Chapter 1

V ala hunched in the chair, her tongue silently repeating the twenty-step rune equation to be absolutely sure of accuracy. She tried to ignore the bustle of Sandy's. The capital's business district crowded the bar along with assorted foreigners from the docks, shaking paper equis and shouting drink orders to bartenders.

It was the buzzing of the dirty neon sign on the wall that broke her attention. It read "No Dynn Openings Permitted Inside."

If anyone opened the Dynn indoors, the resulting wind force would topple glasses and cause nausea, never mind the general difficulty of securing payment for drinks once a patron had left this world for another. She had once opened the Dynn. Once and once only to look upon the runes of her birth. That world was now forever sealed shut to her. She gulped her drink. Fortunately, rune equations drawn on paper and entered into a machine linked to the Dynn could manipulate events in that world just fine. At least she could still dream of the Dynn, closing her eyes and walking that dark world with her mind's eye.

The otherworld the Dark God created and abandoned.

Long ago, people learned that the millions of rune plants that grew in the Dynn held the future of all living things. These possible futures were sold through trades at Exchanges around the world. As the runes changed ownership, so did the future possibilities.

Her gaze drifted briefly over Janie and Corina in front of her—getting a sigh and waggle of eyebrows respectively—to the people at the bar, hazy amid the cigarette smoke, searching the faces for her client. Where was Joe?

A group of men in suits walked in, their badges identifying them as rune traders of the Imperial Exchange. She knew them well although she was not surprised that they ignored her. No, she expected it. The Exchange was so competitive that finding any edge, even if it was her, a janitor and an ex-convict, was desirable. They would contact her when they needed her equations but not in front of their colleagues. She could design rune equations like no one else and it was nice to get paid, especially since she and her friends depended on the additional income.

Corina with her jet hair and flexible eyebrows slurped the last of her cocktail and sat back with a sigh. Her dark skin and dress made her blend among the deeper shadows of their booth. "Can we go to an actual club now?"

Janie turned from watching the crowd and clasped her thin, angular hands together. "I prefer our neighborhood any day. All these Mid Level spots are so snobbish. They look at us like we're trash."

"So maybe they lose their wallet tonight. Helps them remember what life is all about." Corina smirked.

"You know jewelry is better. Not as traceable." Janie said. Her blond hair shone like waves of gold, ending at her neck for she had recently cut and sold a long braid to a Lower Level rickrack shop. Two hundred equi straight into The Jar. Equi—short for ‘equivalent' or, in other words, a similar amount in gold—was the official, imperial currency and recognizable around the world. Corina had placed the large, metal container in the middle of their apartment and they had danced around it, toasting their good fortune.

"Right you are," Corina pursed her lips, decidedly smug. "I can get premium pricing for a good watch any day."

"If you steal from anyone here, they'll trace the event to your runes and kill you," Vala whispered. "Keep the thieving for safer targets."

"I'd like to see them find me. Besides, I'm bored." Corina twisted her hair. "I just don't get why your man can't ever be on time."

"I wait until the client decides to show." Vala scanned the crowd unsuccessfully. "You know how it is."

Corina retorted with a word that would have caused their parents to toss in their graves. After all, Fridays meant drinking and dancing until the sky turned gray, not waiting around in a Mid Level bar while she discussed rune trades with the suits .

Peacemaker Janie raised her hands. "Look, why don't we do this. We'll give your guy five more minutes to show up then we ditch the bar and go clubbing. Does that work, Vala? Valaaaaa…. "

But Vala had zoned out of the conversation, reflecting upon the equation with the patience she imagined the rune workers paid as they set up their trades in the Exchange. It had to be perfect. One mistake and the work of the past two years would crash around her head. Traders would never again trust her with their rune problems. She would be forgotten, scrubbing dishes and dumping trash bins for the rest of her life.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed an old businessman step into the bar, his custom silk suit clean and dry from Dynn travel, despite the storm raging on the windows outside.

Corina stood, curls bouncing as though alive. "Ta-da. There's your man. I'll be at the bar. It's way more fun than this sticky booth."

Vala watched her friend saunter through the tables, men and women watching her appreciatively. Corina was always so good at attraction, standing up for herself, stealing…and just, life in general. As for herself, she was weird, an oddity in a city of people somehow different and yet all the same. When she was younger, she believed that having hair of fire and pale eyes was a combination that enticed stares. Age and prison had taught her that there was something more fundamentally wrong with her. Her existence disconcerted people, although she had never determined why.

But that was okay , she thought, raising her chin. She had never wanted much from life except her freedom and if such came at the price of isolation, then so be it. She had Janie and Corina, after all, and two friends were plenty enough after a lifetime alone. Working a job where no one paid her attention and designing rune trades for equis was a decent standard of living. Besides, her equations were wanted by people who worked for the very government who had locked her up, an irony that always made her smile. Life was good, she concluded, tapping her fingers on the table. Nothing at all needed to change.

"Good evening, Flowers."

She rose and firmly shook Joe's hand, showing she was a professional, despite her dirty sneakers and the faint aroma of soap and disinfectant that would cling even though she had changed from her janitor's uniform. "It's a pleasure. Janie?"

Janie wisely slipped from her seat and nodded to Corina who animatedly chatted with a trader, twirling her curls and clutching a fresh cocktail. "Excuse me. I need to rescue that poor, young man from my friend."

Joe leaned back. "Did you figure it out?"

Of course, she had. Every step of the equation. Earlier that day, as she had cleaned the toilet stalls and mopped the floors of the Academy, she had pondered the problem in her mind. It had taken her a long while…too long to solve it for her liking. Finally, in a rage, she slammed her fist into a hallway wall. The resulting pain made her feel a lot better and to her surprise, the answer had floated into her brain shortly thereafter.

"I'll show you." She took his proffered paper and scribbled out a string of runes. Runes that had floated before her eyes upon the sudsy windows and muddy floors of the Academy. Her pen quivered for a moment over the final rune and she closed her eyes. For the thousandth time, she cursed her inability to enter the Dynn and see the rune plants for herself. Trust what you have read, she thought with annoyance. She had repeated the equation enough times to know it by heart.

She shoved the paper over to him, wincing at the sight of her rough hands, raw and coarse from her daily work. Joe certainly didn't care. He wanted the equations she could provide and she knew he would enter a pit of blood-sucking Slyvan serpents to get the information. Joe Blathers was some important executive at the Exchange, of that, she was sure. He never interacted with the other traders at Sandy's, but they all seemed to respect him.

His interest in her work two years ago had given her reason to enjoy opening her eyes every morning. It had been a strange sensation not to hate waking up. She had gone back to her books, eager to impress him with more rune knowledge. Besides, she was certain that their regular meetings had prompted other Exchange workers to approach her for help with their rune trades, eyes averted from the condemning tattoo on her arm. The ink that signaled prison and her debilitated runes.

It was a daily reminder. The government had tried to break her but she managed to survive. She turned the horrors of solitary confinement into the joy of being alone, daydreaming for hours as her mind ran free beyond the cement walls and iron bars. It had taken them seven years of solitary confinement to prune her volatile runes in the Dynn and deem her fit for release back into society. Seven long years. Three things came to mind.

She had survived. She hated them all. And she really needed another drink.

He coughed and frowned over her neatly sketched diagrams and notes.

She could not stand the wait any longer. "Is my writing too small?"

He laid the paper down. "It's perfect. Brilliant. You solved the solar transfiguration with fewer steps than even I thought possible. This is a rune portfolio I can trade upon and win. Our computing machines would be spinning for answers all night and you did this in…how long did it take you?"

She struggled to contain the strong feeling of smug joy that filled her. She had never gotten used to compliments. "It was easy."

"Easy." A curse slipped out. " This is not easy, even for expert traders. And you're just a kid."

"I'm nineteen." She fiddled with her long, red braid. Hair as red as a setting sun, her mother used to say. Petunia Flowers had the same crimson locks. She would braid and hum and look out the window across the sunflower fields, waiting for Vala's father to drive home from the river. A time oh so long ago. She shoved the memory away.

He scratched his jaw. "Flowers, it's a real shame you can't work for the Exchange. No other trader I know can compute as fast as you can. You're worth more than ten of our machines. If only your record wasn't so..."

She warmed to the praise. "Don't worry about it. I understand."

He grimaced sympathetically. She was extremely lucky to be out of prison, she reminded herself. Even if her court-appointed guardian was a daily pain in the ass, her tainted record denied her access to most job applications, and she had to seek court approval for any medical procedure, travel, address change…or, perhaps one day, pregnancy …at least she slept in her own bed and walked the streets freely enough. And, she got to work with the runes, which was about the only thing that she was good at.

The janitorial job was a requirement upon her release from jail. She never knew the exact reasons that made her have to clean the Academy. Perhaps, it was the only work they had for people like her, ex-convicts with their personal future runes so reduced to limit future crimes, that it was a miracle she could face her future with any hope. Other times, she fell into a terrible darkness, overwhelmed by the life forever lost to her. That was usually when Janie made her soup and tucked her into bed.

She sighed. There was a bottle of wine under the sink waiting for her when they got home tonight. Her mind raced easier and sank deeper into sleep when alcohol greased its wheels.

He continued. "I know…I know. Well, that's why we have these chats, so your enormous natural talent can be used to help the Empire."

"Don't worry," she smiled, "I'll stick around after the Noventury."

Emperor Luiximor's nine hundred years of rule occurred this Friday and commemorating celebrations had been going on for some months now, not that all the citizens of the Empire cared overly much. Luiximor was a fixture. Generations came and went but the god-emperor continued to reign from his palace of gold and marble. Of course, any time a significant event occurred in this world, the runes in the Dynn reacted. But then, everyone knew about the Noventury and so any surprises had long since been adjusted for within the rune plants. She highly doubted that Luiximor had any threat to his runes, despite the auspicious day.

"Of course," she finished her thoughts aloud, "Something unexpected can always happen, like the death of a politician or an electrical outage at the Exchange."

He blinked, at loss for words and his hands stiffened on the table. "Why do you think the Noventury will have any impact upon the runes we trade that day?"

She wondered if he played stupid for her amusement. "ALL events have an impact upon the runes, even if traders have prepared in advance for what will happen. I just don't get why our emperor cares so much. All the other gods died forever ago so it's not like he has any true competition for his runes, even from Theves."

He gave her a long, hard look. "Don't discount Theves. That island nation has grown strong."

"But we've beaten them for years to get the best runes. How are they a threat?" That part was a guess, pulled from tidbits of conversations she had overheard at Sandy's and the Academy. But her instincts told her she was right.

He smiled. "What do I always say?"

"Past performance is no guarantee of future results." She gestured to a waiter. "Two whiskeys. No juice."

Her memories of the fire were going to return tonight and she must drink hard to forget…to sleep. The weekend would be spent in a blissful stupor, lying on her broken mattress, watching the stained walls buckle and weave as the poisons sweated from her system. No feelings and no memories. Only thoughts of the runes growing in the Dynn. She had no business considering herself to be anything more. But she did like the idea that her equations were useful to important people like Joe…and helped fill The Jar.

A clink on the table marked the arrival of her whiskeys from the passing waiter. She downed a shot.

"Any more trades for me to work on?"

Joe rose from the table and stuffed the paper into his coat pocket. "Meet me here Monday, same time." He plunked down a roll of equis. "For your work. Don't spend it all on alcohol."

"Sure." She didn't bother to keep the sarcasm from her voice.

He assessed her. "It's a beginner's mistake."

She stuffed the money into her coat as he headed to the door. He always paid the best of her patrons. She was going to party hard tonight with Janie and Corina. Not all payments needed to be saved.

It was in the middle of reaching for her second whiskey that she noticed someone watching her.

A stranger sat alone in the darkness of the far corner booth. His eyes glinted in the shadowed depths of a hood. She got the impression that he had been studying her for a while. Obviously, he was one of those foreigners she often saw around Ovgarod, but from where? Was he a Thevian temple monk? A sailor of the Floating Isles? She wracked her brains for countries where it was fashionable to wear hooded cloaks.

Maybe he was one of those robed Healmic warriors who still used swords and rode horses to battle despite the technology of their more advanced neighbors. Under the black robe, his shoulders were too broad and muscled to be of a religious order and he did not strike her as the sea-faring sort. He shifted and she spotted the twinkle of knives across his breastplate. Horse warrior for sure. She knew danger—and he was all of it.

She downed the second whiskey and looked for her friends.

Corina and Janie were in trouble.

Corina sat at the bar, slurping the dregs from a florescent cocktail, a tight, annoyed expression on her face. The trader yelled at her over the thumping music. He wore a designer suit and a diamond watch sparkled on his wrist, likely the origin of Corina's attention. Vala looked at Janie, who shrugged helplessly.

"—I said it's only a couple blocks away. Come on. You'll have fun." The man's voice was nasty too; phlegmy, arrogant, and familiar. A deep wall of rage rose within her, hot and burning. She was about to do something stupid but alcohol ran in her veins and she hated this particular trader, so she marched up to the bar.

Janie gave the man a polite smile. "Sorry, but we have to meet our friend."

"Oh, just like that? You think you can ignore me and simply walk away? I bought your fucking drinks." He laughed in disbelief, looking around as if to gather approval from the packed, noisy bar. He got some curious and even wary glances for his trouble.

"Yeah, I have to go. Thanks though." Corina stood up.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her back to the seat. "We're still talking."

She saw pain flint through Corina's eyes. Whatever calm Vala had kept vanished. "Hey! What's the problem?"

He assessed her with bleary eyes. She remembered that other traders called him Tits behind his back.

"Who in fuck's name are you?"

"Leave us or I'm calling the bouncer." She felt Janie's eyes boring into her neck but ignored her. Janie was too conscious of her flawless citizenry record. Vala had no such qualms. Besides, if they ran from him into the storm, he would not follow. Rain slammed against the windows and the wind howled over the music.

He laughed. "Do you know who I am?"

She spoke with all the hatred she could muster. "You're Titus Lingerton, a rune analyst at the Imperial Exchange. You got your job based upon family connections even though you were expelled from the Imperial Academy of Rune Management due to repeated brawling and…pissing all over the library because you hated the homework."

Guess who had cleaned up that mess? She grimaced at the memory.

Titus turned red and his jaw opened and closed a few times. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

Vala stepped closer, her eyes locking into his with focused determination. "I also know your upcoming promotion depends upon the success of a rune equation you stole from your colleague two weeks ago."

"You're a liar. Who are you?" He spluttered.

"How can I prove it? I'll tell you how." She leaned forward, her voice a whisper, body shaking in rage. "I wrote the equation for him. Using the pulls upon the four moons' gravity to accelerate growth of wheat runes in the Dynn and enhance the crop output of the Far Regions? That's all my work. He told me you stole it before he resigned from fear of your friends at Court. You're a liar and a cheat. The kind of guy I would never want to see talking to my friends. Now you either leave us or I'll tell the Exchange what you did. They'll fire you and you'll have to run home to daddy and explain why his precious adult son still can't figure out how to be a decent human despite having all the opportunity in the world."

Corina clapped and laughed. "Yeah, you just got owned. Ow. "

Janie pinched her as a warning not to provoke him further.

Titus stood, swaying over her in red-faced rage. She swallowed hard. This guy was massive. Maybe she had been a tad aggressive, but she regretted nothing.

He blinked then, oafishly. "You wrote it? But you're just a…a mud slummer."

An ugly name but then Tits was an unpleasant sort of guy. She put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, well, the world is full of surprises."

He was going to hit her. She knew it then as surely as the flash of anger that heated his eyes. She gritted her lips, ready to go down clawing for his eyes. But he stepped back and looked over her shoulder, his face contorting with confusion and…fear.

Behind her, someone spoke and froze all further thoughts from her mind.

"Darling, is this man bothering you?" It was a male voice; taut, smooth, and extremely bland.

A sideways glance showed a dark form looming just beyond the periphery of her vision. A gasp caught in her throat. The speaker was the masked foreigner. Why was he intervening in her fight? She turned on him, eyes flashing at his interference. As if discerning she was about to protest his involvement, he stepped forward, placing his body between her and Titus. She did not appreciate the gesture.

Neither did Titus. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I hope you won't take my advice as it will be far more interesting if you don't." His voice could have been narrating the state of weather. "But I'll give it anyway so that my conscience will know my warning was bestowed and went unheeded. Touch her and you will die."

"You dare threaten me? Do you know who I am?"

"Yes." The stranger made a small gesture but Vala knew that he had shifted so that the cloak fell apart, exposing the formidable array of knives across his honed chest.

She felt a rush of envy at the power move. Goddamn it. How she wished that her presence could instill such fear. Maybe she should tell Corina to pilfer some knives for her scrawny frame. But her friends only watched the spectacle with tight mouths and quick eyes. They were street kids, used to seeing hot words lead to the loser bleeding out their life upon the pavement. She suppressed a hiccup and decided that her money was on Knives Guy.

Titus stepped back, a snarl twisting his face as he turned to her. "You dare accuse me of theft? Do you even know how many runes my family owns? One day, I'm going to personally advise the emperor. I'll live nine times as long as you and with tons of money and fame." His face turned gloating. "If I want to take an equation, I do it. My family has plenty of ways to make people stop talking."

The stranger took a step towards him, his dark form a menacing shadow under the dim light. "I changed my mind. Speak to her again and you die."

Titus's face drained of color and he stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his feet in haste to distance himself. She wasn't letting him get away so easily.

She shoved past the tall stranger and glared up at Titus. "No one cares what you think. Just remember the truth. You will always owe your future to a mud slummer."

She could see that Tits so desperately wanted to retort but a look in the stranger's masked face stopped the words on his lips.

He snarled and shoved his way into the packed crowd, busting open the door with latent aggression, headed to the Dynn alcoves. She smugly watched as he clumsily performed the opening code. He really had been as bad a student as the school gossip had suggested.

"Vala, what the Helel did you just do?" Corina bustled behind them. People who had watched the disturbance turned back to their drinks, the excitement gone. "That guy is a favorite of?—"

"I don't care. He threatened you," Vala retorted.

Before she could think further, the masked stranger grabbed her arm. She twisted around, eyes flashing. "Take your hand off me."

She squeaked as the stranger hauled her to her tiptoes.

"Not before we talk." The smooth voice lowered in what she perceived was deep annoyance. "Are you entirely out of your mind?"

"I said, let me go! Ow!" She had kicked his shins but her foot hurt from whatever metal encased them.

In response, he half dragged, half hoisted her through the crowds, his gloved hands holding her in an iron vice. Her friends hurried after. People parted before them like a tidal wave.

"Should we rescue her?" Corina asked Janie behind her.

"I dunno. Do you want to face him down?"

"Depends on the context."

Vala ignored them and wondered how she could escape. He was huge, armored, and far stronger than her. She would make sure his assets were his weakness. She tripped as he directed her past a table.

"Careful there," she said, "You need to guide me better. Do you want to draw more attention to us than you already have?"

He said nothing but she could tell by his jaw that he was unamused. She considered screaming but people had looked away when Titus confronted her and did not seem to care at all now that a strange, masked man had her in his grip. If she made a fuss, the bar may well boot her from the premises and then where would all her rune trade jobs go? She had to solve this issue on her own. Maybe he could be embarrassed , she thought.

"Hey you," she twisted her head to look up at him, "At least permit me to walk beside you. People think you're some foreign jerk manhandling your paid woman."

His lips twisted in a grimace she could not determine. "And risk you fleeing? No."

Janie and Corina kept up, trailing them through the tables. They both looked worried.

"Ugh. Get your hands off me." She squirmed and kicked again but his strength was impressive. She might have been a cloth rag for all it bothered him.

They stopped before the back door.

The stranger turned and surveyed her friends. "I intend to speak with her alone. Be assured she will be safe."

"If you talk to her, you talk to us all." Janie planted hands on her hips.

"Quite impossible," he purred.

Vala got the impression he had something of importance to say that went beyond any discussion over what had occurred between her and Titus. Her curiosity grew and her fear diminished.

She straightened, glad her feet were planted firmly on the ground. "It's fine. Just stay here."

Her friends knew about her work with the runes but she did not like discussing it with them. A part of her remained forever secretive, locked away internally and with no rational sense beyond seeking to protect the most precious thing she owned. Knowledge. And there was no guessing anymore what the stranger would tell her or what she needed to glean from him. Her damnable curiosity had made her commit murder. It would likely kill her too one day. But, not tonight.

"Glad to know everything is settled then." He wrested the door open and hauled her in behind him.

The door slammed shut upon the bar and her friends. They were in a dirty hallway, badly lit by flickering overheads. And, they were alone.