This Dark Descent, page 6
The guard opened the door, revealing a narrow, descending staircase illuminated with enchanted lights.
“When I told you how I found you, it was the truth, but it wasn’t the entire truth,” Damien said as they started down the stairs into a small, cold room, where another guard unlocked a second door. This one opened into a short hallway, rows of cells running along either side. Ari paused on the threshold, curiosity warring with uncertainty.
Damien slowly removed his jacket, revealing broad shoulders and the Lonlarra revolvers holstered against his ribs. “You see, Arielle, I know the truth about you.”
The words drove straight through her. She calculated if she could get back up the stairs and down the hall fast enough. Would the guard outside stop her? Shoot her? What if—she silenced her rising panic, forcing her expression to remain carefully neutral.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
His soft laugh prickled along her skin. “I know you practice Kinnish magic.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she bit out.
Damien’s eyes came alight, as if finally seeing something he’d expected to find all along. Calm down calm down calm down. This was getting out of control. She needed to breathe, to get away from him, to—
“The enchant I tracked—to anyone else, it might have looked like nothing, but I’ve seen golems before.”
The words carved a line of fire through her. A line of fear, and pain, and dark, bloody memories. Her mother telling her not to meddle with things she didn’t understand. Her Saba begging her not to go looking for the book again.
She hadn’t listened. Oh, how she wished she’d listened.
Blood on her hands. Blood on the walls.
Be silent. Be careful. Don’t draw their attention.
But she had more than Damien’s attention; she had his interest. He watched her like a hunter before a trap, waiting to see if his prey would be caught. She could see it in the lift of his brow, the question in his eyes.
Will you run? they asked.
Part of her wanted to, but that morning’s attack had shaken something loose inside her. She’d been so very careful with her work, so very careful with her customers, and still her secret had slipped, still those men had found her. Still they’d stolen everything she’d worked so arduously to collect and left their handprints around her neck like vicious tattoos.
Promise me you will be fearless, a’huvati.
“If you tell a soul what you know, I’ll send a golem to tear you apart.” She felt a sparking thrill with each word she spoke, a lightness she hadn’t known for years, like a beast stretching its legs after a lifetime of confinement.
To her surprise, he laughed. A short, booming sound that echoed in the chamber. “Not afraid of me, not afraid of the law, not afraid of magic. What are you afraid of, little lion?”
She flinched at the nickname, at the true meaning behind her Kinnish name. A lion was courage, a lion was strong. Like Aslir, the Bright Star, a lion was not consumed by fear. She could not remember a time she’d ever felt worthy of her name.
“I have no intention of telling anyone about your abilities,” Damien said in Kinnish. “You have complete freedom to practice your magic however you wish here. I promised you access to information, and I’ll ensure you get both Enderlish and Kinnish texts on enchanting. You can even build the golem here.”
Ari stared at him. The idea that she might be able to work her magic openly and unafraid was so foreign, she struggled to accept it. But despite that, she believed him. Beneath his reticence, there was an earnestness to this boy, a sincerity that put weight behind his words.
“You know what I’ll need to create it, then?” she asked. “This horse.”
“Dirt from holy ground, and water that has never before been poured into a vessel,” he said. “The materials are already on their way.”
He hung the jacket on a hook in the stone wall, before removing the holster from his chest and setting the guns down with reverent care on a stool. Each movement was methodical, almost ritualistic. Undoing his waistcoat, he hung it atop the jacket, leaving him in just his shirtsleeves. Then he carefully unbuttoned the cuffs at his wrists and rolled his sleeves up bit by bit, baring forearms corded with lean muscle beneath olive skin.
“I brought you here for another matter, however.” His eyes dropped again to the bruises at her neck, and this time she didn’t cover them.
He stepped toward the cell in the back, and she followed, drawn by an invisible lure. The faded lamplight barely illuminated two ragged forms suspended from the ceiling by their wrists. A strange, wild feeling crept over Ari as Damien unlocked the cell door. Her eyes never left the bodies as she stepped into the full glow of the lamplight.
Pale and bruised, their heads lolling against their chests, were the two men who had attacked her.
They looked like animals hung for the slaughter. Both blinked dazedly at her, before one of them—the one whose handprints she wore—finally recognized her and cursed.
Something glinted in the dim light, and Ari tore her gaze from the men. Dangling from Damien’s fingers like a star in the sky was her Saba’s necklace. He got it back. She held out her hand, and he placed it gently in her open palm, the fang cool against her skin. Her fingers curled against it, and she pulled her fist to her chest.
Then he offered her a set of brass knuckles.
“I thought you might like to return the favor,” he said.
A shiver dripped down Ari’s spine, something dangerously close to anticipation. Some dark, quiet part of her wanted this. Wanted to make them feel the fear that had immobilized her, the pain that still plagued her.
She wanted to make them feel powerless.
“We’re sorry!” one of the men stammered out. “We ne—ah!” He choked off as Damien’s elbow slammed into his sternum.
“You don’t speak to her,” he said.
The man gasped, struggling for air. Ari expected to feel sorry for him, and to an extent, she did. But there was also a part of her that felt this was right.
He’d brought this on himself. He deserved it.
And yet she couldn’t bring herself to take the weapon from Damien.
He must have seen the decision in her eyes, because he retracted his hand with a small nod. One of the men let out a choked sob of relief.
Then Damien slid the brass knuckles over his fingers and entered the cell.
CHAPTER 7
MIKIRA
THE ADAIR GROUNDS were something out of a fairy tale. The sea of lavender plants stretched around the entire estate, undulating in the gentle afternoon breeze. Even in the midst of summer, the Veradell sky was overcast, but the air was filled with the scent of lavender and pleasantly warm.
Mikira wanted to stretch out on her back on a patch of grass and just breathe for a while.
It would have been idyllic—if not for Reid. He trudged along as though the task of showing her the stables was the most absurd thing anyone had ever asked him to do. Why did her family’s fate have to rely on her getting along with this gloomy cloud of emotion?
“What’s your problem?” she asked.
Reid shot her a dark look. “I have better things to do than babysit you.”
“Ah, yes, like stare at slides of blood under a microscope all day. You must be really popular at parties.”
“At least I can get into parties.”
Mikira’s cheeks flushed, but Reid had already turned away. She was still considering flinging a knife at him when they rounded a final corner and the stable spread out before them.
She’d never seen anything like it before.
The Adair stable stretched the length of her family’s several times over. It sat at the forefront of acres of emerald grass divided into neat pastures by white picket fences and filled with horses of every color. Her gaze leapt from a circular arena where a woman lunged a piebald horse, to a rectangular course set with jumps of varying heights, before settling at last on the racecourse.
It was easily four hundred yards in length, the dirt track a pale brown in the filtered sunlight and peppered with the imprint of hooves. Several other racers were taking their horses in easy laps, the rhythm of their steps echoing up to where they stood.
“Well, at least now I know how to shut you up.”
Reid’s voice broke the spell, and Mikira glared at him. “How is it no one’s pushed you under a galloping horse yet?”
He sneered at her and stomped toward the stable. The fresh scent of hay and leather greeted them inside, where horses poked their heads out through the half-open doors of their stalls. Each was one of the finest she’d ever seen—sleek heads and muscular necks, coats that shone and luxurious, neatly trimmed manes.
“They’re gorgeous,” she breathed before she could stop herself.
She expected Reid to make a scornful comment, but he seemed as enthralled by the beasts as she was.
“Where’s Iri?” she asked. “I’ll ride him.”
“That’s a stupid idea,” Reid replied, shattering whatever strange image she’d been constructing of him. This was the boy she expected. “Your stallion’s not been trained at the gate. At best he’ll do nothing when it opens, at worst he’ll throw you. Pick another horse.”
Mikira started to object on the sheer principle that agreeing with Reid felt like impaling herself on a jagged spike, but held back. He was right. Iri had never been pinned into a starting gate with a mechanical door that snapped open and a bell that rang in his sensitive ears.
Folding her arms, Mikira jerked her head at the line of stalls. “Fine. You choose.”
Reid looked her over, and Mikira tensed beneath the intensity of his bright blue gaze. Then he was off down the aisle, leaving her feeling strangely cold.
Shaking the feeling away, she followed him to the stall of a beautiful black mare. She was about sixteen hands and had a single white sock on her left hind leg, as if the dark had tried to swallow up the light. A silver plaque on the stall door read EILORA’S FLIGHT.
Reid haltered her, falling into a routine that betrayed his familiarity with horses. Eilora let him work without concern, her posture relaxed in a way that suggested a docility charm. It was a line of enchants often sold to parents of young riders who wanted a safe horse to learn on.
By the time Reid had finished tacking her up, Mikira was flat-out staring.
“You have a way with horses,” she said begrudgingly. “And here I thought they’d run away screaming.”
Reid peered out from around Eilora’s hindquarters. “I like animals. It’s people I can’t stand.” He gave her a pointed look.
She rolled her eyes as he undid Eilora’s halter and slipped it from beneath the bridle. Damien had said that Reid did a little of everything for him, and apparently that stretched from science experiments to racing to being a thorn in her side.
A short walk later, Mikira was standing on the track before the racing gate clasping Eilora’s reins. The other House Adair jockeys had relocated to a second track nearby, and Mikira’s attention lingered longingly on them. They were what she’d always wanted to be: normal riders running normal races on the finest enchants in the kingdom. They split their winnings with their sponsored house, but with how lucrative betting was at the official tracks, the purses were ten times what she won in the tunnels with Jenest.
“Any day now,” Reid remarked. He stood on the bottom rung of the fence surrounding the track, eating an apple he’d filched from the barn. The cat had taken up residence in a patch of sun on the fence.
She eyed the narrow stall she was supposed to walk the horse into with a frown, before swinging up into the saddle. Eilora shifted beneath her, and Mikira gathered the reins, whispering gently to her.
“Direct her into the stall,” Reid instructed. “I won’t shut the gate behind you the first time.”
“Doesn’t the gate crew usually do this part?” she asked.
“Do I look like an assistant starter?”
“You look like a dissatisfied woman just threw you out of her bed.” Mikira ignored his scowl and slid her boots into the high stirrups, squeezing her knees gently against Eilora’s sides. The horse had a slow, loping gait that hinted at her age.
“What’s the point of this anyway?” she asked. “The Illinir races don’t start with a gate.” The last Illinir had been ten years ago when she was seven, but she remembered the races taking place all over the city, from beside the hilly Greenwark District to along the Traveler’s Road.
“The final race does,” Reid replied. “And the point is I want to time you.” He plucked a pocket watch from his pants, and a flutter of nerves buzzed through her. Surely Reid would report everything he observed back to Damien. Would he retract his offer if she wasn’t up to par? He had something depending on this too, after all.
Wrangling her doubts into submission, she guided Eilora into the stall. The mare entered almost of her own accord, clearly comfortable with the process.
“On one,” Reid called. “Three, two—”
The horn sounded and the gate fell open. Eilora burst forward before Mikira was ready. She cursed, but her instincts took over, and she clung tight with her knees, taking her weight off Eilora’s back. She kept a firm grip on the reins and leaned low over the horse’s neck.
The wind buffeted her braid, tearing red strands free to whip about her face. Eilora soared along the track, keeping close to the inner fence. As her heart calmed from the sudden start—something she intended to thank Reid for later—Mikira settled into the ride.
It’d been so long since she’d raced in open air like this, the way she’d once done alongside her brother and Talyana. She loved the feel of the wind in her hair, loved the sound of thudding hooves against the dirt, loved the knowledge of the sheer strength and power of the majestic beast beneath her.
It felt like flying.
All too soon, they reached the end of the course, and Mikira slowed Eilora to a trot as they approached the starting gate. They were both panting heavily, sweat streaking hair and skin, and Mikira had a grin plastered across her face.
That had been amazing. She had to do it again. She had to go faster. She—something struck her in the chest, and she pulled back reflexively, nearly toppling off Eilora. The horse whinnied as she jerked the reins, taking several quick steps back.
By the time Mikira regained her seat and control of the horse, Reid had stepped onto the racetrack.
“What the four hells just—” She stopped, spotting the apple core where it lay on the ground. She swung off the horse, boots driving into the dirt, and stalked up to Reid.
“What is your problem?” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “You could have gotten me hurt, or Eilora!”
Reid didn’t back down, and for the first time she was struck by how much he towered over her. She was short, but he was taller than average, and had a way of looking down at her that made her want to break his nose.
“The Illinir isn’t some jaunt around a track,” he snapped. “It’s four cross-country races through enchanted terrain with the city’s most dangerous criminals dressed up as jockeys. You can’t lose yourself to the ride like that, or come the race, it won’t be an apple hitting you in the chest!”
“It was a practice race! Hells, it wasn’t even a race. It was a ride.”
“And you only have three weeks until the Illinir.” Reid leaned toward her. “You need to make every ride count, or you don’t have a chance.”
Mikira shoved her hands into his chest. He recoiled a step, scowling, and she turned back to Eilora. Reid could describe the weather and it would probably infuriate her; what made this so much worse was that he was right. Despite all her dreams of becoming a jockey, she had never wanted to run in the Illinir. Not since she’d begged her father to take her to watch the race as a child, and he’d replied, “That’s not a race, it’s a bloodbath. No one who cares about their horse enters it.”
It wasn’t until she’d gotten older that she’d realized what he meant: the quickest way to take out an opponent was to take out their horse. All it would take was a moment’s distraction, and her life or her horse’s could be over in seconds.
She splayed her hand against the warmth of Eilora’s neck. “I want to meet the horse Arielle will be enchanting.”
“It won’t be here for a while.” Reid’s voice was still tight with annoyance. “After that Arielle wants privacy to work on it. You can meet it when she’s done.”
“But that’s—” She stopped as something over his shoulder caught her eye. He followed her gaze to where flashes of blue and white flickered through the branches of the trees from the road beyond the estate.
“Shit.” Reid marched for the fence, the cat leaping onto his shoulders as he passed.
“What’s going on?” She scrambled after him, waving down a nearby stable hand to take Eilora. By the time they reached the back porch, the pounding of hooves echoed from the road. Reid hurried back toward the side door they’d left from. Ahead, a line of horses surged through the open manor gate and raced along the drive.
The Anthir.
Reid broke into a run, and Mikira considered turning back for the stable, grabbing Iri, and getting the hells out of there. The last thing she needed was trouble with the Anthir.
But she couldn’t afford for anything to happen to Damien either.
She caught up to Reid as he stopped to open the side entrance. They thundered down the corridor and curled around a corner just as a door down the hall clicked open. Arielle stepped out. She frowned, then moved aside as Damien emerged.
“Anthir,” Reid wheezed as they arrived.
Damien’s eyes flared, but that was all Mikira saw of his reaction, for her gaze had snagged on his forearm. The once pristine white of his shirtsleeve now bore pinpricks of red like splattered paint.
When she looked up, it was Arielle’s gaze she met. The girl shook her head, just the slightest.
And then the hall filled with guards.
CHAPTER 8
