to the man as I take in his empty gaze. Is he gone? Gently, I pry my dagger from his grip and hold it under his nose. No breath clouds the metal.

Inside my head Likho hisses in pleasure at another sudden and unfortunate death.

I gently close the spellbook. What a pity. He carried with him a book that could heal but was unable to save himself in the end.

Still, the poor man’s death has proved at least something.

The killer is indeed a sorcerer. And the killer is in the room with us since sorcery only works as far as the caster can see and sense.

Suddenly, there is a rattling sound, and I look up to see the wine rack shaking. I feel my eyes round as I leap to my feet. I whirl, pausing when I see that Talyria is just behind me. I grasp her arm and yank her along with me just as the wine rack falls over.

Costing my father a fortune.

A loud crash rings through the air and Estelle screams again, although I’m not sure why she thought that was necessary. We all heard her the first time.

I glance around, trying to determine who is doing this, but that’s the thing about sorcery, you can cast it without speaking a word. One has only to look at an object to control it, and once a sorcerer has control over an object another sorcerer cannot wrest it away,

Which leaves me in an awkward predicament as I turn to see the broken shards of the bottle begin to rise. They float there for a second and I set my teeth in frustration just as they shoot toward us.

I have only enough time to make one move. I throw myself in front of Talyria to shield her from the shards of glass flying through the air.