Vahn [https://shadowsprey.com/wp-content/uploads/story-images/01_25_vahnh.png]

ATARRABI

Vahn left Osawa to watch over Haru, stopping on the other side of the door. He buttoned his shirt up and adjusted the collar, though it didn’t quite hide the slave bands tattooed on his neck. On the streets, he shoved his hands deep in his pockets to further conceal his wrists and kept his shoulders back, his eyes trained in front of him.

It was both a blessing and a curse to be back in Eskegal. He knew his way through these winding streets, as well as above and below them. He’d been traded here once, passed from one hand to another until being carted to Adur where he was ultimately found by the Palamidia.

While he could hide the marks on his skin with the respectable pressed Palamidia white they still burned on his skin, a constant reminder that this place was not safe.

No place was safe.

He ducked into one of the abandoned warehouses strewn along a side thoroughfare and took the stairs to the roof, avoiding the missing and broken treads out of habit. On the roof, he made out the first of the suspension bridges.

While legitimate business was dealt on the Trade Street, the smugglers lurked above. Rickety wooden bridges were suspended between building roofs, and they took advantage of the twisted landscape and nauseating heights to keep their dealings out of sight.

The bridges swung beneath his feet, threatening him with splintering cracks and the creak of ropes. He wound his way over the rope suspensions and beams that connected the roofs until he arrived above the Grocer.

He hopped off the final beam, his boots crunching against the asphalt shingles scattered on the flat roof that had fallen from a higher vantage.

A service entrance stood at the back of the roof, the rusted grey door painted with a stylized rose. He traced a finger over the outline.

Edin had done well for herself.

He knocked.

Behind the door a chair scraped as it was dragged across the floor. The peep hole on the door slid away momentarily before being shoved roughly back into place. Footsteps led away from the door, and the creak of the chair followed soon after.

He knocked again, louder, hammering the side of his fist against the metal.

“Go ‘way.”

“I’m here for Edin,” Vahn said, not bothering to raise his voice.

“So’s everyone else,” the voice replied, muffled through the layers of steel, “doesn’t mean you get ‘er.”

Vahn pressed his palm against the door, just above the handle. “You let me in,” he said, “or we go with option two.”

“Oh yeah?” the voice said behind the door. “What’s that?”

Vahn pressed harder against the door. He shut his eyes, feeling the heat on his skin, the rage inside of him, and he forced it into his palm. The metal of the door began to heat, turning red under his touch.

“Option two is I burn this place to ash, and you won’t even have your bones left to mourn you by.”

The metal crackled, hissing as it melted. It slid beneath his hand, the liquid creeping down and cooling in rivulets.

Vahn stepped back and slammed his heel into the door. It broke open, hitting the wall in the room beyond.

The guard stared at him, his mouth agape. Vahn didn’t move from his place in the threshold as the guard leapt to his feet and scampered back, upending the chair he had been sitting in and sending his card game flying.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Vahn waited until the guard’s retreating footsteps faded before letting himself into the room. He righted the chair the guard had knocked over and settled into it, crossing his ankle over his knee. He drew one of his knives and ran the tip of it under his nails, removing the dust that had caked beneath them from his jaunt through the smugglers’ territory.

He didn’t have to wait long.

The sound of arguing issued down the corridor that lit the guard’s room, followed by an assortment of footsteps. He glanced up when the interior light was blocked, squinting at the door frame as it was filled by a new guard.

“Not looking for you,” he said, returning to his nails.

A quiet moment passed.

“Move,” a voice from the back grumbled. The bodies in the corridor attempted to press into the side of the wall, unwilling to venture into the room with Vahn.

From the mass of tangled limbs, a woman emerged. She stepped into the room, hands on her hips. Her hair was cut shorter than he remembered, and the slave tattoos on her neck had been traced over, turning into curving flowers that wrapped around her throat.

“It’s been awhile,” he said, sheathing his knife.

Edin met Vahn’s gaze with a glare. They were the only members of their family to survive the raid on their tribal caravan. After being split apart and passed to other owners, they had both ultimately ended up in the hands of the Palamidia.

But the Palamidia wanted soldiers, believers. Edin was neither. When she took to the wind, leaving Vahn behind, no one followed her.

The woman stalked forward, bending to meet Vahn’s eyes. He met her violet gaze with his own.

“Will you be paying for my door, cousin?”

Vahn glanced over his shoulder where the metal door hung useless on its hinges.

“No,” he said, “I don’t think I will.”

Edin crossed her arms at her chest, her eyes narrowing. The bands on her wrists had been turned into snakes, their open mouths devouring roses. “You want to tell me what a Palamidia officer wants with me?”

He had looked for her after he’d become an officer, but by that time, Edin had turned her skills to smuggling. She commanded a small fleet of engines and she was careful, creative. Her people always found a new and better way to get around the patrols.

It was this creativity that Vahn was relying on now.

“Need a favor,” he said. He uncrossed his leg and pushed the chair opposite of him out with his foot.

Edin gripped the back of it with one hand, the other waving off the men gathered at the door.

After their audience dispersed, Edin collapsed into the chair, her elbows on the table.

“You look well,” she said, her voice low.

“I am.”

“A bit thin.”

Vahn reached up with one hand, unhooking the top button of his collar and loosening it. “Always have been.”

Edin relaxed her elbows and knitted her fingers together, resting her hands on the scattered cards still present.

“It’s been years,” she said.

Vahn nodded. He leaned back further in his chair, easing his shoulders.

“I looked for you,” Edin continued, “but by the time I was anything, you were already more.”

Vahn smirked. “Slave to Saint,” he said. “I’m a poster boy.”

“Yeah, and that poster has a bounty on it now.”

Vahn raised an eyebrow. “Already?”

Edin grinned, leaning back in her seat. “Your family would’ve been proud.”

Vahn felt his smile freeze, then fall. “She is, even if she’s not great at showing it,” he said. “Which brings me back to my favor.”

Edin crossed her arms at her chest.

“Alright,” she said. “I’m listening.”

Vahn twined his fingers together and leaned forward. He placed his hands on the table, then pressed them down. “I am getting my family back,” he said. “And you are going to help.”

Edin’s violet gaze narrowed on him. “If I don’t?”

Vahn’s smirk returned and he leaned back, crossing his arms to match Edin’s stance.

“No one likes option two.”