Diomere's Exile

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Nadia sucked a breath into starving lungs and pressed back into the tower’s shade. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Pell asked.

Nadia tugged at the garrote she wore as a bracelet on her wrist. Of course he hadn’t. The Guardian, partially transformed into his other form, had spoken to her via mind-speak, the method used only by those with the blood of the Mer, one of the many races of the A’mi.

“Nothing,” she muttered. “Nothing at all.”

Nadia turned back toward the drama unfolding in the square. Pell stared at her a moment longer, then turned back toward the glowing portal. Nadia sighed. She hated that Pell wasn’t privy to all her secrets, but some things weren’t hers alone to share.

As if he’d heard her thoughts, the Guardian glanced at her one last time, then pulled the tree nymph into the light. The doorway shrank until it disappeared from sight. The people assembled in the square before the Earth Temple stood frozen, as if unsure if what they’d seen had been real.

The head priest stepped forward. “Bring the girl’s father.” Two soldiers moved forward, dragging the drunken man. The priest focused his narrow gaze on the man. “You’ve brought Druj’s dark attention, his distasteful chaos, to Volos for the first time in a hundred years. For this you’re to be tortured until dead to appease the god of death.”

The drunken man’s ruddy face blanched white, then bloomed red. “I did nothing wrong. The whore snuck out at all times of night and day. I thought she was spreading her legs for whatever man had caught her eye. For all I know one of them coulda tempted her toward the A’mi.”

The priest flicked his fingers, and the guards dragged the drunk away, ignoring his screamed profanities.

“I’ll see you back at the Inn,” she muttered to Pell.

They slipped out of the square, each going a different direction. The musicians started to play and acolytes made the rounds with wine to lighten the tense mood. Her thoughts circled in her head as she made her way to her home, an inn that catered to affluent, high society customers called the Emerald Mermaid. Instincts prickling, she looked back over her shoulder and picked up her pace. Deciding against the direct route, she wound her way through the city, the streets growing more crowded, dirty, and narrow the closer she got to the harbor and its smelly docks.

When the itchy feeling between her shoulder blades dissipated, she turned down a dirty street which had identical, tiny homes. She nodded to the man and woman lounging on the front porch of the last house in the row. Looking more like bored locals than guards on watch, they nodded back, their gazes sharper than any mere local. She knocked once, opened the door, and stepped into the healer’s hut.

Inside, the strong aroma of the drying herbs that hung from the ceiling in the kitchen filled her nose, making her sneeze. Geeta, Nadia’s cousin and closest friend, stood at the long table that separated the kitchen from the sitting room and glanced up, blowing strands of blonde hair from her face, as she mixed some life-saving concoction which undoubtedly tasted like death. The dark circles under her fever-bright eyes squeezed Nadia’s heart with worry. She knew if she looked in a mirror, she’d see the same gauntness beginning to appear in her own face.

The door had no more than closed when Nadia stripped off her mask and dropped it on the table, followed quickly by her skirts and petticoats. “How you and every other woman wear these twice cursed things, I’ll never understand.”

Geeta’s smile lit up her whole face, alleviating her sick pallor for a moment. “The mystery of what’s hiding under these skirts drive men crazy. With the flash of ankle or calf, we flex our power over men until they do exactly what we wish.”

Nadia ignored the memory of the man those words evoked. “A child chose a’mi today.”

Geeta stopped her stirring and set the bowl down on the table as a knowing look lit her green eyes. “You finally saw the Guardian.”

She clenched her jaw and pulled a pair of black salvar, the loose pants favored by Diomerean noblemen, over her hips. “He spoke to me.” She met Geeta’s surprised glance and lowered her voice. “The boy must be found before the sands run out.”

Geeta frowned and rounded the table. “Did the queen mention anything about time running out in her last missive?” When Nadia just shook her head, the blonde woman continued. “Well, whatever the reason, we know he’s here in Thuno. We’ll find him as soon as possible. The queen obviously doesn’t care so long as you find him. She’s probably read your letter hundreds of times since you sent it.”

Nadia’s shoulders slumped. “He wouldn’t be lost if I’d done my job.” She clutched Geeta’s hand. “It’s been years since I’ve been in Diomere. What if she hates me for allowing him to be taken?”

Geeta smoothed a strand of hair from Nadia’s forehead. “Lareina doesn’t blame you and never has.”

Nadia rubbed her temples. “My head knows you’re right, but my heart throbs with guilt.”

Geeta tugged on Nadia’s braid and gestured for her to turn. “Aren’t I always?”

“Ha.” Nadia laughed, shaking her head. Her smile vanished as she used her fingers to comb out the fancy style Geeta had created to match the skirts. She held her smallest dagger’s sheath while Geeta began to weave her hair around it in her usual braid. “The boy will be thirteen in six moons time. I wonder if the guardian’s warning refers to that?” She shoved her arms into the long-sleeve shirt Geeta handed her.

“Perhaps the Queen will update us about this in the next missive,” Geeta said.

“I know my nephew is here. I feel it. I wasted too much time making myself the Shark.”

Geeta placed her hands on either side of Nadia’s face and met her gaze. “The power of the guild helped us get this far. We’ll find him. He’s in this city.”

“We’re getting weaker. If we don’t figure out what’s wrong soon, I’m afraid we’ll be too sick to finish our search.”

Geeta bustled back over to the table, their exchange seeming to give her a little of her once bubbly energy. “We can’t worry over what we can’t do anything about. Your sister will come.”

Nadia smiled. “How would I have managed without you all these years, my friend?”

“You’d smell as bad as the rest of these foreigners, no doubt.”

Nadia remembered the intoxicating mix of frankincense and man emanating from her mysterious new royal contact and couldn’t help but be grateful for the soaps and lotions Geeta made. Frowning at the wayward direction of her thoughts, she shoved the memory aside and belted a sleeveless tunic over a long-sleeved undershirt that had been an addition to her outfit when she arrived in Thuno. A woman in pants and bare arms would have been too much for the modest people here. Not that many women wore pants in her home country. Nadia simply found the loose salvar Diomerean men wore tucked into their boots much more convenient. Can’t exactly skulk among the shadows in a skirt.

Smiling to herself, she slid daggers into the sheaths at wrist, hip, and ankle. “I’ve got the ball tonight to finish the Elis job, then I’m headed to Asha’s Library tomorrow morning. Brother Jamison is supposed to have the list of boys in Volos between the ages eleven and thirteen for me. I’ll have a copy made for you so we can start eliminating the ones you know.”

The healer nodded, then picked up the bowl and started mixing again. “Jon and Sarna return soon, do they not?”

Nadia slid the last and slimmest dagger into the sheath in her braid. Feeling more comfortable with all her weapons back in their proper places, she moved to the back wall of the small house, hiding her smile. Despite her worsening condition, talk of the dark giant they’d saved from being sacrificed to the god of fire while in Berezan could still pull a spark from Geeta.

She reached toward the shelf built over the hearth and pressed a knot in the wood. The section of wall moved, and Nadia pushed it open. A narrow tunnel, cut into the hill on which the house was built, angled up and disappeared into darkness. Nadia smiled. The King would be alarmed to discover that a series of caves peppered the mountain under his palace right behind the Emerald Mermaid Inn. He’d especially be upset if he knew that the leader of Vromia Guild kept a secret lair there. While renovating the old inn, she’d discovered the forgotten series of caves when she’d attempted to build a private meeting space into the mountain. As soon as they’d finished renovations on the inn, they’d started on a separate tunnel on the opposite side of the largest cave that could provide an escape route and now led to this tiny hut Geeta used as her own.

She grabbed a torch hanging on the tunnel wall and stuck it into the fire in Geeta’s hearth. “Yes, yes, but your shagging will have to wait until after I’ve received my report.”

Her bark of laughter echoed down the tunnel as Geeta hurled the spoon at her. “To Meren’s dark depths with you, jealous harpy.”