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Daindreth
Daindreth moved beside Amira, keeping close in the bustling street. She’d brought him to the most crowded market in the city during peak vendor hours.
He’d been stricken with the roars and rage of Caa Iss for hours before she had returned last night. The lingering headache had lasted into part of the morning.
Until Cromwell got their answers, they had several days to wait in Lashera. Amira had decided that now was as good a time as any to find fresh clothes and other supplies they needed, so the two headed into the city.
The air was thick with the scent of rain along with smoke from the meat roasters. Dogs and stray cats dashed around on the ground, hoping to steal whatever might fall.
Farmers bartered with merchants and a fishwife argued with a woman in a nun’s habit. Children squalled in their mothers’ arms and young men passed jokes with friends, their arms laden with boxes or buckets.
At the corner of the street, a musician strummed his fiddle while a few children clapped and danced, keeping poor time, but laughing all the same. Someone shouted in rage while another man guffawed just across the narrow street.
It was all so...human.
It was not as large nor as organized as anything in Mynadra, but Daindreth had never been this close to a market before. He tried to think of words for it, how he would describe it.
They purchased salted, jerked lamb, cheese, and extra rope. Daindreth closely watched Amira barter. She slipped easily into the common dialect, bantering with the vendors and shrugging off the questions and curious looks at her trousers and lack of skirts.
The couple carried the goods in oiled satchels to protect them from the rain as they continued through the market. At Daindreth’s side, Amira traded a few copper coins to a vendor for two loaves of some sort. She passed one to him.
“Here,” she said.
Daindreth took the loaf she offered. It was some sort of pastry with a flaky dough that smelled of onion. “What is it?”
“It’s a dirt pie.”
Daindreth’s brow furrowed at the name but he broke off a corner of the flaked crust.
“Because everything in it came out of the dirt. They’re good.” Amira bit into hers, showing that the inside was a dark grey with some sort of creamy filling. She turned to continue down the street and Daindreth followed.
He bit into his pastry to find it wasn’t bad. Peas, carrots, potato, mushrooms, and onion had been stuffed inside with a thick gravy.
Amira found them a spot on the broad front steps outside a clothier and ate, watching the carts and shoppers pass in front of them. Amira’s shoulder, hip, and thigh were pressed against his. Daindreth felt heat everywhere they touched and a part of him was grateful that Thadred would be waiting for them when they returned to the warehouse tonight. His desire for Amira was starting to outweigh his better judgment.
She had a bit of gravy at the corner of her mouth, just to the edge of her lower lip.
Daindreth wiped it away with his thumb before he thought about it.
Amira shot him a look as if she was startled, then her expression changed. She smirked and kissed him before he saw it coming.
It was brief, barely a touch of her lips to his, but it was enough to set him back on his heels. Daindreth flushed and he wasn’t sure if it was more from embarrassment or excitement. “Amira, there are people!”
Even as he said it, he realized no one was watching. They were all too taken with their own business.
She giggled, a girlish, chiming sound that reminded him of the bells on a winter carriage.
Daindreth’s heart battered against his chest, and he had the feeling that he had done something wrong, yet all the more thrilling for the scandal.
She was equal parts innocence and seduction, half princess and half savage. When he was with her, he understood the stories of the great heroes who had fallen at the feet of their lovers, ready to give their lives at a word.
Daindreth had told Amira he wouldn’t bed her with the cythraul still in his head, but gods. He was still just a man. He couldn’t resist her forever.
Shouts suddenly rose from around the street. People came running ahead, pointing and calling out.
The patrons along the street jogged out of the road or nudged their beasts of burden to hasten out of the way. Drumming rattled from down the road and Daindreth stiffened.
Was it trouble?
He made to stand, but Amira clapped a hand on his thigh to stop him. Surprise jolted through him at the casual intimacy of her touch, enough to drive all thoughts of the coming commotion out of his head. He didn’t think anyone had touched him like that, certainly not Amira. Excitement, embarrassment, and confusion flared through him in warring measures.
He shot a glance to her, but she was watching the far end of the street, where everyone appeared to be making room. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Nothing to concern ourselves.”
Daindreth sat back down, and she removed her hand.
A moment later, a line of armored soldiers marched around the corner. At their head rode a standard bearer, a lad no more than fifteen on a flea-bitten grey mare, carrying a pole strung with the imperial banneret and the Hylendale crest beneath it.
The men marched through the mud of the street with their faces trained straight ahead and their ranks forming perfect lines. They moved in step to the time of a pair of drummers flanking the standard-bearer.
Amira shifted beside Daindreth, huddling against him. Was it his imagination or was she trying to minimize herself?
The soldiers marched past—perhaps fifty or sixty of them—and the street went back to business as usual in their wake. The patter of the drums and the stomp of the soldiers’ boots faded as quickly as they had arrived.
“Probably headed for one of the local outposts,” Amira remarked. She stood, flexing her neck. “They usually swap out the battalions near the end of the week.”
“Did you know any of them?” Daindreth nodded in the direction of the soldiers.
Amira shrugged. “Possibly.” She looked back to where the soldiers had disappeared.
“I’m surprised you’re not more concerned with being recognized.” This city had been her home for more than twenty years, after all, and it was not a large place to his way of thinking.
Amira shrugged. “Few people see what they aren’t looking for. They all think I am in Mynadra. Therefore, they won’t see me.”
Daindreth’s mind darkened at that, though he wasn’t sure why.
Amira bit her lip. “That and I wasn’t exactly flaunted after my mother’s banishment. My stepmother worked hard to make sure the people forgot me and King Hyle...well, he had his reasons for letting memory of me fade.”
Daindreth followed her gaze to where the soldiers had gone. He realized he didn’t know much about her life before him. Some of it, yes. The tragedy that had ended in her becoming a Kadra’han, yes. But not what her childhood had been like. Her girlhood and early days of womanhood.
Daindreth reached out and took her hand before standing. He kissed her temple, taking the opportunity to breathe in her scent as he did.
“There are people watching,” she teased.
Daindreth chuckled at that.
Across the street, his eyes locked on a dark figure staring at the two of them. Daindreth couldn’t have said what drew his attention to her. The woman was plain and pale with a dark braid swung over one shoulder. She had a dress of dark linen and a covered basket under one arm. She might have been in her late twenties, but she might have been older. It was hard to tell with her northern pallor. There was nothing remarkable or notable about her in comparison to the other market goers at all and yet Daindreth found that he couldn’t look away.
The woman’s mouth moved, and a sharp buzzing passed through Daindreth’s skull. He stumbled back a step, grabbing his head as panic rose in his chest.
“What—?”
Amira was already swinging around to face the woman.
Whatever the stranger saw in Amira’s face, it must have been enough. The pale woman spun around and ran down an alley between two shops, her damp cloak flapping behind her.
“This way!” Amira grabbed Daindreth’s hand and bolted after the woman, skidding in front of a mule cart and earning the curses of the driver.
Daindreth grabbed at the side of his head, still faintly buzzing with whatever the woman had done. Daindreth was a little slower for that, but their quarry was in a long, restrictive skirt and carrying a burdensome basket which didn’t allow her to get too far ahead of them.
Amira dragged him around a corner of the alley, and they spotted the woman again, her cloak billowing about her as she fled. “Stop!” Amira shouted. “Stop, we need to speak with—”
The stranger stopped and spun around to face them.
“We don’t want trouble,” Amira said, gripping Daindreth’s hand tight. “We don’t—”
“You are trouble.” The woman shook her head, her voice hard, unforgiving. “Do you know what your lover is?” She jerked her chin to Daindreth. “Do you know what stands beside you?”
Daindreth flicked his gaze between the two women. Amira faced down the stranger, unintimidated, but he recognized that hard, cold expression. It was the same expression Amira had worn when facing down courtiers back in the palace.
He watched their back for an ambush, but it appeared the woman was alone, at least for now.
“Are you Cromwell’s contact?” Amira asked. “Did he send you?”
The stranger did not answer.
“I am Amira Brindonu,” the assassin said. “Daughter of Cyne. I would speak with our mothers.”
The stranger shook her head. If she recognized Amira’s name, it didn’t impress her. “They will have nothing to do with that.” The woman pointed to Daindreth. “He’s cursed. He is a curse.”
“They’re the ones who cursed him,” Amira clipped back. “And they’re going to show us how to break the curse.”
The woman scoffed. “The mothers would never—”
“They will,” Amira snapped, her voice rising by an octave.
Daindreth clung to her hand, even as his own heart hammered harder in his chest.
“They did this, and they are going to undo it.” Amira’s voice lowered, almost to a growl. “I have no quarrel with them beyond this.”
The stranger cocked her head to the side. “You should kill him,” she said flatly. “If you knew what kind of monster—”
“Don’t lecture me on monsters!” Amira snarled. “I’ve fought that thing more than once and I’ve won. We won,” she added, squeezing Daindreth’s hand tighter.
Daindreth made eye contact with the stranger and saw nothing but contempt there. Hatred. Maybe even fear.
“The cythraul. You can sense him somehow?” Daindreth tilted his head to one side. “You’re right, he’s a monster. Worse than anything I ever thought possible.”
She arched her dark brow. “Then you should finish yourself off.”
Daindreth breathed deeply. “There is more at stake.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” the woman said. “You have control now, but the moment the cythraul takes over, it will be a horror to put history’s worst butchers to shame.”
Daindreth forced himself to remain calm. Hearing his own worst fears thrown back in his face was almost enough to unman him. Did this woman think him completely selfish? Did she think he didn’t know Caa Iss better than anyone?
He didn’t think they wanted to explain that Amira countered the demon, not yet. But if this woman thought to tell him anything about Caa Iss he didn’t already know, she was wrong. He had lived with the thing in his head for years. He had learned to fight the demon’s impulses and push aside the suggestions.
No one knew the depths of the creature’s depravity as he did. Even Vesha, who might be more familiar with cythraul than anyone else alive, had no idea. If she did know, she would never even consider letting a demon have free reign over her empire. There was no deal, contract, or curse strong enough to restrain the demon’s bloodlust and cruelty.
Caa Iss would find a loophole or gap in the agreement, that was just how he was. Evil such as that couldn’t be deterred by anything short of hellfire.
“That’s why we need to break the curse,” Daindreth said.
“There is no way to break the curse,” the stranger snapped.
“Every curse can be broken,” Amira retorted. “That’s the rule.”
“Yes.” The stranger studied Daindreth for a long moment. “And we all know there’s only one way to break this one.”
At those words, Amira’s tenuous control broke. “Say he needs to die one more time and I will send you back to our mothers in pieces.”
The strange woman dropped her basket. She raised her hands and Daindreth realized in that moment the woman hadn’t fled for her own safety. No, she’d lured them to where there would be no witnesses.
Daindreth watched the stranger’s hand come up and her mouth move in another spell, but as a trained assassin, Amira was faster.
She shoved Daindreth back and her arm came up to block. He didn’t hear the assassin speak, but silence cracked the air, like the pause just before thunder. A wall of power encircled both him and Amira and everything shimmered gold for just an instant.
Then the stranger was blasted backwards, thrown down the end of the alley and rolling end over end in the mud.
Amira rushed toward her and Daindreth followed. He reached for the dagger he had stowed in his boot, but Amira stopped him. “We don’t want to hurt you,” Amira repeated. “We just want—”
The stranger—the sorceress—leapt to her feet and hurled another spell in their direction with a shout.
Amira shouldered Daindreth out of the way and the two of them tumbled into the mud behind a stack of empty crates. A ripple of power whooshed over their heads, but the next moment, Amira was back on her feet and leaping away.
“Amira!”
The assassin cursed loudly and by the time Daindreth scrambled out from around the crates, they were alone in the alley, only the basket and the stranger’s cloak remained behind. Amira kicked at them, using oaths Daindreth hadn’t even heard Thadred use.
“An Istovari sorceress?” Daindreth asked, though it was obvious.
“Yes.” Amira spat on the ground.
“A spy?” Daindreth asked, scanning the back of the alley for any signs of the woman or friends of hers. “How did she get into Lashera? I thought they were banished.”
“They were,” Amira replied, still searching their surroundings.
Done with her cursing, Amira knelt to inspect the contents of the basket. She drew out her dagger and used it to flip aside the cloth covering. She prodded at the basket for a few moments and then reached in with her free hand.
“Spices.” Amira frowned. She pulled out a jar and opened it. “Good ones, too.”
Daindreth kept watch, scanning the alley from all sides. “Do you think she was alone?”
“In the city? Possibly, though it’s unlikely.” Amira muttered another indistinguishable curse under her breath.
“Do you think we’ll be able to persuade them? Your mothers, I mean.”
Amira shrugged. “I’ll figure out something.”
Daindreth watched her as she counted out a number of coins from the bottom of the basket along with a collection of red beads, silver embroidery thread, and a number of odds and ends.
“If that’s the reaction we can expect, I’m not so sure.”
From the way she slammed a small wooden box back into the basket, that was not what Amira wanted to hear. “What would you have me say, Dain?” she demanded, bolting to her feet, hands fisted at her sides.
Daindreth met her fiery stare, not moving for a long moment. He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.
“We have no other options,” she reminded him. “Aside from the empress, no one in the world even seems to know about the cythraul.”
Daindreth had no argument for that. “We have nothing to bargain with, Amira.”
“We’ll think of something. Amnesty. Restoration to power. Wealth. Land. You’re going to be the bloody emperor!” Amira waved her hands madly in the air.
Looking past her down the alley to where the sorceress had presumably disappeared, Daindreth let out a long breath. “I would give almost anything to be free of this curse.” He looked back to her. “But I wouldn’t give up you.” He shook his head. “And not Thadred.”
Amira closed the distance to him and caught his face in her hands. “We’ll do this,” she whispered, desperation in her voice as she clung to him, her body pressed so tight it was like she was trying to meld into him. “We’ll free you and all will be as it should have been.”
Daindreth slid an arm around her waist, unable to stop himself. “Amira, every curse can be broken, but—”
Amira kissed him. He knew it was only because she didn’t want to hear what he had to say, didn’t want to hear the truth.
Doubts and fears raged in the back of his mind, but he let her push that away with her kisses—even if only for a few moments.
He would do anything for her, anything. He would gladly give his own life for her, but those of innocent people...
That he couldn’t do.
If it came down to it. If his death really was the only way to force Caa Iss back into the abyss, Daindreth would do it. He would take his own life and leave Amira behind...even if doing it broke both their hearts.
