Soulkeeper Read online

  Jacaranda shifted left to avoid a punch that never came, realized his sword was twisting around for a slash at her side, and tried to block with both daggers crossed. Instead his fist struck her across the face, followed by the solid sword hilt cracking down atop her skull. Flickering lights danced across her vision. She flung her daggers up above her in anticipation of a killing chop. As always, she predicted wrong. Tye retreated two steps while twisting his body. His hands moved with practiced smoothness as they sheathed his sword and swung his rifle off his back, over his shoulder, and into his waiting right hand. He held it out from his body like a pistol, his finger on the trigger, the long barrel pressed against Jacaranda’s forehead.

  “To your knees,” he commanded. “And drop your daggers.”

  Jacaranda wanted to retort. She wanted to respond in some way to salvage her pride. The cold metal on her skin denied her the ability. Tye’s glare was death. The slightest misstep would scatter her brains across the mansion rooftop. She slowly lowered herself. She released the hilts of her daggers, and they clattered atop the stone.

  “Tell whoever hired you that you’re abandoning the job,” Tye said. “If I see you again, I’ll put a bullet through your heart before you even know I’m near. Is that understood?”

  She glared to hide her growing fear. His finger tightened on the trigger.

  “Is that understood?”

  “Yes,” Jacaranda whispered softly.

  He slung his rifle back over his shoulder.

  “Good. Now get the fuck out of here.”

  And with that he leapt off the rooftop edge. Jacaranda looked to her daggers, a raw impulse clamoring for her to grab them and assault while Tye’s back was turned. What stopped her was the sight of his right hand holding the hilt of his sword, and the bare inch of steel showing between hilt and sheath. He was ready for it. Perhaps even hoping for it.

  Jacaranda waited until he was out of sight, counted to thirty, and then fled the other direction. No matter how hard she ran, no matter how much she gasped for breath, no matter the path she took or the sweat that ran down her neck and chest, she could not outrun the reawakened horror at kneeling before another man, looking up at him helplessly, and telling him yes.

  CHAPTER 31

  A worried Tesmarie perked up at the sound of the door unlocking. She fluttered from her bed and increased the speed of her personal time flow to match the pace of humans. As much as it annoyed her, she knew it helped the fast-time humans understand her. Jacaranda slid through the door and shut it with quiet, stiff movements.

  “Hi-hi-hi, Jac!” Tesmarie said, as loud and excited as one could do so while still whispering. “How’d your night go?”

  Jacaranda looked her way with glass eyes and a statue for a face.

  “Poorly.”

  The human trudged into the kitchen and returned with a browning apple. She sliced off chunks with her dagger and popped them into her mouth. Never one to give up easily, Tesmarie fluttered closer. Jacaranda looked so miserable. Surely there was something she could do to cheer her up, right?

  “I’m sure whatever it is you’ll do better next time,” Tesmarie said. “Every new sun is a new life to succeed and flourish.”

  Jacaranda ignored her. She sliced off a chunk from the brown side, bit into it, and immediately spat it back out. Her brow furrowed in confusion.

  “What?” Tesmarie asked. “Have you never eaten a bad apple?”

  “No, I have, it’s… I’ve never cared that something tasted foul before.” She looked mortally wounded. Tears had begun to fall from her bloodshot eyes. “It’s awful.”

  She cracked a window and tossed out the half-eaten apple. Tesmarie tried to be sympathetic but was confused and unsure.

  “Jacaranda… are you all right?” Tesmarie asked.

  “I’m going to bed,” the woman said, brushing past Tesmarie. The faery had to zip out of the way to prevent being bowled over. “Tell Devin not to wake me.”

  The door thudded shut. Tommy’s snoring ceased for a moment, then resumed. Tesmarie returned to her bed and folded up her wings as she nibbled on her nails. The last remnants of the night crawled on by. An hour later Devin came home. He looked no happier than Jacaranda, but unlike her, he bore multiple bandaged wounds. His hands removed his coat and unbuckled his weapons with an absentminded steadiness that showed that Devin’s thoughts were deep in his own head.

  “Goodness, Devin, are you hurt?” Tesmarie asked.

  Devin’s gaze broke. He weakly smiled at her and offered her his wrist at chin level. Tesmarie landed atop it and fluttered her wings happily.

  “I’ll be feeling these bruises for a while,” Devin said. “But they’ll heal in time.”

  “Time is the best healer,” Tesmarie said, bobbing her head up and down. “Did you get into a fight? Was it something scary? I could help you, you know, if you’d only ask!”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said as he walked to his room. “Say, Tesmarie, do you know anything about gargoyles?”

  “Gargoyles? Of course I do. Are you saying you don’t?”

  “Is that surprising?” Devin asked. “There’s plenty I know nothing about.”

  “Yes, but there’s gargoyles all over Londheim. I even chatted with a few on my way here. So you humans don’t even remember them?”

  “We knew them only as statues,” Devin said. He sat on his bed and used his free hand to pull his boots off one by one. “Two of them killed a man tonight, and they tried to kill me as well.”

  “What?” Tesmarie said. “Why would they do that? Gargoyles are so friendly!”

  “Friendly.” The Soulkeeper’s grim laugh gave her chills. “They did it so they could eat him, Tes.”

  Her confusion only grew.

  “Gargoyles eat mice, rats, and birds. Why do you think they were so popular in Londheim? And they most definitely do not eat humans!”

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” Devin said. “I’m sorry, but the world’s changed from what you remember. It certainly has for us.” He gestured toward the door. “My night was long,” he said, asking without asking.

  “Of course.” She spread her wings and floated to the door. “You… you sleep tight, Mister Devin. I’ll make sure things stay nice and quiet for you.”

  She sulked her way to the main room’s couch. Devin quickly shut the door behind her. The fire crackled softly, drawing her attention. Firekin had no means to speak, so they communicated with subtle movements of the flame around them. She doubted humans could see it, what with their bodies in such hurries, but she could easily detect the rise and fall of flickering letters.

  Tesmarie sad?

  “Maybe a little,” she said. “Devin and Jacaranda also seem sad. Do you think I caught it from them?”

  Puffy dipped in and out of the fire.

  Tesmarie lonely.

  Memories of her village flourishing in the heart of the Oakblack Woods stung her mind with the ferocity of wasps. The smiles of her friends. The love of her family. The welcoming hum of a hundred wings zipping through the air.

  “I’m not lonely,” she snapped. “I’m bored. That’s it. Faeries aren’t meant to be cooped up in colorless rooms with scraps of sun coming in through pieces of glass. I’m going out.”

  Tesmarie zipped for the door. Several loud pops from the fire turned her back to Puffy. The firekin’s beady black eyes swelled with worry.

  Human city. Not safe.

  Tesmarie shook her head. No. Humans were easily frightened and confused, she knew that, but they weren’t evil. Londheim might not be the city it once was, but she fully believed it could be her home. She just had to give it time, and time was something she was most excellent friends with.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, offering the firekin her biggest, widest smile. “I’ll see if I can find you some sandalwood chips to snack on. Does that sound good?”

  Puffy sank into the heart of the fireplace. There was no sign of his beady eyes.

  “I’ll tak
e that as a… yes,” Tesmarie said, holding firm to her desire for an enjoyable day. She flew high above the houses as she scouted for a good place to spend some hours. She’d be a blur to any who looked up and noticed her passage. No reason to worry. She saw plenty of quiet streets and tucked-away neighborhoods, but she was looking for something interesting. Apparently that would be a hard task in Londheim. No doubt they did most of their fun things indoors. Humans had always been weird like that.

  Surveying the city from up high allowed Tesmarie to better assess its grand scope. She drifted toward cramped districts with rooftops that seemed to intersect with each other at odd angles. Arches linked buildings with no apparent purpose. Walls merged from one building to the next, combined with an apparent love of needless additional balustrades and buttresses across the ancient spires. A great commotion filled the street around one spire in particular, and she adjusted her path toward it.

  A crowd of two dozen gathered loosely around a squad of armed men near the entrance. They all held part of a thick length of rope. She traced it upward to a gargoyle perched near the top of the tower, the rope bound around its neck. The soldiers pulled and released with a steady rhythm. The crowd’s cheers urged them on.

  “What… what are you doing?” she asked. It was obvious what it appeared they were doing, but that couldn’t be right. They wouldn’t be that cowardly, that cruel.

  At first glance it seemed the gargoyle’s feet and claws were part of the stone it huddled upon, but she knew that not to be the case. The creature possessed amazing strength and was trying to keep itself on its perch, but it could not match the combined might of the men below. It broke from the stone, tearing chunks of the outcropping with it in its claws. The gargoyle plummeted and broke upon the cobbles. Its blood painted a blue splatter in the heart of the crowd.

  Panic seized her. Tesmarie zipped over to the other gargoyle and put her hands upon its flat nose. Gargoyles spent daylight with their bodies practically frozen in time, a gift that allowed them to live for hundreds of years. They could not individually manipulate its flow like Tesmarie, though she’d heard they could freeze up if in danger or significantly harmed. She touched the bubble about the creature and whispered words invoking the power of Chyron. The bubble shimmered momentarily into view and then popped. Warmth flowed into its feline nose. The gargoyle’s eyes groggily opened.

  “Fly!” she shouted. “Please, fly and hide before you must sleep again!”

  “Why?” it asked.

  “Humans… humans hate you now,” she said, too ashamed and uncertain to repeat the reason Devin had given her. “You have to go. Warn the others if you can.”

  The creature rubbed the side of its face against her. Tesmarie hugged its stony ear.

  “I shall do as asked,” it said. “You are a true friend.”

  Its reptilian wings spread wide. A small hop sent it floating off the building’s edge. Tesmarie heard screaming from the crowd below.

  “A good day,” she whimpered. “It’s going to be… a good… day.”

  She flew without caring where. Her eyes soaked up her surroundings in a dull haze, for her mind was locked far away in a horrible cave echoing again and again with the sound of the gargoyle’s body striking ground. Puffy had warned her, hadn’t he? Human cities were unsafe… but that wasn’t how she remembered the world. Her mother had told her stories of Londheim, the city of peace, where humans and dragon-sired lived in harmony. Had her mother lied? Or had too much changed over the centuries they’d slept?

  Tesmarie lowered herself onto the top of a stake holding up the thick fabric roof of a stall in the heart of Londheim’s southern market district. She curled her legs to her chest, rested her head on her knees, and sniffled. Tears slid down her face and fell atop the brown fabric. They hardened into little diamonds that sparkled in the morning light.

  “It’s not all bad,” Tesmarie told herself even as she cried. “There’s… there’s Devin. He’s nice. Jacaranda hasn’t tried to kill you. Puffy’s a little lazy but always good for a laugh. The food is good, and Tommy brings you strawberries… I don’t need to go home. Who misses home? Not me. Not this faery.”

  You’re not welcome here, Tesmarie Nagovisi.

  She shook her head and cried away the horrible memory of her banishment. The tiny pool of diamonds grew. After a few more sobs she folded up her wings and lay on her back. The sunlight bathed her. She closed her eyes and pretended she was on a wide oak leaf drinking in the morning rays. It didn’t matter that she cried. It didn’t matter that homesickness ate a hole the size of a mountain in her stomach.

  “Mommy?”

  Tesmarie opened her eyes. The stall she lay upon was butted up against a multiple-story home. A human child peered at her from the sill of an open window. His skin was dark like hers (at least, as close as human skin could approximate her own), and his eyes were big brown walnuts rimmed with white. She sat up and spun to face him, baffled that this little youngster could think she was his mother.

  “Mommy!”

  The boy thrust his finger at her, and she realized he wasn’t calling her his mommy, but summoning his own. Tesmarie curled her legs back to her chest and lowered her eyes. She didn’t want to fly away. She liked this spot. More importantly, if she left she’d have to decide on a new place to go, and right then her paralyzed heart was incapable of making such a decision.

  The boy’s mother arrived at the window. Her annoyed expression rapidly changed to caution when she noticed Tesmarie’s presence.

  “Go play with your sister, Mason.”

  “But, Mommy…”

  “Go. Now.”

  The boy retreated from the window. The woman crossed her arms over her chest and warily eyed Tesmarie. Her hair was tightly braided into several dozen strands and then those strands themselves tied together with a white bow that matched her pretty blouse. She put her elbows on the windowsill and leaned out. No words, just that hardened, weary gaze.

  Tesmarie wiped her nose with the back of her hand, blinked away her tears, and then put on the best smile she could manage.

  “Hello,” she said. “My name’s Tesmarie! What’s yours?”

  The woman looked surprised to hear her talk.

  “Nora,” she said. Nothing else. She looked cautious and hesitant. Did she fear for her child? Dragons help her, what stories did these humans believe about faeries after all these centuries? Did she think she’d come to take her boy away? Steal his eyes and mix them into potions?

  “Should… should I go?” Tesmarie asked as the tense silence stretched on.

  A silent argument waged within Nora’s head. The moment it ended, her body visibly relaxed.

  “My husband runs the stall you’re on top of,” she said. “Don’t scare away any customers and you can stay.”

  Tesmarie smiled.

  “Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!”

  Nora nodded. She still seemed uncertain, but Tesmarie was determined to prove her good intentions.

  “Try to behave,” Nora said. “I’ve work to do.”

  With that she vanished back into the home. Tesmarie picked up her crystalline tears and carefully sprinkled them over her hair, letting her momentary sorrow lend beauty to her presence. Time to gather herself. She didn’t mind crying, but crying was not supposed to be on the list of goals for the day.

  Tesmarie sat at the edge of the fabric, her feet dangling off the side, and watched the people of the market go about their day. Surrounded by noise, life, and light, her heart slowly awakened. It didn’t take long for people to notice her presence, but most seemed curious or amused. One man offered a slice of peach to her, and she eagerly accepted it. Another man came later with a buttered piece of bread. After such boring food at Devin’s, the market was a paradise of wonders. A trio of girls visited later who wished to give her flowers. Tesmarie tore two red petals free and weaved them together into a little circlet. She curtseyed for the girls, who curtseyed back with tremendous gales of laughter.


  Hours passed with pleasant speed. She ate, waved at shoppers, and, if a large enough crowd gathered, twirled and danced through the air to their delight. It was enough to tire out even the most excitable of faeries. Eventually Tesmarie curled up just shy of the edge and slept.

  She awoke past midday, with much of the traffic dwindled down. Tesmarie rubbed her blurry eyes and then noticed Nora watching her from the window.

  “You put on quite a show,” the woman said.

  “Uh-huh,” Tesmarie said. She yawned loudly and stretched her arms. “Do you mind if I come back tomorrow?”

  Nora smiled for the first time.

  “Consider yourself welcome here,” she said.

  Tesmarie set her wings a-buzzing. Before the woman could react she planted a soft kiss on her cheek.

  “Bye-bye-bye,” Tesmarie said, zipping back to Devin’s home, her heart a million times lighter than when she left.

  CHAPTER 32

  Adria lay on her bed and massaged away one of her now-common headaches. It was just past midday, and this was her first moment of peace since morning. She’d asked Sena to allow her an hour of rest before waking her. Of her requested hour, she spent maybe ten minutes of it lying on her bed before a firm knock stirred her from the hazy place between wakefulness and sleep.

  “I pray this is an emergency?” she called from her bed.

  “Not an emergency,” came the muffled reply on the other side of the door. “But I do come with a summons from Vikar Thaddeus.”

  Void-dragon have mercy, Adria thought.

  “One moment.”

  She hoisted herself up from the mattress and smoothed out her dress and hair. Last came her mask. Did the church’s Oathkeepers stand to either side of the door, ready to arrest her for heresy and unholy spellcasting? If so, she’d at least go out dignified.