Acerca de

The town is on fire, but it’s not my fault. Not really.

“This’s all your fault,” Zeth tells me, looking around for any potential sign of danger. I haul myself up onto the flat roof of the recently empty guard post, the small pack on my hip slapping against my thigh. From my view, the town is engulfed in scarlet flames. Even from here, the air is almost too hot to breathe. Small silhouettes of people are scrambling, screaming. It makes me feel guilty, watching peoples’ homes and shops devoured like this.

My thin tunic sticks to me. I look down at my gloved hands, at the exposed pale skin of my forearms. The unnatural light stains me blood red.

Zeth climbs up next to me.

“Your fault,” he repeats. His long, filthy hair sits like a thick board across his back, where his crossbow is strapped.

 

I roll my eyes at him then crane my neck to look up at Nayza Castle. It seems to graze the clouds from our position at its base, looming over us, all white stone and clunky pillars lit up menacingly from the distant glow of fire.

Up there is someone I lost, someone I will do anything to get back.

Longing blooms in my belly. I touch the rock of the castle wall before me; it’s smooth as ice with no grooves to find handholds. There’s no way up without Zeth.

“Get your gear out,” I say, fixing my gloves, pulling them snug.

He sends me a glare then reaches into the satchel at his waist and begins unloading long metal spikes. He tosses me some and takes a few for himself.

The spikes are cold and heavy, with indentations wrapped in leather for gripping. No one knows if Zeth makes them with magic, or if he’s just that damn good of a blacksmith, but they cut through any surface like it’s fresh bread.

“Sure you’ll be able to make it?” Zeth gestures vaguely at me. “Mighty climb for someone so small.”

I want to scoff at him. Maybe deck him in the face. He probably won’t see that coming if he’s underestimating me.

“I think my reputation speaks for itself,” I say instead, staring up at him with the blankest face I can manage. “I’ve brought in every target I’ve been assigned no matter what gets in my way.”

Zeth gives me a condescending smile. “Yes, you’re quite the legend.”

I turn away and make to climb, but he puts a meaty arm out in front of me.

“We should go back,” he says. I feel a spark of panic in my chest. “The fire let them know we’re here, not to mention we ne’er met our employer, and have nothin’ of our target but a description.”

“But you’re still here,” I say, feigning calm. “You’d have left already if you meant to.”

I hold his gaze, daring him to prove me wrong.

Zeth purses his lips.

“Exactly,” I say, and stab a spike into the wall.

He follows.

My arms shake, boots sliding against the stone, braided hair swinging behind me. I rip a spike out of the wall, bury it in higher.

“You know, when the Hound herself came to me with a job, I didn’t think we’d be burnin’ down towns together,” Zeth says, voice strained.

“We’d never have gotten this far without a distraction,” I say, attempting to sound positive. Glancing up at the burgundy sky is a mistake, because I see how much farther I have to go. Half way there.

“It was reckless,” Zeth says.

Sudden desperation takes over me. I feel the urge to cry, to scream, because I’m so close and he’s, what, reprimanding me? He doesn’t know me, what I’ve been through to get here, to get this close to the man who was taken from me.

Zeth feels threatened by me, by the name I’ve made for myself these last years. He wants to be the first to see me fail.

“I saved our asses. That’s the end of it,” I say.

No, it wasn’t part of the plan to throw one of my wildfire vials into that gaudy tea shop in town, but the guards were gaining on us and we would’ve been caught. I didn’t even think. Over the years I’ve realized that sometimes people have to do bad things for the ones they love, that’s just how it is. If someone gets hurt and it keeps me up at night, so be it.

There’s distant shouting beneath us. I tense and look down. A group of armor-clad men, glinting in the moonlight, are heading our way.

“Shit,” I say. Zeth pauses, follows my eyeline and curses.

Even from far away, I can hear the men—guards—shouting orders. They’ve spotted us, and I’m sure they have weapons to shoot us down.

Arms like cotton, sweat in my eyes, I push myself harder. The top isn’t far from my reach, ten feet or so, maybe.

None of this is going how I intended. Our plan was supposed to be simple: Avoid guards, scale the eastern castle wall, snatch the target from his workshop, leave the way we came, turn him in and the money is ours.

I chose Zeth for the job because he’s the best bounty hunter around for these missions; his climbing equipment is unparalleled. But for all his specialties, I see that he’s falling behind in our climb. The stamina is there, but I didn’t account for his lack of agility. Mighty climb indeed, Zeth.

The longest minute of my life passes before I reach the top, grip the edge, and lug myself over. I nearly collapse completely, but that isn’t an option. Instead, I get to my feet and locate Zeth not far down the wall. Below him, where we started our ascent, are the guards. I can see them nocking arrows, loading crossbows.

Adrenaline pumps through me. I reach into the pack on my hip, pulling out a small glass vial of green liquid.
I don’t need to aim, I just drop it past Zeth. It explodes into a pillar of green fire and smoke, swallowing the guards, dripping and spreading.

They stop screaming as suddenly as they start, the ancient fire eating through them like acid in seconds.

I help haul Zeth up alongside me when he comes over the edge. We linger for a moment, chests heaving.
 

“You and your magic potions are terrifying, Hound.”

I take it as a compliment. Alchemy is a dangerous craft.

“We don’t have much time now,” I say.

He nods.

I hunch down, using the wall’s crenellation for cover, and run through the rest of my plan in my head.

The target’s location is a workshop on the northern wall which hangs over a cliffside; it’s the only wall that has a walkway connecting to the inner workings of the castle. We move, sneaking toward the north. Zeth and I take out the guards on patrol.

After rounding a corner and rushing a couple hundred feet, I’m standing in front of a small workshop. Behind me is the walkway into the castle.

“This is it,” I whisper.

We stand. I’m in the midst of pulling out my lockpick when the workshop door swings open before us.
The target, a young man with soft eyes and a wicked scar running from his right temple to his mouth, freezes in the doorway.

For a moment, no one breathes.

Zeth and I launch into action. I shove the man backwards, reaching into my pouch while Zeth aims his crossbow.

“Wait!” the man says.

We step into the workshop. My gloved fingers brush against a small, round bottle.

I remove the tiny cork, pressing my thumb over the opening.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Lad. You’ve got quite the price on your head,” Zeth says.

The man’s gaze shifts from Zeth to me. Recognition flares in his eyes.

My heart beats in my ears. Suddenly, my throat feels too thick to swallow. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long. I hold his stare and nod.

I take the bottle out of my pouch. Zeth pays it no mind. Why would he? It’s part of our plan. I shake the contents as I step toward the target, then turn to smash the bottle at Zeth’s feet.

A plume of white smoke—like breath on a cold night—surrounds him, and before he can open his mouth to protest, he’s dropped his crossbow and collapsed. The smoke vanishes, evaporating, leaving Zeth’s unconscious body splayed on the stone floor.

I rip my eyes away from him and look toward the man I’ve chased after for years.

Smiling softly, I say, “Hello, Lucent.”

His gaze turns cautious, fearful. “How are you here?”

He missed me, too.

“I told you before. I’ll always find you, no matter how long it takes.”

I step forward, hand in my pouch, breathing in the scent of the room that smells so much like him. He backs up against his desk.

“You’re insane,” he says. “I don’t love you, I never have. Get away from me!” He sounds like he’s going to cry. “Anavi, please.”

How I’ve longed to hear him speak my name again. It gives me the courage to pull out my last vial. He looks terrified, but I know he’s just afraid to be separated again.

I reach up to tuck some of his hair behind his ear. “Let’s go home, Love.”