Night Rose, page 26
No longer paying attention to where the mare was going, Briatta squinted as she turned her head to look at the Polar Sun, tugging her headscarf back a little. Had their world always been like this? So hostile that the people on the planet’s surface had to survive using the very Ardor that fueled it? Or had there been a time when the world was more forgiving? Had it once looked the same as the painting in the Belrose library?
The Polar Sun was getting low in the sky, and Briatta watched it for a while, twisted around in her saddle, before deciding to head back home for the night. She picked up the reins with both hands and looked around at the small courtyard of shops, some of which had been closed permanently and were boarded up, and others that looked like they received little to no traffic. This was a poor section of town on the city’s outskirts, northwest of D’ivory, where many Ardorless attempted to make a living.
Briatta frowned as she examined the shops, pulling the mare to a halt. How had they gotten here, where most of the storage for the entire population was concentrated?
A flicker of movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention, and Briatta turned. Something disappeared over the roof of the building closest to them, and Briatta hesitated only for a second before leaping down from the saddle, smacking her mare’s rump to set her running home and scaling the wall of that very building.
On top of the roof, Briatta flattened herself, scooting forward until she could see into the alleyway behind it. A tall, broad figure wearing all black—familiar black clothes—was creeping away from her, a headscarf obscuring their hair and any other identifying features. They paused before twisting to peer in Briatta’s direction, and she ducked behind the apex of the roof, waiting several seconds before peeking over again. The figure was gone.
What in the Founders?
Briatta nimbly jumped, landing in a crouch, and gauged the distance to the rooftop across the alley before deciding it was easy enough. This was a particularly narrow gap, and the roofs were relatively flat. Glancing again towards the end of the row of buildings and still not seeing anyone, Briatta ran to the edge of the roof and leaped, landing as lightly as she could on the other side, running a few steps to help with her momentum, and then made her way to the end of the strip.
The back side of the courtyard was a wide road, and she caught sight of the figure vanishing around the corner of a large warehouse a second before she would have lost them. Briatta studied the warehouse and frowned—wasn’t this one of the locations that had been marked in the case?
This definitely qualified as suspicious behavior, and it finally gave Briatta something to do instead of wandering aimlessly throughout the city. Lowering herself to the ground from the top of the buildings, Briatta darted across the road and pressed her back to the wall where she’d last seen her target, leaning until she could see around the corner. There were two of them now, the second person similarly clad in black and disguised but feminine in stature and figure.
There was no question about it. They were Night Roses wearing the dark uniform that was as familiar to Briatta as her own skin. But what were they doing there?
They seemed to be in a discussion, and the female drew a dagger from her thigh, gesturing with its tip for the other to follow. Before the first Elfean did so, they turned slightly to check behind them, and Briatta drew in a sharp breath.
Even though he was almost entirely covered, and even though she was far enough away that she couldn’t see perfectly clearly, Briatta knew those blue eyes anywhere.
Neven. But what was he doing here, wearing his Night Rose uniform in the middle of the bioday? And who was he with? The woman was a Night Rose, which meant she couldn’t be Vydian—that, and she was too tall, and the two basically hated each other—but who was she?
Briatta didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it sooner. Neven’s movements were intimately familiar to her, and now that she knew it was him, she couldn’t unsee it.
Feeling a gleam of annoyance that she still wasn’t privy to the Night Roses’ jobs and now curious to figure out what they were up to, Briatta pulled her own black headscarf from her pocket and wrapped it around her head after tearing her pale one off.
The female paused at a door to the warehouse. While Neven kept watch, she broke it open, slipping inside. A heartbeat later, Neven followed. Briatta gave them a few minutes to get ahead before running to the door, listening carefully. No sounds came from within the immediate vicinity of the building, so she crept carefully through the doorway, fighting the urge to draw her blades. She didn’t want to accidentally startle Neven or the other agent and hurt them or herself.
A quick glance around the area she’d walked into revealed that she was in a massive, open warehouse. Towering shelves stocked with rows of boxes blocked any view she might have had, but there was a ladder up the wall and mesh metal walkways crisscrossing over the shelves. While they were fairly exposed, there was a corner just above where she might be able to remain inconspicuous if she used her Ardor.
Briatta accessed the channel to her Ardor, calling the shadows even as she climbed. She swathed herself in darkness and hurried, as she didn’t know the mission objective and how long it would take Neven and his female companion to complete it. Sometimes, it was as easy as running in and knocking someone out to collect a piece of evidence. Other times, it was much more involved.
Briatta didn’t breathe until she reached her chosen hiding place, tucking her Ardor around her to hopefully appear as if the darkness were natural as she willed herself to blend into the shadows already here.
From the walkway, Briatta had an excellent view of the entire warehouse. She wasn’t high enough to see between all the shelves, especially the ones farther away, but she could see almost everything else. Satisfied, she settled in to listen and watch, waiting for any hint of movement.
For a long, drawn-out silence, there was nothing. Then, a shuffling noise came from the end of the building, and Briatta strained to hear, desperately wishing she’d been sent on this mission with Neven instead of whoever the woman was. Knowing her best friend was down there somewhere working, yet being unable to have his back as she always did, was a new kind of torture. Honestly, she’d assumed he wasn’t working because he was helping her with the Ackmanlee, but she should have known that he was. He wasn’t a competitor, after all.
To her left, Briatta sensed—rather than heard—a third person, short but broad in stature, emerge from between the shelves. They wore an entirely grey outfit with a headscarf that covered everything except their eyes and had a bag strapped to their back. This third person, creeping toward the exit, kept their movements silent and smooth, probably to avoid Neven and his partner, though the Night Roses were still hidden from her view.
Briatta straightened. The grey outfit…it was familiar. Like the fabric they’d found in the liquor store. But why would Night Rose agents be in the vicinity of a character for the Ackmanlee, if that was connected?
This man must either be their target, or the place was being robbed while they were working. Or…there was another explanation. As the Elfean drew nearer, Briatta could see the bag on their back more clearly, weighed down with something, but they vanished through the exit before she could study it further.
Briatta shifted her gaze back in the direction of Neven and the other agent. What were they doing? How could they have missed the man? She was torn between wanting to wait, ensuring Neven was alright, and going after this third person, who was an unknown. They could be Neven’s target—all evidence pointed to that, aside from the color of their clothes and that one thread of doubt. There were other possibilities—an independent robber or someone totally innocuous. However, why would anyone without ill intentions hide their features and creep around in a warehouse?
Finally, Briatta silently cursed her friend and slid down the ladder, keeping her shadows pulled to her, and followed Grey Figure through the door. Thankfully, they hadn’t made it too far, and Briatta set out after them. Under the dimming light of the darkening biodome, Briatta remained relatively well hidden as she tracked the Elfean’s shifty movements.
They constantly looked over their shoulders while hiking the bag higher on their back. It was clearly meaningful, but for all Briatta knew, it could just be filled with perfectly fertilized soil that this Elfean was taking home to use on plants that were special to them.
Briatta followed them for a long time, winding through Montclair’s back alleys and streets. They paused when other people passed, crouching out of sight before continuing south through the city, well past the northern point from where they had begun. The farther they went, the darker it grew, until it was fully bionight.
Thankful for the total cover of darkness, Briatta allowed her Ardor to entirely blanket her as well as spread out to experiment with feeling for others within the shadows as her mark passed Penrose Avenue and continued toward D’ivory. Strange that they would go this way, as D’ivory had been just southeast of them from the warehouse. This figure was leading her all the way around the city.
Looking at her home as she stalked past, Briatta could see her mare had indeed made it back but was happily grazing in the yard, still fully saddled. Where were Petyr and Preida? He was typically swift to notice anything abnormal about the property, and if he didn’t, then his wife would.
That would be an issue for later. Briatta continued her pursuit of Grey Figure.
They made it all the way to the edge of D’ivory when her target veered right, following the district’s stark white structures. Grey Figure was nearly at the end of the biodome, then they took another sharp right, disappearing into an alleyway. When Briatta caught up and looked around the edge, they’d vanished completely.
What? Where had they gone?
Briatta confirmed there weren’t any doorways in the alley. Nothing. Running her hands along the wall, she felt for any seams or cracks that her eyes might have missed as she paced up and down. It was long, so she was sure that she would have seen the figure by the time she had made it to the start of the alley.
Feeling nothing unusual on either wall, Briatta stared at the cobbled ground, walking slowly and watching for any strange or particularly loose stones. There were plenty of those in D’ivory, but none that she turned over revealed anything suspicious.
Shit. She tapped her foot and placed her hands on her hips. Biting her lip as she looked around, she was unsure of how to proceed. Her mark had disappeared, and she had no clue how to find them, especially if she were to leave this area tonight.
But Briatta also wouldn’t know if Neven were okay if she were to stay here. Every instinct warred inside her; the ones that had been drilled into her by the Night Roses screamed for her to find a perch somewhere and wait, while the part of her that cared for Neven cried to go to him.
At last, Briatta decided to return home. She’d wanted to stay and watch for Grey Figure to see if they were related to the Ackmanlee because of the fabric, but if they’d been out and about tonight, maybe they were still placing hints and clues. The case had become stale, and Briatta hoped this would be a new direction. There were now several places in the city she could patrol to watch for movements, which meant she didn’t need to stay.
Tearing herself from the alley, Briatta pulled her headscarf off and folded it, grateful for the reprieve the biodome offered them, tucking it back into her pocket and making her way home. She spent most of the walk puzzling over how she’d lost her target; it rarely happened, as she’d developed her tracking abilities over the years.
When she turned back onto Penrose Avenue, she saw a dark outline sitting on the front porch of the Belrose Estate.
Neven.
When they were younger, he’d often waited for her after missions he did on his own. More recently, he’d stopped doing that, and Briatta hesitated at the sight of him on her doorstep now. But seeing the horrors they were frequently exposed to made them want to reach for something familiar, to ensure it was still there and still safe, and maybe that’s all this was. As she drew closer, he looked up, his blond hair flattened from wearing his headscarf.
“Bria.” He sighed as if seeing her was the answer to every question he’d ever had, exhaustion etched in every line of his body as he sat up straighter. “Your horse was here alone when Owena got home, so she sent for me. We were worried.”
Ah, the horse. She’d forgotten.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was out searching the warehouse district for anything that could help with the Ackmanlee. The mare got spooked, and I fell. I had to walk all the way home.”
The lie slipped from her tongue as naturally as if she were telling the truth, which was strange considering she hadn’t been able to keep the secret of her Ardor from Neven just a couple of cycles ago. But this part of the Ackmanlee, or so she desperately hoped, was something she’d stumbled upon by herself, and she wanted to keep it that way as long as possible.
Neven nodded, though the look on his face suggested that he didn’t entirely believe her. She’d never given him any reason to doubt her, aside from the matter of her Ardor, but if he were smart, he should. Especially in this moment.
“Where’s Owena?” Briatta asked.
“She’s out searching for you,” Neven replied, looking down at his folded hands. “I’ll find her on my way back to my apartment and tell her you’re home.”
An apartment. He’d moved to D’ivory cycles ago, after his Choosing, and Briatta still hadn’t seen it.
Briatta’s gaze dropped, too, unable to look directly at him, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. A small amount of guilt tickled her gut, but she pushed it aside easily. There was no way she was telling Neven that she’d spent the evening following him and then chasing after someone she assumed they’d been out to apprehend, only to lose them.
“Were you out on a mission?” Briatta asked, stolid and gesturing towards his black uniform as she tried to fill the silence.
Neven glanced down at himself. “Yeah.”
“Did it…go well?”
Shaking his head as he stood, Neven brushed his pants. “No. I’d better get going. Goodnight, Bria. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Goodnight, Neven.” Briatta watched Neven go until he disappeared around the corner. Something about the Ackmanlee had changed her friendship with him, and she wasn’t sure that she liked the direction it was going.
Chapter 26
After returning from Sour Soup the next day, Briatta went down to the basement and entered the secret room before Neven arrived for Ardor training. She’d taken to stashing everything that she’d found for the Ackmanlee—that wasn’t in Vydian’s warehouse—in the war room after wiping the room free of dust. She pulled out the map showing the locations of the shops that had been robbed as well as the detailed sketches of Allemor House she’d made and settled down at the table to examine them. The Ardor lights in the room flickered to life, giving the closed-in space a homey feel.
Briatta placed a piece of blank paper over the map, picked up a pencil and began tracing the important locations. First, she circled the location where she’d first spotted Neven, drawing the path to the building that he and the Night Rose woman had entered, and then set to outlining the trail she’d taken when following Grey Figure all the way to D’ivory. When she finished, she stepped back and looked at the map she’d made. It revealed that the area where Neven had worked was where most of the stores with reported robberies were concentrated. And that warehouse they’d been in had indeed been one of the locations.
Briatta also noticed the alley where she’d lost her mark wasn’t near any of the affected stores. In fact, the more she studied the map, the more she thought it might be the furthest point from all of them.
That was odd. Culprits typically committed crimes within a certain radius of their residence. D’ivory was far enough away that it didn’t follow any pattern Briatta could discern.
Considering this was a test, perhaps that was the point. Maybe the orchestrators of the Ackmanlee wanted the competitors to think outside of what was expected and examine possibilities that would otherwise be missed.
Folding her arms, Briatta tilted her head. This would be like searching for a specific flutterfly in the biodome.
Time was growing short before Neven would arrive, and Briatta reluctantly abandoned the map to fetch tea from the dining room while she waited for Neven. He still didn’t know about the war room, but she wasn’t going to betray another of her aunt’s secrets.
By the time she descended the basement stairs again, Neven was waiting in the center of the training mat.
How would she explain that they’d need to expand their patrols without admitting that she’d followed him yesterday? Maybe she would start with Vydian and have her bring it up. They’d grown closer over the past weeks, meeting up for tea while they were both out working. What exactly Vydian did when she wasn’t working on the Ackmanlee, Briatta didn’t know yet, but the woman had proven to be efficient and reliable, so Briatta hadn’t asked.
As Briatta greeted Neven brightly, she decided to set aside the Ackmanlee for now, starting the daily exercises that had become their favored way to start Ardor training. She still struggled with the more difficult summons despite his advice and ideas, and it went just as poorly as it had every morning prior. Briatta left training frustrated and feeling as exhausted as if she’d just run around the perimeter of Montclair.
After having had breakfast, Briatta headed to the stables to pick out her horse for the day. The mare she’d ridden yesterday was lying in her stall, nose scrunched to the ground as she dozed. Definitely too tired for another full day’s adventure. Briatta picked out a large, black gelding called Cobalt, instead.
Petyr grabbed Cobalt’s gear from the tack room while Briatta groomed him, the big gelding leaning slightly into the strokes of the brush. When she finished tightening the girth of the saddle and led Cobalt from the stables, Briatta found Petyr waiting with a full pair of saddlebags. He handed them to her with a small smile.
