Shadow Blessed (The Shadow Accords Book 1) (4 page)

She heard the sound of boots along the cobbles behind her and ducked into an alley, glancing back to see Kel chasing her. He looked up the street, missing her hiding place in the shadows, and started up. Carth hesitated long enough for him to disappear, and then ran the opposite direction, racing away from the docks and toward her home, praying that her father would be there.

* * *

C
arth sat
in a crumpled heap outside the only home she had ever known. As she had run back toward the house, she’d allowed herself the growing excitement and belief that her father would be there, waiting with a fire glowing in the hearth, a stew bubbling softly in the flames, preparing herself for his anger and frustration, but ultimately his relief that she’d returned.

The home had been empty.

Not only empty, but someone else had been there before her, tearing through her family’s belongings, leaving clothing ripped and the books her mother had painstakingly collected over the years and carted with them as they moved from city to city torn and thrown to the ground. Other belongings were strewn across the floor and then trampled underfoot. Her father had not been here—if he had, he would not have left it like this.

She had paused in the back room, sitting on her parents’ bed, letting even more tears come. They streaked down her face even now, wet reminders of what she’d lost. But they were the last. She would cry no more.

Whoever had been here had searched for something. Carth didn’t know what might be valuable to anyone else. The only things in the home of worth were the books, and they would only be valuable to certain people. Carth searched through the pile on the floor, realizing that three were missing—three that her mother had prized above all else because they had come with her when she’d left Ih-lash. She searched through the piles, wondering if whoever had been here might have taken them, before remembering the other storage place her mother had used.

Inside her room, she found things less destroyed than the rest of the home. Her sheets were thrown back and her few belongings were tossed onto the floor, including a small wooden carving her father had made for her long ago, but the room was otherwise undisturbed. Carth knelt on the floor, running her hand along the wall between her parents’ room and hers, until she felt the slight dimple in the wood and pressed. A small panel opened.

Carth had discovered this hiding spot entirely by accident when she’d fallen in her room once, slamming her backside against the wall. She had considered keeping some of her valuables inside it, but decided against it when she saw that her mother used it as a place to store her favorite books. Over time, Carth had paid attention to what books her mother placed inside the panel, thinking that they might change, but they never did. It was always the same three books.

They were still there.

Carth pulled them out and clutched them to her chest, thinking about her mother. The books were written in Ih, a language Carth had not yet learned. Her mother always promised to teach her later, and now there would not be a later.

She tucked them into the pockets of her dress. Pausing to grab the carved piece from the floor, she made her way back out of the home. She couldn’t stay here, not without her father and mother, and not with it destroyed as it was.

The front entrance no longer even looked like her home, not with the pages strewn all around and with the stink of char burning in the hearth, a scent she hadn’t noticed when she’d first come in.

Carth lingered long enough to turn to the fire. The logs within had long since burned out, leaving nothing more than a stain of ash. She traced her finger through the ash, thinking of how her father would have stirred the embers, drawing forth a larger flame. Now it would remain darkened until someone else came in here and cleared out the remains of her home.

She couldn’t stay here. Not anymore.

But where would she go? What could she do now?

The only thing she could think to do was to return to Vera and Hal’s place, and that meant making her way back down to the docks and suffering through whatever Kel and Etan might put her through.

The alternative was staying on the street.

More than any other lesson her parents had taught, Carth had learned about the streets of cities like Nyaesh, and how unsafe they could be. That was the entire point of the games, the reason that they had warned her to be careful.

Without their help, she needed to be extra careful, only she wasn’t entirely sure how. When she’d trailed her mother or tried to find her father when he hid, there had always been an end planned. Now there was no end, and this was nothing like their games. If there were rules, she would have to discover them on her own.

She left the house reluctantly and wandered back toward the river and the docks in something of a haze. When she reached the tavern and crawled back onto the bunk, she ignored the two boys back in the room, trying to hide the tears flowing from her eyes and trying not to think about what she would do now that her parents were gone.

“
Y
ou don’t have
to do it,” Kel explained to Carth as they stood along the edge of the road near the docks.

The morning was busy and the street carried more traffic than she was accustomed to seeing, but then this was a different part of the city, one where she had rarely spent any time. Though they’d chosen the market as a meeting place, mostly because it was public, her mother had made it clear that the docks were dangerous and the taverns along the docks equally dangerous. What should Carth make of the fact that Vera and Hal ran one of those taverns?

“I still don’t understand what you’re telling me to do,” Carth said.

Etan leaned against one of the nearby buildings, his lids half-closed, making it appear as if he were sleeping standing up rather than surveying the street. “Probably should just return to where you came from,” he suggested.

Carth turned away, hiding her eyes so that they wouldn’t see the tears welling in them. She wouldn’t allow either of them to see how they affected her. Her parents had taught her to be stronger than that.

“Look at all these people on the street,” Kel said, seemingly ignoring Etan’s comment. “Most have plenty, not like us. All you’re going to do is take a little. Scraps. That’s all.”

“Stealing.”

Etan swung his gaze to her. “Not stealing. Didn’t you hear him? Taking scraps. We’re strays. That’s what we do.”

“I don’t understand how.”

“Watch,” Etan said.

He lumbered into the street, making as if to cross. As he did, he collided with another man, one with a plain wool cloak that reminded Carth of her father. Etan made a show of apologizing and then went on his way, hurrying off along the street.

“What was that about?” Carth asked.

“Just wait,” Kel told her.

They stood waiting until Etan came through an alley and surprised her. He pulled a small leather pouch from his pocket and shook it. The unmistakable sound of coins jingled inside. “Not all have a purse, but if they do, then you just take it.”

“Scraps,” Kel explained.

“How did you do it?” Carth asked.

Kel bumped into her. As he did, his hand darted into her pocket.

Carth grabbed it and twisted it back, bending his wrist.

“Let me go!” he snapped.

“What do you think you were doing?”

“I was
trying
to show you how to do what we call the bump and lift, but as you seem to know it already, maybe I don’t need to!”

She released his hand and he rubbed his wrist. She shouldn’t have been so rough with him, but she had the A’ras knife in her pocket, as well as one of her mother’s books. She didn’t want to risk Kel accidentally stabbing himself, and she didn’t want to lose the book either.

“Sorry. I didn’t know what you were doing.”

Etan shook his head, an amused smiled coming to his face. “She’s not going to get enough scraps to keep Vera happy.”

“Vera wants me to do this?” she asked suspiciously. When she’d offered her a place to stay, Vera had mentioned that Carth would have to work for her keep, and she had sent her out with breads and small crafts to sell. This didn’t seem like anything the gentle older lady would want her to do.

Kel only shrugged. “She gives us a place to stay and food to eat. There’s a price to it.”

Carth looked at the loaves of bread on the side of the street where Kel and Etan had left them. “We can sell the bread…”

Etan grunted. “No one buys
that
. You think we’d ever get enough to keep her happy if we didn’t find scraps like this?”

Etan glanced at Kel and shrugged. “You can try, but when you can’t sell enough to make her happy, then what will you do? Where will you go, Carth?” he taunted.

What alternative did she have? She couldn’t live alone yet. Not at her age, and not as a girl, so having a place like Vera gave her was the only option, wasn’t it? And did it matter if she took a few coins here and there?

Carth tried not to think of what her parents would have said to her about it, but then, her parents had taught her about following closely and avoiding detection, games that she would now have to put to use for a different reason. Her parents might have been disappointed, but they would have wanted her safe, and they would have wanted her fed. If she was required to do this in order to have safety and food, then she would do it.

“How do you pick your target?” she asked.

Kel shrugged. “Not much to it. Find someone who looks like they have enough coins, and then you go after them.”

She met his eyes. “And no one catches you?”

“That’s the point of the bump. You do it well and they think it’s all an accident. You do it wrong and you could get caught with your hand in someone’s pocket. Be crafty and quick and no one will ever know.” A smile spread on his face. “Besides, no one wants to admit they might have let some kids steal from them.”

“Aren’t there safer ways?” she asked.

“If you find another way, you’re welcome to it,” Etan said.

Carth waited, expecting him to say something more, but he didn’t.

“Just see what you can do,” Kel suggested. “And be ready to run.” Etan grinned at the comment.

Carth stepped away from the shadows of the building and surveyed the street. They expected her to fail, and she might. This wasn’t anything that she had ever attempted before, and she wasn’t entirely sure that she would be able to do it. But she needed to try, and if she could, then she would have a place to stay. That was worth more than anything.

She identified a man with a well-cut jacket, trying not to think about the fact that it was the kind of jacket her father would have worn. He moved toward Doland Street, away from the docks.

Carth crept behind him and glanced back to see Kel and Etan watching her intently before she disappeared behind a building. She could bump this man, but that would only risk him grabbing her. There had to be a way for her to slip past him without him grabbing onto her, maybe without him even noticing that she was there.

There was one game where her father wanted her to slip a flower into her mother’s hair while she sat reading. Carth had never gotten all that good at it. Sliding a flower into her hair required a careful touch, and a subtle connection. And it was different than what Carth would attempt now.

But it was the only thing that she had to compare.

Carth approached the man carefully and dipped her hand toward his pocket. She had to move quickly or others on the street would notice her, but not so quickly that the man would feel her presence in his pocket.

She slipped in, feeling the edges of the wool of his jacket. The pocket was empty.

The man paused.

Carth slipped off to the side, her heart hammering in her chest.

Was this really what she would do? Did she really want to become a thief?

Not a thief, she decided. She was a stray collecting scraps. Putting it that way made it easier for her to go back after the man when he continued his way up the street.

This time, she reached quickly into his other pocket and felt a smooth leather purse. Carth grabbed it and pulled it free, spinning to the side and ducking against the wall of the nearest shop as she did.

She gripped the purse tightly, her heart still pounding.

The man continued up the street before pausing again, this time as if he had noticed something.

Carth hid on the side of the street and watched. Enough other people separated her from him that he would be unlikely to notice her, but she could keep him in sight. He patted his pocket before reaching his hand inside. When he realized that his purse was missing, his face darkened and he turned, heading back down Doland Street as he made his way toward the docks.

Carth slipped off onto a side street. She passed a few shops: a butcher with the scent of smoked meat coming from within, a baker nearby that had the scent of fresh bread that made her stomach rumble, and even an herbalist, the type of shop her mother would have been most interested in.

She wandered past the shops, glancing in windows, but doing so only reminded her that she wandered without her parents. Her mother had loved visiting the different shops in Nyaesh, even if she wasn’t able to purchase much. Her father had found them more a necessity than anything but had gone with her, never wanting to let her be alone in the city. He hadn’t wanted Carth to be alone in the city either.

Would the pain of losing them ever fade?

She reached the end of the street and found a narrow road that would lead back to the docks. Fewer shops lined this one. Mostly there were homes, though a few stores were here. Carth flipped open the purse and counted the coins within, noting that there were a few copper nils and a pair of silver vens. Even a single gold san glinted at the bottom of the purse. She ran her thumb over it, feeling the ridges stamped on it, an image of the palace on one side and the seal of the royal family of Nyaesh on the other.

She’d never seen a gold coin before. And now she had one, stolen from another.

This wasn’t scraps. This was stealing.

But hadn’t the A’ras stolen from her and forced her to do this? Hadn’t they taken her family from her?

Thinking of it that way made it much easier for her to go on.

* * *

B
y evening
, Carth had collected from three others, each time finding that it was easier. Her parents had in some ways prepared her for running through the street and collecting scraps. She didn’t think that her parents had been thieves, but why, then, had they essentially taught her to do this so well?

She reached the tavern as the sun dipped into the horizon, glittering off the river with streamers of orange and red that were more beautiful than this part of the city had a right to be, especially as she walked toward the Wounded Lyre with her pockets full of coins taken from others.

Guilt worked through her the closer she came to the tavern. What if this wasn’t what Vera had wanted her to do? She had taken Kel and Etan at their word that Vera required her to collect a certain amount, but what if they had only said that to play a prank on her? She wouldn’t put it past Etan. Kel seemed to have a gentler soul, but what did she really know about him? Not enough to know whether he would be complicit in some plan to trick her into something.

Carth sighed and shifted the coin purses to a different pocket, leaving the lightest one separate. That one had a few coppers only, few enough that she actually didn’t feel guilty taking it, especially considering the man she had taken it from had a long silver chain with a symbol marking him as one of the Vellan, servants to the royal family. They were well paid, and arrogant. Carth hadn’t minded sneaking from him.

“Where have you been?”

She spun, surprised that Etan would have managed to sneak up on her so easily. Kel stood a step behind him, watching her with a curious expression. Had they expected her to get caught?

“Doing what you told me I needed to be doing,” she said.

“You’ve been gone the whole day!” Etan said.

Carth shrugged.

“Vera has asked about you. We told her you ran off again.”

“I didn’t run off.”

“How were we supposed to know? You didn’t come back.”

She held up the small purse and shook it. The few coppers inside jingled, reminding her of the sound above Vera’s door. “I brought this back.”

Etan looked over to Kel. “See? She could do it fine. You were worried that she’d get snatched.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Kel said. “I figured she’d return before nightfall is all. Especially with all the A’ras activity.”

Etan shot him a look. “Don’t talk about them.”

“You can say their name, Etan.”

“You’ll draw their attention by talking about them. Doing that is dangerous.”

Kel didn’t argue, instead falling silent.

“This take you all day to get?” Etan asked Carth. He reached for the pouch, but she pulled it back. It was hers now. She might not have earned it in the traditional sense, but she
had
earned it.

“It took me long enough,” Carth said. She resisted the urge to touch her other pocket, where she held the two other coin purses, one with enough money to keep her fed for nearly a month. If she could keep this up, she might be able to find a way to get back on her own, even if she was a young girl.

“Did you get caught?” Etan asked.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Carth said.

He grunted. “Just because you’re here doesn’t mean that you didn’t almost get caught. First time Kel tried the bump, he was grabbed. Barely managed to get away. I think it took him nearly a dozen tries before he managed to lift the first purse. Now he’s still got slow hands, but he’s better at it than he was.”

“I’m better than Gustan.”

Etan shot him a hard look. “Don’t talk about Gustan.”

“What happened to him?”

Etan shoved her, knocking her to the ground. “We don’t talk about Gustan, do you hear me?”

Carth could only nod in shock.

Etan stared down at her for a long moment before starting away. “Better find Vera. She’ll want to know how many scraps you were able to find. Be thankful you lifted any.”