Bloodrush (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 1) (53 page)

‘Electric eel,’ he added, quietly.

‘Your shade,’ she said. Those two words had more weight than a thousand. A spark of vestigial lightning ran down his spine, making him twitch.

She knew. She bloody well knew it all
, Merion inwardly panted.
Had he done it? Had he fixed it?

But Merion would have to wait for those answers. Calidae hollered to one of her lordsguards. ‘Canton, the wiregram from Master Gile.’

That only set Merion’s heart to beating harder. A wiregram meant only one thing. A reply from London.
Precious news.
Truth be told, Merion felt a little faint. He had not expected to be answered with this, and now it was all he could think about. All he wanted was to hold that piece of paper in his hand and know that there was something beyond this ring of dusty hills, with its murder and war and its hardship. Merion practically snatched it from the guard when he came near enough. His eyes devoured the words, sitting neatly on the steam-printed lines.

Dear Tonmerion Hark,

I regret to inform you that the investigation into your father’s untimely death has been closed. Despite the generous aid of Her Majesty and the Honourable Second Lord Dizali, we have been unable to identify any culprit or villain, nor the reason for your father’s death.

I wish you well in the New Kingdom, and may we see you return safe when the time comes.

Regretfully,

Constable Jimothy Pagget, Esq.

The paper crackled as Merion’s fingers closed around it. A moment ago he had felt as though he had been shot out of a cannon and was soaring like an eagle. Now it felt as though he had been shot by one, and the eagle was picking at his remains.

‘Untimely death …’ he whispered.

‘I am so very sorry, Merion,’ Calidae said, a little emotion creeping into her tone. She even went as far as to step closer.

Merion just stared at the crumpled ball of paper in his hands. ‘They couldn’t even say murder.’ He had not dared to dream of such a response. It had not even crossed his mind.

‘Perhaps they didn’t want to offend,’ she offered. A lace-gloved hand landed lightly atop his, and Merion snatched at it, like a drowning man reaches for a pole. All talk of magick was thrown to the wayside. ‘Calidae, listen to me. I need to get back to London. I need to finish this, to find my father’s killer and see him hanged for what he’s done. I need to go home,’ he said, as he slowly took her other hand. ‘Can you help me? Can your father help me?’

Calidae took a moment to withdraw her hands, slowly, but surely. Merion wanted to hold on, but he knew he could not. He stood there alone. They say no man is an island. Well, they must not have met Calidae. She stepped away, and in one small movement, marooned him in the centre of the street. Merion had never felt so awkward. Salvation seemed a mountain climb away.

‘Please,’ he said. He could count the number of times he had begged in his life. He reckoned this was probably the third, but the occasion called for it.
If that was what it took.

‘Tomorrow night,’ she said at last. ‘We will expect you for dinner. A carriage will come at seven, or it won’t come at all.’ With that, she turned and walked away, back to her business.

‘Calidae,’ Merion called to her. She looked over her shoulder as she left. ‘What of my friend?,’ he asked. ‘He is no more a traitor than I am. Please…’

She sighed, and waved a hand. ‘I will see what my father can do for him.’

‘Thank you,’ Merion mumbled.

‘I haven’t spoken to my father yet,’ she replied, and that was that.

And there Merion stood, for a few minutes maybe more, adrift in a sea of dust, blood, and bullet casings, weighing up tenacity against cold despondency, and wondering which one he should give in to. It was only as the sun began to plunge itself into the ragged horizon that Merion found his answer. The town had been hiding it all along. Merion stared at the flea-bitten horses, and the brow-beaten workers pouring oil on the piles of dead, and the way the whores had begun to come out with the stars—just because every last scrap of beauty had to be perverted and crushed in this torrid, sunburnt little hole—he chose tenacity. Merion took a breath, and shook his head.
Whatever it took.

‘Fuck this place,’ he said, turning on his heel.

*

‘What on the Maker’s good earth happened to you?’ Lilain gasped, when a blood-streaked Merion walked into the kitchen.

‘Today happened to me,’ he sighed, as he took a seat at the end of the table, shoulders hunched. There was something hard in his eyes, like flint. Lilain could see it.

‘Shit,’ she cursed. ‘That sounds about right. Let me clean you up.’

Merion nodded, and let his aunt fetch water and cloth. She set up a stool beside him and gently began to dab and wipe the crusted blood away. It barely took a moment to turn the cloth and water bright red.

‘Who did this to you?’

Merion stared straight ahead. ‘A man in a bar. Took offence to Lurker and I for some reason. Obviously upset over the battle last night. We ended up fighting.’

‘You drunk?’

‘Not in the slightest.’

‘Lurker?’

‘No more than usual.’

‘And did you rush?’

‘I wouldn’t be that stupid,’ he lied.

‘Good.’

Merion winced as the cloth uncovered a cut across his nose.

‘Looks like he had a ring on,’ Lilain surmised.

‘Calidae managed to convince the sheriffsmen to let me go, but Lurker’s been arrested as a traitor. He’s in jail. I’ve asked her to get Lurker out, but …’ Merion said worriedly.

Lilain’s flinch was barely perceptible, a momentary halt in her dabbing, a stumble in her progress. Merion caught it. ‘And what was she doing there?’ asked his aunt.

‘She was with a foreman, surveying the town I think.’

‘Mhm,’ hummed Lilain. ‘I’ll talk to the sheriff in the morning. See if I can clear it up. He’ll be safe for now at least, out of trouble,’ she sighed. ‘So she’s talking to you again? That’s good.’

‘She had news from London.’

Lilain stopped altogether. ‘Oh?’

Merion turned to face her. He cut an odd look, with one side of his face clean and the other masked in dark, crumbling blood. ‘They’ve given up on the investigation. They barely acknowledge it as a murder.’ Merion tossed a crumpled ball of paper onto the table.

Lilain made quick work of the message, and when she finished she ripped it in two and threw its halves back onto the tabletop. ‘Idiots,’ she muttered.

Merion was a little shocked to say the least, when her arms wrapped around him. Hugging had not been a common practice in Harker Sheer. He gently rested his arms on his aunt’s shoulders, and waited until it would be polite to pull away. Lilain smelled like dust. He could feel the angles and edges of her bones far too easily. She was also strangely warm. Merion took a little comfort in that, knowing somebody else was burning as hot as he was, for whatever the reason. His was rage. He wondered about hers.

The bloody cloth was soon at his face again. ‘I’m sorry, nephew. You need to put it to rest. There’s nothing you can do it about it now, so just …’

Merion interrupted her. ‘The Serpeds have invited me to dinner again. Tomorrow night.’

Another flinch. ‘Everything seems to be patched up then,’ she murmured, barely audible.

‘I hope so. They may be able to help me.’

‘I see,’ came the reply, just something to fill the space of an answer, betraying nothing but disappointment. Merion could feel it. But then she sighed and said, ‘It’s your decision, Merion. I can’t stop you.’ Her words were surprising, but more than that, they were welcome, and warming. Finally, somebody other than Lurker understood. His aunt, of all people.

‘Thank you,’ Merion said.

They were interrupted by a rattle from down the hallway, something falling maybe, something small but heavy.

Lilain was instantly on her feet. Merion chased her. ‘Did it come from the basement?’ he asked, hoping to draw her away. Rhin must have returned. Merion cursed the clumsy little fool.

‘No it didn’t,’ Lilain replied.

Merion gulped when her fingers wrapped around the door handle of his room. He could say nothing, lest he arouse suspicion. He hoped the faerie had heard the sounds of heavy boots and voices.

Lilain paused in the middle of his room, staring down at the edge of the bed, next to the bedside table. ‘What is it?’ he asked, trying hard to hide his breathlessness. The lone candle on the windowsill was half-dead or dying, and the room was dark. She bent down to get a closer look, and Merion wanted to put his fist in his mouth. The books. The notepads. The schematics. She would see them all there. That would be it. Rhin would be caught.

‘Nothing,’ she shrugged, straightening.

‘Just an old house, creaking,’ Merion suggested. His insides were squirming, but his face was empty, expressionless, innocent as a babe. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I think it’s time I went to bed.’

‘Have you eaten?’

‘Yes,’ Merion lied. Tomorrow would come quicker if he went to bed now. He had no time to waste on food.

‘Alright, well, probably for the best. Sleep well.’

‘I will,’ Merion replied, and gently shut the door.

He listened to the sound of boots receding into the kitchen, and a door quietly closing. Only then did he dare to speak, and in a low whisper.

‘Rhin?’

‘Here,’ said a little voice, over in the corner of the room. A little form shivered into being, all dressed up in armour and with a sword held low.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Merion asked, striding forward.

Rhin shrugged. ‘Hiding as usual, of course,’ he replied. ‘By the Roots, what happened to you?!’

‘I got into a fight at a saloon.’

‘I …’ Rhin didn’t know what to say, so Merion just said it for him.

‘That was the first time that you weren’t there to help. I needed you, and you weren’t there. Just like the last two weeks,’ Merion said, flatly. ‘Lurker’s been arrested too.’

Rhin drew himself up to his full height. Merion could see the shame in his eyes all the same, but there was something else there too, something stronger than shame or guilt, something overriding. ‘I have been busy.’

‘With
what
, Rhin?’ Merion hissed. ‘It’s like you’ve gone mad! Watching the door for days on end. Stealing books, schematics, the silent treatment. There’s a war going on, if you haven’t noticed! What is wrong with you?’ he demanded. ‘I want the bloody truth, and I want it now!’

Perhaps Rhin felt he owed Merion, after he had quite obviously failed him as a friend and sworn protector. Maybe he was tired of holding onto his secrets. Whatever the reason that dragged the words out of him, it was plain it tortured him to do so. Rhin laid it all bare.

‘This is going to sound a little strange,’ the faerie began, as if that were how all good stories should start. ‘When you first found me, in the bushes, I told you I had been wrongly accused, and that I had chosen exile and been chased from the kingdom, right? Well, that wasn’t exactly true.’ Rhin paused to scratch his head.

Merion took a seat on the bed and put his fingers to his temples.
As if the day could not get any worse.
Now he was discovering his best friend had lied to him. ‘If you don’t keep talking I’ll call for my aunt so she can gut you like a fish.’

‘I wasn’t wrongly accused; I was actually very accurately and correctly accused. I stole the Hoard. Sift’s Hoard.’ Rhin faltered again, and Merion started to notice the streak of cowardice in him.

‘Rhin!’

The faerie glared at the floor. ‘A whole fortune in a purse. It made it rather easy to steal. Power goes to the head, they say. I say power reaches for the nearest knife. Sift was maniacal, and I didn’t want anything to do with it. So one day, while the Queen was hunting moles with her royal entourage and half the Coil guard, I decided to steal her Hoard. To teach her a lesson and start my new life over.

‘Made it halfway to the park before the bells began to sound. I lost them in the woods for a while, but had to fight my way out. When they caught me at the riverbank, they stuck a few blades in me, along with an arrow. But I managed to swim away even with my armour on. Thank the Roots for paying extra for a blacksmith’s blessing.

‘It took me three weeks to find safety, to find you at the edges of the garden. I was just thankful you weren’t another dog. I had no idea that I would stay, that we were going to become friends, or come here to Fell Falls,’ Rhin’s voice was low and sombre. He looked up to see if Merion had cracked slightly, there was nothing in the boy’s face besides an expectant look that demanded he continue.

‘Because it had been so long, I assumed I was safe, but a few weeks before your father died …’

‘Was murdered,’ Merion corrected him.

‘…before your father was murdered, some old friends paid me a visit in the woods by the north wing. Finrig the White Wit and his Black Fingers: assassins, thieves, and mercenaries, the lot of them. It was fitting that Sift should send Wit after me. I worked with Finrig in the old days, I’m ashamed to say, during the Bloody Uprising, in Ti’firi, when the weasels had come out to play. He demanded I return the Hoard, otherwise he would kill you, and then me. I said I didn’t have it.’