11. Aiden

Chapter 11

Aiden

Carrying bodies never got easier.

The heaviness that sagged in my arms, the dullness that ached from no spark of life, no tautness of muscle. Like a sack of grain. That was what our bodies were reduced to.

I shifted the woman’s weight as I walked, Kiera a vigilant shadow at my side. I’d nearly reprimanded her when she’d kicked that bottle earlier. Clumsiness got one killed.

But now she glared into every dark corner we passed, as if every shadow held an assassin. Her hands never strayed from my knives in her belt. I’d noticed how she seemed to reach for unseen weapons out of habit. What weapons did her fingers miss?

This was the first time I’d seen her the way she must’ve been before we met. A guard. Someone trained to notice everything, to be prepared for anything. A tightly pulled bow string ready to spring into action.

But I could also see the fear and the horror of what had happened pulling her shoulders tight, her spine straight. The wildness in her eyes when the woman died. It pierced a part of me that had long since grown numb.

Maybe that was why I’d handed her my knives. Because, for the moment, I finally, fully believed every word she said. But these moments would run dry, like a deserted well. Trust rarely lasted. As anything did.

I glanced down at the pale woman in my arms.

Too many bodies . . .

We didn’t speak a word until we reached Floren’s dwelling. Kiera read the carved sign above the door.

“A pyrist? Won’t he ask questions?”

“His business is burning the dead, not how they got there.”

Kiera’s lips pressed in a grim line, but she knocked on the door.

Within moments, Floren opened it, his bald head shiny with sweat. He glanced at the body in my arms and sighed. “I was about to catch a wink, but I suppose I can do one more.”

“Busy night?” Kiera gritted out.

Floren barely spared her a glance, ushering me inside. “Not terribly. But I do think I’m coming down with a malaise.”

I gently laid the woman on the table he gestured to. “Shall I ask Sophie for a tea, Floren?”

He sniffed. “That would be lovely, thank you. Now put those young muscles of yours to use and stoke the fire.”

I obliged, skirting around Kiera who was eyeing Floren the way a falcon would a mouse. The “pyre” wasn’t much more than a stone furnace, built to hold several bodies at once. He had baskets of wood and skins of oil to feed the fire and a large barrel to sweep the ashes into.

For the luckier folks who had families around to care, they would take their loved one’s ashes and release them to the sea, the air, or the earth with prayers that the gods would find their souls.

Everything given must be returned. Everything lost must be found.

The reason I came to Floren was because he had a kind heart, never turned a body away, and, when his barrel of ashes was full, he would bring it to the sea. The lonely and the forgotten drifted home on his small mercy.

I tossed wood into the slumbering fire and sprinkled oil to speed the flames.

“She’s ready,” Floren announced.

He had washed the blood from her skin and coated it and her hair with flower-scented oil. He was the only pyrist I knew who did that. When I’d asked him about it, he’d simply said, “It smells sweeter than death.”

“This feels wrong,” Kiera whispered as we stood around the woman’s prepared body.

My fingers twitched, as if to reach for hers, but I curled them into a fist instead. “It’s the best we can do.”

Kiera didn’t take her eyes off the woman. “What’s her name? What if she had more family? What if?—”

“She said her brother was all she had. And we can’t drag her body around, asking for details. Her brother, if he’s still alive, would thank us for this.”

“Thank us, yes.” She laughed bitterly. She hesitantly grasped the woman’s hand and squeezed once. “I suppose if she were my sister, I’d want the same. If all I could hope for was a fast fire and the prayers of strangers, then it’s better than nothing.” She backed away from the table. “Do it.”

Floren startled, as if he’d fallen asleep standing up. Which he probably had as I’d seen him do it before. A pyrist kept odd hours and slept where they could. Not unlike me.

He bustled to the furnace, opening it to test the heat that poured from its maw. Nodding, he gestured for me to bring the woman to him.

Carefully, we slid her body into the furnace and closed the heavy metal door.

“May the gods find your soul,” Floren murmured, then left to clean his workspace.

“May the gods find your soul,” I echoed.

Kiera’s shoulder brushed mine as she stood vigil beside me. “May the gods find your soul. And your brother’s. May you join your family across the Abyss.”

The ache in her voice called to the ache in my chest.

Memories blinded me. Pyres stacked high with bodies. The night ablaze with my failure. The few living crying out for the many dead.

With a shudder, I yanked my mind back to the present. Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades.

“Do you think what she said was true?” Kiera glanced up at me, her honey-brown eyes beseeching mine. “That her brother—Jerell—had done nothing wrong?”

“I believe it.”

“Then why would the Shadow-Wolves take him?”

I threw a stray wood shaving into the carnivorous flames. “They don’t need a reason. They just do what they’re told.”

She bowed her head, but not before I saw her grimace. “If we hadn’t been there... if we hadn’t witnessed it... what would’ve happened to her body?”

“Birds, beasts, or street sweepers. But a street sweeper would’ve just tossed her body into whatever fire burnt the rest of the trash.”

Kiera’s shoulders jerked. But I didn’t bother to comfort her. Why spin lukewarm falsehoods when I wanted her to be afraid. I wanted her to understand why I didn’t want her here.

Her arms wrapped around her middle as if protecting herself. “Would no one else have done what we did?”

“Did you see a door or window crack open? Others must have heard her. Yet they will do nothing when the Wolves have done such a marvelous job of keeping them silent and afraid.” A circumstance I could hardly blame the people for. I could only fight for a better life for them.

“You’re not afraid,” Kiera said. “You stopped. You brought her here.”

“I have enough blood on my hands without adding hers. Or yours.”

“My blood is not your burden to carry.”

Our eyes met and held. Something churned in the space between us, like waves crashing against a stone wall neither of us wanted to tear down.

“It’s not always a choice,” I said softly. “And I’ll have my knives back now.”

Her chin notched higher in a way that made me want to seize it. Again. Her jaw feathered as she searched my face. For a moment, she looked as though she might refuse.

But then she slipped them from her belt, flipped them over, and passed them to me hilt-first.

“I’ll be needing my own in this gods-damned city,” she said.

“Noted.”

I slipped Floren a few coins and promised to bring him a tea soon. The short journey to my rooms was uneventful, if tense. I abandoned the idea of taking too many false turns in favor of speed. Kiera didn’t let on if she suspected where exactly we were. Sooner or later, she would. I just preferred it to be later. Not that I hid much in the few rooms I rented out of a large building that looked the same as a thousand others.

I did a quick check to make sure we weren’t followed. We trod up the smooth stairs carved into the side of the building to reach my rooms near the roof. The height was a necessity.

The moment I pushed open the door, it was yanked from my grasp, and I was dragged inside.

A lone lamp illuminated Maz’s bearded face twisted in a snarl. “Where. Have. You. Been?” He noted the blood on my shirt and hands. “Fucking Four, Aiden, what happened?”

“It’s not my—” I started.

“Is Kiera?—”

“I’m here, Maz,” Kiera said wearily behind me.

He pulled her into one of his bone-crushing hugs, surprising me. It surprised her too, from the wide-eyed look she sent me over his shoulder.

I shrugged at her. It was Maz’s way.

He released her, and she patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. “Have you been drinking?” she asked, sniffing the air.

“Not enough,” he grumbled, stalking back to a small wooden table that we used for eating or cleaning weapons. An empty mug sat next to a partially drained brown bottle. “I’m guessing we all might need a cup for the story you’re about to tell?”

“I doubt whatever you’ve got will help,” Kiera said, glancing around the room, taking in our two cots, a few shelves of food, and a battered wardrobe. A thin door closed off the next room, which looked almost the same.

“Mead can fix almost anything,” Maz said. “As does a good song or story.”

“This is not a good story,” I said, tossing my cloak onto my cot and pouring a cup of amber liquid that reminded me of Kiera’s eyes. I drank deeply, then settled into a chair next to Maz.

“Hence the mead.” He poured Kiera a cup as well and gestured her to the chair across from me.

She sank onto it with a sigh and gulped her drink.

I recounted what happened while Kiera stared into her cup. When I reached the part where we hid, she interrupted me.

“How did you know there were more coming?”

“Do you remember the howl behind us?” She nodded. “That’s their signal to any nearby patrolling Wolves to join them.”

“Lovely,” she muttered. “They certainly like to play into their nickname.”

Maz tipped his chair back on two legs. “It’s also what makes them hard to evade. Their signals are difficult to imitate, and they never patrol alone but in random packs.”

“That’s how I got caught in the Den,” I said. “Renwell must arrange their numbers in a specific way, or I wouldn’t have revealed myself by trying to join an already assigned group leaving the gate.”

Kiera’s eyes narrowed, and I frowned. The mead must’ve loosened my tongue more than expected. I set my cup aside.

“How did you get the uniform, the mask?” she asked.

“How do you imagine?”

Her eyes widened at my harsh tone, and she looked away, chewing her lip.

We’d stalked Shadow-Wolves for the past two years, trying to learn their ways. Early on, a patrolling pair had snuck up on us, and we barely survived the fight. One of their uniforms was damaged beyond repair, but we’d taken the other one, as well as their masks and knives. We purposely hadn’t used them until it felt like we had no other choice.

“What happened then?” Maz asked, drawing my attention back.

I finished the story in a crisp tone. I left out Kiera’s reactions and our conversation, stating only the facts.

Maz bowed his head. “May the gods find their souls.”

I nodded, weariness seeping into my bones. “We should get some sleep. Kiera, you can take one of the cots in the next room. Sometimes we have others who sleep in there, but it’s empty now.”

Kiera blinked at me as if her mind had been far, far away. “Thank you, but what of food?”

“You’re welcome to anything we have,” I said, waving a hand to our shelves. “Otherwise, Sophie usually has something cooking down in the courtyard.”

Her gaze fell. “I don’t have any coin to pay for that. Or my bed.”

Maz clapped his hand to her shoulder, his mood bright once more. “Don’t you worry, lovely. You’re with us now. We take care of our own.”

But she didn’t look at him. Only me. “I want to earn my way. Like Ruru. He said he works for you.”

“Because he can,” I said. Kiera stiffened, but I continued, “I thought you didn’t want to work for me, anyway?”

“Aren’t I already?” she shot back. “You made it very clear who’s commanding our venture.”

Gods, this woman. Did everything have to be a fight? “Then what need have you to get more coin?” I growled. “If everything goes right, you should be rolling in it soon enough.”

“Because I don’t want to owe you anything. You have enough power over me as it is.”

I rose to my feet, bracing my fingertips on the table. “And what is it you think you can do for me? I have no need for a personal guard, and I’m already using you for your skills as a thief.”

She stood and matched my posture. Her eyes burned with determination, sending a crackle of heat through my blood. “I can do what Ruru does—run errands, carry messages, and the like.”

“And you think it’s that easy, do you? That you can just ask for a job. That I’ll just let you into my business. Ruru works for me because I trust Ruru. I don’t trust you.”

“Then what’s the alternative?” she snapped. “You said I would never be left alone. Are you going to assign a guard to sit with me day and night when not accompanying me to Melaena’s club? That’s a waste of two able bodies.”

I snapped my mouth shut, hating her logic. But I couldn’t just accept it. She was unforeseen. A scribble in my carefully inked plans.

She wouldn’t be stupid enough to turn us in since she’d be condemning herself in the same breath. Melaena had confirmed everything Kiera had told us about the vault.

Yet, I still found myself looking for the lie.

And she clearly didn’t trust me, either. But I needed her just as much as she needed me. Perhaps we simply had to meet in the middle for this to work.

“I’ll think on it,” I said gruffly, straightening away from her.

Maz grinned at both of us. I’d nearly forgotten he was there. Kiera seemed to have a disturbing effect on me where my surroundings narrowed to only her.

“Best get some sleep, lovely,” Maz said. “I’ll show you to your room.”

Kiera obliged. My shoulders relaxed the moment her gaze broke away from mine.

Restlessness burned in my veins. Unable to think of sleep yet, I simply stared out of our one small window. We were high enough that I wasn’t worried about intruders. And I needed it. For the fresh air—even in a storm—and the light. To remind me of my freedom.

The city looked still and peaceful from here. Silvery buildings as silent as the starry sky above. Was this like what Kiera had seen from her palace windows?

But I knew—and she did now, as well—that the silence wasn’t peaceful. It was a held breath while waiting for another blow to land.

Very soon, I would tear that silence to shreds. I would seize the revenge that had eluded me for years. I would give the people of Rellmira a better life.

Kiera was right. I couldn’t afford to guard her every move.

I needed to visit the Temple at dawn. I had weapons to create.