Blades Of Magic: Crown Service #1 (4 page)

She recognized and cataloged faces, appearances, and strengths like other women catalogued shoes, hairstyles, and the latest fashions. Sara could tell a person’s physical strength with enough certainty from a few feet away that she almost never misjudged her opponent. Which was why when she walked through the door of the head fisherman’s office she almost turned right back around and left. Almost. She needed the money more than she needed to stay out of trouble.
They
needed the money.

As she stood behind a person already there on business, she studied the medium-sized man who sat behind a large wooden desk that sagged under the weight of the coin purses and stacks of paper in front of him. When he looked up, she shuddered. Not because he had a cruel scar bisecting his face into the ruin of his right eye, but because out of his left eye shone pure evil. This was one man she wouldn’t mess with. There was bad and there was
evil
. Men like Severin, the thief lord who hadn’t been able to finish an argument without using his fists, were bad.

She knew this man was worse, much worse than Severin just from the glance she had given him. As she waited for the seated man to finish his business with the patron in front of her, she studied him. Sara could tell that the seated man was cunning from just looking at him. But cunning and evil were two very different things. Reluctantly, she dived into her gifts. She needed to know where he treaded the line. After all, being maniacal wasn’t a crime.

She confirmed the hint of malice in his eye when she opened her mage sight to take advantage of the powers of the battle magic that raged within her. She only used a spark of the powers, as it was dangerous to tap into the whole of her battle magic. Sara became virtually unstoppable when using the full force of her gifts. Battle magic was unique among the mages in that it affected their mental states. Battle mages had a nickname she despised, because she shivered in fear whenever she heard it. It was like hearing the death knell and knowing that it was coming for you. The word? Berserkers.

The berserkers, or battle mages, were infamous upon the fields of war for being kill-hungry and virtually unstoppable. Sara had never gone berserk and she
never
intended to because she refused to go to war. She wasn’t stupid. There would be no better way for a battle mage to trigger the terrible gift, than to be surrounded by blood and enemies everywhere they turned.

I don’t know how my father managed it
, she thought to herself.

She shook her head as she thought it over,
No, actually I do. He went to war, but he never served on the front lines. He never exposed himself to the temptation to dive into a reign of blood and death. As an officer and as a commander he was safe.

But still, like the ghosts that haunt a child’s bed, the idea of becoming a person unable to control their emotions and being filled with a ravenous urge to murder filled her with dread. Which was why she only used her battle magic sparingly now. She didn’t want to wrestle the dark demon of desire and rage like so many in her family had. She’d heard stories about her ancestors from her father. He had even spoken occasionally about using battle magic in the arena as a gladiator. But one thing he warned her over continuously was that being a battle mage and being a berserker were two wholly different things. You could be one without the other as long as you practiced control. But once you went berserk, you stayed in that state until you died.

Sara knew that in time she wouldn’t have a choice about using her gift of battle magic. If she didn’t use it, it would use
her.
So she did what she could to placate the urge to kill. She tapped into her gifts slowly and siphoned off some of the power each day. It was part of the reason she had been in that alley the night before and had taken on Simon and his crew. She had no choice. It wouldn’t drive her to be berserk, but not using the gift was just as bad because it could drive her mad.

This time when she tapped into the gift to assess the power and potential threat of the man before her the power was just enough to get her eager to drive a knife through someone’s skull, but not enough to make her go out and kill someone that very second. Battle magic could do that. It had done that. She knew of a great-grandmother who had killed six men in her village before she’d been shot down by a storm of arrows from the local guard. Battle magic made the Fairchilds fierce, unpredictable, and deadly. But it was also a gift that she and her ancestors had to treat carefully. For the sake of all those around them.

But the more positive side of battle magic was that it allowed its bearer to see a person’s intent and divine their true self with it. It was like opening a window to a person’s soul every time she used it. Which is why she tried to use it only as much as required while in Sandrin. That and fact that she didn’t
need
to use battle magic. She was good enough to defeat the city-bred idiots on her own. Her training and honed skills allowed her to win against the most skilled opponents in duel after duel. If she had to tap into battle magic, it would only be because she needed to drain the build-up or if she was in trouble. The kind of trouble where she was surrounded on all sides by opponents and needed to make a river run red with blood to get clear.

Staring at the seated man’s aura was enough to make her wary. The tight warp of the colors and feel of the strength coming from him told her he was dangerous. Perhaps devious. But it didn’t make her cautious enough to turn around and leave. She had come here for a reason. She was going to accomplish it one way or another.

In her mind, Sara thought quietly,
Besides, once I’m done signing up for fish cleaning duty, I’ll probably never see him again.

It didn’t bring her much comfort. She had a tendency to attract trouble of the worse kind. So far she’d been able to handle anything that came at her. But she knew, just as every warrior did, that one day she would meet her match. She just hoped today wasn’t that day. She really needed a job. Then she was forced out of her reverie by a lackey standing in the corner shouting, “Next!”

The office was too small for the desk and the man who sat behind it, let alone the addition of another man screaming in her ear while a third person tried to push past her as fast as they could. She stepped aside when the pushy man snapped, “Move, woman!” He hadn’t bothered looking at her. She turned around and gave the rude man a shove out the door. She gave a harsh glare to the lackey who had managed to make her eardrums ring. It had him gulping in his little corner.

The man behind the desk hadn’t moved. She turned to see him staring at her with his arms clasped in front of him and a patient look on his face. Patient like a spider enticing a fly into his web. She stepped forward unafraid. Taking out the work permit, she slapped it down on his desk as she said, “Sara Fairchild, reporting for work in the fishery.”

Curiosity sparked in his eyes. But he didn’t touch the paper.

“You don’t look like a fisherwoman,” he said quietly.

“How does a fisherwoman look?”

He sat back with a creak of his chair. “The ones I work with? Older. Compact. Hard-nosed and tired. You are the very opposite. A fresh, young lily ready to bloom.”

“You seem to have a very uniform group of workers, then.”

He ignored the quip to look down at her hands as he said, “Still there’s something different about you. My daughters are beautiful like water lilies. You remind me of the deadly beauty of a water moccasin instead.”

Sara lifted an eyebrow, “I’ve never really considered venomous snakes beautiful.”

“Ah, but you see my dear. The beauty for these creatures is in the swiftness of their bite. The silence of their movements until they strike. They flow through their environments like ghosts until least expected,” he said.

“Like those creatures you are strong. I have no doubt you are swift, cold and calculating as well,” he continued, “In addition, you have the calluses of a seasoned warrior and the weapons of a woman who knows how to use them. So, did I guess rightly?”

She said nothing.

He smiled and sat forward. “So tell me, what does a mercenary want with my fishery?”

“I’m no mercenary,” she said, bristling.

Mercenaries were one step below foot soldiers, who were leagues below the officer’s command her father had held. To call a Fairchild a mercenary was to say they were the mud beneath your feet.

“Are you certain?” 

“
Quite
certain,” she said in a stone-cold voice.

His lips thinned in displeasure. “Then I don’t believe I have any use for you.”

She bristled. “I came here for a job.”

“I don’t have any openings for mercenaries-turned-fisherwomen. Get out.”

The man in the corner came forward and flapped his hand at her. Motioning for her to leave like she was a fly that had landed on his dinner plate.

Sara bared her teeth at him with an irate look. He went back to his corner.

“Wait!” she cried to the man at the desk. “I came here to work. I
promise
you I can clean and gut the fish like any other woman on your payroll. I’m good with a knife and fast with a hook. However many fish you need cleaned, I can do it.”

“As I said,” the man said coldly, “I’m not interested in another fisherwoman. What I
could
use is a woman who can handle herself in a fight. Can you handle yourself in a fight, miss? What did you say your name was?”

Sara stiffened. “Fairchild. Sara Fairchild.”

Recognition didn’t flow through his eyes. Not everyone knew who she was.

Reluctantly, she answered, “Yes, I can handle myself in a fight.”

“Now do you want the job?”

She almost walked out on him. Sara wasn’t opposed to fighting for contract, but the magistrate’s court had been clear. She couldn’t fight for money or work as a guard, brawler, or gladiator within the city of Sandrin. Legally.

She raised her chin, “What kind of job are we talking about?”

He smiled—a shark’s grin.

“Something you’ll be very good at. I promise you.”

She shifted uneasily.

Sara heard another person step into the room behind her and she gripped her knife quickly.

“No need for that,” the man behind the desk assured her. “You work for me now. We’re like family here.”

Sara almost spit in his face at that. But she held back.

“We’re not family,” she said flatly while turning to keep a wary eye on the person standing behind her. She could sense his threat was minimal even before she looked him in the face. It was in the hesitant way he walked. Like a timid man.

“This is Ezekiel Crane. He works for me,” said the man behind the desk.

Sara almost smiled at the man’s last name. It was apt from what she could see. Like an unsteady crane on stiff legs, he loitered in the doorway.

The pale, long-legged man startled at hearing his name from his boss’s lips. He nodded at her uncomfortably but didn’t look his boss in the eye. Instead his gaze focused on the floorboards beneath their feet while his unkempt brown hair flopped into his eyes, as if by ignoring the man sitting in front of them he would go away.

“Ezekiel,” said the boss, “this is our new watcher. Show her the ropes.”

“Yes sir,” said Ezekiel in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

“Now get out,” said the man coldly.

Ezekiel backed out of the office so quickly he almost tripped over his own feet.

Sara wasn’t going anywhere until she found out more about the job. The man didn’t intimidate her.

“A watcher?” she said, looking down at her new boss.

He seemed fairly annoyed that she still stood there.

But he spoke. “A guard of sorts for my new...collection.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” he confirmed.

“And payment?”

He let out a booming laugh. “My, you have a set of brass balls on you, don’t you?”

“The only reason I’m doing this is if I’m paid. And paid well.”

He narrowed his gaze. “Twenty shillings.”

“Ten. A day.”

“That’s robbery,” he said coldly.

“It’ll be my neck in a noose if I’m caught,” she said while nodding at the paper she’d dropped on his desk. “That work permit only covers the fisheries, and I doubt your
collection
is housed there.”

He smiled. “So it isn’t. Eight a day, Ezekiel will pay you, and you’ll get out of my office now.”

“With pleasure.”

She followed Ezekiel into the morning sun.

S
ara followed behind Ezekiel, who didn’t say a word as he raced down the gangway as fast as his long legs would carry him. Which was pretty fast. Sara had to run to catch up. When he hit the ground at a dead run and looked like he had no intention of stopping, she got frustrated.

“Hey, wait up!” she yelled.

He only picked up speed as he ducked around a corner so fast that she almost lost track of him.

She didn’t want to hurt him, but she had a job to do. Losing the only person who could tell her how to
do
that job wasn’t on her list of things to get done today.

Well, this is the perfect time to try this out, then
, Sara thought.

Sara was a proponent of
always
being prepared. No matter where she was, she knew she had a weapon on her of some kind. If she didn’t have her knives or baton at her waist, or her sword on her back, then a last resort could be the hair ties binding her long curls. It wasn’t the best weapon in the world or the most useful. But in this situation or the capture of runaway thieves it was perfect.

So Sara grabbed the hair tie with weighted stones that she used on her bouncy black curls and loosened the stones that kept it from unraveling. Pulling the whole thing from her hair with the long string she’d double wrapped to keep it from slipping, she whirled it overhead like a slingshot. Then she sent it flying at his legs. The weight stones whirled around and around until they wrapped around his legs and sent him tumbling face-first into the ground with a grunt.