The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) (21 page)

Madame Dae pursed her lips. Her eyes darted toward the thinning crowd. A flicker of annoyance crossed her face. But she looked back at her daughter playfully. “After dealing with the Order of the Dragon, I can’t guarantee she’ll want to, but I won’t say no.”

This turned Asrea a new shade of high-spirited and earned her a tight hug. “Thank you, Mae’em.”

What was the Order of the Dragon?

Her mother inclined her head toward the Atrium. “I should go. I’ve put them off as long as I dare.”

“Will it be a long night?” Asrea asked. She was so casual about it, but Ariana knew there was something else she was asking. Mainly because Asrea squeezed Ariana’s wrist with another bit of air.

Madame Dae sighed. “Afraid so, my love.”

Asrea nodded emphatically.

Her mother turned to Ariana. “I look forward to speaking with you again in the morning. Have a comfortable night, little
Keemeone
.” She patted Ariana’s shoulder, pecked Asrea’s forehead, and retreated up the steps of the theater.

Asrea bounced on her toes. “Ready to go get your—why are you looking at me like that?” She stilled under Ariana’s stare.

“What
was
that?” Ariana asked, her voice accusatory.

“I’m sorry I pushed you over. I didn’t mean—”

“No. What was that with the air over my mouth and on my wrist?”

Asrea squirmed. “Sorry.”

“How did you do it?” Ariana clarified.

“I’m Aeriel. Nothing big.”

Ariana didn’t hide her surprise. “Yeah, so am—” she stopped herself. At the end of the day, Asrea was still linked to the Strattons. If Asrea assumed she was Mervais, likely they assumed so too, and that was all they ever needed to know. “That’s really advanced.”

Asrea shrugged and looked away, a reluctant smile caught on her face. “I know. I learned fast.”

“But, what about your mark? How old are you?”

“Just turned fourteen,” she said proudly. “The fact that I don't have one is nothing new. Late emergences are common around here.”

“But the first time you use your etâme above your skill level…” Ariana trailed off.

Asrea was shaking her head. “We don’t have schools like you. Our skill levels are determined by necessity.”

“Oh.” Ariana kicked herself for such null thinking. No matter how it appeared here in Bolengard, this was still Helede—the longenst oppressed of the worlds ruled by King Fyrenn. Asrea was running a maximum security prison while Ariana whined about losing entry to her well-funded, well-kept secret school. Asrea didn’t even have the opportunity to
be
removed from a place like that. And the girl had frowned maybe twice since they met. It made Ariana feel inadequate. Shameful.

“Anyway,” Asrea said. “Do you want to get that bag back tonight or not?”

"Yes.”

“Then quit worrying about
me
. Let’s go.”

Chapter 15

Asrea took a route through the city that brought them to the door of a squat little almond-colored house, stashed between an armory and a willowy building with no sign. By the dim light of the street lantern, Ariana could see through the curtainless window into the sparsely furnished, undecorated room.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“The Strattons’ house,” Asrea replied, pulling an empty lantern off a hook that hung between the window and the door.

Ariana stiffened. “We’re… breaking into their house?”

She heard the door creak open in response. “It’s not breaking in,” Asrea said. “They don’t lock the door.”

“What? Why? Who would do that?”

Asrea snickered and unlatched a glass pane of the lantern. A faint, sweet scent swirled in the air, and spots of light whizzed past them, filling the lantern in seconds. “This is Bolengard. No one locks their doors.”

Ariana frowned.

“It’s an underground city run and filled by members of the Shadowed Society, remember? Even our
prisoners
are Shadows.” She winked.

"Right." But Ariana wasn't confused by that part. "Asrea? Why are you helping me do this?"

Asrea leaned against the doorframe and scrunched her face in concentration. "The way I see it, you're a Shadow. So are the Strattons. That makes you allies. And as your
allies
, they could ask to borrow your things, but they didn't. They took them and they refused to give them back. That's stealing," she answered, then disappeared into the house.

Ariana took a moment to let her words settle. Then she smiled and followed her inside.

Four uncomfortable-looking chairs, no darker than morning fog, were backed against the colorless, unadorned walls of the front room as if they feared socializing with the ugly brown rug between them, or with the dark, driftwood armoire that huddled beside the door.

Ariana frowned at the armoire. It had empty, open shelves on either side of row upon row of small drawers. There was clearly no room for anything she’d had in her bag—except for maybe her postal quill.

Her postal quill
. If only it were working, she could at least have let everyone back home know she was alive.

She pulled open drawers. But there was nothing inside any of them. She sighed, slapped a drawer shut, and turned to see where Asrea was searching.

She wasn't in the room.

Three open doorways divided the far wall. The center led through a hall. The other two looked to be rooms. Ariana peered into the one on the right.

Several fireflies flitted past her and darted to the ceiling, illuminating the room enough for Ariana to see into its darker corners.

Their light on the dust motes drifting in the air gave the vague impression of snowfall. The bedroom was as sparse as the front room, though the bed looked gloriously comfortable, its wrought iron frame barely able to hold in the billowy fluff of the colorless comforter and pillows.

She scanned every inch of the room twice, but there was no bag. As she bent to check under the bed once more, the sound of rain danced into her ears. She stood. It couldn't be. Bolengard was in a cave beneath a moisture-deprived landscape. It had to be something else.

Probably the firefly wings.

She eyed a clump of them above her head. The tiny double-flames swayed at a sleepy pace. It didn’t match the unmistakable patter of water on a hard surface.

“Asrea?” Maybe she’d know.

She stepped back into the front room. It was definitely the sound of rain. Except that the front door was still wide open, and the street beyond was dry.

“Here it is!” Asrea exclaimed.

Ariana turned.

“I think,” she held the bag high, like a trophy, but she dropped it to her side when she saw Ariana’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“You—you don’t hear that?”

Asrea cocked her head, frowning. “No. What?”

Was it just in her own head? That wasn’t good. She hoped this wasn’t from hitting her head the other day—trauma-induced auditory hallucinations or something. Was that a thing? “Nothing. Nevermind.”

“So, is this your bag?” Asrea asked, a slightly uncomfortable smile on her face.

Ariana refocused on the satchel in her hands. “Yes,” she said, flooding with relief.

Asrea handed it off.

The weight was wrong. She dropped to the ugly rug and yanked the flap away from the opening.

Her heart sank.

The books, the notes, the documents—it was all gone.

Chapter 16

Killian sat, blindfolded and backwards, on one of the Strattons’ horses, fingering the pendant of the necklace in his pocket. He’d reached Harold’s “maximum disorientation” long ago and had tired of the meandering path to Bolengard. But he understood the necessity of the situation, so he didn’t stoop to complaining. He was Prince Fyrenn, and they were his father’s enemies. He understood. They couldn’t risk him tracing his way back to their only safe haven, should he renege on his word.

He could make out Fenix’s quiet tantrum somewhere behind him. While Baron was strapped to her back, Fenix knew better than to try and fly. But the coarse rope they’d wound around her body, pinning her wings to her side, did nothing for Fenix’s mood. The Stoal dragged her hooves in the scorching Heledian sand, stamping and braying to further emphasize her displeasure. Baron whimpered.

“No, Fenix,” Killian commanded. His heart jumped at the thought of the dog in pain. “Ease, Bear.”

A moment later, they were swallowed by shadow. The temperature shifted. The dark maroon engulfing his sightless eyes blackened. He could hear voices—laughing, talking—and the clank and clatter of people at work.

“Bolengard?”

“Yes,” George answered.

“Speak only when spoken to,” Harold ordered over his brother’s reply.

“You—” Killian bit back his response. He’d gone into this willingly. Their terms were his laws now. He would follow them without protest, or he would never get to talk to the girl—never get any closer to his brother.

The horse stopped. The conversation and commotion plummeted to whispers and stillness. He could smell sweat, metal, and newly-ignited flame—a clear, sharp-edged, gas-infused sweetness. Someone grabbed hold of his arm and helped him down.

He heard Harold say, “Proceed as instructed.”

Someone murmured.

“Lower stables,” Harold said.

“Get this one to Madame Puvost,” George said. “The arrow wound needs to be
properly
tended to.”

Killian’s throat constricted.

“Right away, Master Stratton.”

Baron let out a breathy bark, but Killian kept silent. The dog would be fine. It was clear he was headed to an animal healer. He just hoped the woman was better trained than the Rustics outside of Bolengard.

“This way,” George said.

A hand clapped on his shoulder and guided him forward, but after twenty steps, the singing of a drawn weapon rang out. He halted.

“Titus.” Harold sounded impatient.

A man cleared his throat, spoke in a deep bass. “I know my orders, Harold. But I’ll not follow through with them quietly.”

“You
will
,” Harold insisted.

“Bolengard is
all
we have. And you’re going to bring
him
into the heart of it?”

Killian felt the static charge of Harold’s etâme before the man even used it. The mastery of his skill unnerved him. Heat bloomed on his right and slammed into something. He didn’t like this. He needed to see Harold in action at close range. He needed to learn the man's tricks so he could fight him, if it ever came to that. Going slowly, so neither Stratton would detect him, Killian sent feelers of his own etâme out of his palms, marking the edges of the heated air, forming a rough image of the men in his mind.

With his eyes shut behind the blindfold, he watched a hewn boulder of a man—Titus, he guessed—snuff Harold’s flames with a whirl of his halberd and a healthy rain of sand. But Harold attacked in the moment of distraction, slamming the much larger man against the wall, his forearm pressed against Titus’s throat.

“Ty, you’re a good man,” Harold growled. “I would hate to have to kill you.”

Titus grunted. “You wouldn’t.”

“If you step out of line in this matter again, you’ll be deemed unreliable. And for that, I will.” Harold dropped his arm and stepped back.

Titus slumped, wheezing, leaning on the pole of his halberd like a staff.

Etâme crackled in the air, subsided. Killian’s heat-vision diminished to blindness.

“Get.” Harold’s gruff voice matched the rough shove to Killian’s back.

He stumbled forward, gritted his teeth. “You don’t have to take it out on
me
, old man."

The hand returned to his shoulder and steadied him. “Quiet.” 

They headed on, wherever
on
was.

“You’ve doomed us, Harold Stratton.” Titus’s voice reverberated around them like an echo trapped in a bottle. “Mark my words. That boy goes in there, and Bolengard will fall.”

The hand gripped his shoulder tighter, reflecting Killian’s own urge to react.

“Leave it, Harold,” George cautioned.

A tingle of etâme seeped from the hand before it evaporated. But Harold didn’t say a word.

They continued in silence—along a tunnel, he imagined—then down a few steps to a floor that clunked under their boots like wood. Then they were moving. It was hard to say which direction, but it felt like down. Something mechanical clanged and rattled as they went.
Rustics
. It was a wonder the Strattons were so highly skilled, when Bolengard used machinery for simple tasks like transportation.

With a hiss and a hollow wooden click, the floor stopped moving.

Harold led Killian forward. The ground turned to rock, crunching beneath his feet, then back to wood. That full-bodied, spicy-sweet scent of a new flame increased. Wherever they were, it was cooler here. The day was still bright, as the color had shifted to maroon again behind his blindfold, but the sun didn’t attack with the same force as it had before they dismounted. He tried to imagine where he was. The maps made it clear that there was nothing livable in the entire central belt of Helede—the Waylands, the Plains, nothing. But that was where they must be.

Bolengard was indeed well hidden.

Before he knew it, the ground had changed again to stone, and the distant sounds of city bustle filled his ears. It had an odd nonconformity about it, as if the citizens walked around for pleasure, no steady rhythmic undercurrent of the daily marches, no schedules or duties to attend to. How could anyone live like that?

After several turns, they stopped. A door hinge squeaked.

“Set him up,” Harold said. “I’ll check the triggers.”

Killian's stomach sank. He hoped Harold wasn't planning to torture him after he’d turned himself over so freely. He didn’t want to be forced to fight.

“This way,” George said. He grabbed Killian’s forearm and guided him forward. With some maneuvering, George got Killian where he wanted him. “Sit,” he instructed.

Killian obeyed—slowly, just in case. The chair was well-used, the cushion flattened to hardly more than two layers of fabric. A luxury compared to his accommodations of late. The tension in his muscles released. He relaxed against the chair’s tall back.

“George.” Harold’s voice was muffled, as if through a wall.

“Wait here,” George said. A door swung open. “And you can take that off now.” The door clicked shut.

Killian reached and fumbled with the knot at the back of his head. The blindfold dropped away. He blinked the dim light into his eyes.

A stark white room surrounded him. The only furniture was his chair and two others. The only color came from his sweaty, dirty clothes, and the sparkling red-gold light pushing its way through the heavily rippled glass of the window. He couldn’t even make out the shape of the closest building, so it would be of no help in determining his location.

Above him, flaming bugs crawled over the ceiling.
Fireflies
. Now the smokeless smell made sense. But the thought was staggering. There had to be millions of them in Bolengard, for him to have smelled them outside of the city. Why hadn’t any Watchers detected that? How far into the Waylands were they?

The Strattons’ voices drew his attention. He stood and drifted toward the door.

“Why is it deteriorating so quickly?” George asked.

Harold grumbled something.

A groan followed. “We’re looking at, what, sixty—”

“Forty.”

“—days till it’s completely exposed?”

Curiosity flared in Killian’s chest.

“Asrea.”

“Do you think she’s had enough time?”

“Plenty.”

She? He wondered if this was the roof rat. He was anxious to speak to her, to learn how she knew his brother.

“Let’s take care of this first, then we’ll go straight to the prison.”

He slipped back to the chair and dropped into it. The door opened the next moment. The Strattons spilled through. Their clothes were torn, their faces roughed up from their fight with the Watchers, their expressions ruthless.

Whatever they were discussing outside the room had sapped any shred of humor lurking inside them.

The Strattons stalked to the other chairs and adjusted them to face Killian, then sat. George clasped his hands together, sitting straight and tall in his chair. Harold rested his elbows on the white fabric arms and leaned forward, letting the whorl of muddy green settle in his eyes. Killian steeled himself, tightening down his urge to react before Harold could come at him with that snarling, heated interrogation style he’d come to expect.

“Your brother.”

Clearly Harold wasn't going to waste time getting back to the point. It was as if the passage to Bolengard
—and the time it could have taken for him to dial down the intensity—
hadn't occurred at all.

“I want your word you’ll let me speak to the girl.”

Harold glared.

“It won’t be today,” George said.

They must have someone interrogating her now
. “Fine. Tomorrow.”

“When we’re finished with her.”

He might've been their prisoner, but he wasn’t going to let them treat him like one. “I’ll speak with her tomorrow.”

The static jumped to the surface of Harold’s skin. George shot his brother a look, then returned to Killian. “You have our word.”

Harold’s eyes were nothing but slits beneath storm-cloud brows.

George clasped Killian’s hand in the complicated finger interlock of the Wordkeeper’s Seal.

“Now. Hunter.” Harold insisted.

Killian withdrew his hand and sat back. “Like I said earlier, I didn’t know his name until I started listening for it.”

George nodded. “In your dreams.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don’t know exactly. The dreams are vivid. I don’t forget anything when I wake from them. It’s like they’re my own memories, except, I’m in his body.”

Harold’s lips furled into a frown. “You communicate?”

“No. It doesn’t work like that.” He considered the possibility. “It might, I suppose. But I haven’t attempted it.” And it wasn’t like Hunter would take what he was seeing as real. Killian hadn’t. Not for years. Not until the Trials.

George shifted and leaned forward, his greying hair falling over his shoulders. “When you see your reflection—in your dreams—do you look like yourself, or your brother?”

“Both.”

“Both?” The Strattons perked simultaneously.

Killian frowned. He thought they’d understood that already. “We’re twins.”

Harold’s thick, peppery brows twisted in suspicion.

“I know it’s hard to believe me, but do.”

“Problem solved.” Harold’s sarcasm grated Killian’s nerves.

“Look, it was the spy—one of
your
men—who pieced it together for me in the first place. I didn’t know my father was using my dreams like a map to hunt down the son he never wanted.”

George cocked his head. “And that’s what set you off.”

“Absolutely.”

“Why spare the spy?” Harold asked. “More advantages for you dead.”

“It wasn’t only what he said about your brother, was it?” George had not so much asked as deduced.

Killian paused. To voice the reasons he’d made that decision was just… too much. “No. It wasn’t.”

The Strattons eyed him expectantly.

He couldn’t tell them everything. Some of it was none of their business. But some of it… Some of it would solidify their trust in him, would guarantee him a way to his brother.

“My father wants the Onyx Vial.”

Both men flinched—hardly more than a twitch, but he saw it—and bristled with varying degrees of concern.

Killian spoke quickly, keeping their minds on his words rather than their own ideas about this. “He knows it’s in Helede, and that the Rebels—that you and your men are searching for it.”

“How?” George asked.

“Tortured a neutral. The man knew something—bits and pieces—not enough for him to understand any of it. My father filled in the blanks. And then the spy he caught—he was part of the group who turned my father off the trail—placed false leads—”

“We know,” Harold interrupted.