I sighed, laying my hand on the hilt of the sword, and leaned closer to him. He flinched away, anticipating a fist in his face or worse.
“What’s your name?”
He hadn’t anticipated that.
“W-what?” he gasped.
“Your name,” I said. “Either the one you were born with or the one you took when you started working for her. I know Vagrants like their henchmen to have fancy names.”
His eyes hardened as he sucked back pain through his teeth.
“Rishas,” he answered.
I kept his eyes in mine as I nodded slowly, weighing the name on my tongue.
“How old are you, Rishas?”
“Fuck y—”
He hadn’t been anticipating my fist that time, but it found his cheek all the same.
“There’s no need to be uncivilized about this,” I said, as soft as my blow hadn’t been. I glanced at my sword. “Any more than we already have been, anyway. I’d hate for your last impression of me to be unmerciful, so let’s just make this easy, shall we? How old are you?”
He hesitated, whether through pride or pain, I didn’t know. He eventually answered, all the same.
“Forty-four,” he grunted.
“Forty-four,” I repeated. “That’s old for an outlaw. You didn’t get that old by being stupid, did you?”
He said nothing. The silence drew out between us for a long moment before I broke it.
“You know my name?”
He stared at me, opened his mouth like he wanted to curse. Instead, a thin dribble of blood came out as he pursed his lips and nodded.
“She tell it to you?” I asked.
Again, he nodded.
“You know who I am, then,” I said. “And you know that I didn’t come all the way to this valley to kill old outlaws.” I glanced over my shoulder at his companions—the ones who were still moving and the ones who had stopped. “Your friends might think that loyalty will be rewarded, that they’ll get rich or favored if they keep fighting. But it’s not going to make their bones any less broken.” I looked back at him. “Is it?”
He shut his eyes tight.
“I’ll bet Cassa isn’t the first Vagrant you’ve fought under,” I said. “You’ve probably served with dozens of renegade mages, am I right? You know what they’re like—they see you as tools, like their magic, except less impressive and more disposable. You know that they wouldn’t die for a nul like you.”
I drummed my fingers upon the hilt of the blade.
“I’m ready to kill you to get to her, Rishas,” I said. “Are you ready to die to keep her from me?”
Rishas drew in a breath and held it. He shuddered with whatever pain wracked his body. He looked away from me, down to the pool of blood that had formed beneath his hand.
“Joined with her six days ago,” he grunted. “She told me that a Vagrant was after her. When I heard it was you, I damn near turned right around. Thought, after what I’d heard you and that fucking gun of yours had done in Lastlight, there’d be no sense in fighting a legend like you.”
I was grateful my face was hidden behind my scarf. After I’d put a sword through his hand, it would have just seemed cruel to show him the shit-eating grin on my face.
“Of course, you look beat to fucking hell right now,” he grunted, looking back at me. “So you can’t be as legendary as she thinks you are.”
And then I was decidedly less pleased that my face was hidden, because I would have really liked him to see on my face what I was about to do next.
I twisted the blade, drawing a scream out of him. Not that it served any purpose, really. Regardless of what you’ve been led to believe, torture doesn’t actually do anything other than get someone to tell you a bunch of lies you want to hear. Maybe I did it out of spite.
Or maybe I just didn’t like being reminded that, for all my best efforts and theirs, I was still alive.
“FUCK,” he squealed.
“Did she tell you I’d do that?” I asked. “Did she tell you everything else I’d do if you don’t tell me where the fuck she is? She can’t be worth it, Rishas.”
“Yeah… I used to think so…,” he rasped. “Had a thought that I wouldn’t be much more than a distraction to someone like you.”
“You should have listened to it.”
“As it turns out…”
He looked at me. He smiled a grin full of blood and laughed.
“Sometimes that’s enough.”
I’d have asked him what he meant, but I didn’t have to.
Not once I heard the Lady Merchant’s song.
A single note resonating off broken glass. A breathless whisper from a dying woman a thousand miles away. The language of the wind, the sound of time speeding up, the last words you hear before you head to the black table—everyone has their own way of describing what the voice that heralds magic sounds like.
To me, it sounded like crackling flames and hissing smoke.
No. No, wait.
That was the fire.
A bright flash burst at the corner of my eye. My feet were moving before my brain knew what was happening. Fire swept down in great red curtains, chewing through rotted timber, ancient dust, and the screams of Rishas as he vanished beneath the flames.
Hope that last laugh he had was worth it.
Heat kissed my skin. Soot and char stained me like ink blotches on parchment. I could feel that telltale ache in my scars that told me I should have died.
Around my neck, my scarf hummed. Upon its fabric, tiny sigils glowed with a faint purple light before winking out, their magic spent. Luckwritten cloth—rare, costly, and exceedingly good for saving my ass when my guard had dropped. It was the first gift I had ever gotten from her. And I had it to thank for keeping me alive.
Not like he had fucking helped.
I drew the Cacophony, met his brass grin with a glare. “That almost killed me. You didn’t think to warn me?”
“Please,” he rasped. “If you had been slain by an art so primitive as common fire, you’d be unworthy to wield me.”
I might have responded, had I not been so rudely interrupted by a scream.
“NO!”
The flames parted, leaving behind blackened, smoldering chunks that had once been Rishas clustered around my sword. Through the ebbing fire, my eyes were drawn to the balcony overlooking the living room and the haggard figure standing there.
Cassa the Sorrow had looked better.
She’d been born to peasants, and while the manifestation of her Embermage powers had saved her from toiling in fields all her life, it hadn’t spared her the ruddy cheeks, thick arms, and solid stature. She did not cut an imposing figure, it was true.
But then, when you can shoot fire out of your skin, I guess it doesn’t matter.
“Damn it,” Cassa growled. Beneath a thick brow, her eyes glowed violet with the magic coursing through her. Flames ran from her shoulders to her clenched fists, crackling with anger. “Why the fuck did you have to move, Sal?”
“Yeah,” I replied, “the problem is clearly me and not the fire-shooting wizard bitch.”
“He was a good man,” she snapped. “They were all good. They didn’t deserve what you did to them!”