Shadow Blessed (The Shadow Accords Book 1) (13 page)

“What are you
talking
about?”

He snorted again. “It don’t matter. It never did. We’re just biding our time, aren’t we? Collecting scraps until the next.”

“What next?”

Etan sat up quickly and shook his head. “Like I said. It don’t matter. Best find a way to keep yourself safe. Especially don’t matter when you’re caught. They won’t say nothing then, not for you, not for me, and not for the kid.”

Carth thought she understood now.

Stiv had been caught collecting scraps. The penalty for stealing was steep, and though she knew it, she’d taken to treating it as something of a game when it should not have been. Had Stiv been caught because of her?

Carth refused to let herself believe that. She hadn’t taught Stiv to collect scraps. If anything, it would have been Etan and Kel who were responsible.

Watching Etan, she realized that he felt the same way.

He stood and pushed past her, leaving the room.

Carth looked around, feeling confused, wishing that either Etan or Kel or even Vera would tell her what was going on, and where Stiv had gone.

I
n the days that followed
, answers didn’t come. Anytime she tried bringing up the question of what happened to Stiv, Kel became somber and withdrawn. She’d tried asking Vera again, but she’d refused to answer. Even Hal had fallen silent.

Carth rarely saw Etan any more. Usually by morning, he was up and gone before she and Kel were awake and often didn’t return until well after dark. She didn’t know if he continued collecting scraps, but he didn’t appear hungry or poorly dressed. A shadow of scruff grew on his face now, making him look both older and rougher. The times she did see him, he had a hard, almost angry gleam in his eye.

She became worried about what would happen to her. If Stiv had been caught, how long would it really be before the rest of them were, too? Etan preferred to crash into people as he lifted their purses, and Kel wasn’t much different. When one—or both—of them were caught, what would she do?

There was nothing that she
could
do.

Was that what she wanted? Did she
want
to become a thief, always worried about the next thing that would happen to her? She didn’t have any other options, did she?

She found herself standing in front of the herbalist shop once more. The last time she’d come, the A’ras had been here, the same night Stiv had been caught and taken away. The A’ras continued to patrol through here, but not with regularity, and she’d managed to sneak off whenever she saw any sign of them making their way toward the docks. Still, there was more of an A’ras presence than there ever had been before.

As she watched, no one entered the herbalist, not as they had the last time.

Carth pushed through her fear and entered the shop.

It had been nearly destroyed.

Carth’s stomach dropped.

The air no longer carried the scent of the leaves and oils. Bins were toppled, with dried fruits piled onto the floor. Jars of leaves had been thrown to the ground, leaving the jars cracked and destroyed. Even the oils had been spilled, streaks of wetness running down the walls and pooling on the floorboards.

She stepped around the herbs and made her way behind the counter, expecting more of the same. Boxes there were tipped over, some appearing to have been slammed to the ground, leaving the contents spilled. Two splintered chairs left a trail of debris toward the back door.

Carth paused at the counter, leaning on it and breathing heavily. This wasn’t new damage. Whatever had happened here had been at least a day or two ago; otherwise, the air would smell more pungently of leaves and oil.

Nothing really remained. What appeared to be boot marks trampled over the leaves. Tiny shards of glass mixed with them. Even the dried fruits and berries had been stomped.

She shouldn’t be here.

The thought came overwhelmingly to her, filling her with a sort of dread. Shops weren’t just destroyed like this, were they? And it couldn’t be a coincidence that the A’ras had come through here and now the shop was destroyed.

Pausing at the window, she peered out, looking into the street, fearful that someone might be watching for her, but she saw no movement. Maybe it would be better to go out through the back door anyway.

As she passed through the shop, she paused at the counter again. A flash of glass caught her eye. At first, she thought it was another broken jar and stepped carefully, remembering what the herbalist had told her about the shadesbreath, but found an intact jar.

She lifted it and realized this
was
the jar of shadesbreath.

If the herbalist was right, shadesbreath would be dangerous. She needed to be careful with it, but then, she shouldn’t leave it here either, should she? Not if someone else might come along and not know what it was. Better that she remove it and store or dispose of it so that no one got hurt.

Carth slipped it into her pocket, making sure to put in the other pocket, the one without the A’ras knife.

At the back door to the shop, she paused before pushing the door open a crack and peering out. The shop opened into an empty alley and she hurried outside, closing the door behind her.

She started back toward the docks, but what was there for her there, other than an angry Kel, and Etan, who had grown increasingly quiet with her?

Instead, she made her way into the city.

Troubled thoughts plagued her. They were thoughts she never would have considered when her parents had been alive, but she wondered about her father, and why he was as skilled at sneaking around as he was. The worst part of that realization was knowing that she would never get the opportunity to ask him about his past, that she’d be left with the questions she now possessed.

Then her mother… her mother was an herbalist of sorts, but she had only worked with her family, not selling her concoctions like other herbalists did. How much had her mother known about her father? Was that the reason they had come to Nyaesh?

Her parents had never really told her why they traveled from city to city. They would spend months at a time in some, though they had been in Balis for nearly a year before moving to Nyaesh. When they’d moved, they had brought the packs they possessed, and not much else, and Carth had never questioned why.

Now that they were gone, she did. What would have brought her parents to this city, a place so dangerous that they refused to let Carth out of their sight? The only time she’d ever
really
been alone in Nyaesh had been after they’d died.

She reached the end of the alley and paused on Doland Street, considering whether she wanted to return to the docks. The sounds of the docks, those of gulls cawing and vendors shouting, drifted to her. The other direction led away from the docks, and toward the palace of the royal family. A familiar blue cloak caught her attention. Was that Jhon?

She started up the street and after him, keeping enough space between them that she didn’t think it would look like she followed him. As she approached, she saw that it
was
Jhon, and he wasn’t alone.

Carth shuffled to the side of the street, watching him, and noticed that he seemed to lean forward, speaking to a shorter someone who she couldn’t clearly see. A part of her wanted to run up to him and find what he knew about her parents. He had known that her parents came from Ih-lash, which meant he might know more about her parents than she did.

Moving carefully forward, she tried watching for his cloak but lost sight of it amidst the rest of the crowd. Cursing herself for her caution, she tried finding him, but failed. Jhon had disappeared.

* * *

C
arth spent
the rest of the afternoon looking for him. She had questions she needed answered. Almost getting attacked by the A’ras wasn’t going to change the fact that she wanted to know what more he knew about her family—and why.

Carth stood along the shore and stared out over the river. Standing here, with the sound of the gulls calling overhead and the soft rushing of water over the rocks, she would almost call it peaceful. Vera and Hal had offered her protection—though it was protection that she now understood they had paid the A’ras to provide—but the tavern was not her home. Having Jhon speak to her about her parents, and bring the questions that she had back to her mind, had made it all too clear that she didn’t belong down here near the docks. There might be safety, but it was a false safety, and one that faded at the first sign of attack.

What else could she do?

She wanted to know more about Felyn. She needed to know how a man like that existed, and how he had managed to attack the A’ras as easily as he had. But the memory of Felyn terrified her.

If she could find Jhon again, she might be able to ask him the questions that bothered her, but what if she couldn’t?

So far, he had found her in the tavern and near the docks. From what he had said to her, it seemed he had been shadowing her, following her once he realized who she was. That meant that he might continue to follow her.

Leaving the River Road, she started into the city, following alleys that led generally deeper into the city. As she went, she kept her eyes open for any sign that she might be followed, once more playing the game that her parents had played with her, trying to determine if someone else trailed her and searching for evidence that she wasn’t alone. Her father had been quite skilled at keeping hidden, but so had her mother, both of them wanting Carth to develop the same skills.

She remembered a game where she tried to keep her father from following her, and when she discovered that he did tail her, she’d try to shake him. She had never managed to succeed, almost as if he had some otherworldly ability he hid from her.

Passing shops, she glanced in windows, using the reflection to check behind her. She took quick turns, thinking that if anyone trailed her, they would reveal themselves. Carth even took to staring up at the roofline, wondering if someone other than her father would be able to follow her from there. She found nothing.

This street led to a star-shaped intersection where two other streets met, a place within the city known as Chalice Corner. The intersection was a dangerous one for anyone with horse and carriage, but on foot, it proved easy enough to navigate. Carth paused near a streetlight, making it appear that she simply waited when really she used it as an opportunity to look all around her.

She found nothing that seemed out of place.

Had she been mistaken? Jhon had to have been following her for him to know as much about her as he did, unless he had some other way of finding out her secrets. But what would that be? There were stories of people far across the sea who could read each other’s thoughts, but Carth thought that only rumor. Such things were no more possible than a person flying. No, there had to be some other explanation.

Had her parents worked with Jhon? It seemed unlikely, but then, Carth had never questioned why her parents moved cities.

Carth frowned. How could she really know so little about her own parents? And why did it seem that Jhon knew more about her family than she did in some ways?

The people moving along Chalice Road began to part, drawing her attention along the street. Chalice Road had some of the more expensive shops in Nyaesh, dressmakers and candle makers and bakers and carpet weavers and countless others that she would never have the money to afford visiting. The thought of stopping in one of the shops along Chalice Road left her feeling flushed.

Coming toward her were five A’ras.

That explained why the crowd parted.

Carth considered hiding. Standing out in the open when the A’ras came through would put her in danger, especially if she had somehow managed to draw their attention, but she didn’t want to hide. She wanted to see them, and wanted to know what they might do. They served the royal family, but they also served their own purposes. That they were willing to leave the docks alone when bribed told her that they were not nearly as holy as she had been led to believe, though the brutal way they punished others didn’t fit with their holy appearance, either.

The A’ras paused at the intersection. Standing alongside the lamppost, she tried to shrink against the metal, slimming herself as much as possible. She wanted to watch to see what they would do.

The A’ras paused at the corner. One of them caught her eye and looked her up and down before turning away from her, completely dismissing her.

Carth sighed as they passed. She didn’t want any more attention from them anyway, but for her to be so quickly dismissed… Hal and Vera had warned her that once the A’ras identified her, she would be in danger. Here she had allowed herself to be seen, allowed them to notice her, but they hadn’t shown any real interest.

Maybe it wasn’t her they cared about at all.

As the A’ras moved along the street, still following Chalice Road, she decided to follow. Doing so would be dangerous and she knew better than to attempt it, but a sudden urge compelled her to do so.

Others all tried to keep out of the way of the A’ras. She used that as a distraction, letting herself drift from one area of congestion to the next, always staying just out of sight, yet close enough that she could tell where the A’ras were. Trailing them wasn’t difficult; all she had to do was stay behind the spreading bubble cleared of people as they moved along the street. This time, she played the role her father had usually played, and she was the one who followed behind.

She hadn’t learned his tricks for doing so as well as he did, but she knew the ways that she had used to detect him, and thought that she could mask herself so that they wouldn’t pick her out quite so easily.

Quick movements were dangerous, but if she could time them to when the others around her moved more quickly, she wouldn’t have to fear anything. Other than that, the challenge she had would be that she moved against the flow of traffic. That alone would cause her to stand out. To combat that, she moved in a zigzagging way, hoping that it would appear as if she followed the flow of others around her.

What was she doing, anyway? Why did she risk herself following the A’ras? She couldn’t hope to learn anything other than that they were deadly and dangerous, but she already knew that. The only thing that she would discover was that she could suffer with them.