Chapter Six | Rumors

Very few spirits would pass up a party.

Those who were stronger could wander away from their resting places in Lower Irial, but they would not last long amongst the opulent houses without Aire.  As always, she brought Royden with her;  his pinkie bone was stuffed into the tight corset of her dress. Tonight, he gushed over the finery, sneered at the uneven hems and slipped in snippets of news that he had gathered.

"Little Toothless Timothy says that the Bloodbound brought more than one prisoner into the city." Royden sat shoulder height in the grand white-oak entrance of Lord-Mayor Wynne's palatial home. The home was grand, tucked away behind manned walls and hidden from the common folk by trees. The apple trees spread wide branches along the edges of the stone wall and filled the evening air with a crisp, mouth-watering scent. They had escaped the rot and Aire marveled at them, having grown used to the grey pallor of Irial. 

Servants lined the gravel path, carrying trays of drink and small baked goods. The faint strains of music beckoned the guests inside.

"Aether?" She breathed very softly.

Royden shook his head, peering over a servant's shoulder to gaze morosely at their tray. "Little Toothless Timothy says that they have their hands, mouths and eyes bound. He calls them cargo for the Emperor."

Strange. The thought of a new secret rumbled her and she stewed on it as Junhyn stepped up beside her. She tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and pasted on a docile, polite smile. People with their hands, eyes and mouths bound? So familiar to her and yet, impossible.

Her attention cut to the guests, wariness curling in her gut. People always made sure to stop and greet Junhyn. He wasn't born into wealth and his rise to power was a mystery to all those who sought to dismantle him, but no one could afford to get on the wrong side of such a rich man. Their attention slid over her too – her painted face, her coiled dark hair. The hint of exposed skin turned their attention away again. Rarely was a man in Upper Irial seen without a woman at an occasion like this. Whether a wife, a fiancée or a rented lady.

Those who skirted the underbelly were not as foolish. She liked to think of herself as a pretty little flower that spat barbs and poison. Others had used harsher words.

They stepped into the balmy air of the estate. A servant brought a tray of drinks of Junhyn and Aevran appeared, plucking a flute up to test the bubbling liquid. The servant cowed under his flinty stare, then blushed when Aevran cast him a curling smile. "It is safe."

His antics didn't shake her from the thought of a ravelled secret. Prisoners. Prisoners brought by the Bloodbound for the Emperor? More Aether? But why would their mouths and eyes be bound?

She plucked a flute up when it was deemed safe, moving past the arched mirrors. She was a figure in dark blue, the sleeves capped at her elbows. The neckline dipped, exposing silver dusted collarbones and her hips had been padded to hide a blade. The dress skimmed her shoes, masking their surprising sturdiness. She looked the part; an acceptable accompaniment, but the dress was light and comfortable.

'I need to give Ms. Alainne a tip.'

The only draw-back was the satin-like gloves to hide her silver-scarred hands. The hands of an Eoban user.

Junhyn leaned down, his breath tickling her ear. Aire bit down a shiver, uncomfortable with him so close to her Rot-Wort hair. It wasn't strange to have dyed hair, but she was afraid of Junhyn's ever questioning nature. What if he ordered her to wash it out for his own bored curiosity? They would see the moon-lit silver and they would know, they would figure out ...

She took a breath, willing those thoughts to vanish. Sometimes, her thoughts fell into the forefront of her mind like water tumbling over a fall, crashing and breaking everything on the rocks at the bottom. She forced herself to focus on her work and keep her mind busy.

There were balconies lining the walls of the estate and grand arched doorways, a nightmare for any who feared a blade in the dark. There were soldiers, dressed in subtle lines of crimson standing at the doors and the windows but Aire suspected they were only there to detain any non-invitees. At the top of the long room, sat Lord Mayor Wynne. A serving girl was by his side, fanning his perspiring face.

Aire grimaced. It was growing obvious that he was suffering. The spirits knew nothing of his illness and Aire didn't want the risk of sneaking into the estate when the pay-out would be small. Lord Wynne was by no means a good man, but there were worse dogs pulling at the leash, waiting for his passing.  He had some mercy for the poor and suffering, allowing them to beg and keeping the soup-kitchens open. 

In an even grander chair, sat the Bloodbound. He sat in simple black clothing, lounging with a dark expression as he watched the people before him. His long legs were stretched out, crossed at the ankles. He held a glass of bubbling honey wine and tipped it to his lips, his gaze sweeping across the room once again.

"Lord Wynne will be sweating." Aevran stepped to her side, his voice low. "He would want word of his illustrious party and his hospitality to reach the Emperor."

"And the only way that happens, is if he impresses the Bloodbound." Her mind turned. Prisoners with their senses bound.  She stared at the Bloodbound as her mind raced. The secret was there - she knew what it must mean but that meant the foundations of her carefully crafted life would shift. 

Shift, or shatter? 

The Bloodbound looked up suddenly, catching her eye. He met her staring with an arched brow, taking another drink. 

Movement caught her eye. Spirits, all drifting through the ballroom, ready to be put to work. Royden lingered near her. Junhyn's hand touched her lower back, urging her on.

"We should move for the ...goods as early as possible. Before some couples decide to sneak through the estate to look for some privacy." She looked to Royden as she whispered in Junhyn's ear, masking the move as a laughing whisper to a late-night lover.

Royden sighed, and with a gesture, three more spirits followed him into the walls.

"That is what I pay you for." Junhyn eyed the dance-floor. "But it would be rude not to dance first."

She pasted a smile and he took her gloved hand. The music had already drawn some couples out. The moves were simple. Boring. Stale. The same dances sanctioned by the Emperor in Kolath. There had been a time in her life when dancing was done with flowers woven in her unbound hair, where the grass was soft under her bare feet and the moon and star-lit sky shone done on their revelry.

Junhyn spun her. Her smile never shifted, rigid as a mountain. Neither missed a step and Junhyn watched people over her head, murmuring names of new players that she might need to keep an eye on. Secrets. Secrets. That was good, but it did not distract her from the weight of the stare that never shifted from her.

He was watching her.

Fear, tart and putrid, burned in the back of her throat. She could barely swallow it, reminding herself that her blood was soaked in Eoban. Any whisper of magic in her blood was subdued. He had no reason to suspect her of anything, other than having a too soft heart. And that was a danger to no one but herself.

She tried to ignore him and eventually, Lord-Mayor Wynne dragged the Bloodbound into conversation.

Finally, a spirit peeked her head through a sun-stained tapestry. The dance slowed and Aire plucked a fruit tart from a passing tray, eyeing the new arrival.

Daria. Sold into the fighting pits for refusing to marry her betrothed, Daria had survived four fights against all odds. Then, her parents and fiancé had watched as they released three Wolfhounds into the pit with her. Aire could only imagine the brutality that hindered Daria from passing on. The other spirits had called her Dog-Hunt Daria, but Aire could never make herself form the nick-name. Daria was sweet, despite the ravages across her face and torso.

She had wanted to be a healer.

Her killers' deaths had been a necessity. The younger sister was going to suffer the same fate, as the fiancé had turned his attention to her. Daria had watched, invisible and seething as the drunken fiancé had 'fallen' into the Polliver late one night, his screams swallowed by the dark water.

"Dance with me, strange girl."

Aire jolted at the low, smooth voice that was accompanied by the deep, rich scent of a rain-soaked forest. It was so different from the rot of Irial that a burst of homesickness burst through her, rattling her enough that her masked smile fell.

The crowd had fallen silent. The music still played, but it sounded warped as she stared down at the hand held out to her, adorned with silver rings. She looked up, tracing the long lean body of the Bloodbound.

To refuse would be the death of her.

She spotted Aevran in the crowd. Worry clouded over his easy smile. He would come to her aid if she made this an issue. He would try and help her and die. No. Never again.

"Of course." She pasted the smile back on and took the Bloodbound's hand. His skin was warm, like fire trapped under his skin, even through her silken glove.

"You honour me." The Bloodbound inclined his head, a sardonic smile twisting his stern mouth.

Expertly, he pulled her onto the floor. The crowd's babbling had begun again, too low to be heard under the music. A strong arm curled around her back and he clasped her other hand tightly, rising it. He moved them, strong and assured in crisp, precise steps.

Her cheeks flamed red at the staring faces as her thoughts raced, cursing the Bloodbound. The last thing she needed was the attention.  People ignored a woman dancing, drinking and laughing because there were countless others. If she fawned and pawed at a rich man, she would be ignored even more so. Those who dug for gold coin were plentiful. 

Now, the weight of their stares lanced across her shoulders. 

 His head bent low. His breath smelled of honeyed-wine. "I do not like anomalies."

"Anomalies?" She couldn't look at those silver eyes, focusing instead on the tattoos that marked his cheeks. A fully fledged Bloodbound would have the full moon cycle cut up from his left cheek, up around his temple, across his forehead and down to the right cheek where the cycle would start again. He was only marked twice.

"It is not strange to be followed by a shadow." He spun her with precision, but his presence made the other's skittish. They messed up steps so they could avoid coming close to the Bloodbound in black.

He continued, "A kind soul who vanishes into the dark where she must belong, but then reappears wearing a gown that would have cost a very pretty coin, is an anomoly."

Her mouth was dry, but her heart thundered so high in her throat that he might be able to spot it. "I keep good company. They pay well."

They spun together again and the Bloodbound watched the crowd, his attention diverted. Almost absently, as if not even talking to her, he said, "Have you ever seen a wolf prowling towards a trapped, injured doe?"

"There are not many wolves here in Irial, but I would not think of myself as a doe." She cursed her openness as his gaze flashed over her, like a coin in the sunlight. Nerves, annoyance, anger always drove her to say something – especially if she wanted to say something else.

"You do not remind me of a doe, strange-girl." He spun her again and she felt the effortless power in the move. Elegant to onlookers, but he had moved her without effort. As if she weighed nothing more than a feather. If she resisted, she wondered if it would have mattered to him. She would move if he willed it, or expose herself to his sharp curiosity.

He continued, "You remind me of a wolf, starving and lost, but clever enough to hide it beneath a docile face."

Her gut settled. This was not good. It was one thing to be considered a street rat, or a high-born lady who pitied the poor, or even a night-lady who serviced the rich. It was an entirely different thing to be considered something akin to threat. "I would not think I would be dangerous to you."

"You are not."

"Then why would you call me a wolf?"

"It was an observation that I made."

He was watching her. "I didn't think that a Bloodbound of an Emperor would have so little to do, other than observe unimportant people. Wolves or not."

"Irial is boring." He spun her again, his hand flexing against her back. So effortless, so fast was the spin that her feet lifted. She gritted her teeth at the small flex of power. "And you do not talk like an Irialian."

"Irial is the heart of the Empire. We have a blend of everyone here. From Cearna, Vespith, Sibran and Knechru. Every road leads back to Irial."

"A good city to live in if you wanted to flee suddenly. The whole Empire is open to you from beyond the gates."

"The roads beyond Irial are dangerous. I've heard stories of bandits plaguing the lesser roads."

"Bandits are of no concern to me or my cargo."

The music drew to a close, the final chords swelling up to the high ceiling. The spirits were silent, waiting for her. Even Royden looked perturbed, his guts stuffed back into his belly and his bloated face grave. Cargo. Cargo.

The Bloodbound stopped and stepped back, inclining his head to her. "Thank you."

She repeated the sentiment and gesture. The Bloodbound turned away from her without another word and the people pressed back as he strode across the room. He plucked another glass of honey wine from a tray and resumed his position at the top of the room. A lower lord edged close, trying to engage him in conversation.

Nerves shaken, Aire plucked a glass of wine from a tray and downed it. The sweet liquid melded over her tongue and down her throat, warming her cold bones. Aevran did not question her as he pulled her into a dance, his grip strong and comforting.

"Are you good?"

"I am."

She waited another while. After the dance, lords and ladies who sought to climb the broken, cracked steps of the Empire's hierarchy had grown in confidence. They swarmed the Bloodbound, laughing and pawing at each other in hilarity whenever he did respond.

His face did not shift.

Aire knew then it was time to act. Her spirits, ghosting the edge of the party and commenting on the visitors came to her. Even with her casting subdued, they came with a simple look.

"It is time for us to work." Aire ran her finger-tips up along Junhyn's back, her breath warm on his ear.

Junhyn did not question it. With a single turn of his hand, the others within the great ballroom moved into place. Junhyn would expect her to rob and steal as she usually did. Lord Wynne's palatial home was a treat waiting to be cracked open.

She got to work. Junhyn had people in every facet of Irial's society and getting access to the layout of the home had been easy. Not that she needed them. She had been here before in the stories and memories whispered from the souls of those slain in this house. A beautiful house, with blood soaked tiles and memories.

Though the hallway looked empty, save for her skulking, she could see the bodies moving around her. They watched her back and front, with information passed along the hall of where the guards were and where the servants scuttled.

"In here." Daria stood before her suddenly, a hand moving through the heavy wood. "I have been watching Lord Wynne as you asked, Aire. He brings shipments and talks in secrets in here."

"Thank you, Daria."

The spirit's smile was slight and died quickly when Royden floated past. With her one good eye, she glowered at him.

Royden scoffed.  "You look beautiful as always, Daria."

"Shut your trap, Royden."

"Yeoow. Such language for a high-born lady. Did you see your sister here tonight?"

Daria's face shuttered and Aire whirled on Royden, her expression pinched. "Royden, I will throw your pinkie into the Polliver and let your bones get trapped down in the dark tunnels if you continue like this!" 

Royden shivered. "Even you would not be that cruel."

"Cruelty begets cruelty." Aire pushed into the room. 

The air was crisp and cold, but the colored glass of the balcony doors were shut tight. The interior was wide and spacious. A set of divans faced each other and a glass paned wall opposite the great room overlooked a grand garden. Low tables lined down the centre of the room like a spine. It looked to be nothing more than an opulent tea-room, built for nothing more than conversation and small, delicate food. There was a dead fire in the hearth, the ashes dark. Dead flowers sat in gold cracked vases.

If her invisible friends and Aevran's information was correct, Lord Wynne was just as clever as the rest of the nobles. A great portrait of a cruel, unsmiling man dominated the centre of one wall. Emperor Victor Aldrich Thelspian. Aire's lip curled as she surveyed the sharp jaw, the coiffed greying hair. The painting captured the cruelty she had imagined in those eyes. 

"Handsome." Royden commented.

"Disgusting." Aire shut the door behind her and began to work.

Royden and Daria grabbed hold of the painting, but they were no help with the actual lifting. She shifted it off the trigger weight and then swung it forward, revealing a small square in the stone. A simple vault stood behind it – a fool's game. She had broken safes like this when she was just a girl. Not naïve, but unskilled. A strange lesson from a tutor, but then again, it had kept her alive.

"What are you going to do with these goods?" Royden asked. "Pawn them off?"

"It depends." A coldness washed over her, but when she looked to the door, a spirit just shook his hammered shattered head. He had never given his name. "Something must be given up but some treasures don't deserve to be passed around and gawked at. They belong to the Wielders, or to Cearna."

"Sentimentality." Royden cooed at her, watching her deft hands work the lock. "Is there any need for it with a criminal?"

"I am made of more parts than that." The door clicked open. "And everyone wears many faces."

Aire eased open the door and stopped. Pain, so sharp, struck her and she reached a hand in, unthinking. A silver torc sat on a soft cushion; it was a thick, circular neckband of twisted metal that did not meet in the middle. Instead, the sun sat on one side, ringed with gold and an inch across, sat the moon. Junhyn had worn one in the catacombs, but this was far more exquisite. A tiny story had been carved with care into the silver, every millimeter of the necklace decorated in an ancient Cearnian story.

"There were stolen from high nobility." The tip of her nail tapped against the tiny figurine of a woman lamenting to the silver moon that would sit at the collarbone. "There isn't some pitiful recreation by those imagining themselves to be something different."

Royden peered over her shoulder. "You are a Wielder pretending to be normal."

"What is to say that Wielding isn't normal?" She bit back. "Is magic not twisted into every facet of our lives, from the fertile soil and the clean, crisp air? Magic has been broken, dismantled. Now there are famines."

"Focus on the torc, Aire." Daria said softly. "You know it is worth considerable money. The Emperor would kill to get his hands on something so valuable. We know how he steals from the other realms and proclaims them to be findings belonging to Kaelara."

"This is Cearnaian jewelry." Aire replied. "Royal jewelry."

"And it worth a considerable amount of money." Unimpressed, Royden peered into the vault again. "So what if the Emperor steals it? How can Cearnain queen wear the torc? She no longer has a neck to bear it."

"You are terrible." Daria swatted him, but her eyes were on Aire. "Are you..."

Aire set down the torc, shame burning in her chest.  The vault was full of other jewels and relics from the four neighboring realms. A goblet with a jewel encrusted Drakon, whose tail snaked out to curve into the handle with the gold pressed into the plated scales of the ancient beasts. All of this was a life's fortune for someone in the slums of Irial. Junhyn would kill for it.

He didn't deserve it.

He didn't even understand it. A low gutter, criminal king wasn't worthy to wear it on his skin. Her people, both by land and by Wield had been hunted to near extinction and their treasures cast around the Empire for money. All that was left of us, was jewelry. Trinkets to be sold and awed at.

Such bitter hatred roused the beast slumbering under her blood. Aire froze, lips parting in wordless horror as it swept through her blood. The weight of Eoban did nothing to stop it. The spirits watching rippled, their forms darkening to more than wisps of colour and air.

Aire gritted her teeth, her knees weakening as her nails sunk into her palms. Cold wind stirred at the back of her neck as magic stoked at the layer of drugs and years of practice. Royden touched the fragile petal of a dying flower and sucked in a breath as the petal crumbled under his touch.

A whisper came from the hall. Daria turned, heaving the door open. She blinked at the movement, before whispering that someone was coming. Aire packed what she could into bags sown behind the hidden pockets of her dress and scanned the room. Nothing seemed out of place.

Her spirits guided her back to the ballroom, wandering the guests she knew would be coming to search for a dark room with their pick of the night. She melded back into the ballroom, a glass in hand. 

All was good. 

 She snuck a hand into Junhyn's elbow as Royden whispered that Toothless Timothy had observed that Lord Wynne and the Bloodbound had not moved all night.

Her friend and leader smiled down at her, a pale brow rising. The spirits began to sink back into the walls, eager to snatch gossip around the great house. Gossip was always worth collecting – it mean payoffs, intimidation and threats.

"Well?" Junhyn plucked the glass from her hand and drank.

She scanned the faces for Aevran. "It is enough. I fear I cannot dance or you will hear me jingle."

"We cannot leave just yet." Junhyn said. "Sit and watch us dance. We are being watched."

"By who?"

Junhyn took her hand, leading her to one of the tables that had been lined up along the walls. "By your Bloodbound."

"It is not mine."

Junhyn just left her with a laugh. 

 She resisted for as long as she could, nibbling at the plates of food left alongside her. The Bloodbound had moved away from his position at the top of the room, but it seemed that every single soul in the room was keenly aware of where he was. They kept a good distance from him, where he stood at an open window, sipping another flute of wine.

Silver, luminous eyes flashed towards her.

With a coy smile, he raised his drink.

| Welcome back to Aire's world. 

Tell me your thoughts, theories and conspiracies!

What do we think of the cargo that the spirits whisper about? 

Do you think Aire should give the jewelry to Junhyn? 

What do we think of the nameless Bloodbound? Is he in the city for more than an execution? 

Until next time - Saoimarie. |