17. Keelan

Chapter 17

Keelan

T he lever had protested, but the shelf’s hinges barely made a sound as the case swung wide.

I stood at the opening. Stairs stretched into the darkness below, ending somewhere beyond the light of my lantern. Rough stone walls lined the stairway, as though some ancient mason had laid massive slabs of unpolished granite to form the passage.

A flutter of nerves batted away at my chest.

“Who puts a basement in a riverside building?” I muttered, holding the lantern out to illuminate further down the stairs.

A whisper of a voice trickled up toward me. It sounded weak, but there was no doubt someone had spoken. Despite all my training to call for backup before entering an unknown, potentially dangerous situation, I began to descend.

The voice grew almost to form words.

It held a note of desperation.

I held the lantern out and took two stairs at once.

When I counted fourteen steps, the descent ended. A thick, aged wooden door loomed before me, a wooden bar lowered in metal brackets to keep whoever might try to enter the shop out.

“Why would they need this door locked? Where would someone come from? The bottom of the river?”

The tapping I’d heard from above nearly startled the lantern out of my hands.

The voice called out—no, it cried out.

“Who’s there?” I called.

The tapping turned into full-fledged banging, sounding as though someone—or several someones—were slamming fists and palms against the wood. I could see the bar rattling in its cradle.

“In here,” a male voice croaked. “We’re down here. Help us!”

I hefted the bar and tossed it aside, then gripped the door’s handle. A spike of terror stabbed into my chest as I pulled the door open, unsure if I was coming to someone’s rescue or falling into a sinister trap. With one hand on the door and the other holding the lantern, I couldn’t reach for my sword. I felt naked and exposed.

“Please, help us!” The voice gained strength now that the barrier between us had been removed.

I took a step past the door, holding the light before me, entering a room only slightly larger than Albrecht’s office above. A padded leather chair and small side table filled one side. On the opposite wall, three naked and filthy bodies hung limp from rusted shackles bolted into the stone. A man, the only one who appeared conscious, lifted his head and tried to shield his eyes, though his bonds kept his hand too far away to do much good.

In the center of his chest, the man bore an angry brand.

It was the same symbol I’d seen on Albrecht’s palm.

Glancing past the man, I saw the others bore the same mark, the same painful, bloody lines.

I set the lantern on the table and hurried across the room. Hope filled the man’s eyes, though he shied away when I neared.

“You’re all right. I’m Guardsman Keelan Rea. You’re safe now.” I waited a moment, then asked, “What’s your name?”

“Kieran,” he said. “Kieran Colven.”

One of Merik’s three names.

“I’m here, Kieran. You’re all right. I promise.”

“Thank the Spirits,” the man said, losing his battle of wills with his chains and slumping over. His skin was drawn tight across bones I could almost see. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollow and dark. The two women chained beside him looked in even worse condition. Neither of them moved.

“Water, please. So thirsty,” Kieran groaned.

How long had these people been down here? Had anyone known they were here? Had they been fed or given water in that time? Questions swirled, stirring curiosity and disgust in equal measure. Who would treat another so? Why?

“Let me get those things off you,” I said, reaching toward the shackles. Kieran flinched but didn’t pull away.

The shackles were locked. I tried the keys we used on Guard shackles.

They wouldn’t turn.

Kieran strained to hold his head upright, to watch for what I would do next.

“I need to get help,” I said, but before I could continue, Kieran strained against his chains with all the strength that remained in his withered body.

“Don’t leave us down here. Please. He’ll come back. Please don’t leave us—”

“Who? Who will come back?”

“Albrecht.”

“The accountant?” My whole face screwed up at the notion of the mousy accountant instilling such fear in this man. Logically, I knew we were in the basement of Albrecht’s shop. Of course he would be a lead suspect in whatever happened below. Still, the idea of that man doling out such terror stunned me.

Kieran nodded. He looked panicked. He tried to grasp my wrist but couldn’t reach that far. “That man is a monster. He . . . did things to us. Terrible things.” Tears streaked down the man’s grimy face. His body began to shake.

As gently as I could, I placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and held his gaze.

“Was anyone helping him? Did Albrecht bring anyone else down here?”

Kieran shook his head.

“Good. That’s good. Albrecht is dead. You’re safe now. I promise.” I ran a hand over my head, trying to think of what to do next.

The two women chained beside Kieran still hadn’t stirred. I was sure I’d heard more than one person tapping when I stood in the storeroom, but perhaps that had been Kieran pounding with both hands. I scooted past Kieran and reached a tentative hand toward the first woman.

“That’s Alana,” Kieran said as I checked her neck.

“Thank the Spirits, she’s alive,” I breathed out more than spoke.

“She’s Delaney,” Kieran said, motioning his head toward the other woman. I moved to her and checked her pulse, finding it weak but steady.

I turned back toward Kieran without standing, meeting his gaze at his level. “Kieran, I can’t get those cuffs off you without help. You need water and clothing, and . . . these women need a Healer. You all do.”

Kieran’s eyes fell to the floor, but he nodded.

“I will come back. You have my word. There will be a Guardsman outside the door to keep everyone away. No one will hurt you again. I won’t let them.”

My voice carried far more ferocity than I’d intended. I sounded like a mother bear protecting her cubs, all growls and teeth and claws. Kieran’s tear-streaked face lifted so he could look into my eyes again. For the first time since I’d descended the stairs, hope flickered to life in his gaze.

It’s remarkable, the difference an hour can make. The tiny accountancy that stood so dusty and still barely a turn of the hourglass ago was now filled with men in blue cloaks and navy robes, as Merik’s team and a pair of Mages sent from the guild went about their work. Kieran begged for me to remain with him and the others, so, despite having little to do but watch, I sat by his side and offered what comfort I could.

One of the Mages was a skilled Healer, and his work came first. He draped blankets around shoulders, covering shivering and naked bodies. He handed Kieran a flagon filled with cool water, and the man drank greedily.

“Easy with that,” I said, placing a hand on the flagon to slow its flow. “Your stomach will rebel if you go too fast.”

Merik kept his men upstairs until the victims were stabilized, so I was the only man in a Guard cloak present throughout their treatment. As the Mage offered soothing words to the women, brilliant Light flared from his palms, banishing shadows throughout the basement.

Alana woke, her eyes darting from the Healer to Kieran, then toward me. Fear morphed into relief, then pain, then curiosity. In the span of two breaths, I watched more emotions pass than I knew were possible in one who’d just been asleep.

Delaney did not wake at first. The Mage’s Light flared and pulsed, flowing into the woman, seeping through her pores and making her whole being glow.

Yet she remained still, unmoving, her breathing halting and shallow.

The Mage began to sweat and strain, his Light dimming. His jaw set, and his eyes hardened. His Light grew so bright thereafter that the rest of us had to look away.

“Come back to me,” the Healer mumbled. “Just take that first step.”

Delaney moaned, and her body flinched, but her eyes remained closed.

The Healer, his hands hovering above her forehead, leaned down and gripped her head like he might lift it off her shoulders. A raging river of Light rushed into her, and her chest arched into the air as though lifted by unseen hands. Her toes twitched, and her feet straightened. Her legs went rigid, as did her spine.

Then her eyes popped open, and she sucked in the deepest breath I’d ever heard.

The Mage’s Light vanished in a wink, and the exhausted man fell over, unconscious, on his side.

“Where . . . what is this place?” Delaney’s eyes darted about the now-dim room, landing on me before scanning the length of my cloak and the sword on my hip. Finally, she realized her nakedness and pulled the blanket tight about her shoulders.

“You’re okay now. You were kidnapped, but everything is all right now. I promise.” I tried offering a smile but was sure my mouth barely formed a tight line. Knowing what to say or how to react had never been my strongest suit. This was an impossible situation, and I felt even more at a loss for words than normal.

Add to that, my own emotions, normally so well contained, were a maelstrom that threatened to gush out at any moment: horror at what Albrecht had done, pain and grief for what these poor people had suffered, relief—and a small measure of pride—that I’d made it here in time to save them, anger at our own incompetence to allow such a crime in our city, bewilderment at whatever motive Albrecht had for doing something so unthinkable—every emotion, every range of feeling, poked and prodded at my insides.

Movement from Kieran made me look up. He was rubbing the brand burned across his chest as though it itched.

“Mind if I take a look at that?” I asked.

Kieran closed his eyes, then nodded, lowering his hand and sitting back so I could get a better view. I flipped to my crude drawing of the imprint from Albrecht’s palm and held it into the light as I scanned the burns on Kieran’s skin. They were identical, save one line. A vertical line on my drawing was horizontal on Kieran’s chest.

I turned toward Alana. “Ma’am, I’m sorry to ask, but—”

She threw her blanket back, baring her breasts and another angry mark. In any other situation, I might’ve been shocked by her nakedness, her brazen exposure of flesh. Somehow, her defiance fit the scene.

I examined her brand, finding it matched the one on Kieran’s chest. The same was true of the mark on Delaney, though I had to prod her a bit before she agreed to show me her skin.

“Did Albrecht ever tell you what this means? Did he say anything about the mark?”

Kieran shook his head. “He wouldn’t talk to us. He wouldn’t use our names or call us anything but ‘it,’ like we weren’t even people to him.”

My gut ached at what these people had been through.

“I’m so sorry, for all of you,” was all I could think to say. “We have another Mage upstairs who specializes in studying Enchantments. He may be able to tell us more.”

I started to stand, to retrieve the other Mage, but a sudden gasp from Delaney froze me in place.

“I can’t . . . my Gift. It’s . . . it’s gone!” The woman screamed, a wail of such pain it pierced my soul. She doubled over and began to cry, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Alana threw her arms around the woman and pulled her close as Kieran and I watched, stunned.

“Kieran?”

He closed his eyes, then shook his head. When he spoke, his voice held the same gut-wrenching loss I heard in Delaney’s keening. “My Gift is gone, too. I can’t touch my Light. I can’t even see it.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. This thing just kept getting worse. For the briefest moment, I wished I had my simple missing ledger case back. The thought almost made me laugh—in the middle of that , I almost laughed.

I had to get out of that basement.

“I’ll go get the Mage,” I said, standing and fleeing up the stairs before anyone could object.