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Carina Goldstone, Logician of the 3rd Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, encountering ghosts

Theo Adamantios, Axe Master of the 6th Renown, and Sylvie Aracia, his sponsor, Penchenne, the latter in a state of fever

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29 Trollove, 61 AW

The village of Tiptop, North Continent

121 days until the next Granting

The room stank of sweat, the tang of anxiety mixed with the cloying aroma of tea, the pot left untouched and gone cold. Hot stones glowed red in the corner stove. The windows were sealed up tight, the heavy curtains drawn and still, not so much as a draft to disturb them. And yet, despite the dry heat, Carina felt a clamminess travel down her back.

“I saw one in Besdaden,” Sylvie mumbled. “I snuck away to look at the body when the beastlords carried it away. He’d cut open his own belly and let some monster crawl out of him. That's what they'll make me do.”

“I don't think so, Syl.”

“Or something worse,” Sylvie continued. “And we deserve it.”

Carina didn't respond.

With the help of Theo Adamantios, she had pulled Sylvie back upstairs. Then, Carina shut the door in the champion’s face and guided Sylvie beneath her pile of blankets. Sylvie writhed there like a caterpillar caught in a web. She seemed teetering on the edge of a nightmare. Her eyes went in and out of focus.

“Is there something I can do?” Carina asked. She noticed an envelope on the bedside table—crumbs of herbs stuck to the paper. She wondered what medicines Sylvie had been consuming.

“Don’t let them take me,” Sylvie said quietly.

Carina reached out, hesitated for a moment, and then brushed some dark strands of hair off Sylvie's damp forehead. Her skin was pale and hot, and Carina suddenly remembered the marble verandas of Penchenne. Years ago, they had laid on those stones warm from the sun and baked like pita bread. They drank iced white wine in the style of Penchennese summer and Carina listened to Sylvie talk about the dashing swordsman she would marry.

“Of course I won’t,” Carina replied.

Did she mean that? Or was it just something to say? In the moment, even Carina wasn’t sure. For once, she didn’t know her own mind.

Four years without seeing each other. Carina had never responded to any of Sylvie's letters. She had read them and burned them and if they had come up Carina would have claimed they never found her. That was not so unbelievable. She had traveled the world while Sylvie had remained in Penchenne, sulking in her gilded cage.

Looking at her now, Sylvie appeared older than Carina would have expected. Carina still remembered the girl who had the sharpest tongue in their diplomacy courses, but in private was quick to pout and cry about slights real and imagined. The shorter hair made Sylvie look more like a woman, styled so similarly to her aunt the Exile Queen Deidre, but the rest of her features had hardened, too. Carina wondered what she looked like in Sylvie's eyes, if her own experiences were likewise etched into her face.

Sylvie groaned and rolled onto her side, curling around a pillow. Carina took a step back.

“We shouldn’t have done it,” Sylvie whispered. “Oh, Carina, we shouldn’t have.”

“I'll be back,” Carina said. “I’m going to find something to help you rest.”

She did not wait for Sylvie to respond. Carina fled the room, her mind cycling through herbal mixtures. Something to break the fever. Something to dull the wits. Something to induce forgetfulness. Something that would make the girl sleep for three days. Render her comatose in a way that wouldn’t butt up against the gods’ protection. Carina knew a few mixtures that might work. There were no shortage of merchants lining Tiptop's solitary thoroughfare. Surely, one of them was an apothecary. The envelope on Sylvie’s nightstand had to have come from someone.

“How's she doing?”

Carina started at Theo’s presence. He leaned against the wall outside Sylvie's room, tugging sheepishly at the curls on the back of his head.

“How long has she been this way?” Carina asked sharply.

“She grew weak during our time in the cold, but a healer treated her when we arrived,” Theo said. “The fever keeps coming back. I think she makes it so. Taking something to keep herself from sleeping. A side effect of that. Same with these visions she's experiencing. We’ve been too long on the road, pushed too—”

“The visions,” Carina interrupted. “What has she said? What has she seen?”

“She keeps talking about a monkey. We spent some time in Besaden but I don’t recall seeing…”

Theo trailed off, studying Carina. Had something in her face given him pause? Or had he merely sobered up and finally realized he shouldn't go sharing the business of his sponsor with a relative stranger?

“A monkey,” Carina repeated.

Theo shook his head. “I don’t know. Her mind is confused, that’s all. The girl’s had a hard time.”

“I know all about her hard time.”

Carina turned away from him and went to stand at the railing that looked down on the tavern below. Vitt still sat at his table, trying to go drink-for-drink with the lumberjocks of Fornon. If she’d been resentful before of how he’d brushed her aside, she now felt grateful for his distraction. She scanned the room, her eyes pausing briefly on the candles of Magelab. Still no sign of an archmage. Something about that tickled Carina’s mind, but she set it aside as she noticed a familiar shape huddled at the bar. The odd barge captain Dell Whittle—checking in with the innkeeper Val—while a group of muscled locals carried the captain’s three trunks upstairs.

“How do you two know each other?” Theo asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I do mind.”

“Ah.” Theo came to stand next to her. “You sound like her. In terms of tone, I mean. And being rude to me.”

Carina glanced at the dopey axe master. “She shouldn't have taken on another champion. Why would she do that? Why you?”

“With great reluctance,” Theo replied. “It was her father's idea.”

“Of course.”

“You know her family, then?”

Carina waved off this man's stupid question, pressing her tongue against the back of her teeth. “When did you decide to come here?”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Pardon me?”

“Was this spur of the moment?” Carina asked. “Did you just happen to be traveling the area and…?”

“Did we just happen to be traveling the frozen north?” Theo chuckled. “We've been hunting Ink, same as you, I imagine. Nortmost was always our destination. Why?”

Because she hadn't foreseen their presence. Carina kept that answer to herself, though.

Could she really have overlooked a meeting with Sylvie? Had she been too focused with her fate on the mountain? She supposed it could be possible. All of the probabilities she had shuffled through, weeks of her future twisting on one innocuous decision or the next. Whether she had two glasses of wine or three. Whether she let Vitt take her to bed or not. She was glad her [Future Sight] remained faded. Her head ached at the thought of using it again. And yet, she itched for it—the peeking, the glimpses, the knowledge. She wondered if this was how those slushers felt when they smoked their frosswiss, knowing the mold would grow from their veins, and doing it anyway. A bitter taste filled Carina's mouth at the thought.

“I did so much before,” she said quietly, digging the heel of her hand into her breastbone. “I never needed this.”

“Are you well?” Theo asked.

“I’ve grown too cautious,” Carina said. “Too reliant on the Ink.”

“I’m of the opinion that caution is actually an underappreciated quality.”

Carina whipped her head around. “What are you saying?”

“I thought you were talking to me.”

Carina shook her head. Her eyes returned to Dell Whittle down below. He took his key from Val and started up the stairs behind his helpers. When one man’s grip slipped and a trunk nearly dropped to the floor, Whittle screamed and clapped his hands over his mouth. The locals snickered, hefted the luggage, and continued on their way. The music and chatter below was loud enough that no one else noticed. Carina’s gaze once again flicked to the table of Magelab candles and something in her mind fit together. She couldn’t suppress the urge to grab Theo’s arm.

“You saw an assassin in Besaden,” Carina said.

Theo’s brow furrowed. He didn’t bother asking how she knew that. “Not me, personally,” he said. “I was indisposed. But there was talk that one had come into the woods to end his life. A strange people, but then they would have to be, yes?”

Carina’s mind turned. She folded her hands behind her back, like a lecturer. It would help to speak her thoughts aloud. “Before the Brokerage, they were beastlords.”

“Is… is that so?” Theo said, in the tone of a man who’d lost the thread of the conversation.

“This predates the Grantings, and even the start of the Final War,” Carina continued. “A century ago, the beastlords warred with the mages. Their fighters couldn’t match the arcane forces on the battlefield, so they fought in other ways. Guerilla assassins with masks that rendered them invisible to a mage’s enhanced senses.”

“You know your history,” Theo said. “But why are we talking about this?

Carina turned to peer down the hall. Whittle had arrived with his help. He hurriedly unlocked the door, waved the men inside to deposit the trunks, and then shooed them out. The local muscle lingered for a moment—perhaps disappointed there hadn’t been a gratuity—then shuffled back downstairs.

A coffin, Sylvie had said. The woman made her lay down in a coffin.

Or, perhaps, a trunk.

Carina faced Theo. “Your sponsor owes a debt.”

“I doubt that. Her family is very rich.” Carina raised an eyebrow and a dawning awareness spread across Theo’s face. He shook his head. “No. I don’t believe she would engage in… in that.”

“Fine,” Carina said, waiting him out. She could see in Theo’s eyes that he did believe her. Carina wasn’t entirely sure why she’d divulged this information to Sylvie’s champion—he had a kind face, she supposed. A rare thing among champions.

“She did ask me once…” Theo lowered his voice, even though he was already whispering and the room below was still noisy. “She did ask me once about revenge. If I worried about revenge for the killing I’d done at the Granting.”

“Her debt comes due,” Carina said. “Which is why she finds herself in this state.”

Theo glanced at the closed door to Sylvie’s room. “What should I do?”

Carina ran a hand through her hair. She might easily convince this man to leave Tiptop tonight. Forgo his chance at Ink and spirit Sylvie back to Penchenne. Carina sensed that he would do it. But wouldn’t that just delay the inevitable? The Brokerage would catch up with Sylvie eventually. She had never heard of anyone escaping a debt to the assassins.

“You’ll have to help her,” Carina said. “They’ll ask something of her, and she might need your assistance to accomplish it. Don’t let on that you know. But be…”

“Receptive to requests, yes, of course. I am her champion,” Theo said. He rested a hand lightly on Carina’s shoulder. “To piece together what ails her in a matter of minutes, while me, her erstwhile traveling companion could not. You are a true friend to her, Madam Goldstone.”

Carina snorted and stepped back. “No, I haven’t been. But maybe I can redeem myself now.”

Perhaps Carina even meant that. Certainly, her own self-preservation aligned with Sylvie’s better interests.

“Excuse me, Theo,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “I believe I’m due for a watch shift. You should check on Sylvie. Make sure she rests.”

Carina waited for Theo to disappear into Sylvie’s room, then she marched down the hall toward the door that Dell Whittle had entered. She did not have a plan in mind. Normally, Carina favored subtlety. But, here, she found herself matched with opponents that preferred a similarly calculated approach. Perhaps coming at them head-on was the play.

With particularly good timing, Dell Whittle stepped into the hall. His eyes widened when he saw her.

Carina closed with the scrawny barge captain and activated [Force Armor]. The invisible buffer slammed Dell against the wall—trapping him there.

“Captain, I have some questions about your cargo.”

“No!” he squeaked. “I’m done! Paid in full!”

He hadn’t finished closing the door behind him. It creaked open slightly. Invitingly. Pursing her lips, Carina let go of her [Force Armor], feeling little satisfaction as Dell bolted downstairs. She shoved the door the rest of the way open.

The assassins waited for her.

Wrathful Elephant stood nearest the door—undressed except for a pair of cotton short pants. The man possessed a muscular, bulging physique befitting the flaring trunk of his wooden mask. Carina took quick note of his Ink. He was third renown, like her, a replacement for one of the dead at the last Granting. He stood on one leg, clutching his knee to the chest, and slowly rotated his hips.

Laughing Monkey sat atop one of Dell’s trunks, facing the door, her legs crossed, one knee jutting out through the split in her ice-blue ward-weave dress. She was the one—the one who had killed Ben Tuarez, the one who Cortland hunted. Carina stood in the doorway, uncertain what to do now that she was here.

“Brother, look,” Laughing Monkey said. “The logician visits at last to thank us for ferrying her to the frigid north.”

“You should close that door,” Wrathful Elephant said. “We aren’t exactly welcome at gatherings like this.”

“Maybe I’ll shout, instead,” Carina replied, her voice low. “Assassins, assassins! I suspect there’s enough champions down there to tie you to stakes and keep you there until the Granting.”

Wrathful Elephant continued his stretching. “Did you know that if you tie a man to a post and leave him to starve that the gods will stop his hunger? Eventually, they will even untie the knots. Did you know that an innocent man gets released faster than one who has done wrong? You would enjoy our beach, logician, and the experiments we perform there.”

“If you did shout, then so would we,” Laughing Monkey added. She put her hands on her wooden cheeks and tipped her head from side-to-side. “Two champions of Infinzel who think no one can hear them. What might they talk about, hm?”

Carina stepped fully inside and closed the door behind her.

“Thank you,” said Wrathful Elephant.

“Well, little girl,” Laughing Monkey said. “I hear you like to dress up as me.”

Carina swallowed. She wasn’t sure how the assassin could know that—only Cortland and Cizco had been present on the morning of her ambush. Clearly, the assassins meant to fluster her. Carina had used that technique often enough. Sometimes, an advantage could be grabbed just by appearing to be two steps ahead. Carina refused to be thrown off course.

“You’ve come here to collect from Sylvie Aracia,” she said.

“I have come to climb the stupid mountain,” Wrathful Elephant replied.

Laughing Monkey scratched behind her protruding ear and her hand came back balancing a blood-stained coin on the knuckles. “And?”

“You call yourselves a brokerage, right?” Carina said. “I want to buy her debt.”

“Unprecedented,” Wrathful Elephant said. “But not impossible.”

“I have the riches of Infinzel at my disposal,” Carina said.

“Do you?” Wrathful Elephant switched which knee he pulled on. “Do you, really?”

“And I could… I could be helpful to you,” Carina added.

“And what would you do with her debt?” Laughing Monkey asked. “Would you forgive it? Given how you’ve already benefited, that would be the noble thing, yes? But you are not a noble thing, are you? You would hold the debt. You would tell yourself you keep it safe. And you would wait until you needed to use it.”

Carina forced herself to stare steadily at the monkey mask’s googly eyes. “That would be my business,” she said.

“Mm,” Laughing Monkey replied. She held out the blood-smeared angle so Carina could see it. “Here is my counter-offer. Cut your hand, make your mark here atop your friend’s, and I will allow you to share in her debt.”

“I decline,” Carina said.

“Don’t be so hasty,” Wrathful Elephant said. “We don’t ask much of the girl. An easy task. Easier even than the boat captain who brought us up here.”

“What, then?” Carina asked. “What do you want from her?”

“A foolish thing, really, that slightly undermines our industry, but…” Wrathful Elephant stomped his leg down and shrugged. “My sister has found herself smitten with a hammer-wielding lump of your acquaintance.”

Laughing Monkey put her fingers to her giddy mouth and tilted her head girlishly. “We only ask her to confess,” she said. “Confess her crimes to my hammer master and throw herself upon his mercy.”

Carina’s back bumped up against the door. She’d stepped backward without realizing it.

“So?” Laughing Monkey asked. “Will you join her?”

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