Game of Towers and Treachery (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 2) Read online

  Glass shuddered beneath her every footfall, radiating up her shins, through her loins, and into her chest where her heart rattled likewise. This is madness, breathed that small, distant voice of reason.

  But as she crossed safely to the other side, gaining noticeably on Clevwrith where he zigged and zagged through the maze, madness began to look a lot more like genius.

  A flutter of triumph went through her, but it was premature. There were skylights yet between them, hazards still to cross.

  She hardly dared to breathe as she sailed over the next skylight, blood spiking through her veins. But after avoiding disaster a second time, she gained confidence, focusing her target in her sights and forging a fleet path over the remaining panels.

  Catching a glance over his shoulder, Clevwrith instantly recognized the way she’d tipped the scales. He changed course, cutting suddenly toward an adjacent rooftop in a risky move that let her further close the gap between them. Obviously, he had a trade-off in mind.

  Despiris raced to pinpoint his objective. Nothing obvious jumped out of the scene before her. Just jerky frames of plain stone buildings.

  Wait. There.

  Two buildings over, an old wooden folding chair and what might have been an ash tray sat tucked into a corner of the shin-high ledge around the rooftop. The implications were clear: roof access.

  And once she was looking for it, she located the hatch that led down into the building, too subtle to stand out on its own.

  Knowing he could no longer outrun Despiris with her newfound advantage, Clevwrith was changing up their arena again.

  Gotta keep it interesting, don’t you, Clevwrith?

  Navigating quickly to the hatch, Clevwrith flung it open and disappeared inside by the time Despiris touched down on the edge of the roof. The chop of her boots was frantic across the platform in his wake, and she all but dived through the hatch, alighting on a skeletal iron structure. She banged her knuckles as she caught herself, the structure shuddering beneath her weight.

  In a blink her eyes adjusted to the darker interior, showing her a warehouse crowded with scaffolding. Half-finished, gorgeous murals of ornate architecture, glittering constellations, and floral-herb arrangements covered the towering walls.

  Despiris recognized it immediately from talks at the palace. It was one of a dozen or so warehouses being renovated as makeshift theaters to host a presentation called Riftfolk, which featured and celebrated stories of the preternaturally gifted. While still in development, the royal scribes were laboring to roll it out quickly, the intent being to acclimate the masses to the idea that the gifted lived among them as fellow living, breathing, struggling citizens.

  Nothing brought people together like a good story with relatable characters, heroes, and heroines.

  How fitting, Despiris thought, that she and her master were about to make use of the stage.

  Clevwrith was swinging monkey-like through the scaffolding, not slowed down in the least by the unorthodox terrain. Hastily wiping her sweaty palms on her pants, Despiris joined him on the bars.

  The many-layered network played tricks with her depth perception, the repetitive splay and overlay of bars giving her an instant headache as she labored to discriminate between foreground and background. It was an iron-woven tapestry that rivaled the confusion of the maze of mirrors hidden beneath the Cob, she thought.

  Welcoming the challenge, she blinked away her cross-eyed impression, springing with calculated prudence to the next perch. She gained confidence quickly, launching from tier to tier. Every muscle strained as the maze demanded full-body contortions, arms and abdominals helping her clamber, scale, or otherwise wrap around the bars as often as she launched between gaps.

  She cringed as the callouses on her palms tore open, swinging one time too many on un-chalked hands. That was going to hurt later.

  ‘Later’ came momentarily, as she was forced to swing again to gain ground. She tried not to imagine how badly she was shredding her palms, thankful adrenaline numbed the worst of the pain.

  Clevwrith faltered ahead as a scaffold quaked on impact, and Despiris used the moment to eliminate a section between them. Once again, her lighter stature was proving advantageous. Keeping her cockiness in check, however, she smothered the smirk that pricked her lips. But she forgot about the pain in her palms as she leapt to the next rung.

  That small lapse was the beginning of Clevwrith’s downfall. As she closed the distance, he increased his efforts to regain his lead, but the more reckless pace proved to strain the scaffolds’ limits as much as his own. The bars shuddered increasingly with each jump, structures shifting beneath him and in turn making each jump a clumsier endeavor.

  In the end, all it took was one poorly-secured scaffold for Clevwrith’s inelegant exertion to tip the balance. As he collided with the next structure, it broke loose from its crude holsters along the wall, groaning under his weight. Refusing to be slowed down again, Clevwrith scrambled to maneuver through the wobbling frame.

  And if he couldn’t be deterred, neither then could Despiris. Pursuing him in spite of the warning bell that clamored it was a mistake, she flew to join him on his sinking ship, telling herself they’d be through it before its integrity failed.

  The structure lurched as she alighted – twisting, folding in a way that there was no coming back from. She realized it the instant she touched down, her grip slipping as gravity shifted dramatically beneath her. She caught herself with an elbow slung over the bar, her whole front slamming against the scaffold with bruising force. Her breath went out of her, her teeth rattling in her skull.

  That’ll hurt later too.

  She scurried to find her footing as the scaffold tipped, switching her goal from a seamless escape to damage-control. Forgetting Clevwrith, she tuned her awareness to the teetering structure, finding her center of gravity as she focused on sensing the give of the bars beneath her. She rode the shifts with commendable finesse, staying mostly on top of the frame as it fell.

  Less lucky was Clevwrith, trapped helplessly inside the failing structure. Climb though he might, he was too many rungs deep. Despiris caught a horrifying visual of him directly underneath her as the thing tipped fully horizontal, clinging to a central bar for dear life.

  Then it collapsed.

  Her arms flailed abruptly, heart lurching into her throat as the scaffold gave out. There was no more digging her way out of the avalanche as it came down around her, no more fancy footwork that could save her from the thin air that gasped beneath her.

  Gravity pulled her down hard and fast, into the maw of splintering bars. She hit one shaft, then another, tossed like a rag doll from one bruising rung to the next. By the time she hit the ground she was knocked all but senseless, retaining just enough instinct to curl into the fetal position and cover her head with her arms as the splaying scaffold crashed down around her.

  Bars chimed and rang against the ground, the floor reverberating as if shaken by an earthquake. Despiris had just regained her wind when a bone-crunching impact knocked it clean out of her again, and all she could do was curl tighter against the onslaught and strain to drag breath back into her lungs, praying she wouldn’t be pummeled to death or impaled by the raining debris.

  It seemed an eternity, an endless onslaught of deadly iron spears, before the last bar finally clanged against the warehouse floor and rolled to its resting place. It was about then that Despiris was able to draw breath again, a ragged gasp dredging into her lungs.

  At first, she was so focused on sucking in precious, overdue air that she forgot about Clevwrith. And then, all at once, she remembered.

  She wasn’t the only one that went down in that collapse.

  She pushed at the ground, struggling to draw herself up. A bar rolled off her back, getting in the last clamor before piling up with the rest.

  Despiris’s gaze darted about for Clevwrith, but the scaffold had fallen in a tight jumble around her, leaving only small gaps to peer through. She scrambled
to her feet, favoring her side where a jab to the ribs left her pained.

  The bars thinned at standing height, enough that she found Clevwrith’s form on the other side. He lay crumpled, a rod impaling his torso.

  “Clevwrith!” she cried, suddenly immune to the pain in her side. Her fingers clutched at the bars that separated them, her chest plastered against them as if she could force her way through iron.

  With a groan he shifted, the protruding bar wobbling.

  “Don’t try to move!” Despiris blurted, frantically glancing upward to map a way out of her cage. “I’m coming to you!”

  But, grunting again, Clevwrith pushed himself into a sitting position. And as he did, the bar fell from its erect position, his cape pulled open with it. Open, and away from his body, leaving a gap between him and the rod.

  It was only the fabric that had been pierced.

  Relief crashed over Despiris in a wave, leaving her lightheaded. She pressed her forehead against the bars, letting her eyes fall shut.

  That was the second time his godforsaken cape had insinuated his tragic death.

  “Please, Des.” With a shing!, Clevwrith dislodged the rod from his cape and sent it to lie with its brethren. “You think you can trick me into holding still, so you can get close enough to ‘check on me’?” In spite of his teasing tone, he got to his feet in obvious pain, hunched and grimacing.

  Des’s relief shifted to dull exasperation. Because of course, fate had seen the scaffolding fall just-so around her, sealing her in where she was helpless to pursue the very un-dead, un-caged Clevwrith. Somehow, he had fallen outside the snare.

  There wasn’t a gap in reach that would allow her form to slip through.

  Gritting her teeth at her misfortune, Despiris ignored the Shadowmaster’s taunting manner as he regained his footing. He had no grounds to gloat, really. Sometimes, the dice just fell where they fell.

  Catching his breath, Clevwrith glanced about the warehouse, gesturing to the work-in-progress. “I think I’ll come to see this, when it debuts.”

  “Just try not to crash in from the ceiling and steal the show. It’s a worthwhile presentation that deserves the spotlight.”

  “I’m flattered, Des, but what makes you think I could steal the show from a bunch of sensational sorcerers and magnificent mages? I am just a man.”

  “Right. ‘Just a man’. Just a man who dons the night like a cloak, communes with shadows, bends the physical world to his will, and gets lucky far more often than any regular man should.” Her grip tensed around a sequestering bar with that last bit, her frustration at how the dice had fallen showing through.

  Clevwrith shrugged. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m not supernaturally gifted. I’m just that good.”

  “All the more reason not to seal the show. It’s not always about you.”

  “Isn’t it though?” Smirking, he turned to leave, and Despiris glanced upward once again to calculate her escape route. A gap big enough to slip through yawned a ways up, but she’d have to climb to get there. Clevwrith would be gone far before she made it to the other side.

  She could have screamed, so potent was her exasperation. “Don’t steal the show, Clevwrith!” she called, her sole-remaining, pitiful effort to get in the last word.

  “I already did!” he called back. And then, swiping a flyer from the makeshift box office, he let himself out the front door.

  Despiris only just had the presence of mind not to pummel the bars with a frustrated shriek, lest she bring the precarious pile down on top of her a second time.

  8

  No Rest for the Wicked

  “‘In your mind, you will find your true adversary, and your true ally. Master your mind, and you master your body. Pain will merely be a suggestion. Discomfort a mere annoyance. You will find that mastering such things is as simple as convincing yourself to take just a single step more. And then doing that again. And again. Into infinity.”

  *

  “What on earth did he do to you?” Lady Verrikose asked, appalled at the sight of Despiris.

  “We play rough, my lady; what did you expect?” Despiris retorted, plagued by too many aches and pains to be polite. Limping into the throne room, she let herself down on one of the many deep windowsills that lined the south wall.

  Isavor half rose from his throne at the sight of her, handing a scroll back to a scribe. Despiris waved him back to his seat, and, uncertainly, he relaxed.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Just a regular Tuesday.”

  Isavor snapped to get a guard’s attention. “Send for a medic.”

  But Despiris interjected. “Just send supplies. I’ll do it myself.” She’d been taught well how to treat minor injuries, and unless completely necessary, she had no interest in letting someone else intrude on her personal space. She was still a solitary, private creature, who desired no man’s touch.

  A blush whispered up her neck as she questioned whether or not that was entirely true…

  Ahem.

  “Do you…have anything to show for your trouble?” Lady Verrikose asked, a certain expectancy in her voice implying she was not much impressed unless Despiris’s half-dead state had yielded something.

  “Do you have anything to show for your pretension?” Despiris shot back. She just couldn’t suffer the noblewoman’s antics today. Cringing at the chafe of fabric against smarting gash, she rolled up a sleeve to inspect her battered forearm. A nasty laceration sliced from the back of her hand to her elbow. It was just one of many cuts and bruises that marred her form from the day’s ordeal.

  Lady Verrikose set her teacup down on its saucer a little too sharply.

  “Easy, Lady Verrikose,” Despiris cajoled. “You made poor Slasher flinch.” If she hadn’t been in so much pain, she might have had to bite back a snicker at her funny. For they both knew the sloth hadn’t so much as shown signs of life where it dangled from its decorative, portable stand next to the noblewoman’s tea table.

  “What happened?” Isavor asked, ignoring the ever-present squabble between the two ladies.

  “I had a run-in with a scaffold, which covered a plurality of altitudes,” Despiris grumbled. “But I’m not in half as many pieces as it is.”

  At that unusual account, Isavor searched for an appropriate follow-up. “Bloody…Tuesdays,” he remarked in a half-amusing, wanting attempt at relating. As if he were familiar with such hazards.

  Despiris grunted.

  “And what of the Master of the Shadows?” Lady Verrikose pressed coolly. “Did he avoid this unfortunate accident, or did the demigod take damage as well?” A cruel spark lit her eye as another angle occurred to her. “Or was it, perhaps, a trap he set for his unsuspecting apprentice?”

  Despiris spared her a glower. “It wasn’t a trap. He did take damage.”

  The cruel spark turned to intrigue. “Not a demigod, after all,” she mused, just a little too pleased.

  Nope, Despiris wanted to say. Just a man. But in spite of Clevwrith’s insistence that he was, indeed, a mere mortal, Despiris was not so ready to downplay his mystique, lest it cause these figures to raise their expectations of her. “Even demigods get hurt, Lady Verrikose.”

  “Then I suppose we should consider this a victory.” She raised her tea to her lips as if drinking to their success. “The demigod has been taken down a peg.”

  “Do you have an estimation of his injuries?” Isavor asked. Just then, the throne room doors opened, and a white-robed medic entered laden with basic supplies. The king motioned him toward the window.

  “Do you require assistance–” the medic began, but Despiris interrupted.

  “Leave everything. Thank you.” Nodding, the man set his sacks on the windowsill and, directing a brief bow toward the king, retreated as quickly as he had come. Despiris fished around in the sacks as she replied to the king. “He limped away from the scene in a state similar to mine.” Selecting disinfectant, gauze, and a needle and thread kit, she lined up her choice items on the si
ll and got to work.

  “Are you sure you don’t want help?” Clearly not accustomed to wounded soldiers limping into the throne room to treat themselves in his presence, bleeding all over his marble floor and stripping half-naked to access a myriad of ailments, Isavor could not keep a persisting note of concern from lacing his voice.

  “It’s nothing,” Despiris insisted, but glanced up as she sensed his remaining discomfort. “Would you prefer I do this elsewhere?”

  Isavor straightened in his throne, shaking off the macabre spectacle she created. “No – no need. Wherever you are comfortable, certainly. Carry on.”

  Very good. Despiris had to wonder if the noblewoman in the room had the stomach for such unpleasant business, but Lady Verrikose watched with almost morbid fascination as Despiris moved from disinfecting to stitching herself up.

  Of course, she was all the way across the room. It was decidedly more unpleasant up close.

  Despiris gritted her teeth, steeling herself against the nauseating task that was piercing her own puckered flesh with a needle. Not once. Not twice. But in painstaking, merciless succession down her arm. Never had the space between hand and elbow seemed so impossibly long before. There was a mile of flesh there, over-sensitive with hyper-active nerve-endings, every prick a bone-deep twang, the thread a foreign, abrasive entity dragged through raw sockets, every tug like pulling on a vein.

  Lady Verrikose rose to refill her tea at the beverage cart, coy and nonchalant as she suggested, “While you are healing, I shall send out the beasts to do another sweep. If the Shadowmaster is equally plagued, we should not lose the moment to exploit his weakness.”

  Despiris realized her mistake instantly. She should never have admitted he was injured. Or that she was, for that matter. But even if she’d gone covertly to see a medic before making her report, word would have traveled back to the king.

  It isn’t the king hungry for the chance to ‘exploit the Shadowmaster’s weaknesses’. No, her real mistake was feeding Lady Verrikose intel. The king was willing enough to let her take the reins on the operation, as long as it meant he had her cooperation. But it seemed Lady Verrikose was always at his side, meddling and manipulating.