Dark Fate: The Gathering (The Dark Fate Chronicles Book 1) (37 page)

She opened her eyes again to find the leering thief leaning into the knife in Brier’s chest, driving the blade deeper. The chair crumpled under their combined weight and the two crashed to the floor.

“Stop it!” Sacha cried.

Blood spurted from Brier’s mouth, followed by a gurgling cry of pain. His hands clawed weakly at the knife buried in his chest.

Sacha abandoned her attempts to use her magic and seized a fork from where it lay on the floor. With a cry, she flung herself at Jagger’s back.

Jagger kicked backward, savagely. The heel of his boot connected just below her ribs and knocked the wind from her lungs.

Sacha fell to the floor, writhing in pain.

Jagger dipped his head down to whisper something into Brier’s ear, while the magistrate’s mouth worked like a fish out of water. Brier no longer struggled against his murderer. He only stared at the ceiling with glassy eyes, while his sharp breaths came with less frequency until finally they ceased altogether.

Sacha looked at Jagger in horror and disgust. She struggled to regain her breath, hugging her midsection in an attempt to lessen the pain of her bruised diaphragm. “You bastard.”

The murderer pulled his dagger free from the magistrate’s chest and wiped the stained blade on the dead man’s vest. Jagger got to his feet and looked down at Sacha with an expression of deep concern. “You don’t approve?” He combed several stray locks of blood-streaked hair back into place with his calloused fingers. “Forgive me,
Princess
, for my breach of etiquette. I
did
give him a last meal. It’s more than most men get.”

Sacha spat on the rogue’s boot.

Jagger’s expression of mock worry changed to cold stone. “Do not judge what you do not understand.” He slammed his dagger into its sheath. “Do you presume to know what this man has done?”

“I presume nothing. I can only judge the brutal actions you have given me as an example of
your
character.” Her mind raced as she realized her situation was more dire than she had initially anticipated. “So, is this to be my fate as well?” She nodded toward Brier’s still body, not able to bring herself to look at it directly.

Jagger crossed his arms and leaned against the toppled table. The goblins dragged Brier’s corpse to a corner of the room and rummaged through his clothes. “No.” He shrugged, “Not by me, at least.” He tilted his head and spread his hands. “What my employer plans for you, who can say.”

Sacha shook her head and continued to clutch at her stomach. She had to find a way out of this mess. Panic welled within her at the thought of experiencing Brier’s fate. She strained to reach the Shamonrae, but once again, the energies were there, but the floating void prevented her from touching them. She reached further, pushing against the void with more force, but the magic remained beyond her touch.

Jagger tsked. “Do not bother yourself, Princess,” he said. “You no longer have a need for magic here.” Jagger came away from the able and offered his arm.

Tears of frustration welled in Sacha’s eyes. “What have you done to me?”

“Only what was necessary.”

She looked at his arm as if it were a coiled snake. The very presence of the man revolted her. Could she afford
not
to play his twisted game, though?
No
. She had to survive. If that meant playing at falsehoods with killers, so be it.

She schooled her features to calmness and reached out to take Jagger’s proffered elbow.

This time, Jagger’s smile was genuine. “
Smart
and beautiful.”

Sloane rode alongside Bale as they followed Rouke through the dense jungles of the Tanglevine. The massive winewood trees still stood in silent ranks beyond the road, but the increasing width of the river allowed the sun to shine below the unforgiving canopy. The undergrowth, free from the deep shadows, had gone wild. Massive creepers draped the trunks and limbs, while ferns and other low-lying shrubs completely covered the forest floor. Here and there, one of the massive sentinels had succumbed to the choking growth and its dead limbs clawed at the sky above the river. The image suited her mood.

Captain Tigon had been intolerable since leaving Riverwood. His suspicion of the Basinians had led him to place guards on the emissaries every night, and he had even ordered Rouke and the other soldiers to be bound. After the second day, Sloane commanded the restraints to be removed at least during the day.

The matter of Mason and his pursuit of Erik, Kinsey, and the chancellor had nearly sent her into a blind rage. Bale’s deliberate circumvention of her intentions had almost led her to order that he be flogged. Instead, she settled for his absolute silence until they reached Waterfall Citadel.

She believed in Kinsey and Erik, that they were honorable men, and would do everything they could to retrieve her sister. The chancellor—well, Kesh may not have been so honorable, as far as she could tell, but he was clearly infatuated. Not only did she feel he would do everything in his power to see Sacha safe and perhaps play the hero, she was certain the man would be useless to her as she entered Waterfall Citadel. The golden-haired fop had been somewhat distant from her since his attentions had settled on Sacha.

Thinking of Kesh brought to mind the irony of her most recent decision. With the events that transpired at the Riverwood tavern fresh in her mind, she decided to forgo the customary announcement of their arrival to Waterfall Citadel. It was one of the few decisions in the past days she and Bale had agreed upon. Disapproval from an insulted nobility she could handle, but another attempt on her life or those around her, she could not.

Rouke reined in his horse at what appeared to be the edge of a cliff. He turned in his saddle and looked at the approaching party. “We’ve arrived.”

Sloane urged her horse up beside the stoic armsman. The road did not end in open sky as it had appeared, but cut sharply away from the river and into a long zigzag to the bottom of the cliff face. The view spread majestically before her.

They stood at the precipice of a rock shelf that began a series of geological steps. To her left, the river rushed over the edge and plunged down the sheer face of the cliff into the basin below. Another tributary, just as large as the one they had followed, poured over the same edge farther around the horseshoe-shaped cliff. The crashing water consumed every other sound, and she realized it was the noise of the waterfalls booming in the distance that had been slowly increasing over the past hour and not the rapids that traveled alongside them.

The large basin opened again on the west side to another set of falls and small rivers that snaked along rocky shelves. The city of Waterfall Citadel sat in the middle of this second step of falling water, hanging precariously on the cliff’s edge. The main body of water swept past the limestone walls of the Citadel and crashed on the rocks far below. The massive flow of water broke again into many rivers that eventually fed the Ice Lakes, far beyond her sight to the West. Sloane had never seen anything like it and sat in awe of the impossibility and beauty of the scene.

The most distinguishable feature of the city was a giant winewood, Terrandal, at its center. The massive tree was the largest she had ever seen, far exceeding any expectations she had based on the stories told to her as a child. The sheer size defied her imagination, and it dwarfed the other trees scattered within the Citadel’s high walls. The buildings of the city integrated themselves into the natural architecture created by the giant’s roots and trunk.

Sloane judged by the scale of the people and buildings that clustered the isle that Terrandal must have spread many hundreds of feet into the open sky.

She pointed to the swiftly moving shapes in the air around the ancient tree. “Are those the eagles? The Rohdaekhann?” She had heard the tales of the giant birds as well. Seeing them in the flesh, she came to realize she had begun to discount them as only a legend.

“Aye, Princess,” replied Rouke. He looked at her and smiled his first smile in days. “Have ya ever flown before?”

Sloane tore her eyes from the sight below to look the man in the eyes. “Are you serious?”

He raised his brows and nodded.

“No.” She looked back at the paradise that would soon be her home. “But I want to.”

“Then I’m sure it’ll be so, for the prince is an excellent flier.” Rouke tipped his head toward the distant city in invitation. He pulled his mount’s head around and started down the switchbacks. Bale silently followed, as did a long line of Pelosian soldiers. Sloane stayed in place, not wanting to leave the view. Her cousins settled beside her to murmur in wonder.

“Beautiful, is it not?” Lady Cora Barrelon stopped near the gathering of young women as the emissaries of Basinia passed.

“I am certain your country holds many treasures, Lady Barrelon,” Sloane replied, “but this may well be its crown jewel.”

“It is indeed, Princess, but this is also
your
country now.” Lady Barrelon edged her mount closer and reached out almost tentatively to place one soft, aged hand upon Sloane’s. “Your treasures to protect, your crown jewel to wear.”

Sloane looked at the aged woman.

She wore simple but well-made clothes. A green blouse was covered by a close-fitting brown jacket, and her skirts were divided for riding so she could sit astride her mount. Her free hand rested easily in front of the pommel of her saddle. In her relaxed grip, she held the reins and the other riding glove, which she had removed to touch Sloane. Although she must have been two and a half times Sloane’s age, Cora’s former beauty still showed. The skin of her face was lined, true, but it hadn’t developed deep wrinkles or sagging flesh. Her hair was worn just past the shoulder, and the silvery grey was shot with veins of a rich, golden brown that must have been its original color. Cora’s eyes, though, held a youth undiminished by her many years of life. Those eyes were now bright and filled with anticipation.

“You would be happy to see me queen?” Sloane asked. “A woman from a different country. A country that could easily be an enemy, if the circumstances were slightly different?”

“Yes, I would,” Cora said, nodding decisively. “Our prince—our land—needs a strong queen. Our people need Pelos as an ally, not an enemy. You are what we have been waiting for, my dear.”

Leanne spurred her horse between Sloane and the older woman. “Then why have her kidnapped?” she asked, clipping each word with bared teeth.

“That, I do not know,” Lady Barrelon replied coolly. The kind anticipation in her face had gone as she regarded Leanne evenly. “There are always those who would stand in the way of progress.”

“Like Magistrate Harristone, you mean?” Leanne asked, not backing down.

The older woman’s mouth tightened at the edges. “Brier Harristone is a good man. I doubt he had anything to do with the events at Riverwood, other than being taken himself.”

Leanne scoffed.

“Enough,” Sloane interrupted before her cousin could frame another retort. “We will see the truth of it when Masters Kinsey, Erik, and Kesh return with my sister.”

Lady Barrelon bowed her head. “As you say, Princess.” She nodded to both women, then urged her mount forward.

Meagan squirmed in her saddle as the small group of cousins set their mounts to follow the diplomats down the cliff trail. “I wish Sacha could see this.”

Sloane gazed at the horizon. “She will.”

The island Citadel clung to the edge of the westernmost cliff of the falls. The city was accessible to them by crossing one of the two bridges that spanned over the rushing water to either side of the basin.

The second bridge couldn’t be seen from the direction they approached, but it arched from the opposite side of the Citadel to the basin shore on the other side. The bridges themselves were a marvelous blend of stone and tree roots. Arcs of wood met and meshed with columns of stone. Both had been overlain with soil and stones to provide solid purchase across the two lanes of traffic, one leading into the city, the other leading out. Each path could easily hold four wagons side by side, with room to spare for those on foot.

The bridge they approached was guarded by a small fortification—soldiers lethargically inspected goods being brought into the city and a crowd of people had gathered, waiting their turn to pass.