Voice of war, p.24
Voice of War, page 24
part #1 of Threadlight Series
Being able to glide—he’d finally settled on the word for it—was going to be awfully convenient. As long as he didn’t do it too much. The nausea was real.
As he approached the exit, he was surprised to find it populated with all manner of caravan equipment. The few wagons he’d seen the day before had grown to dozens of partially packed wagons. People moved around, coming and going and loading travel goods and food. Two women were trying their best to wrangle a taractus. Its green, prickly skin and slow-moving stoutness made it quite difficult to subdue. A cluster of the creatures were chained up near the exit with harnesses already attached, ready to haul the wagons.
The company was completely blocking the exit. He looked up and thought about trying to glide over them, but the ceiling in this section started to recede as it formed the tunnel leading out. The passage was tall, but not tall enough for a floating man to glide through undetected.
While he watched, he saw a woman that appeared to be in charge. She had a thin reed of sailweed in her mouth and hoop earrings dangling down the side of her head. Her hair was a long, warm brown pulled back in a tight ponytail. She wore a backless shirt with thin straps that wrapped around the sides of her neck. Short sleeves revealed tattoos flanking a leather strap around her upper arm. A thin, brown silk collar curled around her thin, brown collar bones.
Right about then he decided that he had a new plan.
He gathered his belongings and walked forward confidently, putting on an air of authority. He kept his head high while he passed two workers that looked at him curiously. He pursed his lips and ignored them as he approached the woman.
“Pardon, my lady. Are you not the one in charge here?” He tried speaking like one of the rich idiots in Jelium’s household.
She nodded, looking him up and down, and cocked her head as she looked into his eyes. She opened her mouth to respond, but he beat her to it.
“Good. Good.” One thing he noticed from the rich was that they spoke over each other constantly. “Alexander Grant, at your service. Lady Alabella has just asked me to bring a package to Alchea. It is very important I do so in a timely manner and without incident. You know how she is. Quite particular and unforgiving of failure. Now, I assume by the hullabaloo that you’re leading this team up north. I’ll be needing to tag along until we exit the desert. From there, I can continue the journey on my own. Any questions?”
It was audacious and presumptuous, two factors that made a great lie. But the girl didn’t even respond; she simply stood still staring at him.
“Are you done?” She raised a brow and smiled something devious. “That was cute and, to be honest, you’re cute too…for a dead man.”
A shiver ran up his spine. Not good. Definitely not good. This was a terrible plan. He needed to get out. His eyes wandered toward the exit. Maybe if he ran, he could get past the guards on the other end. In an ideal world, Jelium wouldn’t know about his departure but, in an ideal world, he wouldn’t have been recognized by the first person he approached.
He flinched as she slapped his shoulder. “Relax, Al. Alvie? Ew. Axe? That’s not bad. Name’s Farah, daughter forty-four. Jayla and I are close. I’ve heard stories,” she winked, “including the one about how our father had you murdered.”
He still had no idea how to respond, so he stood there with stiff hands down at his sides, fiddling precariously with the strings on his bag.
“Shyer than I’d imagined.”
He puffed out a laugh and scratched the back of his head. “Guess I’m just not used to being called out so thoroughly.”
“For what it’s worth, it was well-executed. Pompous, presumptuous, and peckish. The three P’s of the privileged.” She offered him a puff of her sailweed but he declined. She shrugged and took another drag herself, letting the smoke out in one long breath. “Problem is that I recognized your face from Jayla’s drawings. That and Alabella is in Alchea so there’s no way she could have ‘just asked’.”
“Heralds save me,” he whispered under his breath. “I’ll take that sailweed now.”
Her laugh caught him off guard. It was loud and obnoxious—ill-paired to the rest of her. She passed him the sailweed, and he took in a deep breath of it. He hadn’t smoked in a while, but he handled it well.
“So, father must really hate you.”
He looked at her and nodded as he handed the sailweed back. “More than stairs.”
“How dare you!” she said with a look of impish shock on her face. “Don’t you think he has enough on his plate as it is?”
Alverax snorted louder than he ever had in his life. The workers all stopped and looked at him while he composed himself. “You are a terrible daughter. But that,” he smiled, “was well-executed.”
She winked. “We leave in an hour. One of our workers went home sick, so you can take his place. Any enemy of my father is a friend of mine.” She stretched out a hand. “Welcome aboard, Sam.”
She had a strong grip for a thin woman. “Sam?”
“All personnel leaving Cynosure are approved ahead of time, and Sam is the guy who got sick. Pretend to be him, and the guards won’t look twice. I’ll let the crew know.”
“Sam it is!”
“Sam was a worker.” She leaned down and grabbed a large bag and tossed it to him. It was much heavier than he’d expected. He stumbled as he caught it. “What? This can’t be totally out of the malice of my heart. There’s not much to load but food on this end, but we’ll have some heavy lifting for you at the pickup. After that, if you want to disappear, or head to Alchea with the others, choice is yours. I’ll tell the guards you died.”
“Thank you,” he said. He moved to put the bag away, but then stopped and turned back around. “Hey, forty-four.”
She smiled. “Yeah, corpse?”
“Where do I put the bag?”
Chapter 25
Long before the sun rose, the caravan was prepared and ready to embark on its journey northward. Each taractus was hooked up to a wagon with a metal harness wrapped around its neck and a driver that held long ropes for guiding its movement. The creatures moved as though they were walking through sludge, each step carefully placed on the sandy rocks. Somehow, they were still able to provide a smooth ride for those in the wagons.
Alverax was paired with a man who was either a mute or incredibly rude. Together, they rode in silence for hours, staring blankly into the desert through iron bars. He could appreciate the desert more now that he was clothed and sheltered, even if it felt like he was in a portable prison cell. Looking out over the sandy ocean reminded him of nights he’d spent staring out over the Altapecean Sea, legs dangling from Mercy’s Bluff. That was where he’d had his first kiss.
Even though he knew he shouldn’t, he missed Jayla. Could he blame her? She’d thought he was dead. Ugh, but why Truffles? Cored by a mushroom. More than likely, he’d taken advantage of the emotionally unbalanced depressive state that his death had caused. If Alverax should hate anyone, it was the traitorous toadstool. The human fungus. The philandering spore-bearer. Not Jayla. He’d come back for her someday.
The wagons began heating up and the Mute started mumbling under his breath. Even in the shady comforts of the wagons, there was no respite. Alverax was sure he was going to die of heat stroke. The constant, all-encompassing warmth felt like swimming in a sea of fire. He decided that he would have rather died from the Masked Guard.
Somehow, in spite of the audible groans, he survived the day. The sun set over the caravan as they made camp. There were only a dozen people in the group, each moving about silently as they settled down near a large fire. Now that the world had cooled off, Alverax decided that the journey wasn’t so horrible after all. In fact, the temperature was nearly perfect.
Farah approached from the center of the caravan, her large hoop earrings gleaming in the light of the campfire. She brought him a bowl of the soup they’d made for supper. “How you holding up, corpse?”
“Only half dead,” he said. “The heat nearly finished me off.”
“You’re lucky you have dark skin. Check out Kase over there.”
An older woman with broad shoulders sat staring into the fire. The firelight made it look even worse, but Alverax could tell the woman’s pale skin had turned bright red.
“Heralds. That can’t be healthy.”
Farah laughed. “I told her to wear a jacket, but she said it was too hot.”
Just then, the Mute passed by. He was bald, but he wore a wide-brimmed hat to protect his skin from the heat.
“That guy always so talkative?” Alverax asked.
“The mechanic? Not sure I’ve ever heard him say more than a few words that weren’t curses. Damn hard worker though. I’d take him over any two.”
“I talked to him for five minutes earlier today before I realized he wasn’t going to respond.” Alverax took a step toward the fire. “For future reference, a warning would have been nice.”
“And spoil the fun? Not a chance.”
Some of Farah’s movements were eerily reminiscent of Jayla. The way her lip curled when she was being sarcastic. The way her left eyebrow raised more than the right. Part of him wanted to run away, but being near her felt like home. Her carefree spirit helped him forget about everything that had happened.
“Okay, corpse. The game is called crockpot. Wait right there.”
She jogged off and returned with a bowl and a bottle of whiskey the size of a small barrel, which she opened and emptied into the bowl. She placed a ladle inside and looked up at him. “I’m going to tell you something, and you have to decide if I’m lying. If you think I am, say ‘crockpot’. If you’re right, I’ll drink a swig from the bowl, but if you’re wrong, you will. Easy.”
Alverax nodded. He’d played plenty of drinking games before, but never in a one-on-one scenario. “What if I want to drink the whisky every time?”
She leaned in close. “You might like me better with a few drinks in me.”
Heralds save me.
“First one,” she announced. “My mother is one of the original Hundred Brides.”
Ugh. Why did it always come back to Jelium? The man was about sixty now, and he’d come to Cynosure about forty years before. He’d married the Hundred Brides all in the first year. Looking at Farah, she could only be a few years older than Alverax, so, maybe twenty-two? Timeline was feasible. Jelium did like them young.
“True.”
“Wrong!” She smiled wide while handing him a ladle-full of whisky. “Of father’s original one hundred brides, eighteen have passed away and been replaced.”
“He probably ate ‘em,” Alverax mumbled.
“Ew. That is disgusting, but not totally impossible. My mother was actually the very first replacement. Lots of rumors about what happened to the eighteen, illness, murder, suicide, you name it. At this point I wouldn’t put anything past him.”
Alverax nodded. “No kidding.”
“Alright, drink up.” She waited for him to finish the ladle. “Second truth. I was offered a seat on the Council of Heralds.”
“Ha!” he laughed. She was too young to be offered a seat on the council. They were all lifers well into their fifties, selected because of their influence. Of course, by the time Alabella had arrived—ten years after Jelium—the ruling authority of the council had been forcefully diminished. It felt like a trick question. Maybe she had been offered a seat, but as a scribe or assistant. “Can I clarify something?”
She raised a brow. “One question.”
“Was this seat on the council itself?”
“Yes,” she said with quick confidence.
He looked deep into her eyes, looking for the deception, but there was none. It seemed like such an obvious lie, but if it had happened it would make a great truth for the game. Her dark eyes stared right back. “Heralds save me, but I think you actually were offered a seat.”
She burst out in laughter. “You are terrible at reading people. It’s actually rather impressive how bad you are. That was supposed to be an easy one.”
“That’s the problem! It was too easy. Heralds, you’re a good liar.”
“I have one hundred and forty-seven siblings. What do you expect?”
He shook his head. “I can’t even imagine.”
She filled the ladle with whisky and handed it to Alverax. It tasted better the second time. He looked back to Farah and about choked on the last drop. The way she was looking at him. He knew that look. He’d seen it in Jayla’s eyes a hundred times.
“Last one.” She inched toward him, her eyes searing into his own. The heat of the bonfire was nothing compared to the burning inside him as she moved in. Her lips parted like ocean waves. “I’ve a taste for dark skin.”
The urge to run exploded throughout his body. His heart beat fast as a flickering flame, each beat a powerful rhythm. Thud, thud. Heralds save me. Thud, thud. Look at her. Thud, thud. Those lips.
She moved in closer and closer until he could feel the warmth of her skin. She paused. He hesitated. His insides felt exactly the same as when he was threadweaving, like his veins were filled with the heat of the sun. He leaned forward and kissed her, his lips igniting with every powerful emotion he’d let build up inside. He was reborn for a second time.
Her hands squeezed tightly against his back, crawling up his spine, over his neck, and up into his hair. He knew it was a bad idea, but he didn’t care. His own hands drifted over the curves of her ribs and along the sides of her abdomen, pulsing with each beat of her heart. He’d needed this. This raw release of careless passion. They pressed hard into each other, their shadows flickering against the caravan.
In the heat of the moment—when he certainly wasn’t supposed to—Alverax thought. Was he becoming his father? Was he going to leave Cynosure, get a woman pregnant, and return home with a baby? What was he doing? Shut up, brain. He tried to let it go as his hands drifted lower and lower.
“Stones!” One of the other members of the caravan stumbled across them. “Sorry, sorry. Don’t mind me. Just, uh, passing through. You, uh, just, uh, continue on, I guess…”
The man started to leave, but then paused and turned back to Farah. “While I, uh, have your attention. You wouldn’t happen to know where the whiskey is? The others were looking for it.” He scratched his head and coughed.
A mischievous grin crossed Farah’s lips as she pulled away from Alverax. “I know where it is. I’ll grab it and meet up with you all in a minute.”
“Good, good.” The man continued walking, clearing the lane between the two carts faster than a leafling running from its shadow.
Farah turned back to Alverax and smiled her devilish smile. “I know you’re planning on disappearing, but at least stick around another day. I think I might have more work for you to do tomorrow.”
Before Alverax had the chance to compose himself and respond, she’d already left with the whiskey. He slumped down onto the ground and laughed at himself. What had his life become? A series of insanity. Dead. Alive. Cheated on. Cheated. Chased and seduced. Somehow through it all, he’d ended up in the best possible scenario. He had a free ride out of Cynosure, and companionship.
After things settled down, Alverax thought about walking over toward the rest of the group, but he was exhausted. Instead, he climbed up into his wagon and nearly died of fright when he found the Mute awake inside staring out the wagon window. The man said nothing. It took some time, and a bit of trust, but finally Alverax drifted to sleep beside the smallest sliver of hope.
The next morning, the entire camp awoke with the sun. Alverax learned that they were to reach their pickup location around midday to receive a shipment from another caravan that they would bring back to Cynosure. When he asked others what the shipment was, they told him that it was mostly expensive ingredients that were hard to gather in the desert.
With that, they set back out northward toward the border of the Alchean city-state. Each taractus trudged forward unimpeded by the weight it pulled behind, and the workers lounged in the shade of the wagons while the air still remained cool. A few of the workers drank too much the night before and were moaning about the sun’s reflection on the sand.
Alverax sat daydreaming about what he would do next.
One thought he had was to join up with the caravan team that they were meeting. If he worked for them, every so often he’d get to meet up with Farah. But if word got out that he was showing up at all of the pickups, Jelium would send the Masked Guard to kill him. There was no getting around it. This afternoon he’d have to say goodbye. He wanted to invite her to come with him but thought it might sound desperate.
As the morning wore on, Alverax could see the peaks of a mountain range to the east. They were less impressive in real life than they were in drawings—at least from that distance.
He trapped a small leafling he found on the side of the wagon and watched it try to escape. Its hard, rigid body left scratch marks against the wood. The leaf-shaped shell on its back looked brittle and gave Alverax the crude urge to grab hold of both ends and break it in half like a wafer. Instead, he let it go and opened himself to threadlight.
Alone in the wagon, he practiced breaking threads.
He drifted in and out of sleep, overheated and dehydrated, until the caravan came to a halt. He sat up, rubbed his eyes, and found himself alone. It felt nice not to have the Mute staring at him.
Muddled voices conversed outside as he stretched his arms. Farah had told him that he could trust the people in the drop-off caravan, but he wanted to stay hidden in the wagon just to be careful.
He peaked out the barred window and counted eight large wagons sprawled out over dry grassland. Some of Farah’s men were unloading crates from one of the wagons, hauling them back over onto their own. Alverax thought he saw a hand reaching out from between the barred windows of the farthest wagon. Farah was in a small group talking to a woman with jet black hair slicked back behind her ears. The woman smiled and put a hand to Farah’s cheek. She said something, and Farah turned and pointed toward the wagons.
