Copyright © 2018 by Hannah West

  All Rights Reserved

  HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  www.holidayhouse.com

  Ebook ISBN 9780823440160

  v5.3.2

  a

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Fields of Fire

  stared out the cracked barn door at two shadows darting across the windswept meadow. My fingers strayed to the hilt of my dirk, but I checked myself, muzzling an instinctive bite of fear.

  The nearest figure paused against the violet night sky to chirp three nightingale notes. Relieved to recognize the call as one of our safe signals, I retrieved a wooden whistle from my pocket and answered with two clipped chirps. My spies resumed their approach.

  Gannon pulled the creaky door ajar. His blue eyes shone bright in the lantern light as he crossed the threshold of the hay barn and loomed over me. I was hardly alarmed; everyone loomed over me, save children.

  “Drell,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Were you able to search the alchemist’s room?” I asked. Reed entered behind him and gently closed the door.

  “Aye, while Skye distracted him, as we planned.” Gannon combed his fingers through brown curls damp with mist. Reed eased himself down on a milking stool and rubbed his thumb over his coarse beard, as was his wont when nervous. Their eyes met.

  “Well, out with it,” I said, unable to endure the suspense. “What did you find?”

  Gannon inhaled deeply, shoring up the will to deliver dour news. The fear I’d fended off moments ago returned with a vengeance, tightening around my ribs as I awaited his report.

  Just then, a second, unanticipated series of chirps pierced the night, but through the rustling trees I couldn’t make out whether it was one of our signals. One of our horses whinnied restively from the distant enclosure near the woods. We quieted our breaths until the only sound was the soft singing of steel as we drew our blades.

  The door creaked open. My muscles tensed to meet an intruder. Perhaps the farmers had heard us from their house, perched just on the other side of a hill. But a lanky cloaked figure paused at the threshold with a long blond wig clenched in one fist.

  “Skye.” I relaxed my shoulders and sank my dirk into its sheath. “We weren’t expecting you.”

  Skye stepped inside and slid back her hood, revealing the ash-blond waves cropped short around her ears, greasy with oils that kept them hidden beneath the golden wig. “Sorry, Drell. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “Why aren’t you at the bathhouse inn?” I asked. “I thought you’d secured a job as an attendant. Free lodging there has got to be better than this barn.”

  “I did,” she said, and whipped off her wet cloak. She crossed the small open space to perch upon one of the hundreds of tidy hay bales, smoothing the wig in her lap. “But I was eager to hear what Gannon learned so that I could plan accordingly. The alchemist is no easy target. That’s about the sum of what I’ve gleaned so far.”

  “Will anyone note your absence?” I asked, voice flat with irritation. Spontaneity was a requisite skill in our line of work, but I preferred my spies to wield it only after our meticulous plans had gone awry.

  “I was careful. I’ll be back for my shift at the baths tomorrow.” Skye scratched her scalp and scrunched her nose. “Ugh, that horrid wig will be my demise. Go on, Gannon. I’ve had a long night. Tell us what you found.”

  Gannon produced a bundle of parchment from his breast pocket and unfolded it. “The alchemist is devising a weapon,” he explained. “An unrivaled one that could kill hundreds with a single blow. Trumble commissioned it.”

  I struggled to swallow before I asked, “Kill hundreds at once? How?”

  He dipped back into his pocket to fetch a vial with a cork stopper. It held a pinch of black granules, slightly coarser than sand. They twinkled in the dim light. “This is some sort of potent matter scraped from cavern walls,” he explained. “Caverns in Galgeth.”

  “Galgeth?” I repeated, a sense of dread coiling around my heart as I recalled legends of that unwholesome place, the netherworld to the west of Nissera that could only be reached by immortal elicromancers. “So Trumble is a double agent. As a mortal he couldn’t have passed into Galgeth to gather them on his own. He’s working for Tamarice.”

  Simply uttering the dark elicromancer’s name dispatched waves of visceral rage through my veins. I’d been naught but a child when Tamarice had dwelt at my home city of Darmeska, but I often revised my memories of those days, indulging a fantasy that a single wet thrust of my blade had pierced her heart and ended her before she could threaten Nissera with war—a war the fractured realm might not win.

  But I never would have had a chance of defeating her, even back when she strode through the halls of my fortress city, her chin jutting high and her catlike eyes sparkling with rancor and secrets. Her elicrin power was too vast.

  All I could do was search for signs of her influence, stalk any mortals she might have lured into her service, and hope that Bristal and the army she was helping to build were strong enough to stop her before the realm of Nissera fell to ruin.

  “Under certain conditions, the granules will combust with great force,” Gannon went on, handing me the bundle of parchment. I scanned the familiar scrawl. He had copied the alchemist’s notes in his own hand; he knew better than to swipe the originals. “It’s a phenomenon that occurs naturally in the caverns of Galgeth, when the air is right.”

  “If you can call anything about the netherworld natural,” I retorted.

  “You’ll see from my notes that the alchemist plans to find a way for the substance to combust outside the Galgethian Caverns,” Gannon said. “He plans to mix and manipulate the granules, turning them into a weapon that would burst violently and cause mass casualties.”

  “Since he’s toying with materials this volatile, he must have a workshop somewhere,” Reed added. He produced his latest whittling project, a whistle that would mimic the call of a tawny owl. He liked to busy his hands while he spoke. “He has a permanent room at the bathhouse inn, but he couldn’t experiment there unnoticed.”

  A lock of red hair fell across my face and I shoved it back into its plait with undue force. “Why would Tamarice bother with this?” I asked, riffling through the pages. “Her power is a weapon, a deadly one. What need does she have for combustible rocks?”

  “She’s doing what any good commander would do,” Reed replied in a gruff voice. He shaved away a curl of wood with his knife and let it fall to the dirt floor. “Arm her legion to the teeth and make no assumptions of victory.”

  The sweat suddenly dampening my palm smeared the still-fresh ink of Gannon’s notes. This was far worse than I had expected. I was well aware that spying on bad people led to knowledge of bad deeds—but the man we’d been eyeing was clearly rotten to the core.

  Years ago, Trumble, our target, had kidnapped Bristal, forcing her into the deadly Water in the western forest in hopes that she would not perish, but would instead be one of the very few who emerged possessing a magical elicrin stone. When she survived, Trumble had tried to thieve the powerful stone. But Bristal escaped with it, taking shelter in my fortress city, where we became fast friends and she learned to wield her shapeshifting gift under the guidance of the only other elicromancers still in existence, one of them Tamarice. When Tamarice had turned to dark elicromancy, Bristal was forced to conspire against her for the good of Nissera. And now we hung so much of our hope on her.

  In a strange way, we had Trumble to thank for that—his actions had helped make Bristal a powerful elicromancer.

  But that was not the last of his villainous acts, as it turned out. He had somehow wormed his way to serving the King of Calgoran in Arna, acting as his spy and informant, surely with some sinister purpose in mind. I’d suspected he might be a double agent, working for Tamarice while whispering in the mortal king’s ear, weakening this realm so that she might more easily claim it as her own when she returned from her self-imposed exile in the netherworld of Galgeth.

  It was thanks to my spies’ close scrutiny of Trumble that we had intercepted the messenger he’d sent north from Arna to Cadoma. The messenger bore a letter Trumble had cryptically addressed to “The Alchemist.” The letter inquired about the progress of an “urgent project.” Though the precise nature of this undertaking was a mystery to me, I suspected Trumble had commissioned this alchemist to develop some sort of untraceable poison, perhaps to assassinate the king—or perhaps to off someone who had become suspicious of how easily and swiftly Trumble had earned the king’s trust.

  But now I knew that the alchemist’s undertaking was far more nefarious than formulating a poison. Imaginings of gruesome battles ripped through my mind, thoughts of these powerful granules wiping out ranks of warriors, violently tearing limb from limb and torching human flesh.

  “Will the alchemist notice you took the granules?” I asked Gannon, gesturing at the vial.

  “No. I only nabbed a pinch.”

  “We could get rid of him tonight,” Reed suggested, at last looking up from his whittling. “End it all quickly.”

  “No.” I folded the documents and tucked them away. “We need him to lead us to his workshop. We must sabotage his progress, burn his findings to oblivion, and ensure Trumble doesn’t know enough to simply pass the work to anothe

r alchemist who could finish the job.”

  “What if we reveal his double agency to Bristal?” Gannon asked. “She could disguise herself as anyone: the king, the queen, a courtier. She’ll off Trumble and be done with it. We’ll kill the alchemist.”

  “That’s shortsighted,” Skye said. “If we kill Trumble, we’ll lose our only connection to Tamarice. Watching him led us to this. We’ll have no foreknowledge of Tamarice’s plans without him.”

  “What if Bristal posed as Trumble and the alchemist unknowingly delivered the weapon to her?” Reed asked, shifting his stocky weight on the stool. “She can look like anyone she wants, can’t she?”

  For a wee moment, I entertained the idea. Bristal would want to intervene. She knew the darkness inside Trumble. She knew what he was capable of. But right now, she was disguised as a male soldier with the Realm Alliance, attempting to bolster the only army that was ready and willing to fight the supernatural war Tamarice would unleash on us. Sending her a sensitive missive could compromise her, and take time we might not have.

  “Bristal is working to grow the Realm Alliance, and that’s exactly what she should be doing,” I replied. “We’re going to need an army regardless of the outcome of this mission.”

  “But it would be quite easy for her—” Gannon started.

  “I don’t ask for help with tasks we can carry out ourselves,” I barked, losing patience. “We can handle Trumble and his alchemist. What else did we learn about him? Anything new? Skye?”

  “His name is Cecil Callebrand. None of the bath attendants seem to know much else, except that he leaves at dawn and returns after dark. He’s quite withdrawn.”

  “Get as close to him as you dare tomorrow to ascertain the workshop location,” I said. “Gannon and I will go to the baths as patrons around nightfall, so we can be near if you need us as soon as he’s set to arrive. Reed, pose as a street beggar. Follow the alchemist next time he leaves, but not aggressively. None of us can make him suspicious.”

  The stool creaked as Reed leaned forward, hanging his arms over his spread thighs. “We may have a wee problem with that plan,” he said, looking to Skye, who picked at bits of straw to avoid my gaze.

  I cocked my head and waited for an explanation. Both Skye and Reed looked at Gannon. “What’s happened?” I asked.

  “I made a mistake,” Gannon answered hoarsely.

  “He was trying to protect me,” Skye said, and forced herself to meet my eyes before going on. “When I started the job this morning, the innkeeper told me I could choose one of two paths: I could simply work my shifts, eat in the kitchen, and retire to my room. Or I could make myself more…available to the wealthy patrons. Entertain them. Drink with them in the inn tavern. Give them private massages in the baths. Bed them, if they wish. Those who choose to ‘entertain’ receive more pay, a bigger room, better meals, more freedom. The rest are encouraged to dress modestly and act polite yet distant to stave off unwanted attention.”

  I nodded, urging her toward the point. Of course the Old King’s Baths offered their highborn clientele a bit more than a bath, a massage, and lavish accommodations.

  “At first, I thought going unnoticed might put me at an advantage with the alchemist. But then I realized how private he was. So I went to the tavern to keep him busy while Gannon searched his room. I tried to make good use of the time, but even when ale-sodden the alchemist isn’t a chatty fellow—just rough and rude. He was standing by the hearth and I tried to engage him. Then I played coy about going to bed with him and he didn’t like that. He took hold of me very suddenly, and lifted my skirts to burn my thigh with the hearth poker, as if he could prod me upstairs to his chamber like a cow. I yelped a bit loud and most of the patrons laughed. Gannon heard the commotion and intervened.” She crossed her arms and shot him a chagrined look.

  “Intervened?” I repeated, turning his way. Inwardly, I was seething over what Skye had endured, but outwardly I could only disapprove of Gannon taking such an unnecessary risk. Skye didn’t need his help.

  “I took the poker and burned the bastard’s shoulder,” he said. “And got dragged out because evidently a fight disturbs the other patrons more than an attack on an innocent woman. I had to wait until he slept to search his room.”

  “Are you daft?” I demanded. “You made a spectacle and then searched his room while he was in it?” He flinched as I stepped toward him. “You could have wrecked this entire mission over a flesh wound.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gannon said, though thanks to the hard set of his jaw, I didn’t quite believe him.

  “You’re sorry?” I repeated. “Skye can handle herself. You’re not responsible for any of us unless we are in grave danger, and you know that.” I cursed and paced down the aisle of sweet-smelling haystacks. Struggling not to raise my voice, I strode back and growled, “You should be pleading with me not to send you back to Darmeska to work for your father in a bloody apron.”

  Despite the conviction in my voice, my threat rang hollow. Gannon was skilled, sly, indispensable. I couldn’t afford to punish him. But now I couldn’t use him either. “We have a truly destructive weapon on our hands, and you’ve hindered your ability to continue this mission.”

  “There wasn’t a sober bloke in that whole tavern!” he argued. “It took four of them to drag me out, and I barely resisted.”

  “He has a common face,” Skye added, studying Gannon. “Everyone’s got a cousin, friend, or blacksmith who looks just like him. A wig, a beard, some fine clothes should do.”

  Gannon pursed his lips but said nothing more.

  Mine carved a scowl. “It’s too risky.”

  “Reed is the muscle. He doesn’t go deep undercover like I do,” Gannon said, his tone still edged with uncharacteristic belligerence.

  I sucked my teeth. “This isn’t like you, Gannon. All of your comrades have been through worse, yet you’ve never interfered. You’ve never lost your composure.”

  He fell silent for a moment. His gaze was intense, but it didn’t land on any of us. It settled in the distance, as if there were anything to regard other than shadows and bundled hay.

  “He is a dangerous man,” he at last said in a gravelly voice. His attention quivered toward Skye before landing back on me. “I knew that, even before he hurt Skye.”

  I could almost taste the tension in the air, denser than the musty smack of hay and dust.

  “Fine,” I uttered, snatching the granules from Gannon and holding them to the faint lantern light, though at a safe distance from the flame. “But no more mistakes tomorrow. Tamarice is powerful enough on her own. A weapon like this could easily turn the tides of war in her favor.”

  * * *

  —

  When the evening sun gilded the green meadows, Gannon and I rode from the farm to the nearby city of Cadoma. Terrace-top residences followed contours of hills scarred with limestone. Centuries ago, a Calgoranian king had built an elaborate bathhouse beside the natural hot-spring pools, which he’d enjoyed visiting on holidays—until his brother paid a bath attendant to slit his throat.

  Today’s Ermetarius brothers weren’t the first siblings of their bloodline who didn’t get along.

  We dismounted as we approached the crowded market, where the stink of manure and butchered meat lambasted my senses, mingling with aromas from floral soap shops. Gannon was barely recognizable in his dandy blond wig and blue slit-sleeve jerkin. “The stews are this way,” he said, dodging squawking saleswomen competing to sell us cloying lavender and rose-petal sachets before day’s end.

  “The stews?” I repeated.

  “The baths.”

  “Disgusting.”

  Gannon laughed and paid a young boy a few thesars to lead our palfreys, Dusty and Victor, on to our destination: twin stone buildings perched atop rock formations towering over the shops of the city street below. I scooped up my butter-yellow skirts and grimaced at a stagnant puddle in my path, easily falling into the role of a wealthy sir’s mistress. The Old King’s Baths catered to highborn company and prided themselves on discretion. A desire for secrecy would be our best excuse for arriving without our very own servants.

  A set of gates and a pair of guards waited at the foot of a flight of stairs, which had been hewn from the rough rock. Sharply dressed grooms led our horses to the stables down the street. As I watched them retreat, I noticed Reed hunkered on the cobblestones outside a bronzesmith’s shop in his convincing beggar disguise.

 

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