A Gathering of Shadows Page 13

  Kell watched him go, wishing he could stay.

  He missed the Stone’s Throw, no matter its name, missed the simple solidity of this place, this city. Did he have to go home? And that was the problem, right there. Red London was home. Kell didn’t belong here, in this world. He was a creature of magic—Arnesian, not English. And even if this world still had any power (for Tieren said no place was truly without it), Kell couldn’t afford to stoke it, not for Ned, or the king, or himself. He’d already disrupted two worlds. He wouldn’t be to blame for a third.

  He raked a hand through his hair and pushed up from the stool, the footsteps overhead growing fainter.

  The game board still sat open on the counter. Kell knew he should take it back, but then what? He’d just have to explain its presence to Staff and Hastra. No, let the foolish boy keep it. He set the empty glass down and turned to leave, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  His fingers brushed something in the very bottom of his coat.

  His hand closed over it, and he drew out a second Red London lin. It was old, the gold star worn smooth by hands and time, and Kell didn’t know how long it had languished in his pocket. It might have been one of the coins he’d taken from the old king, exchanged for one new and pocket-worn. Or it might have been a stray piece of change, lost in the wool-lined pocket. He considered it for a moment, then heard the sound of a door shutting overhead, and footsteps on the stairs.

  Kell set the coin on the counter by his empty glass, and left.

  VI

  SASENROCHE

  Growing up, Lila had always hated taverns.

  She seemed bound to them by some kind of tether; she would run as hard as she could, and then at some point she’d reach the end of the line and be wrenched back. She’d spent years trying to cut that tie. She never could.

  The Inroads stood at the end of the docks, its lanterns haloed by the tendrils of the sea fog that crept into the port. A sign above the door was written in three languages, only one of which Lila recognized.

  The familiar sounds reached her from within, the ambient noise of scraping chairs and clinking glass, of laughter and threats and fights about to break out. They were the same sounds she’d heard a hundred times at the Stone’s Throw, and it struck her as odd that those sounds could exist here, in a black market town at the edge of an empire in a magical world. There was, she supposed, a comfort to these places, to the fabric that made them, the way that two taverns, cities apart—worlds apart—could feel the same, look the same, sound the same.

  Alucard was holding the door open for her. “Tas enol,” he said, sliding back into Arnesian. After you.

  Lila nodded and went in.

  Inside, the Inroads looked familiar enough; it was the people who were different. Unlike the black market, here the hoods and hats had all been cast off, and Lila got her first good look at the crews from the other ships along the dock. A towering Veskan pushed past them, nearly filling the doorway as he went, a massive blond braid falling down his back. He was bare-armed as he stepped out into the winter cold.

  A huddle of men stood just inside the door, talking in low voices with smooth foreign tongues. One glanced at her, and she was startled to see that his eyes were gold. Not amber, like the prince’s, but bright, almost reflective, their metallic centers flecked with black. Those eyes shone out from skin as dark as the ocean at night, and unlike the Faroan she’d seen in the market, this man’s face was studded with dozens of pieces of pale green glass. The fragments traced lines over his brows, followed the curve of his cheek, trailed down his throat. The effect was haunting.

  “Close your mouth,” Alucard hissed in her ear. “You look like a fish.”

  The light in the tavern was low, shining up from tables and hearths instead of down from the ceiling and walls, casting faces in odd shadow as the candles glanced off cheeks and brows.

  It wasn’t terribly crowded—she’d only seen four ships in the port—and she could make out the Spire’s men, scattered about and chatting in groups of two or three.

  Stross and Lenos had snagged a table by the bar and were playing cards with a handful of Veskans; Olo watched, and broad-shouldered Tav was deep in conversation with an Arnesian from another ship.

  Handsome Vasry was flirting with a Faroan-looking barmaid—nothing unusual there—and a wiry crewman named Kobis sat at the end of a couch, reading a book in the low light, clearly relishing the closest thing he ever found to peace and quiet.

  A dozen faces turned as Lila and Alucard moved through the room, and she felt herself shrink toward the nearest shadow before she realized none of them were looking at her. It was the captain of the Night Spire who held their attention. Some nodded, others raised a hand or a glass, a few called out a greeting. He’d obviously made a few friends during his years at sea. Come to think of it, if Alucard Emery had made enemies, she hadn’t met one yet.

  An Arnesian from the other rig waved him over, and rather than trail after, Lila made her way to the bar and ordered some kind of cider that smelled of apple and spice and strong liquor. She was several sips along before she turned her attention to the Veskan man a few feet down the bar.

  The Spire crew called Veskans “choser”—giants—and she was beginning to understand why.

  Lila tried not to stare—that is, she tried to stare without looking like she was staring—but the man was massive, even taller than Barron had been, with a face like a block of stone circled by a rope of blond hair. Not the bleached whitish blond of the Dane twins, but a honey color, rich in a way that matched his skin, as though he’d never spent a day in the shade.

  His arms, one of which leaned on the counter, were each the size of her head; his smile was wider than her knife, but not nearly as wicked; and his eyes, when they shifted toward her, were a cloudless blue. The Veskan’s hair and beard grew together around his face, parting only for his wide eyes and straight nose, and made his expression hard to read. She couldn’t tell if she was merely being sized up, or challenged.

  Lila’s fingers drifted toward the dagger at her hip, even though she honestly didn’t want to try her hand against a man who looked more likely to dent her knife than be impaled on it.

  And then, to her surprise, the Veskan held up his glass.

  “Is aven,” she said, lifting her own drink. Cheers.

  The man winked, and then began to down his ale in a single, continuous gulp, and Lila, sensing the challenge, did the same. Her cup was half the size of his, but to be fair, he was more than twice the size of her, so it seemed an even match. When her empty mug struck the counter an instant before his own, the Veskan laughed and knocked the table twice with his closed fist while murmuring appreciatively.

  Lila set a coin on the bar and stood up. The cider hit her like a pitching deck, as if she were no longer on solid ground but back on the Spire in a storm.

  “Easy now.” Alucard caught her elbow, then swung his arm around her shoulders to hide her unsteadiness. “That’s what you get for making friends.”

  He led her to a booth where most of the men had gathered, and she sank gratefully into a chair on the end. As the captain took his seat, the rest of the crew drifted over, as if drawn by an invisible current. But of course, the current was Alucard himself.

  Men laughed. Glasses clanked. Chairs scraped.

  Lenos cheated a glance at her down the table. He was the one who’d started the rumors, about her being the Sarows. Was he still afraid of her, after all this time?

  She drew his knife—now hers—from her belt and polished it on the corner of her shirt.

  Her head spun from that first drink, and she let her ears and attention drift through the crew like smoke, let the Arnesian words dissolve back into the highs and lows, the melodies of a foreign tongue.

  At the other end of the table, Alucard boasted and cheered and drank with his crew, and Lila marveled at the way the man shifted to fit his environment. She knew how to adapt well enough, but Alucard knew how to transform. Back o
n the Spire, he was not only captain but king. Here at this table, surrounded by his men, he was one of them. Still the boss, always the boss, but not so far above the rest. This Alucard took pains to laugh as loud as Tav and flirt almost as much as Vasry, and slosh his ale like Olo, even though Lila had seen him fuss whenever she spilled water or wine in his cabin.

  It was a performance, one that was entertaining to watch. Lila wondered for perhaps the hundredth time which version of Alucard was the real one, or if, somehow, they were all real, each in its own way.

  She also wondered where Alucard had found such an odd group of men, when and how they’d been collected. Here, on land, they seemed to have so little in common. But on the Spire, they functioned like friends, like family. Or at least, how Lila imagined family would act. Sure they bickered, and now and then even came to blows, but they were also fiercely loyal.

  And Lila? Was she loyal, too?

  She thought back to those first nights, when she’d slept with her back to the wall and her knife at hand, waiting to be attacked. When she’d had to face the fact that she knew almost nothing about life aboard a ship, and grappled every day to stay on her feet, clutching at scraps of skill and language and, on the occasion it was offered, help. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Now they treated her more or less as if she was one of them. As if she belonged. A small, defiant part of her, the part she’d done her best to smother on the streets of London, fluttered at the thought.

  But the rest of her felt ill.

  She wanted to push away from the table and walk out, walk away, break the cords that tied her to this ship and this crew and this life, and start over. Whenever she felt the weight of those bonds, she wished she could take her sharpest knife and cut them free, carve out the part of her that wanted, that cared, that warmed at the feeling of Alucard’s hand on her shoulder, Tav’s smile, Stress’s nod.

  Weak, warned a voice in her head.

  Run, said another.

  “All right, Bard?” asked Vasry, looking genuinely concerned.

  Lila nodded, fixing a sliver of a smile back on her face.

  Stross slid a fresh drink her way, as if it was nothing.

  Run.

  Alucard caught her eye and winked.

  Christ, she should have killed him when she had the chance.

  “All right, Captain,” shouted Stross over the noise. “You’ve got us waiting. What’s the big news?”

  The table began to quiet, and Alucard brought his stein down. “Listen up, you shabby lot,” he said, his voice carrying in a wave. The group fell to murmurs and then silence. “You can have the night on land. But we sail at first light.”

  “Where to next?” asked Tav.

  Alucard looked right at Lila when he said it. “To London.”

  Lila stiffened in her seat.

  “What for?” asked Vasry.

  “Business.”

  “Funny thing,” called Stross, scratching his cheek. “Isn’t it about time for the tournament?”

  “It might be,” said Alucard with a smirk.

  “You didn’t,” gasped Lenos.

  “Didn’t what?” asked Lila.

  Tav chuckled. “He’s gone and entered the Essen Tasch.”

  Essen Tasch, thought Lila, trying to translate the phrase. Element … something. What was it? Everyone else at the table seemed to know. Only Kobis said nothing, simply frowned down into his drink, but he didn’t look confused, only concerned.

  “I don’t know, Captain,” said Olo. “You think you’re good enough to play that game?”

  Alucard chuckled and shook his head. He brought his glass to his lips, took a swig, and then slammed the stein down on the table. It shattered, but before the cider could spill, it sprang into the air, along with the contents in every other glass at the table, liquid freezing as it surged upward. The frozen drinks hung for a moment, then tumbled to the wooden table, some lodging sharp-end down, others rolling about. Lila watched the frozen spear that had once been her cider fetch up against her glass. Only the icicle that had been Alucard’s drink stayed up, hovering suspended above his ruined glass.

  The crew whooped and applauded.

  “Hey,” growled a man behind the bar. “You pay for everything you break.”

  Alucard smiled and lifted his hands, as if in surrender. And then, as he flexed his fingers, the shards of glass strewn across the table trembled and drew themselves back together into the shape of a stein, as if time itself were beginning to reverse. The stein formed in one of Alucard’s hands, the cracks blurring and then vanishing as the glass re-fused. He held it up, as if to inspect it, and the shard of frozen cider still hovering in the air above his head liquefied and spilled back into the unbroken glass. He took a sip and toasted the man behind the bar, and the crew burst into a raucous cheer, hammering the table, their own drinks forgotten.

  Only Lila sat motionless, stunned by the display.

  She’d seen Alucard do magic, of course—he’d been teaching her for months. But there was a difference—a chasm, a world—between levitating a knife and this. She hadn’t seen anyone handle magic like this. Not since Kell.

  Vasry must have read her surprise, because he tipped his head toward hers. “Captain’s one of the best in Ames,” he said. “Most magicians only got a handle on one element. A few are duals. But Alucard? He’s a triad.” He said the word with awe. “Doesn’t go around flashing his power, because great magicians are rare out on the water, rarer than a bounty, so they’re likely to be caught and sold. Of course that wouldn’t be the first coin on his head, but still. Most don’t leave the cities.”

  Then why did he? she wondered.

  When she looked up, she saw Alucard’s gaze leveled on her, sapphire winking above one storm-dark eye.

  “You ever been to an Essen Tasch, Vasry?” she asked.

  “Once,” said the handsome sailor. “Last time the Games were in London.”

  Games, thought Lila. So that’s what Tasch meant.

  The Element Games.

  “Only runs every three years,” continued Vasry, “in the city of the last victor.”

  “What’s it like?” she pried, fighting to keep her interest casual.

  “Never been? Well you’re in for a treat.” Lila liked Vasry. He wasn’t the sharpest man, not by a long stretch; he didn’t read too much into the questions, didn’t wonder how or why she didn’t know the answers. “The Essen Tasch has been going for more than sixty years now, since the last imperial war. Every three years they get together—Arnes and Faro and Vesk—and put up their best magicians. Shame it only lasts a week.”

  “S’the empires’ way of shaking hands and smiling and showing that all is well,” chimed in Tav, who had leaned in conspiratorially.

  “Tac, politics are boring,” said Vasry, waving his hand. “But the duels are fun to watch. And the parties. The drinking, the betting, the beautiful women …”

  Tav snorted. “Don’t listen to Vasry, Bard,” he said. “The duels are the best part. A dozen of the greatest magicians from each empire going head to head.” Duels.

  “Oh, and the masks are pretty, too,” mused Vasry, eyes glassy.

  “Masks?” asked Lila, interest piqued.

  Tav leaned forward with excitement. “In the beginning,” he said, “the competitors wore helmets, to protect themselves. But over time they began to embellish them. Set themselves apart. Eventually, the masks just became part of the tournament.” Tav frowned slightly. “I’m surprised you’ve never been to an Essen Tasch, Bard.”

  Lila shrugged. “Never been in the right place at the right time.”

  He nodded, as if that answer was good enough, and let the matter lie. “Well, if Alucard’s in the ranks, it’ll be a tournament to remember.”

  “Why do men do it?” she asked. “Just to show off?”

  “Not just men,” said Vasry. “Women, too.”

  “It’s an honor, being chosen to compete for your crown—”

  “Glory’s well and go
od,” said Vasry, “but this game is winner take all. Not that the captain needs the money.”

  Tav shot him a warning look.

  “A pot that large,” said Olo, chiming in, “even the king himself is sore to part with it.”

  Lila traced her finger through the cider that was beginning to melt on the table, half listening to the crew as they chatted. Magic, masks, money … the Essen Tasch was becoming more and more interesting.

  “Can anyone compete?” she wondered idly.

  “Sure,” said Tav, “if they’re good enough to get a spot.”

  Lila stopped drawing her finger through the cider, and no one noticed that the spilled liquid kept moving, tracing patterns across the wood.

  Someone set a fresh drink in front of her.

  Alucard was calling for attention.

  “To London,” he said, raising his glass.

  Lila raised her own.

  “To London,” she said, smiling like a knife.

  I

  RED LONDON

  The city was under siege.

  Rhy stood on the uppermost balcony of the palace and watched the forces assemble. The cold air bit at his cheeks and tugged on his half cloak, catching it up like a golden flag behind him.

  Far below, structures collided, walls rose, and the sounds of stoked fires and hammer on steel echoed like weapons struck together in a barrage of wood and metal and glass.

  It would surprise most to know that when Rhy thought of himself as king, he saw himself like this: not on a throne, or toasting friends at lavish dinners, but overseeing armies. And while he had never seen an actual battlefront—the last true war was more than sixty years past, and his father’s forces always smothered the border flares and civil skirmishes before they could escalate—Rhy was blessed with enough imagination to compensate. And at first glance, London did appear to be under attack, though the forces were all his own.

  Everywhere Rhy looked, the city was being overtaken, not by enemy soldiers but by masons and magicians, hard at work constructing the platforms and stages, the floating arenas and bankside tents that would house the Essen Tasch and its competitors.