Dark Dealings Read online

  “Your duty.”

  She smoothed her hands down the rough nap of her linen cloak. “You know I chose this balcony simply for a fine view of him.” She didn’t wait for Reist’s reply, but trotted down the twisting steps and out to the corridor.

  She followed the cuts of tunnels, halls and stairways to the lower levels. The apprentices were packed in down there, some of the younger ones practically semi-wild. The children came to the Institute already marked for the lower levels, the stain of a tattoo on the back of their necks. The first ward of the apprentice. She’d never witnessed the ceremony performed to mark someone worthy to hold magic in their flesh. Mages did love their secrets.

  The initiates had to find the strength in themselves to drive out the darkness from their bones, become pure and ready to have magic burn within them...all by the time they were twenty-five. And some pushed too far, too close to the time when they were finally to become mages.

  Dalit Roald and Elvio Kare were two such apprentices.

  Slipping past the locks and heavy gates that marked the entrance to the apprentice chambers was easy. She moved through the shadows, wrapping them around herself. The smell of blood, of sex and the sharp stink of forbidden tinctures pierced the air. She breathed it in, let her lungs swell with it. Shit. She scrubbed a hand over her face. The thief in her warmed to the debauchery.

  The mages liked to pretend that the wildness of the lower halls had never been a part of their youth. Mages purified themselves with high magic and devoted their lives to the pursuit of knowledge. Books—the knowledge pressed into vellum—fed them as meat fed her.

  Her two marks didn’t want to leave the lower levels. As they approached twenty-five, they faced only two choices. They ascended. Or they died. Something in these two men’s minds was not working with that stark fact. Her report to Reist would either save them or condemn them.

  Sounds of snuffled breathing, of low grunts and snores, followed her as she moved on silent feet down the ill-lit corridor. Her hand moved to the blade at her hip. Senses that marked them as a candidate to be a mage could—if they were sharp enough—pick out her strangeness in the shadows. Reist’s freedom gave her permission to defend herself how she saw fit. In her ten years, she’d cut more than one nosy apprentice.

  The corridor ended in open doors to the small refectory. The Institute provided a store of food, and apprentices had to secure and cook what they ate themselves. Roald and Kare sat at a wooden table, the light from the arch edging the scraped wood. A dark pot of tea, cups, plates, cutlery and the remains of bread, bacon and porridge covered the table. The two men leaned back in their wooden chairs, faces bleached by the light.

  Roald tapped the surface with his blunt nails. His expression didn’t change. “I know you’re there, Ava.”

  A wry smile touched her mouth. “Up early for a change?” She pulled out a chair, the metal-shod legs scraping against the tile floor. “Want to tell me the truth, or do you want me to hunt it out? You know which will serve you better.”

  Kare pushed back his long locks of blond hair, sat forward and smiled. The smile that had lured many of the apprentices into his bed. “Would we lie to you, Ava?”

  Kare was no temptation. She had eyes only for Reist. Kare was a boy, pretty, but nothing like the Highest Mage.

  “You would and you have.” She snagged a slice of bacon from Roald’s plate—he cooked more to her taste—and bit off a piece. “You know ascension is coming. You take control or...” She shrugged. “They feed your remains to Heyerdar.”

  Roald laughed. “Him.”

  Ava held back a frown. Something in the way Roald had said the word pricked her senses. She was already too curious about the senior captain. “You didn’t fuck with him, did you?”

  “Some of the younger ones did.” Kare had the grace to wince. “This insane thing with the mages. The Highest Mage simply taking a woman from him? From Heyerdar?” He ran his finger around the rim of his mug, staring down at it. “To the stupid, that has suggested a slip in his power.”

  Ice ran over her skin. “What did they do?”

  “We stopped most of them. Two got through.” Roald wet his lips. “We left the ones we caught with the other senior apprentices and followed the last two into Heyerdar’s chambers.”

  Baiting Heyerdar in his den was madness. He was an elemental, who knew what he did in the privacy of his rooms. And it was an order from the emperor himself to leave the senior captain alone. “Did you find them in time?”

  Kare didn’t look up, his finger trembling as it traced the mug. “No.”

  Her gut twisted. “He found you?”

  Roald pulled in a deep breath. “Yes.”

  Ava wiped her hand over her mouth and sat back in her chair. The wood creaked. “Are they still...?”

  “Alive?” Kare’s mouth quirked upwards. “Yes. Though they may never be the same. We may never be the same.”

  “His door was open when we got there. We saw him take each boy by the throat and bury him in the wall. Only mouths and nostrils showing. Then he saw us.” Roald pointed to his friend. “He managed to speak. I was frozen.”

  “I groveled,” Kare said. “He growled, pulled the boys free and told us all to fuck off.” A sour laugh broke from the apprentice. “Which we did. At great speed.”

  Perhaps Heyerdar could be drafted to keep the apprentices in line...though really, their control had to come from within. “So it has you here, thinking?”

  Roald closed his eyes for a brief moment and lined his forehead. “I never knew there was power like that. A mage uses power so rarely, must keep it all within. It’s something precious. Holds...” He was sharing mage secrets and it made him pause. His tone changed. Yes, Roald was learning. “They were in the wall, their lips moved, they screamed—and that sound is never going to leave me—they begged. And he, he...watched.”

  “Old magic is not high magic.” No mage could bury anyone in stone and still have them living, breathing, screaming. Mage magic was more...cerebral and, as Roald had admitted, rarely left their bodies. She had the raw end of old magic. Elementals oozed power. A thief was a hole, owned nothing, took everything. “You’re to stay away from him for a reason.”

  “And yet the Highest Mage took Mage Braith from him.” Roald shook his head. “And he’s still alive.”

  So she wasn’t the only one wondering why Reist was walking around alive and whole. “Which is no doubt why he is the Highest Mage.”

  “True, or he has a really big—”

  “Kare...” Roald growled his friend’s name and a flush ran across the other man’s cheeks. Their meeting with Heyerdar had been the sharp shock they needed. He’d saved their lives.

  Ava snagged another slice of bacon, weathering Roald’s quick glare. “The Highest Mage told me to grab some breakfast. I’m a thief. I’m taking yours.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “Then be my guest.”

  “Permission spoils it.” She wiped her greasy fingers on a linen cloth and stood. She could recommend the two for ascension. Heyerdar had knocked the cockiness out of them. He’d be pleased he’d added to the number of mages born to annoy him. “I’ll be back this way tomorrow. Until then.”

  Kare poured himself another cup of black tea. “We’ll deny you breakfast then too.”

  Ava nodded. “I’m honored.” She settled her hood over her face. Their expressions changed, the first dart of fear running through them. They’d never been afraid of her before. Her shadowy features were a reminder that old magic held her too. For a moment, she’d been welcome...but now she was once again the feared outsider. Before they took to the circle—another ceremony the mages had shrouded from her—the wariness of who and what she was often sank into an initiate’s mind. It was almost another mark on their path to becoming a mage.

  Ava left the refectory, her
cloak kicking out around her heels. She pushed down their reaction, gave it no more mind. It was what it was. How it always was.

  At least Heyerdar had made something less painful. And it was easier to think about him than it was to dwell on the tight fist in the chest that came from thoughts of Reist.

  She kept her stride even and steady. More breakfast and then she’d retire to the library to write out her reports on Roald and Kare. Recommending them would be a much less poisonous document to write.

  Doors creaked open as people woke to the day. Ava moved through the shadows, the sconces offering a weak yellow glow that hardly broke the heavy darkness of the corridor. Apprentices blocked her way. She looked to the open door they crowded around and frowned. Eleta’s room.

  Ava stopped herself from letting out a long sigh. Eleta was not someone she needed so early in the morning...but the draw was there. The woman was twenty-four. Ava doubted Eleta would see beyond her twenty-fifth birthday. Her indiscretions were becoming more...flagrant. She wallowed in her base nature.

  The apprentices could feel it too, the energy that surrounded sex. Breathing it in, letting it fill her thoughts, Ava wanted it to wash through her veins. With its power she could weave illusions. Eating their muscle, their blood and bone with sex hot in their veins? To her it would be as if she’d broke open the sun.

  Ava couldn’t close her eyes. They’d thrown back the shutters to the narrow arched window and golden light bathed the wide bed set in the middle of the small room. The sun shone against a tangle of limbs, Eleta’s white skin gleaming with sweat. The men, beneath and above her, found her with their mouths, their dicks. Low groans, Eleta’s increasing cries and the wet slap of quickening need filled the air.

  Ava tried to remember to breathe, her gaze fixed on where their bodies joined, watching the increasing slide of both men in and out of Eleta’s flesh. Heat burned in Ava’s face, the warmth in her belly matching it. The strength bound up with the three wet her mouth.

  They’d fucked before, often, knew each other’s needs and bodies so well, the pleasure that burned from them was smooth and all-consuming.

  Ava pressed a hand to her mouth. The strain of reining in the thief ran fire though her mind and muscles. Reist had tested her nature, and her control was thin. She had to fight the need to charge into the room and sink her sharpened teeth into Eleta, into either of the men. With their blood in her mouth, it would draw golden life energy into her empty soul.

  For a long moment, she imagined herself in Eleta’s place, feeding on her own pleasure, on the men who took her and fucked her. She swallowed and took a step back. The tanned guard kneeling between Eleta’s thighs, all sleek muscles and golden hair, grew hazy, his face changing, and Ava saw Heyerdar’s perfection. Her heart thudded, the tight twist to her flesh dancing spots over her eyes.

  Her and Heyerdar. Two creatures of old magic wrapped up in sex. Not devouring. Just fucking...

  Ava wrenched herself away. She focused on the shadows, pushing past the knot of apprentices to the open doors leading out of the lower halls. She collapsed back against the outer wall, breathing, letting her heart slow, denying the demands of her body. The need to sink her teeth into their hot, slick skin...or better yet find Heyerdar.

  She swore under her breath. Heyerdar buried people in walls. Heyerdar was an elemental, a fury of fire and earth. He did not want little thieves, especially little virgin thieves, presenting themselves to him.

  Reist had her thoughts in a mess. The thief in her pressed against thin skin, pushing out, wanting to take and devour. To live on the outside and not be pushed down into the darkness. She wanted Reist, had wanted him from the first moment she saw him, but his lack of interest and everyone else’s fear of what she was left her with her own fingers and watching the excesses of the apprentice halls.

  Her report. She would write that in the heavy quiet of the library. Dusty books, silent air, the gravity of so much knowledge pressing against her need would overwhelm her darkness. It worked for the mages. Knowledge kept them sane. She pushed herself away from the cold wall.

  Eleta’s satisfied cry followed her into the shadows. With the woman’s release came the trace of hunger burning the air around her, feeling real and raw. Fuck. It dogged her everywhere now.

  Ava closed her eyes. It was going to be another long day.

  Chapter Two

  “Thief Kalle.” Dorien lifted his spectacles from his face and narrowed his gaze. A little tick jumped under his right eye.

  Ava held his cloudy blue gaze and pushed back her hood to let the twist of shadows fall from her features. Her body still hummed and she didn’t want the librarian’s usual interrogation, not when her skin was tight and every sense taut.

  He didn’t like her. Never had, never would. Only her skills as a thief let her read anything in the endless alcoves of books and scrolls. He wanted her stained fingers nowhere near his precious knowledge.

  “Master Dorien.” She pressed her leather satchel to her chest, the seal of the Highest Mage flared in gold across its pitted surface. She presented it to him like armor. “My usual table is available?”

  He grunted and shoved back his chair. The harsh scrape echoed through the stone arches and marble columns of the library. More than one mage looked up and frowned. “You have a perfectly good room, which has a desk, a chair, light, pens, paper and ink. Why you insist on coming to my library...”

  “Snooping in my room, again, Master Dorien. People will talk.”

  He scowled at her, a hard chip of hate cutting through his gaze. “The Highest Mage may allow your disgusting familiarity. I do not.”

  “Good to know, because the idea of you in my room...” She gave a delicate shudder and smiled as the first flush of magic rose up from his wrinkled flesh to heat his skin. She leaned towards him, not too close as the man stank of ancient cloth and dusty books. “You forget what I am, Dorien.” She let the quietly spoken words sink in.

  The old man stopped by a white marble pillar. Tucked away behind it, in a shadow-thick alcove, was her tiny desk.

  “You’d taste as dry and foul as old boots, but don’t think I wouldn’t render every inch of you to take your magic.” Ava stepped back from him. The need to eat magic whole had her mouth wet, even from a husk of a man like Dorien.

  “The Highest Mage will soon learn that keeping a wild animal in these halls serves no one’s good.” He turned and shuffled back to this desk.

  Ava glared after him. The whisper in her mind of waiting till nightfall, following him, eating him, burned bright in her thoughts. No one would know. She’d be careful and he was so old...

  Ava curled her fingers into her palms, forcing her nails into her skin. They pressed into the deep red of her teken. The more the swirling mark filled with the color of blood, the closer to the surface pushed her thief. Here was her problem with relying so much on the cold center at her heart. It bled back into her. The color of the mark and push of the voice in her head meant her control was at its limit.

  She dropped into her ancient chair, the wood creaking at even her slight weight, and sparked up the small lamp. Golden light washed around her. She opened the satchel, working with the familiar movements of handling smooth paper, of setting the inkpot to her right and the sandpot to her left, of sharpening her pen.

  The reports were easy. She had a wealth of past evidence, and she documented the baiting of Heyerdar and how Roald and Kare resolved it. Their attitude, their change and the reaction to her. Her pen wobbled over that information. She never lied to Reist. It was the reason he trusted her. With a flourish, she signed her name and dusted drying sand over the last sheet of parchment.

  She tipped the sand back into its pot and blew the remainder from the parchment. The ink no longer glistened. More repetitive movements put the reports back into her satchel and she looped through the buckle
s. She’d catch the end of lunch, feeding from the scraps filling the kitchen. She doubted if the head cook would let her have more prime meat.

  Ava stood and slipped the long strap of her bag over her head. Its weight settled against her hip. She was calm and in control. She was.

  She bent to blow out the lamp and her gaze caught on a slim, leather-bound volume pushed onto a leaning pile of books. Her finger traced the worn spine, teasing out the shapes of old lettering. She frowned. It was one of the Institute’s rare books on old magic. Specifically thieves.

  Dorien usually made certain there was never anything of interest on the shelves in her alcove. Ava glanced around her, finding only heavy silence. She couldn’t spy anyone in the shadows. Nothing moved, only the steady light of nearby lamps. Everyone knew this was her table. And everyone knew Dorien hated her near his precious knowledge. One of the apprentices? They often slipped into the library to steal books on a dare.

  She pulled the book free and opened the cover. Her fingertips ran over the printed first page. Smooth vellum, perfect text composition, possibly from one of the more exclusive printing presses, maybe even the emperor’s own hidden in the bowels of the palace. There was no trace of who had placed it in her alcove, the little tells of energy—time, place and person—that sometimes gave her a name or at the very least a feeling. But there was nothing. Whoever had thought to grab this book didn’t want it traced back to them.

  Perhaps whoever found it thought to hide it in her corner, thinking no one came close to her, no one would think to look for anything interesting in the shelves surrounding her desk. Then they would retrieve it later. And if it were found, she would take the blame for moving it.

  Her grip tightened on the leather cover. No one played a thief.

  She pulled up her hood and pushed the book under the folds of her cloak, curving it against her hip. When she buried herself in her true nature, not even the ever-suspicious Dorien could find her.