Oathbreakers' Guild (The Rose Shield Book 2) Read online

  Kadan eased through the garden, an eye out for Catling. He slipped around a fountain and spied her peering from behind an arbor of burgeoning white roses. He waved her forward.

  Not far to his left Nessa’s voice jarred him. “Dalcoran-Elan.”

  “Minessa-Kar.” Dalcoran’s formal tone bore a trace of wary surprise. “What brings you here this late?”

  “Kadan-Mur and I seek Tunvise-Bes,” she replied.

  Kadan whispered a frantic “hurry” to Catling and strolled toward the voices. He bowed. “Dalcoran- Elan. We practiced the mercys today with Tunvise and wished his advice on muscle repair.”

  “Muscle repair?”

  “We are in the midst of an argument,” Minessa smiled playfully.

  Dalcoran looked at her with an expression devoid of humor. “On the twelfth tier?”

  Minessa faltered, her lips sagging.

  Kadan grasped her hand. Her fingers trembled, and she blinked as he squeezed. He needed to assuage the doyen’s curiosity and quell any suspicion. Holding his breath, he brushed Dalcoran with a feather of affection. The core of the guild’s code forbade influencing another influencer. For an aspirant, especially one who’d already faced censure, to influence a doyen was unspeakable, the act perilous enough to earn him an instant death.

  Dalcoran smiled. “And the nature of your argument?

  Too late to stop, Kadan dusted the doyen with a dose of appreciation. “We wondered if muscles should be sutured prior to healing with influence or whether influence is more effective when applied throughout the procedure.”

  “We’re also curious about local plant-based medicinals for ongoing care,” Minessa said, venturing into an area of expertise where Tunvise excelled.

  “Suturing first,” Dalcoran stated. “Not an easy task, though one I’m certain you’ll master.” Minessa smiled at the doyen, and he nodded at them both in return. “I trust Tunvise-Bes has retired for the night. You might have more success finding your answers in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Dalcoran-Elan,” Kadan said with a bow, Minessa bending beside him. “May we enjoy the view before we head down?” He sprinkled the doyen with a hint of longing and love and waited while the man stared at the fountain’s glimmering water.

  “Until the bell,” he said and disappeared into the garden. Kadan hooked arms with Minessa and guided her to the rail for a view of the Slipsilver, aglow with nighttime luminescence. He would have liked to linger there or flee to the lower tier, but Minessa would never agree. She gazed at him, a question in her slanted eyes that had nothing to do with muscles and suturing or the night’s danger. The moons shone on her pale hair, turning it platinum. He leaned over and kissed her.

  “We should go,” she whispered. He clutched her hand and veered back toward the Poisoner’s hall. They knocked on the door, and after a harrowing wait, it slid open a crack. Markim-Ava’s peevish face poked through the slit before the gap parted enough to let them in.

  The hunched man turned without a word and shuffled into the cavernous room where Catling paced, worry lines knitting her eyebrows. Jafe squatted at the edge of the violet pool, his wary eyes wandering the space. The man’s thoughts were hard to read. Was the distillation of luminescence an abomination to those of the planet? Did the rafter understand what he saw?

  Raker appeared to sleep, immersed in the violet luminescence.

  “Thank you, Markim-Ava,” Kadin said with a bow.

  The Poisoner scowled. “I don’t need to tell you you’re all reckless idiots, do I?”

  “No, Markim-Ava.” Catling joined them. “We know well enough.” She turned to Kadan. “You and Minessa should go. This is too dangerous.”

  “Safer to stay at this point,” Markim muttered, shuffling toward the pools. “Who knows what this will do. I’ve never tried to heal a wound that deep, and I’ll admit an interest in the results.” He wagged a finger at Catling nose. “And I’m curious to see what happens when we do a little tinkering with your eye.”

  Kadan swung to Catling. “Your eye?”

  “I agreed,” she said, her jaw set. “His terms for Raker’s life.”

  “But…” He stopped himself, her eye a tightly kept secret. Did Markim know what he’d bargained for, what he risked?

  “I agreed,” Catling whispered, her words final.

  Minessa joined Jafe on the pool’s rim. “I’m worried about the damage to the muscles in his leg. We should have sutured them.”

  “There wasn’t time,” Catling replied.

  “He’ll walk with a limp if he’s lucky.” Markim hunched on a stool and scratched his weedy white hair. “None of this is magic. It’s not going to straighten my back, roll back the years, or restore the dead to life.”

  A rap on the door startled them. Kadan’s gaze snapped from Markim to Catling and Nessa. Jafe rose to his feet, and Markim slid from his stool with a grunt. “Get him out of the pool. It should be finished doing whatever it’s going to do.”

  “Is there another way out?” Kadan asked.

  Markim shook his head. “Blocked the back way centuries ago when they put in the pools.”

  “What do we do?” Minessa asked.

  The knock on the door repeated.

  “Into my quarters.” Markim pointed to a side door. “And no yammering.”

  Kadan leapt up the steps to the pool and helped Jafe pull Raker from the luminescence. Raw scars crisscrossed the mauled leg, and the razorgill gashes had receded into pink lines. Catling slapped the panel to Markim’s private rooms, and the door slid open. They stumbled through, a trail of bright water in their wake.

  The Poisoner’s private quarters were modest: a tidy bed and scratched table with a single chair shoved into one corner. An ancient oil lamp burned on the table beside an uneaten meal. A bank of steel tables crowded the rest of the space, their surfaces littered with jars of luminescence. A creature of snaking steel tubes, funnels, and spouts sprawled across the surfaces. Bulbous glass barrels crouched over gas burners and collection stations.

  “Distillation,” Catling murmured.

  Markim muttered beyond the door about Dalcoran. Kadan needed to get them out. He grabbed the old lamp from the table, removed the glass, and set the flame against the wall. “Find another,” he whispered when Catling looked at him in alarm. She scurried away and returned a moment later with a second flame. “Hold it to the wall,” he instructed.

  He swiveled, seeking Jafe, surprised to see Raker on his feet. “Give me your knife and his shirt.” Jafe handed him the blade from his belt. “Wrap my hand in Raker’s shirt.”

  Dalcoran’s voice bled through the door as Raker handed Jafe his soaked shirt. “Quickly,” Kadan hissed.

  “It’s sagging,” Catling whispered.

  “Keep the heat on.” Kadan stuck his hand into the flame and sawed at the wall. His uncle had shown him the trick years ago as part of his experiments. Pieces of the wall dropped to the floor in gray globs, creating an opening to the garden. Kadan cut, the cloth hot on his skin.

  “The guards said they sought me,” Dalcoran said from beyond the door. “I saw them enter.”

  Kadan’s gaze shot to Minessa. “Keep going,” she whispered. Before he could reply, another molten slab of Founder-made wall sloughed to the floor. He sawed; the door whispered, and Minessa withdrew.

  “Dalcoran-Elan.” He heard Minessa’s voice. “I brought Markim-Ava his dinner.”

  A smile flashed across Kadan’s face, the plate gone from the table. He dug another chunk from the hole and withdrew his hand from the flame, the heat too intense. “More,” he whispered, the hole too narrow to accommodate Jafe.

  “Give me the knife.” Raker accepted the knife from Kadan and wrapped the shirt around his hand. He cut into the wall while Catling and Kadan held the lanterns.

  “Kadan,” Minessa called. “Dalcoran-Elan wishes to speak to you. You must pull yourself away.”

  Kadan handed the lantern to Jafe. “Go through as soon as you can,” he whispered
. “The wall will close behind you.”

  Nothing he could say would satisfy the concern in Catling’s face, so he pulled in a breath and departed the room. He slapped the door shut as soon as he slipped through. He bowed. “Dalcoran-Elan.”

  “It seems the two of you are everywhere you shouldn’t be,” Dalcoran said, peering beyond Kadan’s shoulder to the door.

  “We took further questions to Markim-Ava.” Kadan dipped his chin at the Poisoner. The old man slouched on his stool, his plate of food on the steel table where he carved into the guild’s aspirants.

  “Why the sudden interest in musculature?” Dalcoran asked.

  Minessa stood beside the steps to the steel pools. “We saw a man earlier this evening with a severe gash in his leg, the healing beyond our abilities. I’m certain the guards will vouch for the blood.”

  The doyen eyed Kadan. “Not ten minutes ago two guards reported that you sought me.”

  “We sought Tunvise-Bes,” Kadan said, a confused smile on his face. He brushed Dalcoran with a hint of love and pleasure, so light the man’s countenance remained unchanged. “We had just spoken with you.”

  “Was someone in the pool?” Dalcoran tracked the trail of violet luminescence leading to the door.

  Markim looked up from his supper, and Kadan’s gaze fell to the violet water at his feet.

  “I would like to view the latest in your distilling efforts, Markim-Ava.” Dalcoran gestured toward the closed door. “If you would accompany me.”

  “It’s fascinating work,” Kadan said, hitting his palm to the panel. He dusted Markim and Dalcoran with pleasure as the door slid open. Holding his breath, he glanced at Minessa and stepped inside.

  The room lay empty of visitors, the wall a smooth Founder-made gray.

  Chapter Eleven

  Their voices mere whispers, Catling knelt beside Dalcoran. The woman on the pallet before them slept, her suffering eased through influence though the disease riddling her body would soon steal her life. Influence couldn’t heal her malady or banish the agony in her bones, only mask it. The hours between administrations, she wept and begged for a merciful death.

  Catling would grant her wish.

  With Tunvise ill and dispatched to his bed for rest, Dalcoran had assumed responsibility for training aspirants on the last of the mercys.

  “Death is not our enemy,” he said quietly. “Mortality shadows us throughout our lives. It’s our loyal companion, and none of us will escape its embrace. We are, now and then, offered its gift.”

  “I’ve never known anyone who died of old age,” Catling murmured. Slaughter swung a careless scythe, her mother and friends hung, her family slain, her own life tiptoeing a fine line, ever under threat.

  The doyen studied her as if he would disagree and seemed to think better of it. “In time, I too will find life with my illness unbearable.” He splayed his fingers, showing her the gnarled joints. “Influence provides relief and the swelling abates, but it returns more frequently and with greater ferocity than it did a year ago. You see it in my hands, but the ache resides in every part of me from my neck to my toes. When the time comes, death will be a blessing.” He canted his head toward the woman. “For her, death is a blessing.”

  The woman’s eyes opened, glistening, her family departed for the evening. A member of the Artisans’ Guild, she resided on the seventh tier, a cabinetmaker who embedded the roots of the giant caliph trees into her designs.

  “Are you ready?” Dalcoran asked.

  Catling nodded. She understood the grace with which she acted. Yet, the moment felt surreal, the severing of a life beyond her experience, the finality frightening. As she laid a hand on the woman’s emaciated arm, she continued infusing her with love and peace, overlaid with joy.

  “Increase love to the extent of your abilities,” Dalcoran whispered.

  In her mind’s eye, Catling imagined blue luminescence streaming through her hand into the dying woman, encasing her in radiant light. The woman smiled and shut her eyes.

  “Now slowly,” Dalcoran said near Catling’s ear. “Pinch off the blood to her brain.”

  Her hand trembling, Catling shut her eyes. Influence flowed from her fingertips, shades of glittering red, the distillation of death, the red bird on her back prickling her flesh. She moved her focus to the arteries in the woman’s neck, the crimson blood pumping awareness to her head.

  “When you are ready,” Dalcoran whispered.

  Catling applied a small amount of pressure, constricting the blood flow. The woman began to sink, the light in her darkening. Catling opened her eyes as she squeezed. She felt the beating heart, the breath lunge, the implosion and suffocation of life, and the silent stillness of death.

  ***

  The lessons in the mercys tore Catling’s heart. Nessa and Kadan had left Ava-Grea for their tier cities for their final trials, and she worked with other aspirants on the sick wards of the sixth tier. Her toil became a lonely endeavor in light of her friends’ absence.

  The work began with the hazy pearl of dawn and stretched through the sinking of the sun. Exhaustion spun her emotions like a waterwheel, lifting her one moment and spilling her the next. At her peak, she felt giddy with success. Other times, she breathed a sigh of relief at forestalling the slow onslaught of physical disintegration. And when her skills failed her, she asked what she would desire in such straits. In answer, she committed an act of mercy and she killed.

  Dalcoran summoned her to his hall. She wore a wine red jacket over a black underdress, leggings, and ankle-high boots, a wide black belt hugging her waist. Her dark hair now fell to her shoulders, and she wore it loose rather than in the braided loops Vianne preferred for her when she was a girl.

  “Dalcoran-Elan, my respects.” Catling bowed.

  “Greenleaf.” Dalcoran handed her a cup of the native tea. “Please have a seat.”

  She accepted the steaming drink and took the chair often occupied by Vianne. He sat across from her and sipped from his cup, every detail of his grooming, attire, and manner precise. His smooth features appeared ageless despite his infirmity and the gray threading his temples.

  “The time has arrived for your final trial,” he said. “It’s an act which binds you to the guild, solidifies your power, and acknowledges the great burden you will bear as an influencer. Your oath to the heiress is absolute; you are sworn to do her bidding even when it rails against your personal wishes. It is the responsibility of the guild’s doyen to see you prepared.”

  “I understand.” Catling set her teacup on the low table between them. Nothing he said thus far shocked her, and yet, a chill inched up her spine.

  “What we ask of you, we ask of all initiates. We only ask it once in training, though your oaths may dictate future sacrifices in practice.”

  “You may tell me, Dalcoran-Elan.” Catling threaded her fingers in her lap.

  “You are to kill an innocent.” Dalcoran met her eyes. “Not someone dying, sick, or aged. You must steal the future of someone at the height of life. The heiress may require it of you, and your binding oath will demand your obedience.”

  Catling stared at him, an all-consuming emotion burning in her chest. Not horror but fury. “The heiress would never order the random execution of an innocent without purpose—as an exercise. Dalcoran-Elan, I refuse.”

  “You cannot refuse, Catling.”

  “I can refuse because that is exactly what I am doing.”

  He sat in rigid silence and sipped his tea while hers grew cold on the table.

  “I’m an aspirant,” she said, “and it’s within your rights to coerce me into compliance. Yet, I suspect the whole point of this trial is to test my willingness to stalk and kill with complete self-control.”

  “I shall report your decision to the heiress,” he said, ignoring her statement.

  “You may do so.” She rose to her feet and brushed the creases from her jacket. “You may also tell her that I will act as her assassin if the need arises, but I wi
ll refuse to murder without purpose.”

  The knowing smile on Dalcoran’s face made her feel as though she were a child refusing to grow up. “You will learn in time, Catling, if your fiery principles are forged of steel or glass.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “She refused,” Dalcoran informed the council. He rested a hand on Tunvise’s shoulder, stirring the old man to wakefulness before taking a seat.

  Vianne sighed, the report predictable. Catling had proved a willful girl from the start, and at sixteen summers, she’d discarded the obedience of childhood for the principles of a young woman on the verge of initiation. The guild had never required completion of the final trial to become a fully-fledged influencer, a fact Catling knew well. It wouldn’t shock Vianne in the slightest to learn Minessa had also refused.

  Catling excelled at stubbornness, but she’d also taken her vows to heart and shown herself a formidable force, surpassing all expectations. At the same time, despite a past plagued by poverty and violence, she retained a hopeful innocence. Perhaps all the young ones did. Vianne supposed she had too in her younger years.

  Then again, the girl was not all goodness and light. She’d given the heiress her vow on the condition she could slay High Ward Algar of Mur-Vallis for the murder of her family. A dark and vengeful streak marbled her soul.

  “She’s an aberration.” Piergren pushed off the wall and crossed to the sideboard. “She’s beyond our control. We should never have allowed this girl to live. I see no end to the havoc she’ll bring.”

  “I thought you’d plucked that thorn from your thumb seasons ago,” Vianne replied, dismissing him. The swarthy doyen had pressed for Catling’s death from the moment he’d discovered her talents.

  “One day, Vianne, you’ll pay a high price for her.” He filled a goblet with wine. “Lelaine will rise to the throne, and a queen demands obedience. Catling believes in fairytales.”

  “Hardly.” Vianne eyed him. “She carries a leaden weight of suffering for one so young. When a genuine situation arises and Lelaine requires her talent for death, she will perform her duty. Restraint is rarely ill-advised.”