“You don’t need to come,” Farrell said. “The two of you can camp farther back, and Kadee and I can do our trading.”
“I need to,” Vance answered, taking a determined step forward as if pushing his way through the memories this place evoked. I knew that Vance had status in Midnight—I had heard Jeshickah’s offer to let him stay as one of them—but it was hard to reconcile that knowledge with the young man I had come to know the last few months. We feared these guards because they represented the vampires’ empire. It was disturbing that they seemed to fear Vance.
I followed Vance’s lead, and our movement seemed to break Misha out of her paralysis. She followed without a word, and we passed into what Midnight claimed was the greatest market in the world. I wasn’t sure I believed that, but it sprawled larger and offered more luxury goods than anywhere I had ever seen or expected to see in my life.
The exchange of sundries like food staples, simple spices, leather, fur, and iron made up only a small fraction of this market’s trade. From far to the south, the Azteka brought exotic pigments, feathers, stones, raw silver, cocoa, and sugar. The serpiente were known for their fine dyes, wool and flaxen fabrics, and paper and ink. The avians had the best metalworkers; I intended to visit their blacksmith about a new knife, but their real business here was in gold and silver, and fine ceramics. Shantel merchants could quite literally work magic with leather, fur, bone, wood, and other natural items, though most of those items were far too pricey for the likes of us. More often, they sold carved or sewn items ranging from practical tools to useless decorations.
This market, surrounded by waist-high stone walls and policed by Midnight’s guards, showcased the best that the shapeshifter nations had to offer. The best of the best went to Midnight itself, in exchange for the two basics that empire had to sell: freedom, and food.
Farrell caught my eye, looked pointedly to Vance, and then nodded to Misha. The communication was clear—he would watch out for Misha, and I should keep an eye on Vance. The quetzal’s pace slowed every time he passed a guard wearing Midnight’s uniform. I couldn’t imagine what thoughts were going through his head, but I was proud of him for facing this fear.
I stepped closer to Vance, silently saying, I’ll stay with him.
“We need to see the Shantel,” Farrell said to Misha.
We had intended to split up here, but Malachi’s words prompted me to say, “We’ll go with you.”
Beside me, I felt Vance tense, and I regretted my words.
“The boy with the harp is Shantel?” Vance guessed, his tone carefully neutral.
Vance’s history with the Shantel and their magic was at least as tangled as the one he had with Midnight. Without Vance’s knowledge, a Shantel witch had infected his blood with a spell that made it poisonous to vampires in a bold but ultimately unsuccessful assassination attempt. I didn’t want to force him to face more than one demon from his past at a time.
“Do you want us to ask about Shane for you?” Farrell asked, immediately recognizing my quandary, and offering a solution.
I nodded. Shane probably wasn’t even here. “We’ll meet back up after Vance and I see the blacksmith,” I suggested. The smith’s shop was one of the largest permanent structures in the market. The Mistress of Midnight’s love of horses was well known, which meant a farrier was always expected to be in residence.
Misha quirked a brow. “The Shantel will not like having a child of Obsidian inquire after one of their princes,” she pointed out.
We were hardly a threat to the Shantel, but that didn’t mean they would take such questions kindly.
“The worst they can do is refuse to answer,” Farrell replied logically. “They can’t refuse to trade.”
Among the serpiente, rape was a high crime. Among the avians, familial abuse was considered one of the worst offenses. Among the Shantel, there was no trespass more vile than disrespect of the sakkri, their high priestess, prophet, and conduit to their magic. But in Midnight, nothing was more holy than trade, which meant the only unforgivable sins were those that undercut the bottom line.
“Impeding trade” was punishable by fines up to the value of the trade, and Midnight’s choice of payment was always flesh. As long as merchants continued to fear slavery more than they hated us, they would never refuse to trade. Not here, inside these stone walls.
“WE MIGHT AS well stay together,” Vance said, his voice soft but determined. With obvious false bravado, he added, “Malachi’s a prophet, right? Who am I to second-guess his guidance?”
On second thought, maybe it wasn’t bravado I heard, but irony. The look he shot at Farrell in that moment wasn’t friendly, as if he wanted to pick a fight.
“I trust Malachi’s vision,” Farrell answered patiently, “but even I acknowledge that his words are often unclear. The Shantel’s treatment of you was intolerable, Vance. They used you as a weapon without ever asking your consent or considering your safety. If you want to face them, come with us and we’ll stand with you, but there’s no shame in turning your back to them if that’s what you want. As for words of prophecy …” He shrugged. “You’re a child of Obsidian now. You can let prophecy guide you if you choose, but even fate is not your master. Do whatever your own conscience says you must.”
That was our creed, the one the Obsidian guild had always followed, but Vance seemed deflated by it. It was as if his anger had been holding him up, protecting him from his fear of this place, and so he lost a little strength when Farrell refused to argue with him.
I wanted to apologize for putting Vance in this position, but I would have been doing so to make myself feel better about my careless words, not to comfort him. I bit my lip and stayed silent, leaving the decision to him.
Vance sighed, shook his head, and said, “In for a penny, in for a pound.”
He started forward, leading the way toward the Shantel. As I followed, I couldn’t help but remember the last time we had come here together: the stench of corpses killed in the plague the Shantel had intended for the vampires; the heat of the pyre; the taste of adrenaline and despair at the back of my mouth.
When we reached the area where the Shantel normally traded their wares, we found only a darker patch of earth and the heavy, lingering stench of ash.
“Did we miss them?” Misha wondered aloud. Unlike the avians and serpiente, who maintained a fairly constant presence in the market, the Shantel visited for a couple of weeks at a time only a few times a year. We normally timed our visits to coincide with theirs, but it was certainly possible to show up a few days early or late; I had assumed that was what happened to the merchant who wanted to buy their bone combs, but now I felt a chill running up my spine.
“Have you seen the Shantel this season?” I asked a nearby merchant. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Vance drift into the middle of the burned patch. In his mind, was he here—or was he back in Midnight? Was he thinking of the Shantel or the vampires?
“Not since the fire,” the merchant replied. “Midnight hired a crew a while back to clean up the wreckage. I heard them saying the cost was being added to the Shantel accounts.”
“It’s been four months,” I said, more from shock than protest. “Farrell, are the Shantel that self-sufficient?”
The serpiente and avians couldn’t survive without Midnight, but I wasn’t sure about the Shantel. Their magic could keep the vampires from storming their land and taking their people by force, but they could still starve.
“I don’t think so,” Farrell answered. “They used to be, but their population has grown since they’ve been trading with Midnight.”
Vance, meanwhile, had engaged one of Midnight’s guards. After a brief conversation, he returned to us with a frown and reported, “Midnight is offering a substantial reward for any Shantel captured and brought to them, and the guards are under orders to arrest them on sight if they show up here.”
“I think my brother sent you on a wild-goose chase, girl,” Misha observed. “He proba
bly saw some vision of when you were a kid and confused himself.”
Farrell, as usual, tempered Misha’s caustic words with his own logic. “Malachi does sometimes get timelines confused. He might have been thinking of a future visit. Or perhaps—”
He grabbed Misha’s arm at the same moment that I looked back up at the empty space that had been the wreckage … and found myself staring into familiar garnet eyes. My blood ran cold. My heart raced. Every muscle in my body quivered, preparing me to flee. I felt my companions go still around me. Even Vance apparently recognized Hara Kiesha Cobriana, heir to the serpiente throne.
The first time I’d seen her, I was seven years old. I had never met another serpiente, and I feared that she might be a demon. Her black hair and blood-red eyes had terrified me. I hadn’t seen Hara since I was thirteen years old, and now, that old horror crept in.
For what seemed like an eternity, we were all frozen: me, Farrell, Misha, Vance, Hara, and the serpiente guards behind her. The shapeshifter nations weren’t allowed to keep a standing army, but they were encouraged to have guards to police their own people.
With one hand still holding Misha’s wrist, as if concerned she might bolt, Farrell put his other hand on my shoulder. He gently turned me away from Hara as he whispered, “Look over there.”
Over there was the guard Vance had spoken to a moment ago. Midnight’s guard. He was watching our tableau with sharp attention, one hand at the hilt of his sword.
Remembering that even the heir to the serpiente throne was helpless here, I let out the breath that had been locked in my chest. Hara had probably come to review her accounts … though that wasn’t a comforting thought either. A balance on Midnight’s sheets would mean soldiers in our woods, like the ones who had taken Misha and Shkei last year.
That last thought made me so angry that I turned back to Hara without fear of her royal power or her red gaze. “Move along, cobra,” I said as boldly as I dared. “There’s nothing for you here.”
Farrell squeezed my shoulder in what was probably meant to be a warning. We were safe here as long as we didn’t start a physical fight—which would get us hauled in for disrupting trade—but antagonizing the royals still wasn’t necessary, or wise.
“We should go,” Farrell urged us. “Just—”
“Run?” Hara suggested, her tone cutting. She took a step closer. Her gaze flickered to Midnight’s guards—others had drawn near now, intrigued by the sight of two enemies squaring off—and I saw her pointedly move her hand away from the dagger she wore at her belt. Softly, so she wouldn’t be overheard, she hissed, “Please do. I would love to continue this conversation more privately.” Her eyes scanned our group, and then she added, “I see one white viper who should be in Midnight’s cells, but I don’t see your witch Malachi. I doubt you can slip out of sight as easily without him.”
Misha lunged forward with a curse, and Farrell and Vance only barely managed to hold her back.
All I kept seeing were these soldiers grabbing Misha and Shkei, on what was supposed to be the holiest night of the year. Misha was certainly reliving those memories, too, along with ones far worse than I could imagine.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “How do you sleep at night?” I demanded of Hara. “You claim to stand for a nation that worships freedom. How do you justify selling a sixteen-year-old boy into slavery to pay your taxes?”
The royal house was known for its temper, and Hara would have struck me if her own guards hadn’t restrained her.
“It helps that I have better bedfellows,” Hara snapped, shaking off her guards’ hands. “I’m not beholden to a murdering rapist.” She glared at Farrell. “Or the bloodtraitor who sold out the Shantel.” That was directed at Vance. Then she turned back to me. “Then again, your hands aren’t exactly clean. I would love to believe the white viper bewitched you, like legends say they can, but he never could have convinced you to commit treason if you hadn’t already let him in.”
“We leave now,” Farrell hissed. “Misha. Come on. Vance. We need to—”
“They can’t assault us here,” Vance said, stubbornly holding his ground as Farrell tried to herd us away. “I’ll leave when our trading is done. I won’t let them chase us away. Besides, I’m curious about what I supposedly did to the Shantel. Care to enlighten me, Hara?”
She responded with incredulous laughter. “Are you trying to claim ignorance?” she asked. “You’re standing beside the man who murdered the serpiente queen—my mother, incidentally—the girl who murdered my would-be mate, and a woman who would be in Midnight now if the vampires hadn’t oh-so-conveniently released her. You’re keeping company with the guild that abducted Alasdair, princess of the avians, and sold her to Midnight. Are you really going to pretend that you are innocent?”
Vance blanched before saying simply, “Excuse me?”
My whole body chilled, in a too-familiar way. When I had been a child, that sensation had preceded seizures.
“We didn’t murder Naga Elise!” I protested, uselessly and perhaps even more damningly, because every other accusation the cobra made was true … and Vance, quite obviously, hadn’t known most of it. I had thought that Malachi might have told him about the hawk, Alasdair, but that had obviously been wishful thinking.
As for Paulin, Hara’s supposed would-be mate, I hadn’t spoken to anyone about him since I had joined the Obsidian guild. As far as I could tell, his death had elevated him to a far higher place in the princess’s esteem than he had held in life, a fact I knew well since he had blamed me for his failure to make any progress in his attempted courtship. My entire life as a ward of the serpiente king had ended in blood, but I wasn’t the heartless assassin Hara described.
I don’t know what would have happened if Midnight’s guards hadn’t decided that this had gone on long enough. They broke up the argument, pushing us apart and demanding, “Do you have business here?” They were asking the same question of Hara’s group.
“Yes,” Farrell answered instantly. He lifted the goods we had brought with us and handed them over for inspection. “We intended to trade with the Shantel. That’s why we were asking about them. What is their situation?”
“We’ll buy your wares,” the guard replied. “Who else do you need to trade with?”
“The Azteka, if they’re here,” Farrell answered, “and the blacksmith.”
The guards consulted each other, and then they gave their orders.
“Make your trades quickly—then leave,” they said. “The princess needs to tend to her accounts, which will take time, and then she plans to travel east to the Shantel. We will ensure that all of her people go that direction, so none can stay to follow you back to your camp.” They had obviously heard Hara’s implied threat, and intended to ensure that Midnight’s laws keeping us safe on their land were enforced even once we left the market. It was odd to realize that, in this place, the Obsidian guild was considered more trustworthy than the serpiente.
“I thought trade with the Shantel was forbidden,” Farrell commented.
“It is,” the guard replied, “but the serpiente are in good standing, so their travel is not restricted. They are bringing no trade goods with them, and are aware of the consequences if they violate trade sanctions.”
Emboldened by that response, I asked, “I was planning to try to reach the Shantel as well.”
Farrell shot me a long-suffering look. Not only did we have no such plans before that moment, but he was specifically barred from trespassing on Shantel land. It didn’t matter; I didn’t need his consent. I wanted to know what was happening with the Shantel—Shane in particular—and I had more reason than most to believe I might be allowed into their land so I could assuage my curiosity.
The guards, however, looked skeptical. They were obviously about to deny me permission when support came from an unexpected quarter. “We were planning to, she means,” Vance said, gesturing to himself and me. “While Farrell and Misha returned to the camp.”
&n
bsp; Vance was one of us these days, but he had once been highly ranked in Midnight, and the empire’s guards still seemed uncertain as to his authority. They weren’t going to argue with him. I wanted to do so myself—Vance had been afraid to even set foot in the market or approach the Shantel stall, so why was he offering to go with me? But I would save my questions for later.
“In that case, you two should go now,” the guard told us, “before the royal party begins traveling that direction.”
Another added, “If you’re planning to try to collect the bounty, you can bring their people here or directly to Midnight proper.” My stomach rolled at the casual assumption that we might be going to Shantel land to find someone we could sell. Like Hara had said, we were far from innocent, but our crimes had never been about greed. I had never needed coins so badly that I would trade in flesh to get them.
I didn’t bother to argue with bloodtraitors, though. Their perception of us was surely part of the reason Midnight would block trade to the Shantel without blocking access. The vampires didn’t need to get past Shantel magic, if they trusted that someone else would do their dirty work for them.
There was no more time for discussion. We redistributed our supplies quickly, and Farrell gave me his knife with a whispered plea to be careful, since I hadn’t yet been able to replace my own. Then we started out to the east, with the serpiente royal party behind us, and the unknown Shantel woods before us.
“THANK YOU FOR helping me,” I said to Vance as we set out on the road that led east from Midnight’s market toward Shantel land, “but I understand if you do not want to go any farther. I know you’re no fan of the Shantel.” Vance had no reason to care about the people who had bewitched him, then sent him back to the vampires like a gift of poisoned wine. They had surely expected him to die, after he passed their disease on to the immortals.
Vance shrugged, his expression distant, lost in thought.