Catling's Bane (The Rose Shield Book 1) Read online

  The pylon hummed. Cool air prickled her skin, the luminescence brilliant as it coursed up the clear tubes. Twelve tiers was a long way down. She listened for the thunder of feet above and exhaled into the vacant hush. Qeyon might be her friend, but his loyalty lay with Vianne. He would always choose Vianne over her, and Vianne would choose her designs for Ellegeance over them all.

  Gannon waited at the door to the first tier. His gaze followed her down. “You’ve grown up.”

  “It happens.” She halted before him, catching her breath. “Did they really keep you prisoner all that time?”

  His face clouded. “Algar killed my friends. He either gave me to Vianne or sold me to her. Maybe Qeyon arranged it; I don’t know. I never learned if they had a role in the murders.” Hands on his hips, he stared up into the glowing space. “She tortured me to find you. I tried not to tell her.”

  “My family is dead.” The revelation flushed her cheeks.

  His hands dropped with his sigh. “Let’s get out of here.” He opened the door, and they slipped into the alcove.

  By day, the first tier hosted the riverfolk and trader markets. By night, the crowds migrated to the taverns, inns, and flophouses, spilling into the gardens if the weather held. “I know my way through the lanes,” Catling whispered, suspecting Gannon hadn’t a clue. “Most of the guards are posted above us on the second tier.”

  “Separating the masses from the guilds,” Gannon muttered. “How many patrol the docks?”

  “I don’t know. Vianne kept me in at night.” She peered from the alcove across a fountained plaza.

  Gannon yanked her back into the shadows as a handful of guardsmen jogged by. Someone shouted orders from the lanes nearer the promenade. “They’re searching for us,” he whispered and drew her close. An arm wrapped around her, he held her snug against him. “Arm around my waist, dearest. Look up at me and press your eye against my chest.”

  She wedged herself in and peered up at him, feeling altogether too cozy.

  Leaning down, he kissed her lightly on the lips. “That’s what we do if anyone takes an interest. Feel free to giggle; it will add to the charade. Let’s go.”

  The last thing Catling felt inclined to do was giggle. They stepped from the shadows into the dim glow of nighttime luminescence. Gannon ambled along on loose legs as if they’d spent the evening tossing back a jug of tipple. Whenever a guard neared, he bent over and kissed her, the duration growing so long she squeaked. “Stop that,” she huffed. “I can’t breathe.”

  The guard chuckled and veered away.

  Men and women idled outside the tipple houses in rowdy groups and lovers sashayed along the promenade. Few revelers headed for the boats crowding the piers. Gannon held Catling tight, pecking at her face as they meandered within sight of the ramp to the dock. Guards formed a barricade across the top, taking measure of all who passed. Talis-Lim, a thin-lipped influencer with pocked cheeks, sat on a stool with her arms crossed, a rapper hanging at her hip.

  “What will we do?” Catling asked.

  Gannon pretended to stumble, dragging her with him. “We try it. We haven’t a choice. Shield me.”

  “I’ll block her.” She focused on the influencer and severed the emotive power blanketing the area, leaving only herself vulnerable to the woman’s touch. Fear prickled her skin.

  “You’re going to faint from too much tipple,” Gannon said. “Sleep with your eye against my chest.” They bungled forward, Gannon purposely knocking her off balance. She fell with a gasp, and he scooped her into his arms before staggering forward. “If something happens, you run. Find a boat, swim, whatever you need to do. Don’t look back.”

  “No, Gannon.”

  “Yes, Catling. You run.”

  “What about you?”

  “Do as I say, will you? Quiet. You’re unconscious.”

  He shuffled toward the guards.

  “Hold up.” A guard swung up a palm and stepped toward them. “Put her down.”

  “Shhhh,” Gannon slurred. “She’s had too much drink.”

  “Let me see her eye,” the guard said.

  “You’ll wake her.” Gannon twisted away and pretended to stumble. Catling stiffened but kept her eyes squeezed shut, face buried in this chest.

  “These are the ones,” the guard called to the others.

  Catling’s breath caught, and Gannon backed up. “Darling, remember what I said.”

  “May I?” Qeyon’s voice.

  Gannon straightened, and Catling swallowed the urge to heave. Her feigned sleep continued with a drowsy sigh. Qeyon’s influence poured into the air, thick as syrup.

  “Of course,” the guard replied.

  Catling cracked an eye as Qeyon brushed aside the guard’s rapper and stepped before them, his features shadowed within his hood. He touched her chin, turning her face. “Talis,” she murmured. Behind him, the influencer strode toward them.

  “These aren’t the ones we seek,” Qeyon said with a slight bow to the guard. “Your vigilance is commended, but you may let them pass.”

  The guards chuckled, and the man who’d confronted them relaxed his shoulders. “Regrets. Be on your way. Apologies for the delay.”

  “Wait,” Talis ordered, pointing at them with her wooden stick.

  Catling cringed as a wave of influenced authority seized her. She endured it, blocking the woman’s power so Qeyon’s amiable influence held its sway over the men.

  “They’re not the ones,” the guard said with a smile and waved them through.

  “That’s Qeyon,” the woman insisted. “I’m certain of it.”

  Gannon’s stumbling gait disappeared as he hustled through the line of guards and down the ramp. On the dock, he set Catling’s down and grabbed her hand, pulling her into a run.

  “What about Qeyon?” she cried, looking back. Qeyon sprinted down the ramp, hardly recognizable to her in the strange clothing and harried pace. Catling’s shield over Talis vanished as the woman slid from view. Chaos erupted on the tier. Guards shouted and streamed down the ramp.

  Catling shielded them, but it hardly slowed their pursuit. Gannon yanked on her arm, speeding their escape. She stumbled, glancing over her shoulder to ensure Qeyon followed. Her heart pounded, her bones shaking loose. Gannon’s boots hammered the weathered planks, Qeyon not far behind.

  In the corner of her eye, Catling spotted Talis striding down the ramp. She shifted her shield to block the woman’s influence, her own emotions still exposed. A white-hot rage blasted through her, and she shouted to Qeyon, “She’s shielded.”

  Qeyon spun, jogging backward as the guards abruptly staggered. Several crumpled to their knees, gripping their stomachs. Catling fixed her loathing on the female influencer, ignoring her own feet. She tripped over a coiled rope and yelped. Gannon dragged her up and onto the nearest pier.

  Talis shoved her way through the stricken men, her scowl spectral in the moonlight. “Qeyon-Ava, you betray your guild! For your own sake, you must give them up.”

  “Qeyon!” Catling shouted, fear roaring through her. He wouldn’t use influence on another of his guild, and Talis wasn’t going to stop on her own. “Qeyon, run!”

  Qeyon looked over his shoulder at her as he slowed to a backward walk. “Go, Catling.”

  “No!” Tears sprang to her eyes. “No.”

  Gannon jumped into a skiff and worked the knot tethering it to the pier. “Get in!”

  “Not without Qeyon,” she yelled. “They’ll kill him.”

  The influencer advanced on Qeyon. He stood motionless before her, refusing to let her pass. The guards on the dock struggled to stand, bent in two by his crippling power.

  “Your foolishness will cost you your life.” Talis closed the gap and swung her arm. The bludgeon hidden in the folds of her jacket cracked into Qeyon’s head. He lurched sideways and collapsed to his hands and knees.

  Catling screamed.

  “We have to go!” Gannon barked. “Get in.”

  “No.” Despite
the mounting terror, she couldn’t leave him. “We have to help him.”

  “Foul and Founders!” Gannon leapt to the pier. He pushed past her and darted toward the influencers. The guards, no longer under Qeyon’s control, careened down the dock.

  Catling jumped into the skiff, fumbled with the last knot, and freed the line. She glanced up, clawed fingers holding the boat to the pier. Talis snarled at Gannon, her ability to manipulate him foiled and leaving her one choice. The cudgel in her hand, she stood ready to face him with the same violence she’d exacted on Qeyon.

  Then Qeyon was on his feet, embracing the woman, her club pinned to her side. Wide-eyed, she cursed at him. They scuffled backward to the dock’s lip and tumbled to the river.

  “Qeyon!” Catling screamed and scrambled from the boat.

  Without a moment’s pause, Gannon spun and dashed toward her. He hooked her arm and jumped into the drifting skiff. Catling shrieked, flung backward. She slammed into the gunwale and bench, pain stealing her breath.

  The guards charged down the pier as Gannon grabbed an oar and pushed off a piling, sending the boat in circles. It bumped against a ferry on the adjacent pier. He shoved again, driving them toward the open water.

  “We have to help Qeyon!” Catling hugged her bruised arm, her cries useless. The skiff spun beyond the pier, the current gathering them up and sweeping them away.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The boat twirled with the current. Gannon figured out the oars, and with each stroke, he aimed for the channels wending between the hummocks like luminous veins. They drifted downriver, the lights of Ava-Grea twinkling farther in the distance before he rowed between the black silhouettes of monstrous trees. Fog danced from the shadows and pirouetted in smoky rings.

  As they entered the forested swamp, Catling stifled her tears, leaned over the gunwale, and splashed water on her face. She scoured the boat’s meager crannies for supplies and found little of use: tangled hook and line, corks, a wicker creel, and short length of rope. “We’re in terrible trouble, aren’t we?”

  “We’re in the same boat, so to speak.” With a grunt, he pulled on the oars, steering the craft deeper into the sheltering trees. The swamp’s canopy blocked the moonlight, and the glow of nighttime luminescence mottled the world in gray. He scowled at her. “Does Vianne actually expect you to go back there? It’s madness to even consider it.”

  Catling stared at the gleaming eyes of a creature hiding in the ferns. Inside the pylon, she’d been desperate to flee not only Ava-Grea but the Influencers’ Guild and her promise to the queen, the entire world of intrigue and deception. She’d go south through Guardian into the Far Wolds and live beyond Ellegeance borders. Yet, she’d sworn an oath to kill Algar, and her oath to the heiress would deliver her revenge.

  “I swore an oath,” she said.

  “Forgive my cynicism, but oaths are subject to the same interpretation as everything else slopping out of our mouths.”

  “I need to see if Qeyon survived.”

  “Survived so they can kill him.” Gannon hauled on the oars. “You know they plan to whip Vianne come dawn.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you also know they agreed to influence you to death?”

  The truth of his words sobered her. No matter how painful, Vianne would have allowed a simple punishment to proceed. Only the threat of death could have warranted the risk of escape. “Did Qeyon tell you that?”

  “He required my help.” One at a time, Gannon dipped his hands in the water. Blisters. He’d grown soft in captivity, a condition he needed to remedy, quickly. “We should float down the West Canal and disappear in Lim-Mistral or Rho-Dania.”

  “No.” She sighed and shook her head. “I’ll return when… my patron arrives.”

  “No one but the king himself can contain that chaos.”

  “It’s my oath, not yours.”

  He dug in a pocket and held up a key. “Then you might need this.”

  “The key to the pylon? I stole one. It’s in my room.”

  “That won’t do you any good now, will it? Keep this one close. It wasn’t easy to come by.” He slapped it into her palm and frowned. “What if this magical summons doesn’t come? How long are we supposed to wait?”

  “As long as we can.” Catling slipped the key into her jacket pocket. “We’ll need help from the rafters.”

  An owl hooted, and a splash from a nearby bank kicked off a strange barking sound. Gannon jolted up, rocking the boat. An oar slipped from its thole and spanked the water. He reached over the side to retrieve it, and a set of jaws snapped at the air near his fingers. “Eah! Did you see that?”

  “A crajek.” She gripped the gunwale as the oar floated into the fog. “The swamp is full of them.”

  “Why’d you let me put my hands in there?” He rattled the other oar from its lock and slapped at the water, trying to snag its vanishing mate. The boat bumped over something and glided on. He shuddered, swatted at a bug, and used the remaining oar as a paddle. “This place is worse than the warrens.”

  A memory tugged up Catling’s lip. He hated spiders and rats, and she supposed the swamp’s creatures warranted an equally loathsome opinion. In a strange way, she’d missed him. “I’m glad to see you.”

  “I wish I’d never met you. But since we can’t roll back time, I’d rather be here than there.”

  “We shouldn’t have run off.” She swung her gaze to the dark shadows beneath the water. “We made things worse.”

  “That depends who you ask,” he muttered and flicked a bug from his hand. “And there’s nothing to be done now except trust each other. If we don’t, you’re right, and we won’t survive.”

  ***

  Catling woke when a foot nudged her leg. Her hair stuck to the sweat on her face, and her bruised ribs ached from sleeping curled in the boat. She wiped her forehead on the hem of her underdress, her jacket removed during the night and rumpled into a pillow.

  The pearly glimmer of dawn and gentle glow of luminescence dappled the swamp in a dance of light and shadow. She looked up at Gannon, the man haggard, bug bitten, and staring off the boat’s bow. “We have company,” he murmured.

  Unsure what to expect, Catling slowly turned. A diamond-backed snake dangled from a branch spanning the river. The body, as thick as her arm, undulated, the tongue flicking inches from her nose. If the boat hadn’t hung up on sunken tree branches the night before, she would have glided into it. She stiffened, afraid to breathe.

  “Don’t move.” The soft voice came from a raft gliding toward their bow. Transfixed by the serpent, Catling caught the vague impression of two men standing on water. “Paddle backward,” the voice instructed.

  “No oars,” Gannon whispered. “We lost them.”

  “Huh.” The rafter nearest her squatted, his clay-streaked face level with hers, arms cocked. “Hold still.” The raft drifted closer and tapped the boat’s bow. One of the man’s hands darted out and gripped the snake while the other severed its head with a single swipe of his blade. The writing head thumped to the planking by Catling’s knees. She leapt backward, and Gannon nearly flipped off the stern.

  The towheaded rafter laughed as he pulled the snake’s bleeding body from the branch onto his craft.

  Gannon grimaced. “I hate those things.”

  When the snake’s mouth stopped gaping, Catling crept to the boat’s bow, plucked it up with two fingers, and tossed it into the channel. She sank to the bench, wondering what came next. “I’m Catling.” Her thumb pointed over her shoulder. “That’s Gannon.”

  “Jafe.” The rafter sat cross-legged near the center of his craft and slit the snake’s skin from tip to tail. With his white locks, tapered ears, and slanted eyes, he reminded her of Tum before Algar hung him—except he was nearly naked, his spotted skin painted with clay.

  The other man, equally fair but with a black mane and leather eyepatch, sat on an upturned crate at the raft’s far edge. Like Jafe, his hands were short a finger, an
d he whittled with a thin-bladed knife. “Raker,” he said. His icy eye met hers, and her memory groped for a handhold. She remembered him, the pair of them, from her previous failed escape.

  He stopped his work. The gold fog of morning spiraled around him. “She said to find you.”

  “Who?” Catling asked. “Vianne?”

  He held up the tiny carving, too small for Catling to see.

  “What is it?” A chill swept her skin. He swam the creature through the air, and another memory ghosted through her. “A waterdragon.”

  She climbed over the bow to the raft.

  “Catling,” Gannon cautioned.

  “I know him,” she called back. She stood on the raft, finding her balance before approaching. When she knelt before him, he placed the carving in her hand. “I lost mine when I lost my home.” She studied the delicate striations in the tail and fins. “I never knew who gave it to me.”

  “The river.” The man reached out and almost touched the rose mark ringing her eye. “She gave us our vision that night.”

  ***

  Behind her, the whip lay coiled like a sleeping viper. Vianne stood motionless between Dalcoran and Piergren while the young man screamed. Tunvise sat on a stool to Dalcoran’s right, too feeble to stand for such an ordeal. Dalcoran said he would teach Kadan a lesson he wouldn’t forget, and proved true to his word.

  She applied no influence of her own, the violence of the attack abhorrent, her grief scarcely contained. Had it been worth it? She couldn’t bear the possibility she’d made a mistake. Her only choice was to march forward. The air felt raw, odorous, her fingers icy. Shivers racked her body beyond her control.

  The muscles in Kadan’s back contorted, warping his spine. His calves and thighs knotted. Dalcoran surely twisted his joints and sent fire over his skin. Fear and pain closed the young man’s eyes and opened his mouth. He’d pleaded, sobbed, and spewed until nothing remained. Sweat oozed from his skin with droplets of blood.