A Thirst for Vengeance (The Ashes Saga, Volume 1) (16 page)

The glow around the blade lessened each day. It disappeared entirely after a month. So did the energy I felt when I held it.

Blackstone told me I’d developed a kind of tolerance. The power the knife contained was still there. It simply affected me less.

That was the entire extent of the benefit of magic.

Nonetheless, I treasured that blade. It was light and could cut through anything. It never dulled and required no sharpening. It could not be broken.

Or so I was told. My mother’s experience proved different.

Blackstone taught me how to use it as a weapon. He taught me the seven points of the human body that are most vulnerable. He taught me how to move with the blade as one.

Soon, holding it felt as natural as having fingers. It became an extension of my arm.

Blackstone also gave me smaller throwing knives. He taught me how to conceal them so they did not stand out in regular clothes, but, at the same time, were always accessible. He taught me the importance of balance and speed.

Don’t get me wrong. Training was not a walk in the park. I had more cuts on my hands from handling the blades after a week than all the gnashes I’d received over my lifetime combined. After a day of throwing, both shoulders throbbed. The scar that Blackstone opened never fully healed. It affected my left arm. I had to learn to counteract the difference to perfect my aim.

Blackstone seemed pleased with my progress. Two months after we started again, he sat me down and told me how well my skill was developing. He said that, if I continued at my pace, in half a year he would send me out into the outside world.

The idea thrilled me. I did not know what he expected, but I was ready to show him anything he wanted to see.

One day at supper, he asked me a question I was not ready for.

“Dagan,” he said, “do you know how I can afford you?”

I took a bite of the chicken thigh I was holding. “I thought you were rich.”

He blinked, then laughed. “No. But I know of ways to make myself rich—at least, temporarily.”

“How?”

“There are things I learned in the Black Brotherhood.”

“You mean, stealing?” I took another bite.

He nodded. “Aye, stealing. Stealing and thievery and all those elaborate schemes of improving one’s position in life. My last heist came two weeks before I met you. We’ve been living off that since, but the well’s starting to run dry. You aren’t cheap to clothe or feed. You have the appetite of three grown men.”

I took that as a sort of veiled compliment and allowed myself a smug smile.

“I don’t steal from just anybody, Dagan,” he said. “Never from the poor. Rarely from the rich. My thefts are from the corrupt. I take back the things that were never rightfully theirs.”

“Do you return those things to the people they took it from?” I asked.

He laughed. “No. I’m not a bloody priest.”

“Oh.”

“I’m telling you this because I want to know if you have any problems with it. I know some grow up believing stealing is wrong.”

I shook my head. “No problem,” I said. Thievery was the one thing I was good at before I met Blackstone.

“Good,” he said. “I have another heist planned. Tomorrow, we begin training for it.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Blackstone woke me earlier than usual the next day. He threw a ragged collection of clothes on my bed. “Put those on.”

I held them out. There was a pair of brown, patchy pants and a soiled, scratchy, wool shirt. They were worse than the clothes I’d worn when I lived on the street.

I knew better than to ask irrelevant questions, so I changed into them without a word.

Blackstone was dressed completely the opposite of me. His rich, green jacket had embroidery all over the front. The sleeves ended in bits of lace. He had a crisp, white shirt underneath and pressed pants.

He’d also trimmed his beard so that it was no more than a dark shadow.

“Today, you observe,” he told me. “You do not speak to anyone. Only watch.”

I nodded in agreement.

“You’ll trail after me on the rooftops,” Blackstone said. “I remember you had some capacity for that before, no?”

“Yes,” I said. I hadn’t scampered up walls and on tops of buildings since Blackstone took me in, but I doubted my skills could have eroded. If anything, I was quicker and more agile now. I was better suited for following him unseen.

He clapped his hands together and told me to get up. I did.

Blackstone left the house first. He told me to count to sixty before following.

I got impatient and ran out at forty-one.

The street, as expected, was mostly empty this early. I looked at the outer facades for a way to the roofs. I found my path in a low window.

I caught my foot on the windowsill and pushed up. My hands wrapped around a rain pipe for support. One strong lunge had me gripping the edge of the roof. I pulled myself up.

Standing straight, I looked around for Blackstone. I spotted a man in a green jacket hurrying away from the house. I ran after him.

I did not know where he was leading me, but I ran along the rooftop like a shadow. My steps were light and made little noise. I stayed close enough to never lose sight of him, but far enough to remain unseen.

All in all, I thought I was doing quite well.

Until I felt an ice cold blade slip in front of my throat.

“One move and I gut you,” a voice rasped in my ear.

All the training I had learned rushed to mind. Like Blackstone taught, I tucked my chin, trapping the blade. My arm shot out to dislodge the assailant’s grip. I felt the blow connect, and was just about to duck and roll, carrying the blade with me, when a hand tangled in my hair and stopped me.

“Nice try,” the voice hissed. “But you’re too slow. Whoever taught you should be ashamed.”

Panic exploded in my chest. It lasted only the length of time it took for me to hear the laughter at my ear.

The knife fell away. I sputtered when I turned and saw Blackstone.

He was wearing the same rags as I was.

“But, but you’re supposed to be over there!” I complained, waving my hand toward the man moving along the street.

“You use your eyes, but you do not see,” Blackstone said. He gestured toward the same shape. “Look at the way his shoulders lurch when he walks. Have you ever seen me move that way?”

I looked at the man below us again. I saw the nervous tightness in his neck, like he expected an attack at any moment. I saw the slight limp in his step that I had missed before.

“Dammit, you told me to follow you, and that’s what I was doing!” I cried out.

“No. You were following the green jacket. Not me.”

My cheeks burned. I’d fallen for his decoy. “That’s not
fair
,” I pouted.

“Life isn’t fair, Dagan. The streets aren’t fair. They will swallow you whole before you get your feet on the ground if you don’t watch what you’re doing.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “When did you have time to change? How did you get behind me?”

He scoffed. “You were so focused on the green jacket that you forgot to watch your surroundings. What did I teach you?”

“
He who closes his eyes is dead
,” I recited by rote.

“Correct. And you never even opened them this morning.”

I looked down at my feet.

Blackstone clicked his tongue. “Oh, stop looking so dejected. Everybody falls for a trick like this their first time. It’s what you learn from it that shapes who you become.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

After I learned to follow Blackstone without losing him, we began new exercises.

We would start each morning in the heart of the merchant district of north Hallengard. The plaza began filling up with people from the first rays of the sun. It was busy until long after sundown.

Blackstone would pick a person at random and slip a small item in their pocket. Sometimes it was a worthless jewel. Other times, a coin. Yet other times, a simple rock.

It was up to me to follow that person and get the item back.

It was an exercise in caution and patience. I had to wait for the perfect moment to strike. Since I was doing it in the daytime, I did not have the luxury of blending in with the shadows, as I’d done before when I was on my own.

It was not easy. With so many eyes around you, discretion was the most important virtue. I was not always successful. Sometimes, the person disappeared before I had a chance to get close. Other times, I hesitated a second too long, or went a heartbeat too soon, and had to stop before I could even stick my hand in his pocket.

Progress was slow. My excitement about finally being let outside quickly faded. Blackstone gave me little feedback. In fact, he had grown uncharacteristically quiet. I was not sure how to take his shift in mood.

After two months of practice, however, I was getting better. My successes were not guaranteed, but nine times out of ten I did manage to get the item back.

There was no further mention of the heist that Blackstone told me about. I did not ask him about it, either. I figured that he thought I was simply not yet ready to take the next step.

The third month, an event occurred that changed my life forever.

It was a day like any other. Blackstone had woken me early and we walked to the plaza. That day, I was trailing an elderly gentleman with greying hair and the air of an aristocrat.

My job appeared to be easy at the start. The target did not seem particularly aware of his surroundings. Yet, every time I got close, a peculiar prickle in the back of my mind stopped me from acting.

It was the uncomfortable feeling of being watched. While I knew Blackstone kept an eye on me at all times, this was different.

I trusted that feeling. Sometimes, your unconscious mind is able to pick up cues that your waking mind might not. Something was not quite right. I began to suspect the man I was trailing was more dangerous than I first thought.

I followed him like a shadow as he made his way through the city. Oftentimes, he stopped to greet a passing friend. Conversation was always quick, and those were the moments I thought I should make my move. If I waited too long, I knew, the man might eventually disappear into a building—his home, for example—and not come out for hours.

That scenario presented a set of circumstances that I was not eager to explore. Breaking into a house is a lot different from pickpocketing somebody. For one, there was the front door. Blackstone had taught me to open locks. I had a pretty good hang of it, and could already do three-tumbler pins in under a minute.

Sometimes, breaking into a home could be easier, because a good thief knew to enter only if the place was unoccupied. Yet the anxiety of not knowing exactly how long you had before the occupants returned wreaked havoc on your nerves.

Nonetheless, every time I came close to the man, that prickling feeling intensified, and I was forced to stay my hand.

I followed him for hours. By appearance, I thought he might be a banker. I saw the heavy coin purse on his belt. I knew that it was just a distraction. He would have notes of tender on him, carefully concealed in his inside pockets. They were each worth three or four times the amount in his purse even if every coin were gold.

Eventually, he made his way to a reputable-looking tavern. I couldn’t get in through the front door—not in my clothes—but I wasn’t about to give up.

I circled the building once, looking for an alternate way in. I found it in the back. It was not the backdoor where deliveries were made and garbage was thrown out, but higher, above that: a small, diamond-shaped window leading to the attic.

A pair of men—probably cooks, by the flour on their aprons—gave me curious looks when they saw me in the back alley. I didn’t want to give them reason to get suspicious, so I kept my head down and walked past. I stopped on the other side of the corner and waited. When I heard them head inside, I turned back.

I climbed onto a stack of barrels, jumped to reach the edge of the roof, and pulled myself up. I walked over to the window, which was a foot or so below me. It’d be awkward to get into, but not impossible.

I hung down over the ledge and used my toe to push at the window. It was unlocked. My foot found the windowsill and I dropped inside.

A babble of voices greeted me. The tavern had an open design with thick oak beams running across the ceiling. I could see the whole layout from my perch.

I looked around and found the grey-haired banker in one corner. His eyes kept darting around the room. He tapped his fingers against the table in a quick, nervous,
tat-tat-tat-tat
.

To my disappointment, he’d left his jacket on. It would have been much easier to retrieve Blackstone’s coin if the man had hung it up.

Of course, I knew by now that I could not expect things to be so easy.

I balanced myself on the largest beam and started to creep across. I stayed low and moved slowly. I could not risk attracting attention by rushing over and making.

I was halfway to my destination when the sound of one particular voice stopped me in my tracks. It rose above the others and was immediately distinctive to my ears.

Three-Grin’s voice.

A cold chill ran down my back. I looked below and saw him.

He was moving through the bar with an entourage of six men. He walked with a cocky strut, towering a head taller than anybody else. His voice was loud and rude as he called out for drinks.

I saw the banker straighten as Three-Grin approached him.

A painful cramp shot through my hand. I looked down and discovered that I’d unconsciously started gripping the hilt of my ivory knife.

Hard.

I eased my fingers loose and did not dare move as my eyes followed Three-Grin.

He walked toward the banker and sat down at the table with a crash. The men who came with him formed a formidable wall, cutting off access to that corner to the rest of the patrons.

Five running steps and a silent leap had me on a nearby beam that positioned me right above their table.