When she woke up again it was dark. She was laying there, her eyes half-closed, with no thought in her head. Above and beyond cliffs the moon had risen. Its face shone down over the sea and the river, making them look like the most expensive silk brought by the merchants from foreign lands. Arklington enjoyed the pale moonlight too, the buildings wearing bright reflection like a coat of new pastel paint. Up in the skies, an airship circled slowly, like a carp relishing the still waters of its pond. Jay observed the airship on its path, straining her ears to hear the engines singing their monotonous song over the calm skies.
A thought appeared suddenly in her mind. She sat up suddenly, trying to chase it.
‘Lethe?’ she called out. ‘Why is the sky like that? Where is the smog? The magicworks.. there is no vapour tonight.’
Lethe came over; taken away from the set of throwing knives he was polishing.
‘Nice eh? Today’s the first day of Mysternalia. You know, the week where all the bigwig and knobs in the city pretend there will be re-negotiating of the Magic Usage Tearms and Leases Treaty or whatever have you that keeps this city’s magic supply flowing.’
‘Magic Usage Tearms and Leases Treaty…’ said Jay slowly. She felt like she was supposed to remember something. Was it important?
‘Yeah, the magicworks working stiffs and whoever else can get themselves a week off for boozing and gambling and also some general whoring where possible. You know- fun.’
‘The treaty…’ Jay was now sifting through her memory, back to last day and all the things Aimar had said. She was barely listening to the political musings of the Prince that mattered less to her than the fact that the job was a set-up. But suddenly it all made sense.
‘Lethe, this job! This job was a set up. There are all these political things going on!’
‘What are you talking about Jay? It was a run that went bad, that’s it.’
‘No it wasn’t!’ Lethe did you get the scrolls to Munoz yet?’
‘No, I got the chest right here.’
Lethe disappeared between the crates and brought out the little chest they took from the embassy. Jay opened it and plucked out the first of the scrolls in the row. She broke the seal and unrolled the vellum. It was clean, unmarked by a drop of ink magical or otherwise. Lethe took out the other scrolls and broke their seals. Each one was the same- blank.
‘Alright, now that is suspicious.’
Starting slowly and breaking off each time she found it just too much to speak, Jay began to relate what Aimar told her. The amused expression and the look of satisfied confidence in the navy-coloured eyes of the Abrecari stood out fresh in her mind, interrupting the flow of her thoughts. But in the end she managed to explain, the plan to embarrass the Adanish King and get the upper hand that would lead to the renegotiation of the treaty in the way that it would benefit Abrecari and the Prince himself. Lethe listened carefully, barely speaking, his eyes growing narrower as the story progressed.
‘Fuck!’ he exclaimed finally when Jay was finished talking. He took the chest and the scrolls and hurled them over the edge of the cliff. ’How an honest thief is supposed to make a living in this fucking city?!’
‘Alright, alright, alright’ he paced back and forth pinching the bridge of his nose, deep in his thought. Then he stopped abruptly.
‘He said he would silence you so you’ll never reveal that this whole thing was a diplomatic gambit right? And now that you’re gone…Shit! He’ll try to silence everybody that could possibly have anything to do with it. That means you, me and-‘
‘Munoz!’ they said simultaneously.
‘I got to go, Jay’ said Lethe, grabbing his dagger from the bench and sliding it into the sheath on his lower back. ‘Munoz may be a pretentious bastard but he at least deserves a warning that a shitstorm is coming his way.’
‘No, wait. I’m coming along!’
Jay jumped out of bed, or at least managed to execute what under right circumstances and low-light conditions could be taken for jumping out. It involved lots of stumbling and groaning but in the end she managed to stand straight.
‘There is no convincing you otherwise is it?’ said Lethe and then interrupted her as soon as she opened her mouth to protest. ‘Yeah, yeah I was just checking. I guess you better get dressed then.’
A short while later Jay was putting on a spare pair of breeches that were lying about and didn’t have too many holes. Then she wrapped the cloak she got back from Pira and she was ready to go.
Lethe grabbed a rope slung over the cliff and jumped off. Jay slid down after him all the way down to the foot of the cliff. From there they went down a steep path and down to the river itself. There was an old wooden pier here and a small boat that would look abandoned to anybody that might have wandered down this way. Lethe cast off the rope and started rowing. Jay seated herself at the prow and looked towards Arklington, trying to figure out what part of the city they would arrive at. It looked like it would be one of the outskirts, but then Lethe changed direction, steering towards one of the small marinas on the side. It wasn’t a long ride, but it seemed to Jay it was long. She knew they needed to be in Arklington fast to outrun whatever fate was coming towards Munoz. The moon shone down on them and the moonlit landscape no longer felt peaceful. Jay felt visible, uncovered and vulnerable like a flea on a white porcelain plate.
Only when they reached the city and blended into the sharp shadows created by the moonlight Jay felt less exposed. Lethe was leading them towards the part of the town where Munoz had his guarded storage office, knowing that the man often worked late. It was closer too and if he wasn’t there they would have to try the house. Jay hoped that this wouldn’t be the case. She still felt weakened, her body slow to respond and aching every occasion it got. But she knew that this was preferable to staying up in the lofty cliff hideout, alone with her thoughts and the memories of the past days lingering stubbornly on the edge of her consciousness.
They approached the offices from the side. From the slanted roof on the opposite side of the street, Jay could see the lamps burning in the front room. She relaxed a bit. So Munoz was in, working away. It would save them the entire trip to the house and she was glad for it.
‘Munoz?’ You in here?’ called out Lethe as soon as they passed the threshold.
There was no one in the front room. The counter, where the woman with tight bun would be presiding, was empty. The guards on each side of the door were gone too and the brass-and-iron fireplace in the corner stood silent and cold. The lamps were burning however and there was more light coming from behind the separator at the back of the room.
‘Munoz?’ called Lethe again. They walked towards the separator, hoping to find the man on the other side despite the silence that reigned inside the office.
The first sign that something was wrong was a piece of metal in the middle of the floor. Just a rounded, flat hunk of metal that could have been anything. But it was not anything. Jay immediately recognized it as a part of an Alloy Man’s armour. There was more in the room, the metal parts strewn on the floor and piled up on a heap that at one point was this imposing magical machine. Now it was just scrap, devoid of the magical charge that was animating it. Jay could not understand what could cause this, what kind of force or trick would have been employed to neutralize such fierce guardian.
But she did not dwell on it for long on account of other thing in the room- a man sitting at the table. It was Munoz. He was slumped on the chair next to his long table. His head lolled to the side, his mouth gaping open. Munoz’s throat had been slashed deeply, the skin parted in one stroke, revealing a deep wound. There was splatter of blood over the papers on the table and a pool of blood gathered under the chair, the dark surface shining dully in the light of the lamps. One look at the scene and there was no doubt in Jay’s mind that the man was dead.
‘You always said that my lack of interest in politics will come to bite me in the ass’ said Lethe partially to himself and partially to the dead man. ‘Fat good it had done to you Munoz.’
Jay stared at the grisly picture, not moving an inch. The office was in disarray, as a murder scene would be. But nothing appeared to be taken. The heavy chest hat Munoz was keeping money in was untouched, sitting squarely on the table and locked. The hatches on the wall were closed shut too. This was not a robbery gone wrong. It was exactly what they thought would happen- an attempt, successful one, to silence anyone that had anything to do with Aimar’s political manoeuvres.
‘We need to be going’ said Lethe. ‘The city ‘ironhats’ might be just behind the corner and they will have no problems pinning this on us.’
They left as they came, swiftly and silently as to make sure that the horrible scene won’t be discovered until they were far away and hidden in the crevices of the city.
They climbed over the rooftops. Lethe was leading them slowly but steadily over the Thieves’ Highway until they came across one of many temples of Arklington. They climbed the low spire and pushed the pigeons off their sleeping ledge, making space for themselves. Lethe sat down, his feet hanging off the stone casing, dangling over the void.
‘Ehh, I need to think.’
Jay crouched next to him.
‘We need to hide.’
‘Hide? Sure we could hide. But we are not talking a small-time heat here. It’d be taking months for it to die down. At best. What are you going to live off when you can’t work because every Tom, Dick and Harry with a shiv to their name will be looking for us? Because you can bet your ass there will be a reward for us. And I don’t even count professionals. The way Munoz was done in? That’s professional. You’ve seen his Alloy Man, yeah? You don’t just turn an Alloy Man into scrap when you’re a two-bit cutthroat.’
‘Run then.’
‘Up-country? Or maybe to Nyraha? Irichi Territories? I heard that the weather is nice over there at this time of year. But then tell me one thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘This Prince Aimar of yours. Is he a man that would just let us go?’
Jay recalled the silver fingers touching her face and the promises to bind her tongue forever with a cut or spell.
‘No’ she said. And he is not a Prince of mine. He is my…nothing.’
‘An Abrecari nothing with more wealth that either of us can imagine. Enough to send assassins after us to the end of the world. We could run and spend the rest of our lives wondering if today would be the day they find us.’
Jay remained silent, having nothing else to say. Lethe was right and she knew where he was going with his reasoning.
‘Looks like we have another visit at the embassy’ he said. ‘We better get going when the night is still young.’
‘What? You want to go there right now?’
‘When do you want to go then? Next winter?’
‘We need to prepare-‘
‘There is no time to prepare!’ exploded Lethe, then continued in a calmer tone. ‘Each moment we spend preparing his silent employees are looking for us. It needs to be done right away. Tonight.’
It. It had to be done.
‘Lethe, you’re talking about killing a Prince…’
‘What? Is he immortal or something? He’s a man. He puts on his pants one leg at a time, same as me.’
Jay couldn’t help but smirk. Aimar was an Abrecari Prince and ambassador. Tall and silver-skinned, with his striking looks only matching by the depth of his cruelty. And Lethe was…well, Lethe. But besides all the things he was: a scoundrel, a thief and someone that wouldn’t flinch if the job was dirty or not, he was also right. They would only be able to extricate themselves out of this mess if Aimar died.
Jay rose to her feet and checked the blade she carried strapped to her side. It was a dagger that Lethe gave her in the hideout before they left. Her own dagger taken from the depths under Arklington was still in Aimar’s possession. AS much as she missed it, she was armed. And that had to be sufficient. She looked down and Lethe met her gaze, then stood up also. They were ready to go.
Climbing even higher up the spire, they took their bearings, choosing the best route that would take them to Magnolia Hill. It was quite a walk and despite still-early hour, they knew that had to make haste.
The diplomatic district was heavily guarded of course. There were sentries on the roofs and every corner. The Crown spared no expense protecting their friends and enemies within these walls. Still it was easier now. Lethe seemed to pick up many secrets from Pira. The Kou cared little for being restricted in their movements, just like rats. But while rats were usually content with drains and tiny holes, Kou made walkways of their own. The rich and gleaming with wealth homes and offices of those that held political power turned out to be older and full of secrets under their lurid facades. Secrets that were tight and dirty, but big enough for a thief of a small statue to make us of. A thief…or an assassin.
The embassy almost shone with a light of its own in the moonlight. The spires on the roof pointing into the navy sky. For a little bit they circled around the tight alley between two walls of different properties, trying to find the passage that Pira guided them through the last time they were here. Jay almost expected the hunched silhouette of the female Kou to appear somewhere nearby. But no matter how she watched the shadow that the strong moonlight created, she was unable to spot anyone or anything lurking nearby.
‘Mmm-hm’ mumbled Lethe. His fingers ran into the half-obscured spot that marked the passage.
Jay grunted and squeezed herself into the tight tunnel, scraping her bruised body against the walls. She remembered the tunnels to be filthy and overtaken by creatures that crept and crawled, but now when she was fully conscious they seemed even worse. They pushed ahead until they came at an empty space that at one point must have held some sort of waste water collector, since it still smelled like it. Two smaller openings converged here. Lethe paused.
‘We passed here twice so…’he shifted his body towards small outlet on the right. ‘This will go into the servant’s building and onto the roof. While the other should take us into the garden.’
Jay was less interested where exactly they will come out in the embassy but more about the suspicious scrapping sound that came from somewhere behind her left shoulder. Without hesitating she dove head-first into the opening indicated by Lethe, hoping to avoid confrontation with whatever was that made the scraping noise.
The exit of the tunnel turned out to be a small grate next to a fountain, placed there in case of it overflowing. They emerged from the hole and put the grate back in its place. The garden was full of sharp shadows, milky-white stones and pitch-black hollows. To Jay’s relief, there was no sign of the Alloy Men, perhaps they would only activate when an alarm was sounded. But now the gardens were still and drowned in the monochromatic colours, like a charcoal-and-chalk picture.
Using the cover of the moon shadows, they passed through the gardens towards the embassy itself. They walked around it, since they couldn’t climb the moonlit side as they would be as visible as two flies on a bleached bone. The shaded side offered more of an opportunity to remain undetected. Jay raised her head to look at the dark face of the building. On the roof, the guard was walking unhurriedly, slowly circling his spot and fading in and out from between the spires. Even if he decided to look down he wouldn’t be able to spot anyone climbing the heavily-carved façade. Jay started to wonder if they would have to ambush him to get into the building through the roof, but at the same time Lethe nudged her pointing somewhere to the side. Some of the windows were lit and quite close to them, one of the windows looked different than the others. After she squinted and stared for a bit, she realized it looked different because the window was opened. Jay almost smiled. A way in!
Lethe started climbing and Jay followed him, ignoring the strain on her still-aching and exhausted body. ‘It will be over soon’ she repeated to herself. ‘Soon.’
The moment after Lethe’s feet disappeared into the building, Jay dove inside too. It was darker here than outside and it took a minute before her eyes adjusted. They were in a long chamber. There were no furnishings save for long rows of pedestals gathered under the walls and running the entire length in the middle. Different object were placed upon those pedestals making the room almost crowded with strange shapes. Just next to the window they crawled through there was the largest set of armour Jay had ever seen. Wide and almost twice as tall as her, the pieces of boiled leather were shaped into cuirass, pauldrons and greaves. The steel spine that held it together was crowned with a cap spiked with tusks of a best of some kind. Whoever would wear that outfit would have been taller than Abrecari and twice as wide in shoulder.
‘Irichi armour’ mumbled Lethe. ‘Good that there is no one inside or we’d been royally screwed then.’
Jay walked around the giant armour just to stand face-to-face with a beast. It was long and studded with thick scales. Its short legs made it belly hang low to the ground, the thick as bough tail dragging behind it. For a briefest of moments Jay thought it was alive, staring her down with its fiery eye. A few heartbeats had to pass before she realized it was dead and stuffed with sawdust, the magic-pressed glass in the eye-socket giving it an illusion of life burning within the terrifying, long face. Jay looked at Lethe but he just shrugged. Whatever the beast was he wouldn’t know either.
There were other things in the room. Some of them were familiar even though quite outlandish: masks with feathers as long as Jay’s arm, statues of marble and mahogany, urns painted with magical glazes. Other objects seemed completely foreign, machines of unknown origins and purpose, geometrical shapes interlocked into arches and columns, fans of thin iridescent metal prongs. They walked among the curios, trying to locate a door that would take them further into the building. Suddenly Jay stopped, her gaze catching on a familiar shape. Lethe looked at her quizzically.
It was a small pedestal under the wall, holding something that Jay knew. Something that she knew was hers. The dagger that was ‘given’ to her by the faceless statue under Arklington. At first she was surprised seeing this seemingly unremarkable object among the oddities. Then she remembered what Aimar said: ‘antique’. Slowly Jay approached the pedestal, searching for any signs of magical traps, knowing that even if she found any she would attempt to take it anyway. It was hers. It was given to her. And Aimar had no right to keep it. Slowly, as slow as she could, Jay reached out to touch the cold metal of the dagger. She held her breath as her fingers enveloped the handle.
Nothing happened. She heard Lethe sighing, realizing that he too held his breath. She took the dagger from the pedestal, finally feeling fully dressed as she hid it in the folds of her clothes.
They passed a few doors but as they looked they saw no light escaping through the gap near the floor. Until the last one. There was a light burning in the chamber beyond and in addition they seemed to be ajar. Lethe paused and listened for the moment, peeking ever so slightly through the gap. Then he leaned over Jay’s ear.
‘There is someone inside. We go in and grab whoever is there and then make them tell us where that bastard of a prince is.’
Jay nodded. Silently, they slipped through the door.
The chamber was full of movement and flickering. There was a large table in the middle of it, its rounded edges made it look like it was growing out straight out of the floor. There was a magic lamp on top of it, the mystical flame shining steadily, casting a strong circle of light around the table. Flowers surrounded the lamp. Lilies and roses and orange blossoms, blooms with long petals shaped like small chalices. The flowers smelled sweetly, their leaves painted with yellow sheen of the lamp’s light. The walls and the windows of the room were draped with silk as fine as cobwebs, the long curtains moving ever so slightly with the light draught that came through the room. Some of the finely-woven ropes that would normally bind the curtains were hanging limply from their hooks. This made the shadows in the room unsteady, wavering with each fluttering of the fabric.
Lethe and Jay melded into the shadows, stepping on both sides of the room, advancing slowly forward, keeping to the dark patches on the floor. Their target was a long, lushly upholstered sofa beyond the table. It was in a shape of a horseshoe and stood on its lion-shaped legs on a low dais. There was a person resting upon it, with their limbs stretched over embroidered cushions. As they drew closer, Jay’s heart leaped as she recognized the reclined form of Prince Aimar. He appeared to be napping, his face relaxed and eyes closed.
‘He’s asleep’ she thought. ‘Good. It will be easy then.’
A hand across mouth. A slash across the throat. That’s all it would take to free them of constant threat, free them of the need to look over their shoulders for the rest of their days.
‘I had been correct then’ the Prince spoke. Jay stopped in her tracks. Had he heard them? Saw them? Sensed them by some other, maybe magical, means?
‘I had my foremost agents dispatched to locate you. In the end though, I was correct. A slight pressure and a trail for you pursue would lead you back to me. It preserved both my means and time, to trust your dubious ways.’
So it was no coincidence that the window was open, that they met with no problems coming back here. He was here waiting for them. Wanting for them to come back. Jay felt the coldness spreading around her spine. What now?
The Prince stood up and stepped within the circle of light. There was no way now they could approach him unseen. He stretched out his arm and spread his fingers. Jay felt the air crackling and shimmering around his palm as he wove a spell into reality. A long blade started to materialize in his hand. It was beautifully crafted, with basket hilt guard that engulfed his hand like petals of a flower. He finished the spell and the sword became a reality, glinting with graceful menace.
‘I could summon my guards instantly’ he continued as he paced slowly around the table, peering into the shadows beyond the circle of light. ‘One call and they would appear to comb the shadows that you so adore. And they would oust you into the open and slay you. That would not be entertaining. No, I create my own diversions. As I surely you have learned by now, my little bird? Are you there? Is your comrade-in-darkness with you?’
He moved slowly and deliberately, not leaving the circle of light by an inch. By the way he moved Jay knew that he didn’t know where they were, what corner they chose to hide in and from what direction a blade would struck from.
‘And as I am a sporting man, I shall strike a bargain with you. Come out, come out into the open, eschew the darkness that you love so much and fight me openly. On my side I promise not to call for help. And if you defeat me, no one will give you chase. ‘
‘Somehow I don’t believe you.’ Lethe’s voice came somewhere from the other side of the room. The Prince turned towards it and cocked his head. A smile came over his handsome face.
‘Ah that voice I do not know. Yet I know who you are, Mister Green. Yes I know the name at least. I had known ever since I came to learn about the priests of this bizarre religion of yours were made to negotiate for the trinket that had been purloined from the Cathedral. I bid you welcome, Mister Green.’
‘Yet you wound me, doubting my honour.’ Aimar continued. ‘I take it you do not value honour yourself? I then shall tell you another truth, as a token to prove that I always speak so. If I defeat you, I shall slay you. But I shall not slay your little protégée. She is present here, is she not? She came with you, I can sense it. I was not pleased she absconded. But it matters not in the slightest.’
Jay tensed. Instinctively she wrapped her fingers around the handle of her dagger, feeling herself squeezing it until her knuckles turned white on the ancient hilt.
‘I shall not slay her’ he continued to speak. ‘I enjoyed her company too much. Did she spoke of me at all? Did you see how I marked her? That slash I made upon her cheek seemed deep, it might scar.’
He leaned forward, his dark-blue eyes trying to penetrate the shadows outside the golden circle of the lamp’s light.
‘I shall enjoy her again, and thoroughly too after you’re no more, thief’ he whispered.
Jay felt nausea rising within her. She locked her muscles into place, forcing them to stay perfectly still. She knew if she let go just for a second, she will leap out, her blade barred. She’ll fly in mad charge towards the Prince, towards his throat, slashing and stabbing. And that was exactly what he wanted, to lure her out of the shadows, to make her strike without thought or caution.
Lethe didn’t respond. He too knew bait when he saw one. The Prince smiled.
‘Well, what shall it be, thief? Will you do me the courtesy of indulging my curiosity? Because I am curious how one such as yourself fight. Or I can always call for my guards. Should you not appreciate the choice I am giving you?’
The silence lasted for a while longer. The Prince then took a deep breath and opened his mouth to shout. But before he had the chance to call upon his guards, a shadow broke off from behind him. Lethe jumped on the table, running across the surface. The air exploded with a fountain of petals and blooms as he ploughed through the flowers. His vicious dagger was parting the air, pointed squarely into the Prince’s lower back. The Prince whirled in place, the rapier raised in parry. The blades clashed. For just a split second, both of them were pushing, standing face to face. Then the Prince stepped backwards, trying to unbalance Lethe. But instead keeping on, Lethe released the pressure and, without stopping, executed a backflip avoiding Aimar’s counterattack. Now that they were no longer locked blade-to-blade and there was a distance between them they could see each other clearly. The Prince laughed in delight.
‘A Kou? The master thief that had the priest-caste all in uproar is a Kou?’
‘Yes, a Kou. A nasty, scary Kou’ Lethe’s gravelly voice took a higher pitch in mockery of the pleasantly-sounding voice of the Abrecari prince.
‘And one that speaks too!’ if the Prince was delighted before then now he was positively beaming. ‘I see I was hasty in promising you death. I would love to keep you and present to all, a prized rarity. It is such a pity. But I shall not break my word, not even one I gave to a Kou.’
He lunged forward trying to reach Lethe with the tip of his rapier, force him off the table down to the ground. Taller than Lethe, he would have the advantage of reach and height that the table mitigated that somewhat. But even despite the table, wielding just one dagger and with nothing else to block the blade Lethe was still at a disadvantage. They exchanged a few attacks but neither one landed. Lethe kept well abreast of the rapier, but made no progress himself. Each time he tried to cut past Aimar‘s defence, he was forced back just by the sheer reach that both the rapier and the height gave him. Jay knew that she could no longer hang back but she needs to break that stalemate. She snatched a cushion from the sofa and with all her might threw at Aimar’s head aiming to distract him long enough for Lethe to land a blow. She missed but her goal seemed to be accomplished. Her heart rose as she saw the Prince turning towards her, the point of his sword barring her way. She saw Lethe taking the opportunity. She saw him attack. She lunged herself, drawing her ancient dagger.
She wasn’t sure what happened next, just what it turned out to be. There was another clash of steel and a whirlwind of fabric. Then she saw Aimar standing in front of them both, completely unscathed. He avoided her lunge and parried Lethe’s blade. Jay saw Lethe’s eyes narrow. The Abrecari was fast, too fast for them maybe. Too fast for a clean fight.
They were standing for a two heartbeats at most, the three of them, measuring each other. Aimar locked gazes with Lethe, he smiled and sprung. But not towards Lethe. Instead, he went for Jay. He judged her correctly as being less experienced and still weakened. She was the weaker link and so he went in to break her.
Jay was a fraction too slow in dodging. She felt the steel passing through the fabric of her cloak, by miracle missing her skin. She felt the cloak tearing as she dove forward, trying to get out of the reach of the rapier’s tip. She miscalculated a bit and instead getting herself closer for a cut, she bumped into Aimar’s chest, unbalancing them both. He wavered and was forced to step back, straight onto the tail of a curtain spread on the floor. A shadow swooped behind Aimar, pulling the curtain from under his feet. Already unbalanced, he toppled backwards. In a desperate attempt to keep the balance he pulled more of the curtains on top of himself. He trashed under the fabric, slashing the curtain into ribbons with his sword. Seizing the opportunity, Jay and Lethe leaped on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Aimar was trapped by the silky swathes that turned out to be as tough to cut as they were pretty. Jay saw his face emerging from that sea of fabric. She saw him draw breath to scream for help, against what he promised. Just a second and the room will fill with armed guards. But before he could make a sound of any kind, Lethe punched him in the throat. The shout never came. Instead, Aimar was seized by a fit of coughing and desperate wheezes as he struggled to breathe.
Jay didn’t wait for him to recover. She dove for a strip of silk that was wallowing on the ground. She grabbed the fabric and wound it around Aimar‘s neck, bringing the two ends close behind his head. He grappled with the strong material as she pulled harder, making him arch his back as he tried to draw breath. His throat was now exposed for a clean cut and Jay looked expectantly at Lethe. Lethe came closer, the vicious, serrated dagger in his hand. He looked into Aimar‘s eyes dispassionately. He raised his hand, pointing the tip of the dagger straight into the hollow of the Prince’s throat. At any moment the blade would plunge downwards, striking the deadly blow. Jay tensed.
Lethe lowered his hand slowly without striking the blow.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Jay as the Abrecari struggled harder against her hold. ‘Finish him off!’
Lethe looked at her, his face twisted in a crooked grin.
‘I was thinking….Maybe you want to do it?’
Did she? Lethe folded his hand in a fist and punched Aimar in the stomach. Aimar’s hissed through his clenched teeth and scrounged his shoulders, unable to put up much resistance anymore. Lethe stepped around him, joining Jay standing behind the Prince. He took the ends of the silk strand from her hands and held the Abrecari tight. With her hands now free, Jay picked up her dagger that she had dropped during the scuffle. Then she faced Aimar, looking into his navy-blue eyes. She hesitated. Whatever she might feel towards the man, in the end it was simply what needed to be done to cut them free. She raised her hand, the antique blade poised to strike.
Then, the Abrecari spoke.
‘You…cannot do it’ he wheezed. ‘You…came back to me. Came back…because you enjoyed it. You came back…because you hoped…I shall do it again.’
Jay let the hand that she was holding the dagger with fall to her side. She looked at his face, at the slowly growing smile that now had nothing of the sunny quality that it had before. Now it showed up as a twisted spasm of the muscles of his face, distorting the features.
‘You…enjoyed… it’ he wheezed again.
Jay struck low, barely feeling the blade plunging into his stomach. She felt blood flowing from the wound over her fingers. She pulled the blade free and leaned close to his ear.
‘Scream for me’ she whispered into his ear and struck again, right next to where the first blow landed. Then she twisted the blade inside the wound. She heard the strained rasp coming out of his throat, the sound of someone that tries to scream but lacks the air in the lungs.
She straightened up now, leaving the dagger as it was and again looked into his face. There was no trace of a smile, not even the twisted shadow of one. He was moving his lips as if he was trying to gulp the air- a beached fish devoid of water.
‘You can’t scream either, huh?’ she said flatly, wishing that she could just walk away now.
With one move, she grabbed the dagger and tore it out of Aimar‘s flesh. With a wide arc, she struck, cutting his throat. Blood spurted from the gash as he trashed about, but Lethe held him tightly. It took but a few seconds, seconds filled with awful sound of somebody choking on their own blood. Then the trashing stopped, his arms slumped to the side and his head lolled over his chest.
Lethe waited a while longer before releasing his grip on Aimar, then pushed his limp form away. The Abrecari hit the floor, his blood spilling over the silk curtains. Jay was staring at him, not sure what she was supposed to feel. Not sure if she was feeling anything at all.
‘Jay?’
‘Hm?’ she said, not taking the eyes off the corpse.
‘We need to go now, Jay.’
Jay took a deep breath and wanted to say that she knew that. But before she could say anything, the side door opened quietly. Both Lethe and Jay snapped their heads towards them and watched as a tall figure slipped into the room. They froze.
She stood for a second in the doorway, as motionless as they were, regarding the bloody scene in front of her. Osindra, the Abrecari princess, closed the door behind her and took the hem of her flowing dress as she floated towards them. She stopped at the corpse of her husband and with one graceful move kicked him in the head. The blood soaked into the expensive velvet as she kicked again. Jay watched her face and realized that back when they first met, the expression of almost perfectly hidden disgust was not for her, the bloodied toy mistreated by Aimar. It was for her husband instead.
After Osindra was done venting the feeling that she must have been supressing for so long, she gathered the skirts about her and looked at the both Jay and Lethe. The disgust was gone from her face, replaced by a cool, almost serene look as if she was contemplating a moonlight vista, not a scene of a battle.
‘Thank you’ she said. ‘I knew I was correct assuming that you would deal with this matter. Leaving it your hands was not a mistake.’
Jay relaxed a bit, seeing that she was not about to scream or attack them or any of all the other things people normally do after finding their spouse with a slashed throat.
Lethe chuckled a bit, then hopped on the table and crouched among the tussled flowers.
‘I’m not sure if I want to know exactly, but it would be rather nice if you told us who the fuck you are and what is going on.’
‘She’s his wife’ growled Jay.
The Princess folded her arms inside her sleeves that flared like two sails over her hips.
‘Osindra, Princess Osindra if names or titles matter to you at all. And I shall tell you what is going on if it is your desire to know.’
‘This wretch’ she pointed to Aimar. ‘Thought that he was being so shrewd in his plans, so sophisticated. He and this worthless Duke of Kingston. He thought that he could just humiliate the King of Adania into re-opening the negotiations on the old treaty. He was right of course. It would have worked. But I am sure that my late husband did not have what it takes to negotiate a better deal for the Empire. He was a lousy diplomat, too entwined into his…pleasures.’
Jay grimaced. Osindra noticed.
‘I know what you are thinking, little thief. Why I have not stopped him? Why I have not done anything to save you from pain? It’s quite simple. It would not have served me.’
Jay tensed. For a brief moment she felt the weight of the dagger that she still held in her hand. It would have been quite easy to slash her throat too. To make her join the dead Prince at her feet.
‘Try that and I shall scream’ said Osindra, watching Jay with the unwavering gaze of her freezing-blue eyes. There are guards patrolling that corridor. You would not get out of here alive, neither of you. Besides, do you think little thief that you have escaped by chance? I had arranged for the door to your room to be open and I requested the guards to be moved closer to my quarters. Without me you would have been now marked as this man’s property. You should be thankful.’
Jay knew that she was right, remembering the conversation she overheard from the top of the stairs. It was because of this woman that she was standing here, her dagger dripping with blood.
Lethe growled quietly.
‘Fuck, lady. You’re quite a cold customer aren’t you?’
‘Of course’ the Princess smiled as if Lethe just paid her a compliment. ‘It served me well. And it would serve me still as I take over as an Abrecari Ambassador. The position is hereditary in our clan and I am next in line. But unlike this carrion here I am actually well qualified for it.’
‘So you see how simple that is?’ she continued. ‘I get to have my position as it is rightfully mine. The Empire gets a deal re-negotiated to be more favourable for us. That lousy Duke Kingston will have favours and money from the Empress for his involvement. And you little thief, are now avenged. Everybody win.’
‘Everybody except Adania’ said Lethe.
The Princess looked at him coldly.
‘And that concerns you Kou?’
‘Hey!’ Lethe threw his hands up. ‘We’re just a pair of hard-working thieves. The politics are not our business. All we want at the end of the day is get paid and go home.’
‘Paid?’ she said as if Lethe proposed that she should swallow a live worm. ‘I suppose that is the nature of your business. My husband did engage you to steal those worthless scrolls. And a duty of a good widow is to pay her late husband’s debts.’
Osindra joined her hands together. Jay felt the familiar magical movement in the air, as if there was sound ringing out, unperceivable but still very much present. Inch by inch, the Princes started to spread her hands but the space between them was no longer empty. A chain of small, round objects started to appear between them. The more she spread her hands, the more objects appeared- beads on a long string. Finally the vibrations in the air stopped and now Osindra was holding a long strand of pearls stretched between her palms. Each pearl was as big as a hazelnut, iridescent and as blue as her eyes.
‘Would that suit you?’
Lethe jumped off the table and snatched the pearls. He bit the pearls, testing if they were real.
‘They are real, Kou, not an illusion. Aimar had given those to me when I wed him, no need for me to keep them now.’
‘Better than anything your late husband had given us for sure’ he said and put it into one of the pouches on his belt.
‘Should I assume that our business is concluded?’
‘Fine with me. Jay?’
Jay shrugged. She bent over the destroyed silk curtain and wiped her dagger in it before putting it away.
‘I shall give you ten minutes, then I shall scream for guards’ said Ossindra. ‘Is that sufficient?’
‘Plenty’ said Lethe.
‘I shall have to send assassins after you I am sorry to say, familial obligations, you understand. And to demand that the Crown put a price over your heads of course. I shall employ ones that shall not look to hard and as long as you disappear from Arklington. You shall not be pursued beyond.’
‘I heard that before’ mumbled Jay. Aimar had promised they won’t be pursued if they defeat him in open battle. Yet she could still see his face, ready to call out when the battle didn’t go the way he expected.
‘He promised you that? Then let it be another promise I shall honour as his widow.’
‘Not that we have any choice but to believe you, do we?’
‘No.’
‘Then you’ll never see us again. Come on Jay, time to find a vacation spot.’
Lethe pulled Jay by the sleeve. Jay crossed one last gaze with the Princess’ icy-blue eyes then followed Lethe out the door they came through, back to the long curio room. They passed the displays and outlandish artefacts, out of the window and into the garden. The moment they reached the fountain and were just about to lower themselves into the drains a sound floated towards them. Barely audible through the distance and thickness of the walls, but still distinctively recognizable. It was a shriek of grief and terror, a high-pithed wailing of the Princess.
‘She really does put on a great performance, doesn’t she?’ said Lethe.
‘Let’s go before the guards find us’ said Jay. Now when it was all done, the only thing she wanted was to be as far away from here as possible.
They pushed themselves through the drains and didn’t stop on the other side, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the embassy. The moment they left the Magnolia Hill and joined the Thieves’ Highway, Jay was pretty much wiped out. The recent events seemed to her like one unending day, a string of pain, struggle and excretion both of body and mind. She stopped and leaned over a chimney, breathing in the smell of soot and smoke, while Lethe leaped and crouched down on its casing.
‘You remember the time I told you I’m gonna leave Arklington one day?’ said Lethe, looking over the roofline towards the seaport. ‘Well it looks like today is the day.’
Jay gulped the air before stretching and Looking at Lethe. He made himself comfortable on the chimney’s casing, his eyes shining under his hood.
‘Where are we going then?’
‘We? You know Jay that there is no reason at all to go with me, yeah? You could go wherever. Up the Kingdom if you wish with either a caravan or a boat upriver.’
Jay forded her arms under her dirty cloak. The Arklington watched her from below, the unlit windows staring like blind eyes, the moonlight falling unrestrained from the skies above, making all shimmer slightly as if it all was covered with frost. The streets were mostly empty, only the echoes of distant buoys of the bay could be heard at this distance. The buoys and the hardly audible murmur of the city, the background noise that was so well known to her that Jay could only hear it when she made an effort. For as long as she could remember, this was the only voice that would speak to her every day- the only companion in the alley she used to live. Now the ceaseless sound of the city had a companion, the gravelly voice of the Kou that she now knew so well.
‘Where are you going Lethe? That’s all I want to know.’
‘I don’t know’ he said after a brief pause. ‘I’ll just pick a boat or airship and see where it takes me I guess.’
Jay tightened the cloak around herself. The nearby temple’s bells started to ring. Jay counted the strikes: One…three…five…nine…eleven. Eleven. She remembered the night she was in her little cot in the shack she had called her home for so many years. The night she decided to accept Lethe’s offer. Jay pulled her mouth into a tight line. Now, if he wanted to withdraw his offer then he’d better tell her so. Otherwise she will do as she did back then. Follow him.
Lethe sat silently as she sorted through her thoughts.
‘Well, which one would it be then? A seaship or an airship?’
‘Uh, but you get airsick Lethe…’
‘Yeah? I get seasick too. Either way it’s going to be an entertaining voyage.’
Jay looked towards the seaport and the big-bellied vessels that moored there and the ones that still waited in the anchorage. Then she turned her head inland, towards Isambard Tower. The long bodies of airships anchored there hung like grey clouds. Jay thought of their metal decks that vibrated with the power of magical engines that moved them.
‘An airship then’ she said, turning back to Lethe.
‘Sure, whatever. Just let us go and grab some money from the stashes. I’m guessing Osindra would grant us that bit of time to at least do that before sending some dog or another after us. I for one don’t want to start anew by having to sell my arse to whoever would pay for such a thing.’
Jay scowled, Lethe chuckled.
‘Yeah, yeah, don’t scowl. We got to go.’
He slipped from the chimney’s casing and stood next to her before breaking into a run. Jay watched for a second as he moved effortlessly along the spine of the roof before bounding of the corner. Then, as it was so many times before, she broke into a run chasing Lethe over the rooftops.
THE END…for now.
