CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Luscia
Considering the coveted view from Luscia’s private terrace, a stroll through Bastiion’s illustrious Drifting Bazaar was long overdue. Merchant rafts draped in bright hues and mixed textiles littered the murky waters. The scent of foreign spices hovered in the air, the source of each sharp aroma tucked under tarp and canvas as their peddlers slumbered in the bowels of each buoyant stall. Though the bay was sleepy and the hour dark, the industrious grid of floating booths looked much how she’d imagined.
Present company excluded.
Fortunately, the three Darakaians kept their distance, and while Luscia hardly appreciated playing the hound, it was the better alternative. Kasim had been crushing her lungs when posing the two options—neither preferable—and the lack of air hadn’t assisted her decision-making skills. Climbing over a snug swing bridge to the meager gangway of another stall, Luscia hoped she’d chosen wisely.
“We already passed this booth,” one of his men grumbled—the one with shoulder-length braids. His beads chattered as they crossed the crude bridge behind her. “Shtàka, is she just taking us in circles?”
“Di huwàa…na y’siti tàkom lai na y’siti, yeah?” The huge one, Kasim’s second, answered the other warrior.
Luscia understood little Andwele, but the bits she pieced together were not flattering. She couldn’t decide if being called a dog, as opposed to a member of the undead, was an upgrade or a demotion with the Darakaians.
Kasim shifted restlessly in her periphery when Luscia paused and assessed a stack of crates. She needed a higher vantage point. Encumbered by their ordinary limitations, she’d tried to chart a path the Darakaians could follow, but it was like hauling a sack of opinionated potatoes through the maze of makeshift waterways.
“You’re trying my patience,” Kasim warned in her ear. “I can still revise the terms of our agreement. You already failed to fulfill your end of one bargain—don’t make this the second.”
The hilt of his kopar pressed into her lower back, just above the crest of the trousers she’d procured for tonight’s outing. Apparently, Kasim was still cross from their dispute that morning, when he’d again howled to use the wraiths. Instead, she’d handed him a curved staff and tied rocks to his ankles.
He’d floundered miserably.
Kasim really had a hard time letting things go.
“I failed at nothing, Lord Darakai.” Luscia heaved a sigh and reached around to ease the cool metal back toward his middle. “I cannot speed your own rate of learning. That”—She peered higher, toward a potential landing—“is your own affliction. You requested I lead this party yet are proving to be a terrible follower.”
“I lead, witch. You are just my means to an end.” Kasim pivoted in front of her, puffing his chest out at her chin. A pleasing, smoky tang of camilla and cedar doused her nose.
“This continued infatuation with semantics is exhausting.” Luscia retreated and inhaled the briny odor of the bay. “If you wish to succeed tonight, silence your sounding alarm and do shut up.”
She twisted away, putting her back to Kasim. Cocking her head, she listened to the sounds of the night. The tide lapped the docks, bins and boxes creaking in the routine sway. Beneath the rudimentary layers of sound, emerging snores carried a rumbling baritone through the darkness.
With an impatient huff, the other al’haidren murmured something under his breath.
“I asked for quiet,” Luscia repeated sternly.
“Shtàka. No one said a word!” he barked, folding his arms. “Some y’siti ears you’ve got.”
Luscia stretched her neck and tried once more, but the rapid whispering increased. She spun in place. The big one, Kasim’s beta, shrugged to the slender Darakaian in front of the gangway. Neither man’s lips were moving.
Low voices swarmed her ears when the relentless buzz engulfed her mind.
“Niit. Niit, heh’ta!” She shook her head violently. Luscia scrambled for a vial inside her cloak, but it slipped from her fingers with a tremor, shattering across the planks underfoot. “Heh’ta! Make it stop!”
Clutching her temples furiously, she tripped into the leather folds of Kasim’s jacket. This couldn’t happen, not here. Not with witnesses. Panting, Luscia gripped the buttery, weathered arms of his coat as the buzzing grew to a roar.
“Ahoté!”
“Alpha Zà!”
Through the whirring symphony, she recognized the measured, high-pitch whine as Kasim released the kopar from his hip. She felt his shoulder rise under her fingertips. Luscia lifted her face and met his gaze, tense under each puckered brow. Her lips parted, to ask for aid, when a loud pop jolted her limbs. Her head snapped toward her spine. Ringing flooded her ears.
Kasim’s eyes widened as he stumbled away from her on the narrow platform. “Depths…”
Suddenly, her vision erupted in threads of light.
Energy from the Other shimmered throughout the Drifting Bazaar, dancing faintly on a gentle breeze. A single source of brightness in the shadows captured Luscia’s focus. The thread, brilliant against its brothers, shivered around her torso and into the distance. Hesitantly, fearfully, she turned to watch it slither past the two Darakaians at the edge of the swing bridge.
Sensing her attention, it twitched erratically. An eerie light that she alone could see flickered over the waters.
Instinctively, her limbs rebelled and leapt to the call. Luscia dove past Kasim, toward the stack of crates, and vaulted overhead after the pulsing guide. The ball of her foot grazed the beta’s shoulder for balance when she crossed the bridge in midair. Landing, Luscia rolled into an explosive sprint. She hardly heard the Darakaians yelling in her wake.
As she bounded across the rickety planks to another stall, the ringing eased and opened to pages of sound. Abruptly the shining thread convulsed and switched to the east, pulling Luscia through an open window of a vacant booth. Frantically, she skidded overtop a cluttered counter and through a swath of stale, moldering curtains, tumbling into the open.
A scream fractured the haze in her mind.
Luscia jumped to her heels. With a spark, the lumin shuddered fitfully toward a floating ghetto across a vast waterway. A system of rigging connected posts on either side of the channel. In a rush, she ran up the nearest post, freed Ferocity, and cut loose a cable. Cording it around her forearm, she swung and, with eager footwork, treaded the side of a freighter until she met the roofing.
Atop the unstable structure, the threads flashed in and out of focus. Between eroding, clustered stalls, the lumin pulsed around a circlet of darkness, even under the abundance of a full moon. The darkness shifted aside in the form of a cloaked figure to reveal a whimpering child. The pale hue of the young boy’s hair shone as he struggled to escape his captor’s grasp.
A sound of fury broke through her lips. Luscia abandoned the freighter and carved her najjani blade through the air. Despite her speed, the cloaked figure whirled responsively, tossing the boy aside and catching the tip of Ferocity at their shoulder instead of the throat. Luscia’s knee cracked as it made impact on the platform before she clumsily rolled to a crouch.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Tightening her grasp around the hilt of her blade, Luscia sprung after the figure. A gloved hand released their bleeding shoulder and they ran west. Lurching in the figure’s direction, Luscia stopped at the cross-caste’s wail of pain. Looking back, she saw a pool of dark blood soaking the planks beneath his little body where it escaped a deep gash along his arm.
Luscia growled in frustration as she watched his captor disappear in the distance, only the glint off a pair of fine boot buckles under the moonlight marking their departure. Hurriedly, she moved to the boy, who was no more than six or seven, judging by roundness of his scraped, tear-streaked cheeks.
“Shh.” Luscia tore a strip off the hem of her undershirt and bound his arm tightly. It was so small. “Shh, waedfrel. We are safe now. Wem, yes, it’s going to be all right.”
Within minutes, the Darakaians tore through the alley of freighters, stopping short at the sight of them.
“Wh—” Kasim panted, bending over to catch his breath. “Which way did he go? Depths, why didn’t you follow him?” His tied locs swished erratically as he gestured to the emptiness.
“Because he’s losing blood—a lot of it.” Luscia scooped up the boy, caressing the back of his shivering head. “I made a call. Deal with it.”
Kasim all but snarled at her, though she knew his malice was misdirected. He wanted to catch the cross-caste killer almost as much as she did, if for different reasons—reasons she suspected had more to do with the scarred man in Salma’s tavern than the lives of Boreali innocents.
“Give me the boy.” He reached out, but Luscia tightened her grip. Kasim motioned angrily to her distinctive eyes. “You create complications by being here! How will you hide those from your own cross-caste?”
Luscia chewed her lip. He was right. In their political climate, the Boreali al’haidren could not be seen stalking the Bazaar in the middle of the night with a bleeding child in her care. And unlike her visit to The Veiled Lady, there was no amount of cacao powder that could mask the truth from one of Boreal’s own descendants.
Slowly, Luscia relinquished the boy into Kasim’s stiff arms. They wrapped around his little body possessively—protecting him from Luscia. As if she would ever even dream of hurting this child, or any other.
“Where are your parents, little one?” she asked, but he only whimpered into Kasim’s chest. “Your mother?” Luscia stroked his hair. “Yeh mamu? Mamu ou fappa?”
“Fappa!” The boy sobbed and pointed toward the eastern slums.
Luscia nodded and looked warily to Kasim. “When you find their vessel, instruct his father to stitch the wound and make a paste of pure kaleo flower and gilead leaf. He’s likely a Boreali trader if the boy calls him that. He will understand.”
The Darakaian al’haidren held her gaze for a moment, his bright eyes narrowing at her instructions. Turning, Kasim rocked the boy from side to side as he issued orders to his men.
“Takoda, you’re with me. Kumo.” He angled his head at Luscia. “Escort the y’siti back to the palace grounds. Unnoticed. We don’t need any questions about our…association.”
Luscia bristled, but started walking.
The beta, Kumo, kept pace with her as they navigated between the more forgotten buildings of Marketown. After nearly half an hour of quiet, he began to speak.
“So, eh,” he voiced cautiously, as if their interaction would rouse her ire, “how’d you know where to go? You smell him out, yeah? After all that, uh…” His dark, oversized hands swarmed about his skull. “Kakka-shtàka…?”
She snorted, though there was little to laugh about.
“Kakka-shtàka sounds accurate,” she grumbled. Despite logic—for Luscia had been right to ensure the boy’s safety—it still felt as if she’d permitted a killer to run free.
“You get a look, uni?” The beta inched closer as they walked, but kept a hand on his kopar. “You saw him, I mean?”
“Man or woman, they wore a cloak, which did its job.” Luscia picked a few splinters of wood from the seam of her surcoat. “He’s not from any slum, though. The fresh polish of his boots gave that much away.”
“Huh.” Kumo’s hand eased off his kopar. Suddenly, a pearly grin sparked on his face. “You no y’siti hound, ano! You like Maji’maia!”
Unsmiling, Luscia eyed him, suspicious of her new branding. “In other words?”
Sheepishly, his thick forefinger rose to point at Aurynth’s watchman. The full moon, alarmingly bright, illuminated their steps as they turned a corner. “When Àla’maia still has her magic.” His finger shook toward the sky. “The Witchy Moon.”
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Slowly, with great care and exhausting control, Luscia lowered the heel of her foot to the stone of her private terrace. Even slower did she allow the rest of her body to follow.
With the gentlest click and turn, she nudged open the stained-glass door to her bedroom chamber. On any night, Luscia welcomed her luxuriously extravagant bed, but tonight her mind proved as weary as her extremities. Head pounding, she slipped off her hood and cowl, then bent to untie her upturned boots.
The hiss of a match kissed her ears just before the light of its flame sizzled into existence. Luscia’s stomach dropped. Najjan were called Boreal’s shadowmen for good reason; she was the last being who should have forgotten.
On a humble stool in the middle of her quarters, Marek slumped over the candle, elbows propped on his knees. His oceanic eyes were grim, shaded by his furrowed brow, when he eventually looked up.
“Marek, I—” Luscia started.
“You do not answer to them.”
Luscia felt the warmth drain from her cheeks when Alora’s outline moved through the doorway. As her own candle crossed the room, the light illuminated the whole of her guard. Declan, positioned nearest their haidren, stood stoically, with an expression equally stern. The twins bookended her dressing table. Böwen rubbed his face with his palms, clearly uncomfortable. Collectively, their eyes remained downcast, but it was Noxolo in the corner who physically turned his elegant features toward the wall, away from his charge.
None of them uttered a word when Alora stopped behind Marek’s stool. Her posture spoke volumes.
“These men have given their lives to protect the al’haidren to Boreal,” she said, her tone icy. “Yet through your petulant actions, your infantile ignorance, you’ve turned their sacrifice into a petty game of hide and seek. A game”—Alora leveled her glance around the tense space—“that they appear to be losing. If one loses the petty games of a child playacting as an adult, how then could one possibly be victorious against a real threat?”
Many shoulders slumped at her communal admonishment.
“Ana’Mere, they are faultless in this. Meh fyreon, but the Darakaians have made a mockery of the cross-caste massacres.” Luscia implored the humanity in her aunt. “I just…I needed to do something, anything in my power to—”
“Niit, Luscia. What you have done is jeopardize the already fractured balance of the Ethnicam.” Alora’s unbound veil of platinum tresses followed her like an ethereal cape as she stepped in front of the captaen. “If your selfish whimsy and childish justifications were ever discovered, the Accords would be tested beyond your limited imagination.”
“The Darakaians are dragging their feet, Ana’Mere! Are we to stand by and watch?”
“Wem, as I instructed, weeks ago.” In her periphery, Luscia’s guards shifted uneasily. “Once the Darakaians conclude their investigation, the najjan will be permitted to intervene. Not before.”
“That investigation is a joke. You haven’t seen because you weren’t here!” Luscia’s face warmed again with the flurry of passion rising from her gut. “You weren’t here, so I made a choice. I too am najjan—”
“Niit, Luscia.” The etchings of age creased when her aunt’s lips pressed into a harsh line. “You are al’haidren to Boreal. That is your duty—to be a servant to your House. Meh’dajjeni Dönumn, weh’dajjeni Lux. My strength in the Gift, our strength for the Light. We lay down everything, Luscia—everything for our people.” Luscia’s mother’s eyes stared out from her aunt’s face. “Your pride, this need for your version of justice, has rendered you blind. And your blindness,” she emphasized in a detached voice, backing away, “is beyond a disappointment.”
Luscia’s legs threatened to buckle under her, as if she’d been kicked in the kidneys. It wasn’t until Alora reached the doorway that Luscia realized she’d stopped breathing.
“Se’lah Aurynth, Luscia,” Alora said as she crossed the door. “Until the shores of Aurynth, I will endeavor to make you see.”
Luscia counted her breaths in her aunt’s absence, weighted by an arduous merger of anger and shame. Staring at her half-laced boots, she heard the twins leave; listened to the abrupt pause when Böwen turned to say something, but changed his mind. Noxolo whispered to Declan, too low even for her ears, and then he exited after the twins.
Luscia lifted her chin when the stool raked against the floor and Marek rose. She tried to offer an explanation, but nothing came.
“How…” Marek shook his head, huffed, and twisted the hem of his jacket between his long fingers. He must have gone out in search of her. “How could you?”
It was an accusation, not a question. Her chest compressed as he too departed.
Tears promised to spill over, but Luscia refused them. She’d already demonstrated enough weakness.
“Ana’Sere?” Declan held the door ajar, the last to leave. Light from his candle wavered over the braided, ginger hairs at his chin. “Just give us the night. We took a mighty tongue-lashing, the captaen more than anyone. Bolaeva, please. Give us one night to lick our wounds, Ana’Sere, and it will be forgotten in the morning.”
“Meh fyreon, Ana’Brödre.” Luscia bowed her head, pressing her eyes shut. “It seems I don’t deserve you.”
Before the door latched, a somber chuckle slid over his shoulder. “We’ve learned many things tonight, Ana’Sere, but that was not one of them.”
Luscia collapsed onto her bed. Her fingertips sought the solrahs through her septum for comfort, but the luxiron’s unnatural warmth did nothing to soothe her. Moments later, those same fingertips dropped to the uneven tissue of her neck, where layers of fabric hid its legacy.
No Darakaian brand, no Unitarian slur, could ever compete with something so timeless it chased her like a ghost.
Failure.
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