Theft of Dragons (Princes of Naverstrom) (17 page)

Then, feeling stupid for not thinking of it earlier, she banged her fist against the steel door and waited until she heard footsteps and men's voices on the other side. Was there a changing of the guard, perhaps? Or were they commanded to leave the door sealed until morning? For good measure she banged again on the door—more insistently now—and tried to remember what the Captain of the Guard looked like.

A small, steel sliding panel opened up in the middle of the door and Sebine moved aside in time to avoid the peering eyes of the guard on the other side.

"Who's there knocking at this early hour?" a tired, uncertain voice spoke.

Sebine cast the spell of transformation on herself, holding the image of Phineas Black, Captain of the Guard, in her mind. She glanced down at her now massive, hairy hands clad in chain mail, and smiled to herself in satisfaction. With a side step and a commanding grimace on her face, she stared through the opening at the suspicious face of the soldier on the other side.

"Captain! I didn't realize it was you." The guard furrowed his brow in worry. "Did a dark dream wake you from your rest, sir? You've been working late these many days now...but with the King gone we thought you'd find some much needed sleep."

Through clenched teeth Sebine released a heavy sigh and shook her head. "Tis a foul moon... Only work and a night walk about the city will cure it. Open up, soldier." Sebine almost laughed at how strange and deep her voice sounded.

The man hesitated, eyes confused for a moment; likely her choice of words or an inappropriate mode of addressing the soldier. But it passed and the guard opened the steel door, which groaned tiredly and revealed ten soldiers standing in crisp attention. One man looked nervous at Sebine's inspection, and she found herself barking a deep grunt at the guard's lack of chain mail below the waist. He wore only hemp pants tied haphazardly.

"Go on back to your business, then... Forget I ever passed." She waved a dismissive hand at the men and a puzzled concern crossed their faces, causing their feet to shuffle in discomfort. Even after she marched away from the square she felt their eyes on her departure, and rounding the corner, she broke into a run.
 

Far past the artisan's shops and over the Prince's Bridge she charged, moving at a speed she doubted she could manage in a race. Soon she reached the docks and beyond found the merchant quarter a chaotic mess of bottles, mugs, clothes, still smoldering fires, and men and women lying here and there—sleeping off their drugged drunkenness.
 

She found him behind a crate near the winemaker's shop, collapsed before reaching the back door, and now he lay in a pool of blood right where her vision had shown him. Fingers to his neck felt a faint pulse and she almost cried out: he was still alive. But he was too heavy for her to carry him. She inspected his wounds and found mostly slices and some deeper gashes, but the wound that had felled him was a puncture to the lung—just below the heart. Whoever his assailant was must had left him for dead, thinking a killing blow dealt.

Her hand slammed against the back door of the winemaker's shop and she bellowed out for the occupants inside to open up. Footsteps sounded and the door crept open to display tired, wrinkled eyes that cringed in surprise at the face of Phineas Black.

"Why it's Captain Black...how can I aid you, sir?" The nightgown-clad man opened the door completely and pressed soft, white hands against his hips.

"I need your help, vintner. Do you have strong lads to help an injured man outside? He needs a healer..."

Concern flashed on the winemaker's face. "An injured man? Here at my shop?" He peered out into the dark as if his eyes might find purchase on a body. "Lads you say? Of course, my sons are glad to help...just one moment while I rouse them from their sleep."

Sebine tapped her foot impatiently and this sent the man scurrying inside where she heard shouts and moans of refusal, but soon two staggering, portly boys of around twenty followed Sebine back to the place where Tael lay.

"What do you think, a cart, perhaps?" The vintner scratched his grey-and-black goatee. "Boys, go fetch the cart—the one we use for the barrels. Should hold him." Then he turned to Sebine. "Who is this man?"

She scoffed and gave the vintner a knowing look. "Just another fool that got himself pissed and likely started a knife fight with a vastly superior opponent." She aimed a thick finger at the wound to his lung. "Lucky fool as the blade missed his heart. He'll likely live...but we can't have the man dying on your doorstep, now can we?"

The vintner nodded in grave agreement and prodded his two boys to action when they returned with the cart. They all went together to the healer at the docks who worked her magic and herbs at a small stone shack perched above the water.
 

Sebine knocked at the healer's dilapidated wooden door and was surprised to see a spry, wiry woman of perhaps ninety wide-awake and motioning them inside her house.

"Give her some coin to take care of the boy," Sebine commanded, and the winemaker obeyed without hesitation and withdrew coins from a purse that hung limply at his side, and dropped them into the healer's hungry hand.

The old woman shooed them away and indignantly shoved the door closed. Sebine thought to wait—anxious for Tael's recovery—but knew the magic of the illusion might not last for much longer, as some inner store of strength inside her felt depleted. She needed to sleep. A vast wave of fatigue fell over her all at once and she knew she had to rush back to the palace. She would pray to the gods for giving her the vision that had saved Tael's life, and collapse on her bed in a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Seventeen

TAEL WOKE TO find his head throbbing and tongue dry and rough as if he'd chewed on sand. Then he felt a distant, deep pain in his ribcage—in the area just below his heart. He glanced around and discovered he was lying on a cot in a healer's room of some kind. Strands of herbs and roots hung from the wooden ceiling. The walls were stone and covered with shelves filled with books and small wood and iron and bone miniatures of the gods.
 

As his hand went to his breast he found a caked-on plaster over the deep wound, secured with a bandage wrapped around his chest. His arms and ribs and stomach contained many wounds covered with salves and small bandages, and at that moment he remembered everything. The girl he so foolishly played with, the music and the drink, his hands on her lips, the sweet taste of her mouth, and her knives blindingly fast, slicing out at arms and a body slow to respond.
 

It wasn't even a credible fight. His movements had been sluggish and dense from all the wine he'd drunk. The only thing he'd managed to do was to swat away a few killing blows, dodge others, and knock her in the side of the temple as she'd snuck past his defenses and stabbed him in the chest. After that she'd slithered away into the screaming, panicked crowd and disappeared.
 

He'd managed to keep himself undiscovered by stumbling wisely over to the place of shadows where he'd kissed the winemaker's daughter, until coughing and wheezing from his punctured lung, he had only managed to drag himself around twenty feet until he collapsed unconscious and bleeding on the stone steps.

What an absolute idiot he'd been. Some sixth sense had warned him of the girl, but he'd been too stupid to stay away. What was wrong with him? Likely it wouldn't have mattered anyway. In his drugged and drunken state she'd have followed and knifed him in the back. But the little bitch found it more fun to play with her prey—to tantalize and seduce him—then try and stab him in the fucking heart. Tael scoffed and said a silent prayer to the gods for his luck in the blow missing its killing mark.
 

And he'd left his blade back at the Dour Bear Inn... Why would he do such a stupid thing? Did he imagine the foul city safe from assassins? What madness and folly had possessed him into thinking that the Black Heart Clan couldn't recognize him? He remembered now that mother had ordered a portrait done of him by the brilliant painter Galisia—her fame at recreating the human physique was staggering to behold. Now they'd marked him...and the small southern assassin was still alive. Gods he hated her for making him want her so much.

The shuffling of shoes sounded and soon the face of an old, wizened woman hovered over him. "I knew you'd come. Your grandfather tried to convince me how foolish you were and yet still I refused to believe him. But here you are! Dragged to my doorstep by the two fat pigs of the winemaker...gods damn his soul for his miraculous drink. And you intoxicated and almost dead from an assassin's blade."

Surprised, Tael squinted and studied the woman. How did she know his grandfather? He tried to speak but the woman shook her head in a commanding gesture.

"But what shocked me the most was to see Princess Sebine herself...standing on my porch, disguised with an illusionist's spell. Hah. She couldn't fool me for a moment."

"Who are you?" Tael's voice was raspy and he coughed and tried to swallow, but his throat felt raw and parched. He accepted a glass of water from the old woman who urged him to finish it.
 

"Imagine that...the Princess a witch? Or perhaps even a sorceress. Isn't that a bit of valuable information." The old woman cackled and covered her wrinkled mouth in a sham display of coquettishness. "I wonder why she held such fierce concern for your well-being in her eyes? Have you done something as foolish as make the Princess fall in love with you? Ah...I see it now." She placed bony fingers under his chin and peered into his eyes. "Young love. There it is, as clear and clean as a shaved sheep. Your grandfather will be furious, you know."

When Tael opened his mouth to ask her another question she covered his mouth with a palm and shook her head as if scolding a child. "Sleep now, foolish boy. Rest and find your health." And with a tap of her finger on his forehead, the world went black.

Chapter Eighteen

FAR BEYOND THE world of dreams Sebine found a hole filled with tiny, luminescent worms writhing pitifully along its ridged and spiraling surface. She settled there—in the hole—and felt the heat and light seeping into her. Not her body, for in this dreamless state she knew her body was far, far away locked in a deep slumber on her bed, but something like a kernel of her power was there in the tunnel. Not her soul, for that was too mundane and filled with religious cliches, but something indefinable and unspoken. She saw it as an iridescent kernel lodged deep in her belly.

She was full now, whether full of magic or power or some vital force, she didn't know. She lacked the language of magic (or perhaps true magic was unspoken like the spells cast by her Hakkadian master). Yes, full was the right word, for the feeling churned inside her stomach and somehow craved to release through her hands and mouth; spoken or shot through fingers. Didn't she want to cast and kill and destroy the person who harmed Tael?

Tael! With a start she lurched out of bed, then she relaxed, remembering he was safe in the healer's house. She must clean and dress and see if he had recovered yet. She scanned around the room lit only by flickering candles. Shadows spread lazily across the smooth white walls. How she hated the color white...how she begged mother to hire a painter to change the color, to bring some life to the room. But the King always refused. Every wall in the palace was hatefully painted white. Why, Sebine did not know.

She threw off her sweat-stained nightgown and wondered how long she had slept. A day, two days? Evidence of the maid remained in the room: clean towels, old clothes taken, a fresh glass of water, and fresh flowers (primroses) at her nightstand. She sauntered over to the white marble and tile bath room, the night air soothing on her bare skin, and she dipped her fingers into the hot water of the deep, round pool where the fires below heated water in constant supply.
 

Her mouth released a soft sigh of pleasure at the sensation of the steamy, rose-scented water on her skin. She lapped the water over her chest, feeling the tingling of heat on her nipples. The memory of Tael's eyes admiring her body entered her mind and the rush of stimulation at his fingers on her neck aroused her. She missed his touch.