I don’t like coming to the lower towns, mostly because the lower towns don’t like me being here.
When we’re not at war, Last Army soldiers act as enforcers for the king, and it doesn’t exactly make us popular on the streets, despite my winning personality.
I wipe a line of sweat from my forehead.
The afternoon sun is high, air warm with summer. When the soft breeze drifts by, it carries the smell of lavender trees over from the docks.
Vasiliádes is always beautiful, despite the awful things happening inside it.
“You really don’t feel any different?” Micah asks as we walk along the cobbled streets.
I can sense his gaze on the serpent tattoo that smudges across my palm. He’s been staring at it ever since we left the castle yesterday. So I know what Micah really wants to ask is: How does it feel to sell your soul to a man you hate?
I’m still not sure.
It doesn’t feel like any parts of me are missing, stored away in a glass jar for safekeeping. Maybe that comes later.
Or maybe the part of myself I’ve given away isn’t a part I needed to begin with.
“Are you sure about this guy?” Micah asks as we approach the shop. “Even the street looks crooked.”
“Good,” I say. “Quit being such a wet blanket about it.”
“I’m being serious.”
“You’re always serious. It’s a real personality flaw.”
Micah shoots me a look.
He might have been my companion of chaos when we were kids, but things have changed and he’s no longer spurring me on with each risky idea.
Apparently he’s not a fan of me bargaining my soul for revenge.
“It’ll be fine,” I assure him. “Just trust me.”
“I think we’d be safer hunting for that legendary magic in the Southern Isle than coming to this place,” Micah says.
He looks over his shoulder once more at the decrepit street behind us.
“Sure,” I say, shaking my head with a smile. “And then later we can hunt for sirens.”
Like the sea devils, or tales of a hundred other kingdoms beyond the Six Isles, the hidden magic of Polemistés is nothing more than a fairy tale my father told me. A sword strong enough to kill anyone, even an immortal.
Fairy tales aren’t going to help me now. The only way to bring down the king is to survive the month and break the bargain.
And the owner of this shop is just the help I need.
We approach the small orange door, hidden in the corner of the twisted street, and I raise my hand to knock.
Inside there’s the sound of shuffling, then something smashing onto the floor, followed by a curse that makes Micah snort.
Finally, a man wrenches open the door with enough force to nearly pull the handle off.
“I knew it was you,” Leo Borane says when he sees me. “Nox Laederic, too curious for your own good.”
“Too willing to part with my Chrim, more like.”
Leo smiles, a genuine, honest-to-souls smile. “That’s my favorite kind of customer.”
He opens the door wider and gestures for us to come inside, limping a little as he moves.
Leo is a strange kind of man, with a long red beard speckled by gray and hair to match, which he almost always covers with a series of caps.
If anything happens to me, my father said just a week before he died, find Leo in the worst shop by the docks.
Three months ago, I finally did it.
It was harder than I thought. Leo kept changing his name over the years to escape his reputation as kook inventor, and I was nearly pummeled a few times asking people if their shop was the worst one at the docks.
Apparently it’s not a great conversation starter.
But I’ve got him now.
Someone who can help me escape Vasiliádes if my plan to kill the king goes sideways. And, most importantly, someone who can do it in a way that Seryth and his witch can’t follow.
If anything goes wrong, I’ll need his inventions.
“Promise me he’s not going to murder us,” Micah says under his breath as we step inside.
He stares at Leo’s shop like it’s a battleground, which I suppose it is. It’s a mess of burnt metals and decapitated wood thrown about, with half-thought projects and the half-sawed materials used to make them.
“I’ll only murder you if you try collecting taxes from me,” Leo says. “Last Army were just here. Your king loves to demand more Chrim every month. I can’t restock my shop.”
“Restock it with what?” Micah asks, looking around the sparse workshop.
Leo ignores him. “Do you have the Chrim? We agreed on one hundred gold pieces.”
“About that…,” I say.
I can see the shift in Leo already as he realizes what I’m about to ask.
“I want to renegotiate. Fifty gold Chrim now and the other fifty when I have all the riches in the Six Isles.”
The Last Army may pay well in reputation, but I don’t think anything would pay well enough in Chrim to keep Leo satisfied, except for the gold from Seryth’s castle.
Leo simply stares at me.
He’s never been one for negotiating.
He nods to my tattoo. “I want my Chrim before you die.”
“I’m not planning on dying.”
Leo huffs and walks toward the center of the room. “Yes, yes.” He waves his hand about. “Last Army soldiers think they’re invincible.”
Leo sweeps a row of dusty nails off the benches by a small table.
“Sit down,” he says.
We oblige, watching as he wipes his hands on a small rag, staining it with oil grease.
“What if you don’t succeed and get your wish for riches?” Leo asks. “What if I never get my Chrim? I’m losing sleep worrying I won’t be paid.”
It’s nice that he even gets to sleep.
It’s a luxury I haven’t had in years, since the day my father died. Each night, I only ever snatch a few hours of broken rest at a time.
“Let me worry about cheating death,” I say, easing back into the chair. Letting him know I’m confident.
There is no option of failure.
No scenario where I won’t get my vengeance.
“Just have the transport ready for me.”
Once the king realizes I’m after his immortality and not some magical reward, I’ll need all the help I can to leave.
He’ll never let anyone get close enough to surviving the month.
“I entertain these interactions out of respect for your father,” Leo says. “But I am no charity. If you need more money, do what every other fool on this island does. Visit the After Dusk Inn and make a bet on your death.”
I blow out a breath.
It isn’t a bad idea. The Last Army loves visiting the tavern and gambling on the lives of townsfolk, to secure extra money for ale or the latest sword from the blacksmith.
“You’re really stubborn in negotiations, aren’t you?” I say to Leo.
“I learned that from your father,” he shoots back. “He also died before he could pay me.”
I shift. My back goes rigid and I can’t help but sit up a little straighter, as though my father himself just walked into the room.
Leo shakes his head and then looks at me with a sigh.
“He was far too headstrong,” Leo says. “But a good friend. His death was tragic.” He sighs again and throws the rag down, hard enough that it slaps against the counter. “Unexpected.”
Only one of those things is true.
My father’s death was tragic, but it wasn’t unexpected.
I remember the last time I saw him more clearly than any memory I have. I was fourteen when he came home with blood on his hands and a look in his eyes like nothing I’d ever seen.
“Nox,” he said, voice stiff and quiet. “I’m going to tell you a story and I want you to remember every detail.”
So I nodded and sat beside him.
“There is a weapon, made from magic,” he said. “From the last breaths of the witches of Thavma. Over a century ago, before Isolda Somniatis and the king drained their power and left them to die in the start of the True War. Before they conquered the Six Isles.”
“But you already have a weapon,” I said, pointing to the sword on his hip.
He shook his head. “This weapon can kill anything,” he said. “It’s the reason Seryth fears the Southern Isle so much. It’s what’s kept them safe all these years. The king won’t stop until he has it. And he’ll sacrifice anything and anyone to get what he wants.”
He looked down to his hands. The blood had crusted between his knuckles.
“It’s just a story though,” I said. “Isn’t it, Father?”
His face was plain. “Stories have great power. They should never be destroyed.”
I didn’t know what to say to that, but I knew I hated the look in his eyes, so I hugged him. He stiffened, and when he wrapped his arms around me in return, it was almost desperate.
The next day he was gone and a soldier came to my door and told me he was dead. Drowned while taking a morning swim.
Only my father didn’t know how to swim, and there was no reason he’d try to learn by himself in the depths of winter.
I remembered his last words.
The king will sacrifice anything. Anyone.
After that, I moved into the soldiers’ barracks and trained day and night, sparring alongside the other Last Army recruits so I’d be nothing but perfect.
I practiced to be the best.
To live up to my father’s legacy. To ace the entrance exams into the Last Army and convince the king I was a loyal soldier. And it’s been easy, because I’ve been training toward something.
A hope. A need.
Every day I think of my father—who valued loyalty above all else—making sure the last words he spoke to me were of a fairy tale to kill the king.
The fact that he died the very next day only makes me certain it wasn’t an accident. He was killed, for knowing something he shouldn’t. For believing in a story and wanting it to be true.
In the distance, the sound of the waterfalls from the Floating Mountain crash through the windows of Leo’s shop, like the first wave of a battle. They sense the fight growing within me and are eager to see it spill out.
And it will.
I’ll survive this month and steal the king’s immortality. And once I do, I’ll finally be able to rid the Six Isles of monsters once and for all.
I’ll avenge my father, not through fairy tales, but through blood.