Ward Against Death (16 page)

SEVENTEEN

Solartti was not home, but Celia had a good idea where he would be. The Ancient Spider, where they’d run into him during their wild escape from the records room. Like most questionable businesses in Brawenal, her father received a protection tax from the owner, but he had little to do with the actual business. Which, thankfully, meant there was little risk of running into her father or any of his close associates since they preferred more upscale entertainment.

However, through many hours of acute observation, she knew a number of her fellow assassins did patro n

Telling Ward they needed to return to the dance hall would send him into convulsions, so she neglected to mention it, taking pleasure in his nervous fussing as they drew closer to the recessed red door.

As she reached for the latch, she turned to Ward, ready for an argument or, in the very least, some comment. But he kept his mouth set in a tight line.

“I need you to keep your head down and your eyes open.”

“Can someone do that?”

“Now is not the time to get philosophical.”

He bit his lip.

“Good.” She pushed open the door and noise engulfed her. Music, laughter, talking, the clatter of mugs and dishes and knives on tables. A haze of wood, pipe, and the distinctive purple smoke of Susain herbs surrounded them, carrying the aromas of fish, bread, ale, and sweat. There was no one in the immediate area she recognized from the Guild, and most people, if they didn’t ignore her and Ward outright, took a cursory glance and turned back to their conversation.

She allowed herself a moment to register potential dangers: blades, obstacles, anyone who carried themselves with the catlike grace she associated with her profession. Nothing stood out.

She glanced at Ward, who sucked in a quick breath, then looked behind him to ensure he’d closed the door. He had and, save for another sigh, appeared relaxed, almost happy. He was getting better at hiding his emotions. Perhaps he could survive a day or two as an assassin. She gave herself a mental shake. Not likely.

They walked to the edge of the main balcony and looked down at the dance floor, which was actually the first basement. She’d heard a rumor the Ancient Spider boasted three other basements for even shadier pleasures, but she’d never seen them or had the desire to ask. Dancing and drinking plain wine were as far as she wanted t s shmento go. An assassin needed to keep her wits, or she’d lose her head.

She grabbed his hand and led him to the back of the first-floor balcony. Solartti’s favorite table sat over the stage. Which meant, if he was not too far gone that night, he would have already noticed them.

They found him at his usual table, his chair in the corner, his eyes glassy. Celia eased into the chair beside him and squeezed his arm. He made no indication he noticed their presence.

Ward sat beside her and glanced around.

“What do you see?” she asked, staying focused on Solartti.

“People dancing, eating, drinking.”

She gave Solartti another shake. Nothing.

“What’s wrong with him?”

She passed Ward the only mug on the table. He brought it to his lips but didn’t drink. Instead, he sniffed.

“Charlatous.”

“And?”

He ran his finger around the edge of the rim, looked at it, and pressed it against his thumb. “Don’t you people know how dangerous this is?”

She snorted. Another trait she’d began to recognize in Ward: his ability to state the obvious. “Help me stand him up.”

“What are you planning?” He set the mug down.

“I’m planning on taking him back to his house so when he’s slept it off he can talk to us.”

“And you think we’re just going to walk an unconscious man ou ssciCaslt of here and no one will notice?”

She grinned and winked. “I do it all the time.”

“I bet you do.”

He rose, moved to Solartti’s other side, and placed the man’s arm across his shoulders.

She glanced around the balcony. It was packed with people sitting, standing, talking, laughing. A few danced. It was going to be a challenge to move Solartti; usually, he was conscious enough to stand on his own. What could have possibly made him take so much oil?

A woman with short blonde hair emerged from the shadows on the other side of the balcony. She leaned against the railing and gazed down at the dance floor. Candlelight reflected on the earrings in her right ear.

What was
she
doing here? Celia turned to Ward. “We have to hurry. That woman is here.”

“What woman?”

She glared at him and pulled her right earlobe.

“Who?”

“From the Keeper’s house.”

“Oh. So why do we have to hurry?”

She had no good answer. All she knew was that if the woman had talked to Bakmeire, they didn’t want to risk her seeing them. She wished she could be nice to Ward and sugarcoat the whole situation, but her gut screamed at her to leave, fast. She’d have to explain later. “We hurry because I say so.”

Ward rolled his eyes and looked ready for a fight, but he picked up Solartti instead and, with the extra weight, staggered to the front of the table. His expression changed from frustration to something she couldn’t quite place. He furrowed his brow and his eyes glassed over. Great, now was not the time for him stimstrato suddenly become lost in some intellectual problem.

“We need to get moving, Ward.” She took Solartti’s other side.

“I, ah...”

The woman started around the balcony to her left so Celia chose the other direction. If they kept their heads low perhaps she wouldn’t notice them. Celia snorted at the thought. Who wouldn’t notice a walking, talking scarecrow like Ward?

“Could you try to crouch a little?” she asked.

“But Celia, I think—”

“You stick out like a sore thumb.”

He glanced around. “Oh.” Then he slouched, hung his head, and swayed a little.

They stumbled a few steps forward, bumping into a woman who turned and giggled before she danced away.

The blonde woman didn’t seem to have noticed them and was now almost at Solartti’s table, but they were only a quarter of the way around. If she saw them they’d have to run, and running with Solartti’s dead weight didn’t appeal to Celia.

She tried to move faster, hoping Ward would take her lead. They were almost at the front door when someone grabbed her shoulder and spun her around. She clenched her fists. Ward grunted as he took all of Solartti’s weight. Before her stood a squat man, as wide as he was tall, swaying back and forth. His pupils were uneven, a sure sign he too partook of charlatous laced with zephnyr oil.

“Dance with me.” A thick globule of drool rolled over his bottom lip, down his chin, and dropped onto his massive chest.

“I’m on my way out.” She turned to the door, but the man grabbed her wrist and spun her again.

From the corner of her eye she could see Ward shift from one foot to the other, and on the other side of the fat man the blonde sn tdth=woman headed in their direction. She needed to do something, fast.

“Sure. I’ll dance with you. Just let me see my friends off and I’ll meet you on the dance floor.”

The fat man smiled. “Now.”

She hated men who couldn’t see reason. Please don’t let him be as far gone as he seemed. She grabbed the man’s hands and sashayed him toward the blonde woman. She twirled around her, knocking over a table and a few people in the process, and handed over the fat man. He clung to the startled blonde woman, pulling her along the balcony toward the back of the dance hall.

Celia spun on her heel and danced back to Ward as fast as she could, a huge grin plastered on her face. She whisked him and Solartti out of the dance hall.

They dragged the assassin’s limp form down the street and stepped into the shadows of an alley to catch their breath.

“So what was so important?” she asked.

Ward leaned back, gasping for air. “I think he’s dead.”

EIGHTEEN

Karysa extracted herself from the drunk man’s grasp and returned to the assassin’s table. Celia and that boy necromancer had dragged the dead assassin out of the dance hall and she couldn’t stop them. But never mind. The essence-seeking spell that hadn’t worked for Celia would work for her assassin friend—even if she had given him ibria with his charlatous and zephnyr oil. It might have destroyed his soul, but she could still follow his body.

They would take him someplace safe, hopefully wherever they were hiding, and the boy would try to wake him. She wished she could see the look on his face when his spell failed.

A smile pulled at her lips. How many times would he try before giving up? He didn’t look like he had much of a magical constitution and would probably be exhausted after a second attempt.

A tremor swept through her, drawing a low moan. The blood-magic lure was glorious. She could only imagine the concentration and meditations that boy had to go through to avoid it. Such a fool.

Another tremor stirred heat low in her gut. Her breath hitched in her throat and she gasped. A man at the table across from her gave her a curious look. She ran the tip of her tongue slowly over her lips, leveling her gaze on him. He flushed, but no energy danced under his skin. How disappointing. There just weren’t enough magical people in this principality.

And, really, she shouldn’t be wasting time. She had to find her chosen one. She traced the rim of the assassin’s cup with her finger. She didn’t need a lot of a person’s essence to find his body. No more than a drop of saliva.

§

“How could you not know he was dead?” Celia paced the bedchamber where they had placed Solartti’s body. “You’re a necromancer.”

Ward crossed his arms and leaned against the back wall. “And you’re an assassin.” And that woman in the dance hall had been an Innecroestri, likely the only one he’d ever heard Grandfather talking about. Karysa. He shivered at the thought.

“I just...” She sat at the foot of the bed and placed a hand on Solartti’s leg.

Ward pushed off from the wall, suddenly aware that she had lost a friend. He shouldn’t just stand here. He was usually more sensitive. “I should give you a moment.”

“And then what?”

“That’s up to you.”

She looked at him, her eyes hard. “I suppose you mean we carry on.”

Could she not see the obvious? He sighed and reminded himself that the grief from a sudden death, or even an expected one, could rattle the most practical of people. “Would you like me to wake him?”
{? thspan>

“Like me?”

He rubbed his bandaged wrist. “For fifteen minutes. You can talk to him, see what he found out. Say goodbye.”

“But not longer?”

“Celia.” Ward knelt at her feet. His voice caught in his throat and he coughed to clear it. She looked so fierce and yet so fragile. All he really wanted was to say something comforting, but she wouldn’t appreciate false solace. There was no possibility for a romance between them, but was there a chance at friendship? “To be honest, I’m surprised the Jam de’U is still active.”

She nodded, and Ward took that as consent, running his hands down the front of his shirt. Finally something within the realm of normality.

He sat on the side of the bed and unsheathed his knife, contemplating which finger he should prick. His ring finger was just starting to feel normal again from when he’d woken Celia in the sewers. The thought left a bad taste in his mouth. Just a little blood and his life had been turned upside down and set on fire for good measure. He jabbed the knife into the finger. No, he didn’t want to think about it.

Blood swelled into a bead, and he drew a goddess-eye on Solartti’s forehead and pressed his palm against it. He placed his other hand over Solartti’s heart, closed his eyes, and focused on stilling his thoughts and his being. He called on knowledge from the Light Son, power over death from the Dark Son, and grace and well-being from the Goddess. In his mind, he envisioned the veil opening and Solartti’s spirit racing back to his body.

He listened for the sudden inhalation as the deceased breathed once again, but nothing happened.

He pictured the veil opening further, and with his mind he called to Solartti.

Still nothing.

Ward pursed his lips. He’d never had a problem like this before. As much as he was a bad necromancer in every other respect, he’d never before had an unsuccessful wake.

"-1" face="Times Ten LT Std Roman">Celia grabbed his shoulder, and he jumped. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why isn’t he awake?”

Ward rubbed his hands together. His fingers were cold, also uncommon during a wake. “I don’t know.” If he were a normal necromancer, he’d be able to feel the power, the life force that emanated from all things, and he might have a clue. But he couldn’t and therefore he didn’t. Unless Karysa had something to do with Solartti’s death.

He stepped into the corridor. To his right, two chambers down, he could see the gallery, bright in comparison to the low lighting of the bedchamber. To his left, more doorways.

Even if only half of the rumors about Karysa were true, she wasn’t someone he wanted to encounter. He could only pray to the Goddess and her two Sons she wasn’t involved in Celia’s murder, although he doubted he’d be so lucky. Karysa toyed with human life and the veil without concern. No one knew where she’d learned her dark spells, the soul stealing and the false resurrections, but eyewitness accounts proved she had the abilities. Even with a village-worth of murders on her hands in the Principality of Worben, the Necromancer Council of Elders were withholding the warrant on her death in hopes of finding her soul jars and freeing those she’d imprisoned.

Was that what she’d done to Solartti? But if that was the case, Solartti should have a goddess-eye painted on his forehead, and Ward hadn’t noticed blood on his face or his hands.

Gentle fingers brushed his arm—Celia’s fingers, uncertain and tender—but he didn’t look at her.

“If you can’t wake him, we’ll need to get rid of him.”

“I want to keep him for a couple of days. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have better luck.”

“He’ll begin to smell.”

“I know.” Exhaustion weighed on him. He hadn’t slept in days, and he still had to sneak out of the cavern and perform a surgery. He rubbed his face. The earthy scent of charlatous clung to his hands, and his index finger and {x f Ten LT Sthumb were still sticky from the zephnyr oil.

“Let’s move him down to one of the lower levels. As far from our living quarters as possible. I just want another try.”

§

After helping Ward wrap Solartti in a cloak, carry him to the second-last level, and place him on the floor of an empty chamber, Celia went to her study. Thankfully, Ward didn’t follow. She knew he was going to ask what was next, and to that she had no idea. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t wrap her mind around Solartti’s death. Sure, everyone knew an excessive dose of zephnyr oil could put a person in a catatonic state, essentially killing his mind, but his body still lived. Except Solartti wasn’t catatonic. He was dead. So dead he was beyond Ward’s ability to call him back.

She eased into her chair. For some reason all of her pinprick cuts had begun to ache.

What killed a man beyond a necromancer’s ability to call him back? She would have to ask Ward, but not now. Now, she needed to be alone. Why hadn’t she killed him yet? She couldn’t seem to find the right moment to seduce him and that made him a liability.

As for the theory that she needed him in case his spell failed... she wasn’t certain he could repeat the process. Perhaps he couldn’t wake Solartti because he wasn’t powerful enough, although she’d been so sure she’d sensed something back at the Guild’s records room. Perhaps she’d been mistaken and waking her had been an accident. If his spell suddenly failed, would he even try to bring her back?

She flipped a page in the open book before her, but didn’t look at the text. Now she was being ridiculous. Ward’s abilities as a necromancer were not in question. She knew he’d woken Cooper Smith two weeks before her own wake, and he’d woken her once in her bedroom and once in the sewer before doing whatever he had done to her last.

And he
had
been helpful. There was no denying that. She wouldn’t have been able to get the Keeper’s key without his help, nor get out of the Keeper’s house. She wouldn’t have been able to pull all that crystal out of her rear without him, let alone with such gentle precision. Ward would have made a good physician. Why wasn’t he practicing? Admittedly, he was young, but she’d met junior physicians their age working in established practices.

She ran her hand across the page, smoothing the brittle pa {he acticrchment under her fingers. What made someone skilled, even gifted, turn away from that to do something he was less skilled at, and would make him less profit? She knew it wasn’t for the love of it. She could tell he didn’t enjoy necromancy.

Her gaze dropped to the book and she stared at the clean, black lines without focusing on the words.

Someone cleared his throat. It had to be Ward. It couldn’t be Solartti. Her time to be quiet and think was over.

As she looked up to acknowledge him, her eyes stopped at the bloody parchment, which she had stolen from the Keeper’s safe.

“Thoughts?” Ward asked from the doorway.

“Many.” She reached for the parchment and ran her finger over the hard, uneven wax that had sealed the note shut. It belonged to the Guild, which made it official, and the black ink in the wax hadn’t bled into the parchment, which meant it had been opened soon after it was sealed. “One of them being, what was an assassination assignment for a simple scholar doing in that safe?”

She unfolded the parchment. No, she hadn’t read it wrong in her bedchamber while waiting for Ward to return. It was an assignment to kill the scholar Allyan Nicco and burn his research. But she had been given that assignment and she always destroyed her notes after reading them.

Heat rushed to her face. The assignment had been four years ago and she still felt guilty. She’d made a serious mistake reading that page on Nicco’s desk. Perhaps if she hadn’t kept the scholar’s research, hadn’t been caught up in the Ancients’ mysteries, her life would have taken a different path.

She pushed the thought away. She wasn’t killed over Nicco’s research. No one knew she had it. Unless this assignment meant the Master hadn’t trusted her to do the job and had given another assassin the assignment as well? Which still didn’t explain why it was in the Keeper’s safe.

“Maybe the Master likes to collect unique assignments,” Ward said.

She turned her attention to him. He still stood in the doorway, his arms crossed, his eyes half open. “You look awful.”

“Thank you. And right back at you.”

She sighed and pointed to the chair across from her. “Have a seat and help me think about this. Perhaps together our two tired minds will equal one not-so-tired mind.”

He paused, as if uncertain, then shuffled over to the chair and sat in it sideways, his legs hanging over one of the arms. “All right. How about the Master likes to collect unique assignments?”

“Not likely.” Since the Guild didn’t work that way and it wasn’t the Master’s safe. It was ridiculous of her to have assumed the Master would have it. He would never be foolish enough to keep proof of activities that could be linked to him. “There was only one assignment in there for a scholar.”

“And I’m sure that many more interesting people have been assassinated under his watch,” Ward said. “Why would someone not want the assignment to be available for public knowledge?”

“They’re not public knowledge.”

He raised an eyebrow. “It seemed pretty common knowledge that you and Solartti rummaged through the records room on a regular basis.”