6. Aiden

Chapter 6

Aiden

I could still feel the cold grasp of the shackles around my wrists.

It was a feeling that had haunted me for years. I hadn’t been lying to Kiera when I told her that the shackles were worse than the beating.

Strangely, I’d lied to her very little. I couldn’t say the same for her. The corner of my mouth twitched. Little thief.

I kept her shadowy figure in the corner of my eye as I gazed down the tunnel of cells. “Hand me the keys,” I told Maz.

He frowned. “Aiden... we can’t. It would take time we don’t have to hunt down the right key for each cell.” He jangled the ring of dozens of keys for emphasis.

Kiera added softly, “And they could be dangerous, Aiden.”

The back of my neck prickled. That was the first time she’d said my name. Another thing I probably should’ve lied about.

A low groan came from one of the cells as a thorny tendril of desperation snaked through my chest. Regardless of Maz and Kiera’s worries, if anyone was being held captive in these particular cells, they were most likely criminals in Weylin’s eyes alone. Otherwise, they would be held at the city prison.

A wet grunt jerked my attention to see the jailer in a dirty heap at the other end of the tunnel. He was stirring. My upper lip curled. Surprising that the lout was still alive after failing the way he did. The Wolves weren’t known for being forgiving.

I thrust my hand out to Maz. “Keys.”

Sighing, he dropped them into my palm then shoved his hand through his hair—a habit he’d picked up ever since he’d shorn his long hair. “I knocked on half the doors and they all had at least one person inside.”

That somewhat soothed my suspicion about why Kiera had been dragged into my cell. But that meant many more fates staked to my conscience.

The jailer grunted again. I snarled in frustration. If only Maz had gotten here sooner... but it wasn’t his fault.

I strode to the jailer. He was struggling to sit up, bracing one hand on the door of the room where Renwell had questioned me for hours. His broken nose still leaked blood. A swollen lump on his temple marked where Maz must’ve hit him. His blackened eyes widened when he spotted me.

I smirked and rammed my chain-covered fist into his other temple. He collapsed without a sound. But distant voices echoed down the tunnel on the other side of the gate.

Gods damn these Wolves and their relentless master.

I whipped around and nearly tripped over Kiera. She moved like a whisper. I hated that now both she and Maz had slipped past my notice.

“Please, Aiden, we have to go. If they catch us, death will be the least of what they’ll do to us.” The fear in her honeyed brown eyes cut through my anger like a cold knife.

Cursing Renwell and his minions to the depths of the wandering hell, I threw the key ring through the barred window of the closest cell door.

After a moment’s hesitation, Kiera also flung in the little key she’d stolen twice. A spark of warmth lit my chest, but I smothered it.

We raced down the passage and followed Maz around the bend. The roar of the waterfall on the other side of the rock wall drowned out our footsteps.

“How many guards?” I asked Maz as we fumbled through the dark tunnel. Sparks of light danced at the far end, marking our destination.

“Just two, thank the gods. I only had two dreamdew darts, which was why I had the pleasure of bashing that jailer’s skull.” A smile lifted his voice. “Although it looked like one of you got to share that delight.”

Kiera made a noise next to me, and I tensed.

When she’d arrived at my cell in a storm of violence, her bruised and bloodied face had ignited my rage like a spear of lightning. As had her torn clothes and desperate pleas. I’d acted on instinct, wanting to inflict every bit of pain he’d caused her on the jailer.

Neither of us answered Maz, and for once, he left it alone.

The tunnel spat us out into a small sea cave that Renwell had turned into a secret harbor. A handful of dinghies were tied to the short wooden dock that jutted out over the dark water. The soft creak of the boats and splash of the water echoed in the narrow cavern.

Two bodies swathed in black lay in a tangled mass at the mouth of the tunnel. Kiera pulled up short when she saw them.

Maz chuckled, patting the whistler strapped to his hip. “They can’t bite when they’re asleep.”

“Why not kill them?” she asked.

Maz’s eyebrows shot upward. “A wee bit bloodthirsty, are you? I like that in a woman. But no, we don’t need to attract any more attention than we are.” He gave me a significant glance.

My jaw clenched. Attention was unavoidable. But we’d evaded Renwell and his Wolves for years. We only needed to stay ahead of them for a little while longer.

“Loose the rope,” I commanded, leaping into the dinghy closest to the cave entrance—a shadowy crack in the rock face.

Maz obeyed while I threaded the oars through their locks. A large, thick ring was bolted to the bottom of the boat, marking it for what the boat was usually used for—prisoner transport. I peeled off my chains and dropped them next to the ring.

Kiera watched us, a frown creasing her brow. “How did you know about this cave?” She turned to Maz, eyeing his wet clothing. “Did you swim in here?”

Gods, the incessant questions. Though perhaps she’d been sheltered in her life as a palace guard.

Maz puffed out his chest. “I’ve swum greater distances than that. And through some water that was a lot bloody colder?—”

“Maz,” I warned.

Kiera’s gaze darted toward me. She could glare all she wanted, but she didn’t need any more details of who we were. The barb about Twaryn still needled me.

“More secrets?”

I clambered out of the dinghy to stand in front of her. “Always. But none that concerns our current escape. Now, get in.” I held out my hand to help her.

Her eyes narrowed as if I’d offered her a snake. Brushing past me, she jumped into the boat. She wobbled a bit then sat down hard on one of the benches. I smirked.

But the expression faded when I caught Maz watching me with a curious glint in his eyes. I jerked my head. “I’ll shove off.”

He leapt into the boat, considerably more graceful than Kiera, despite his bulk. I waited until he was seated in the middle with oars in hand before I gripped the bow and gave it a gentle push.

Kiera’s eyes widened at something behind me. “Aiden!” Her shout clattered around the cave like a bell.

I whirled around just as a gloved fist swung at my face. I leaned back, but the fist still glanced off my cheek and sent me spinning. The world went hazy. I blinked furiously, trying to clear it.

Maz was cursing, but I roared, “Get out of here!”

The Wolf wrapped an arm around my neck and squeezed while his other hand brought a long sunstone knife plunging to my chest.

I seized his wrist. The blade tip scraped along my skin. My worn muscles screamed. If only I’d kept the damn chains.

I was weakened. But so was he.

I gave his wrist a vicious twist, even as black specks darted over my vision. He grunted and loosened his chokehold on my neck, but didn’t drop the knife. I swung his knife arm down, burying the blade in his thigh.

He screamed and released me. I kicked backward, my heel jabbing his abdomen. His body thudded to the dock.

More shouts echoed. I glanced up, my breath searing my lungs. The other Shadow-Wolf had also woken and was swimming to where Maz and Kiera floated away from the dock. Maz brandished his small axe, the boat rocking with his movement. Kiera stood shakily behind him, her chains gripped in her hands and her jaw set.

My bare feet slipped through a pool of blood to seize the sunstone knife from the Wolf’s drained body. At least my aim had been true. Then I leapt into the dark water. I slipped the blade’s handle between my teeth and paddled hard. The Wolf had caught up to the boat and was trying to climb in.

Maz swung for the Wolf’s neck, but the Wolf blocked the axe with his sunstone blade. A screech of shattered steel and Maz’s axe fell in pieces to the water. Maz bellowed and tackled the Wolf off the boat. They both splashed into the water. I spat my knife into my hand.

“Fucking Four, Maz, break!” I shouted, trying to separate the thrashing bodies.

Maz reared back, narrowly avoiding a swipe from the Wolf’s knife. I lunged. My blade sank into the Wolf’s shoulder. He grunted and elbowed me in the jaw, but his reactions were slow in the water wearing so much clothing.

Maz ducked another swipe and wrenched the knife from the Wolf’s hand, then drove it deep into his gut.

The Wolf stiffened, gasping and choking on moldy water. Even in the throes of death, he didn’t speak a word. He was trained not to. All of them were.

My heart felt like a stone in my chest as the body slipped into the shadowy depths. Maz and I clenched our ill-gotten knives, a grim look passing between us. Renwell would be out for blood.

“That was my gods-damned favorite axe,” Maz grumbled as we swam back to Kiera and the boat.

She was still standing, the chains in her hands trembling. Had she never seen death before? Ah, the boy she told me about. Julian. If what she told me were true, he had died differently than this, but death stained the mind in a way that could never be scrubbed out. The more violent the death, the darker the stain.

I had a few that rivaled the Longest Night.

Kiera stared at me as if she could see the blackened fabric of my mind. The renewed fear in her eyes churned my gut, and I looked away.

Wordlessly, we settled into the boat. Maz picked up the oars again and rowed hard for the cave mouth. The passage to the sea was so narrow, the oars scraped against the rock in some places. A few times, I braced my hands on the slimy, moss-covered walls and pushed us along. The water grew choppier, the drumbeat of the sea building.

Then we were free.

The moon had disappeared behind the cliffs, a sure sign that dawn was coming. But the sun had yet to peek through the dark, angry clouds piled on the eastern horizon. A little boat with a boy holding a lantern bobbed not far away on the raucous sea. A smile tugged at my lips. Ruru.

As Maz rowed us closer, I pulled in a deep breath fragrant with salt and rain, sending a silent prayer of thanks to the Four. I could never truly breathe in close quarters. It’d taken years to smooth the jagged edges of panic that sank into me whenever I was enclosed.

I glanced back at the cave. It was almost impossible to see, especially in the dark, as one of the many shadowy gashes in the cliff face. Maz and I had discovered it by accident.

After months of observing the Shadow-Wolf’s movements, we determined they must have another way in and out. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a prisoner transport coming out of the cave and being loaded onto a ship. They hadn’t noticed our own small boat with the lights doused before they’d sailed away. North.

“All right?” Ruru called softly.

“All right,” Maz grunted, drifting our boat as close as he could to Ruru’s.

Ruru grinned when he caught sight of me. “Skelly owes me two coppers.”

I raised one eyebrow. “He thought I wouldn’t escape?”

“He didn’t think you or Maz would come out alive.”

“Such a hopeful ray of sunshine,” Maz grumbled. He jerked his head at Kiera. “He should dish out double for a third live one.”

Ruru’s eyes widened, looking like the coppers he loved so much. “Who’s she?”

“Kiera,” she answered with the hint of a smile, “and you must be the other half of the daring rescue party. Ruru?”

His fifteen-year-old chest swelled in an unnerving imitation of Maz. “That’s me! Do you need a hand?” He offered his.

She hesitated for a moment, then flung her chains to the bottom of the boat and took Ruru’s open palm. She half-crawled, half-jumped into the fishing boat.

Maz looked at me. “Sink it?”

I nodded. We raised our sunstone knives high above our heads and drove them into the bottom of the boat. They cut through the wood like butter. We stabbed and sawed for a few more moments until the hole was big enough to drink in great gulps of sea water.

It would be better if the boat were completely wrecked; then perhaps Renwell would think a storm had swallowed us. But this was the best we could do.

I stared at the knife in my hand—the inky black stone and the occasional sparkle of dead stars. The representation of so much death and destruction. But so gods-damned useful in a pinch.

With a growl, I flung the knife into the sea.

Maz grimaced, clutching his knife. “Must I?”

“We’re dead if we’re caught with them. We have to fit in.”

“Gods-damn shame,” Maz muttered and whipped the black knife into the hungry sea.

Timing the swells, we leapt from the sinking boat into Ruru’s.

Kiera sat in the stern wrapped in a blanket Ruru must have brought. Her eyes avoided mine, fixing on the cliffs instead, as if Renwell was going to burst out of the cave at any moment. Which he might.

I sat down at the oars, ignoring the sting and shudder of my wounds. I refused to give her my back. Maz collapsed behind me in the bow.

Ruru hooked the lantern on its metal pole. “We should hurry. The harbor is still crowded, but Skelly said Mynastra’s got one more storm left in her.”

As if the goddess had heard him, the sky darkened further under the weight of ominous clouds and the first raindrops landed.

Maz laughed as I started to row. “Of course she does. She can never resist when Aiden sails her seas.”

Ruru frowned, tucking his tall, thin body between me and Kiera. “Why?”

“Perhaps because I was born in a storm at sea,” I grunted between pulls.

“Or she just wants his pretty bones to decorate her bed,” Maz joked.

Ruru laughed, but Kiera merely watched me as if she were spooling each thread she plucked from me to create her own tapestry of who I was.

The wind rose with a howl. The waves heaved, crowned with silver foam. I pulled harder, Maz calling out bearings as he kept an eye on the flickering harbor watchtowers. The heavy rain veiled us from any guards who marched the stone wall that extended from the watchtowers like two great, curving arms embracing the harbor.

We just needed to slip through the harbor opening and pray no one had alerted the watchtowers to any escaped prisoners.

I cursed as the waves drove us closer to the wall. “Ruru, get in the bow! Maz, take an oar!”

They scrambled into place. Kiera clung to her bench, her face paler than the hidden moon. Then she doubled over the side, presumably to retch. But I had little strength left for sympathy.

Maz and I fell into a steady rowing rhythm, matching strokes. Thunder crunched and crumbled like rocks through the sky. Lightning pierced the endless waves.

After what felt like hours, we rounded the first watchtower.

The great fire at the top was burning steadily, and the shadowy figures of the guards were barely visible.

Our boat joined a few others racing into the harbor. Likely some sailors out celebrating Mynastra’s Tide. Even through the storm’s symphony, shouts of song and laughter reached us.

“Bloody fools!” Maz shouted with a grin.

I couldn’t help casting a glance at Kiera. Of course, I was the fool who had chosen this night specifically for this reason. Cover and distraction.

The Docks Quarter glowed like a shimmering ember before us. We rowed toward it without incident, sliding into the berth next to Skelly’s ship, Mynastra’s Wings . Skelly was nowhere to be seen, probably drinking to our deaths in a tavern. Ruru and Maz tied us off while Kiera scrambled onto the dock like a drowning cat. I almost expected her to hiss at the boat. I pursed my lips to keep from smiling.

“Are you all right?” I asked her in a low tone. She’d tossed aside the useless blanket and her whole body shook.

She looked up at me, her wet hair clinging to her cheeks. “I never want to do that again.”

“Escape a prison or sail in a storm?”

She grimaced. “Neither. But I think I’d take the former over the latter at this point.”

My jaw tightened. She wouldn’t like what I had planned for her then. “We’ll rest soon. Just act like a drunken reveler, and no one will notice us.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” she muttered, her arms wrapped around her middle.

Now that we were on solid land, I thanked Mynastra for the storm. Dawn was surely upon us, despite the storm’s darkness, which meant the Shadow-Wolves would be slinking out of the city and back into their Den. The day guards would care little for straggling revelers. Especially in the half-drowned Docks.

Kiera followed close behind me as I weaved through the haphazard streets. Maz and Ruru flanked us, singing a bawdy sea shanty. Random bone-rattlers cheered and joined the song for a moment as we passed. Maz belted out the words, slightly off-key, and nudged me to join in, but I shook my head.

“Oh, come on, Aiden!” Maz said, adding a drunken slur. He swaggered closer to Kiera. “He has the most beautiful singing voice. Go on, tell him to sing.”

Kiera looked like she’d rather eat the broken bottles in the gutter.

I feel the same, little thief.

I turned a corner sharply and charged ahead to the dilapidated house I rented a room in. Chipped stone and moldy wood held it together, but it was dry inside and the owner didn’t ask questions, which was all I needed.

I shoved the door open with my shoulder and ushered Kiera and Ruru inside. “Hold a moment, Maz.”

He nodded. I shut the door, then walked a few feet away. We hovered under the building’s eave. A steady stream of water poured between us and the street, conveniently muffling our voices from any passerby.

“What did you find?” he asked.

“Enough.” Grimly, I recounted everything up until I was caught.

“Fucking Four,” Maz breathed, dropping his head back on the wall. “We need more gold.”

A sardonic chuckle escaped my lips. “Which is what I told Kiera I was looking for in there.”

Maz’s eyebrow lifted. “And she believed that?”

“Why not? It’s true enough, as you said.”

“Everything comes back to gold in this bloody city,” Maz grumbled. “We already pay a fortune in bribes, and you keep picking up strays.” He jabbed his thumb toward the door.

“She won’t be staying,” I said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t trust her, and we have enough people who need our help. She seems like she can take care of herself, anyway.”

Maz gave me a long look. “She unchained you back there.”

“To help save her own skin.”

“And yours, it seems. She’s a good one. I feel it in my gut.” He rubbed his stomach as if that was where all his wisdom resided.

I shook my head, staring into the rain. I wasn’t sure what she was. But my gut told me Kiera wanted something from me, whether she unchained me out of pity or necessity. As such, she was a threat. A rogue spark dancing through the air, ready to start a fire wherever it landed.

“How did she get in your cell?” he asked.

“She arrived after my interrogation.”

“Ah, that’s why you don’t trust the pretty one. What was her story?”

I told him what she’d told me.

Maz nodded along, frowning. “Seems likely enough. Whoever brought her in wasn’t gentle.”

“She claims Renwell beat her. Same as me.” The man’s twisted sneer and cold eyes blinked into my mind. Gods, that face always heralded death and pain.

“Damn that bastard to the deepest, darkest corner of the wandering hell,” Maz snarled. “If I ever get my hands on that maniac?—”

I smirked. “What, no axe for his worthless neck?”

Maz crossed his arms with a vicious smile. “You didn’t let me finish. There are a great many ways to kill a man, and I have plenty of weapons to explore each one.” He patted the whistler at his hip.

“His time will come,” I promised. “But I told him nothing.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t dump you on Korvin’s table.”

“He still wouldn’t have his answers.” But my stomach twisted at the thought. I’d seen the remnants of Korvin’s handiwork—barely enough to fill a bucket. I hated to think of the ones we didn’t find.

Maz frowned. “Then why leave you be? What was his plan?”

“He found something else to threaten me with.” The skin on my shoulder twitched involuntarily.

Maz rolled his shoulder as if his scar was twinging as well. Understanding filled his gaze. “I see. Then if we hadn’t come to get you tonight?—”

“I would be boarding a different boat about now.”

“Gods damn it, Aiden, if we hadn’t gotten to you in time, if those Wolves had gotten us...”

“I know,” I said quietly.

He heaved a sigh. “You know I’d do anything for you, Aiden. But I told my mother and my sisters I would come home to them. That we would make it back. Which means no more crazy plans. We have to get through this alive, together. That was the deal.”

“I know,” I repeated, my voice harder. The ridges of guilt, of failure, were impossible to soften. He was here to honor an oath he made when I’d broken him out of a prison.

But I also had promises to keep. And I’d failed too many times already. I couldn’t let anything—or anyone—steal my victory. I’d tried to impress that warning on Kiera, even though it was a silly game we played. Then she’d stolen from me with a sparkle in her eyes. That gleam of the triumph I fought so hard for.

You didn’t learn your lesson, little thief. But you will.

“What would you say to one final crazy plan?” I asked Maz. “Something far more enticing than traipsing through the Den’s backwater?”

“I’d say I’m not surprised, but very intrigued. As long as it doesn’t involve me sacrificing my only other axe,” he added morosely.

I grinned. “No. But you could certainly afford to buy another one if we pull this off...”