26 - THE SAFEHOUSE

We split up, just as we’d planned, and scattered throughout the city. We’d known that once it was done, and Akios was in our custody, every single member of the Terarch Guard within twenty miles of Tymora’s centre would be after us—not to mention the Seeking Hand operatives, Sun Knights, and Scions of the Autarchy, who were the empire’s military backbone.

We were hunted.

The Thorns had designated safehouses all throughout the city; one in particular had been set aside for us all to meet back at once we were absolutely certain that no one was following us. The only problem was, it was difficult to be certain when it felt like there were constantly eyes on us, and that every shadow concealed enemies.

When we’d scattered, Justinia had gone off on her own, claiming it’d be easier for Felice and I to return to the safehouse unnoticed if it was just the two of us. I probably agreed with her. Justinia had a habit of getting us into fights.

But anyway, it wasn’t just the two of us.

Stumbles marched along by my side, occasionally looking up at me with dark, glistening eyes. He smelled worse than ever, was definitely starting to rot, but it didn’t bother me, and Felice didn’t seem to mind either. In fact, it rather seemed to me like she’d taken a liking to my cat.

“So,” she said, glancing at the cat, “how exactly does that work?”

I knew she was asking in an attempt to occupy her mind, to talk about anything other than what we’d done earlier. I didn’t mind at all, and was in fact grateful for the distraction. Plus, there was a small part of me that wanted to tell her everything about what I could do. I wanted to impress her.

“Essentially,” I said, “I’ve linked my soul with the soul of the cat. If you want to be technical, we call it a spirit chain. Through the chain, I can communicate with him, pass on orders. I can even see through his eyes, or move his body, which is how I sent the warning earlier.”

“But…” Felice appeared uncertain. “But he’s dead. Shouldn’t that mean that his soul is gone?”

“Not really,” I said. “There is a place where all souls go once you’re dead—that’s called the Void. Actually, some prefer to call it Talath. That’s an old word meaning, the empty place.” I waved a hand, concerned that I was starting to ramble, and that she didn’t actually care. “But souls are complex. They have layers, dimensions, whatever you want to call it. A part of it, the really important part, the part that you would call you, that goes straight to the Void when you die, and once it’s in the Void, there’s no way to get it back. But the rest of the soul, the part that is just…energy. That stays in the body. And so, as the body starts to slowly decay, the energy does the same until there’s nothing left.”

We were moving down a dark, narrow alley, surprisingly clean, even if it did smell like sewage. Say one thing about the Autarchy, but at least they were hygienic.

Felice’s face was screwed up in concentration as she mentally processed what I’d just said. “So…there really are souls. I have one right now?”

“Absolutely,” I said, looking at her. She moved through a shaft of pale, dying sunlight, and for a moment, illuminated like that, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The few light freckles dusting her cheeks were like perfectly placed stars in the night sky. Her hair, as black as oil, very slightly curly, was tied back today, exposing the nape of her neck and the strong line of her jaw.

There’d only been a few girls close to my own age back amongst the Withered Isles. For a while, I’d thought myself in love with one of them in particular, although in hindsight, I’d been twelve years old and desperate to attach myself to the one female who talked to me like an actual human being rather than the savior-figure that the older members of the order viewed me as. The funny thing was, now, I couldn’t even remember her name. She’d died when I was thirteen; she’d been up on the high rocks with another youth during bad weather, and a wave had swept her away and carried her out to sea. In the eyes of my order, that was the worst way to go; it meant that the corpse was wasted and could not be put to use.

Felice squinted at me. “What are you looking at?”

“Uh…” I turned my head, staring straight ahead. A stray cat watched us from the shadows, eyes glowing like emeralds. “Nothing, really.”

“So—about the Void. What is it, exactly?”

“No one really knows,” I said. “No one can come back from it, like I said.” I paused. “Well, for the most part. Technically I did, but…that’s different.”

“What does that mean?”

“I died,” I explained, “a little while ago. Part of my initiation as a fully-fledged necromancer. And so, for just a second, I floated into the Void—but, to be clear, I didn’t truly enter it. There’s something called the Six Rings of Undeath. Think of the Void as a great funnel, with each of these rings marking part of that funnel, so that the first ring is the largest, and they get gradually smaller. Once you’re past the sixth ring, that’s it—you’re completely gone. Since I was dead for only a moment, I probably only passed one or two rings.”

Felice stared at me as though I’d gone insane. I supposed that it all must’ve sounded quite strange to someone who had not grown up learning the secrets of life and death.

“And what was that like? Dying?”

I cast my mind back to that moment, chained to the cold, stone slab, a knife piercing my heart. The feeling, afterward, of absolute disembodiment, seeing my corpse from above, seeing my father standing nearby with his usual bland expression. And then the chamber had vanished and I had found myself elsewhere, drowning in utter darkness, surrounded by distant, alien stars. A pulling sensation. An urge to fall, then, down into a kaleidoscope of impossible color and light. I had not thought about it much since—too much had happened for me to linger on the past. Now, though, a chill went down my spine.

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“It is difficult to describe,” I said slowly. “But really, it isn’t as bad as you might think. It’s not scary. It feels…almost good. Tempting. Like you want to enter the Void. Like it’s the right thing to do. Actually, that’s one of the primary tenets of our order. That death isn’t something bad and terrifying. It’s natural, and we all must die to keep the cosmic wheel turning.” I sighed. “That’s one reason, amongst many, why I have to stop the Autarch. He’s found a way for him and his inner circle to avoid death completely. He’s trying to be a god, Felice. But the universe doesn’t like gods. They’re not meant to exist—any of them.”

Felice stopped walking. Her eyes were very wide, and it occurred to me that it was perhaps unwise to unload the mysteries of the universe upon a young woman who had likely spent very little time considering any of this. There was, I had been taught long ago, a very real risk that a person’s mind could snap beneath the weight of too much revelation.

I winced. I’d gotten carried away, too intent on the need to come across as wise and learned and older than my years.

But the thing about words was, once you said them, you couldn’t ever take them back.

Permanence is a very real thing in this universe of ours. It should not be feared, nor avoided, but rather, fully embraced. That, my father had once told me, was the key to contentment.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “perhaps I should not have—”

“No,” Felice shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. I don’t think a person should ever be sorry for telling the truth. It is…good that I know these things. Even if it’s difficult.” She forced a smile. “Thank you.”

I liked her very much, then. Her openness. The way she smiled. The way she confronted the nature of what I’d just said. I could tell that it wasn’t easy for her; that it was taking everything she had to intellectually accept what I’d told her. Yet she did not shy away.

Without thinking, I took a step toward her.

She watched me and did not move away. I found myself looking at her lips, so full, so red. I had never kissed anyone before and, truthfully, did not know how to do it, nor how to initiate it. My heart thudded worse than ever in my chest, forceful, almost painful, and I nearly laughed at myself, because I was more afraid in that moment than I had been when the operative had sliced at me with her cruel knife.

In the event, I did not need to know how to kiss her.

Felice drifted forward and kissed me instead.

It was genuinely stunning how soft and warm her lips were, so pleasant that I never wanted it to end. Her right hand touched my jaw and my left went to her hip. We were close, so very close, and the warmth of her left me breathless.

It was the most pleasure I had ever experienced, and it ended far too quickly.

It was she who pulled away, but the slight smile playing across her lips told me that it wasn’t because she was unhappy or because I had done anything wrong. I hoped that I had felt as good for her as she had for me.

I had no idea what to say, or what to do.

Felice grinned. “You look stunned.”

“I am a little stunned,” I admitted. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

“Anything,” she gave a little shrug. “You know, I’d kiss you again, but…” she eyed the narrow, shadowed alley ahead. “Well. It’s not the most pleasant location. And I have a feeling Camillan is waiting for us.”

I returned the smile, feeling radiant, feeling glorious. “Then let’s not keep him waiting.”

#

The safehouse was a two-storey residential building, old and a little run-down, but not particularly noteworthy. It had a rusted iron fence around the perimeter, as many homes did in Tymora. The black bricks marked it as having been constructed during the Rebuilding period of Tymora’s history—the decade that had followed the Autarch’s sorcerous destruction of the city.

The moment we stepped through the front door, we were exposed to chaos.

Justinia and Camillan were arguing about something. I peered to my left, through an open door, and saw Akios tied to a wooden chair, blindfolded, gagged, and with pieces of wax lodged in his ears so he couldn’t hear us—although, with how loud Justinia and Camillan were starting to get, I was a little worried they wouldn’t be enough. Two Thorns stood next to Akios, talking in a low whisper, and eyeing the governor with so much malice that it wasn’t difficult to guess what they were thinking. In another room, Amaline reclined on an old lounge, barefoot, arms behind her head, eyes closed. I got the sense that, despite appearances, she was not asleep.

“Ah.” Camillan held up a hand to pause the argument and turned to face us. “There you are. I was beginning to worry. Any issues?”

“None,” I said. “Although we got a little lost.” More accurately, a little lost in conversation, resulting in us arriving slightly late. I was not sorry.

Justinia frowned at us, as though suspicious, and said, “Since you’re here, maybe you can tell this fucking moron how bad his plan is, because evidently, he’s not listening to me.”

Camillan sighed. “It’s a perfectly fine and good plan, Justinia. You’re paranoid.”

“So…” I said. “What is it?”

“He wants to keep Akios here,” Justinia hissed. “Despite the fact that the entire city is going to be looking for us. Despite the fact that there are operatives in this city, a lot of them, and they possess certain powers that we can’t account for.”

“There’s no reason to think that they’ll find us,” Camillan said patiently. “My people are solid. There are no leaks. Yes, there are operatives…but they’re just as likely to find us, if not even more so, if we attempt to move the governor out of the city. Every exit will be closely watched. Even the sewers.”

Into the following silence, I said, “And do we know exactly what we’re doing with him yet?”

“I have an idea,” Camillan murmured.

“Off with his head,” Amaline called out from the lounge.

“A public killing,” Camillan suggested. “And an embarrassing one. One that the Autarchy has to pay attention to.”

“Bullshit,” Justinia said. “You originally said you were going to ransom him back.”

“That was one idea. I’m no longer sure it’ll work. I mean, how are we supposed to arrange that without operatives intervening? Logistically, it’s a nightmare.” Camillan took a step forward, eyes suddenly feverish. “But think about it. That man over there is one of the Autarch’s immortals. There are so few of them, you know, and everyone truly thinks they can’t be killed, that they’re demi-gods. Truth is, they’re not. And we can show them that. We can show everyone that the Autarch and his circle are nothing more than humans, just like us, and that they can bleed and die just like anyone else. That, I believe, is the best way to undermine the Autarchy.”