The Ritual (6 page)

So why was it so hard to ignore the attraction? As we were waiting for our eyes to adjust to the night he turned to me, stretched out his hand and gently tucked a strand of my hair back under the black velvet cap from which it had escaped. It was an intimate gesture, casually given, and it sent my heart into an uneven gallop. All around us everything was quiet but for the occasional hoot of an owl, and I was certain that he could hear the thunder of my heartbeat, just as I could hear the hum of my own blood.

“Ready, Little Firelocks?” he murmured, and I nodded, my throat dry as dust.

“Lead on, Black Eyes,” I whispered, not trusting my voice and resorting to the same nickname tactics as he; I wasn’t sure I could say his name without giving myself away.

His fingers trailed across my cheek when he let his hand fall down again, and the touch burned on my skin for a long time afterwards as I followed him through the night.

He cast the occasional glance back at me, and after a while he said, “Don’t stalk. Move as if you belong, don’t skulk like a thief. The shadows are yours – claim them with confidence.”

I stared at his back, confused, but then I noticed that while he walked quietly, he also walked as if he was merely taking a stroll in the park. Confidence, he had said, and he radiated it. Strangely enough I saw that it did indeed make him harder to see, as if the simple fact that he moved as if he was meant to be there made the mind forget that it wasn’t supposed to be so.

I straightened, forced myself to relax, to saunter. For a short while it took up all my attention, and I startled when I suddenly heard his voice right by my ear. “Good, you pick up fast. That’s much more stealthy already.”

They were the last words he said until we were back at the fire. The entire operation, from opening the door through ransacking the jewellery coffers to meticulously putting everything back in place took place in breathless silence, and at a speed that astonished me. I greedily took in everything he did, watching his deft fingers as they sifted through necklaces, bracelets, rings and brooches, and pocketed them all with a quickness akin to magic. Locks opened within heartbeats, and before I knew it we were back outside and he had pulled the last door shut with a barely audible click.

I was almost chagrined when I started cleaning myself off – Shani was too exhausted to even wake up at our return – thinking that I’d never be able to attain such skill. I thought him arrogant, but tonight I had seen that he had reason to be.

I scrubbed at my face viciously, fighting disappointment, until Zashter’s fingers under my chin woke me from my reverie.

“Why the anger?”

I jerked up a shoulder. “You’re too good. I’ll never be able to work like that.”

“How defeatist. You disappoint me.”

“Defeatist?”

“What else would you call it?”

“Realistic,
” I answered without hesitation.

“Realistic… Shall I give you my realistic appraisal?”

The look in his eyes had changed, and it was almost too intense for me to meet it. I suddenly wanted him to kiss me, wanted it with a hunger that I had never felt before in my life, not for anything. “Please do,” I whispered, not sure myself whether it was in response to his question or my desire.

“In six months time you’ll be nearly as good as I am,” he said quietly. “You have an inherent skill… I’d almost call it instinct. I’ve never seen anyone pick up the proper shadow movement as fast as you did tonight.” He smiled then, a satisfied curl of his lips that made him breathtaking.

“I do believe that it might be very rewarding to be your teacher,” he finished. He ran his thumb across my lips, then without another word he turned away and crawled into his sleeping roll.

I lay awake for a long time afterwards.

CHAPTER THREE

For five more days we travelled southeast, following the road, and Zashter and I finished every day with burgling one of the nearby villas.

I started off well – in the first villa we burgled I discovered a hidden compartment in one of the jewellery coffers which held a sapphire the size of an egg, and Zashter was so pleased that I caught him humming to himself as he scrubbed his face by the fire. The night after that, however, I failed to spot that the ruby necklace I’d lifted was fake, and he gave me a half-measure lecture over it, repeating the key differences between real and fake rubies over and over again until I felt like stuffing my loot bag down his throat and told him so.

It went further downhill when on the next night I encountered an especially complicated lock. Zashter spent a quarter measure explaining its key aspects in detail, as well as the best way to pick it, offering one of his own picks to me so I could give it a go. I then managed to get the pick wedged into it, and he had to spend another quarter measure on wriggling it back out without breaking either the pick or the lock. He didn’t speak to me after that, and I knew it was because if he had, he’d have shouted at me.

I was convinced he would leave me behind then, but although we made camp late on the fourth night and approached our target well after midnight, the burglary went without a hitch and the loot was plentiful. It was near dawn by the time we came back out, and just before we reached our camp Zashter tapped my arm and pointed to the east. I followed his gesture and stopped in awe, and both of us stood in silence as we watched the sun rise above the mountains in the distance, and saw the feathered clouds go from deep violet through pink to an orange-red that made me think of cinnamon and spices. Birds were waking up around us, chirping their spring songs at each other, and although the air was cool and slightly damp, and the dewy grass was making my trouser legs cling to my ankles, I wasn’t cold. I simply stood in a timeless moment of complete peace, until Zashter tapped my arm again and we moved on.

It was my most vivid memory of that week, despite the many lectures Zashter gave me on the subject of thievery – both on and of
f the job – and it wasn’t because the sunrise had been so beautiful, but because he had taken the time to point it out to me. That, and because he had been so close that our shoulders almost touched, and I had had to fight the urge to slide my arm around his waist.

Late in the afternoon on the fifth day we reached the town of
Naylis, which was nestled in the foothills of the Whitecaps, the mountain range that split Arlennis into two uneven halves. I had spent a week in Zashter’s company, was no closer to figuring him out, and still found him as attractive as I found him vexing.

“Have you ever been in Naylis before?” he asked as we made our way to an inn he knew, somewhere in the less affluent side of town.

“No, never,” I replied, looking around. Where Mazar had been spacious with wide avenues, the streets of Naylis were steep, the houses tall, and often they had a front and back door on two different floors. It looked like a mining town, with grimy workers instead of well-clad merchants, and more hawkers of fruit and vegetables than trinket vendors. The miners glared at us as we passed and the hawkers ignored us, but that was no more than what I was used to, and I studied everything with avid curiosity. There was a strange smell on the wind, a combination of dust, sulphur and something acrid, only overpowered if we walked past a bakery, and I missed the greenery I was used to from other towns I had visited.

“Might not look like it, but this town is rich,” Zashter said. “Little in the way of food, and nothing goes to the workers of course, but there are gem mines to the northeast of here. Diamonds mainly, but some emeralds as well, and a lot of the cheaper stuff like garnets and jaspers. It’s a diamond we’re after though.”

“We are?” I asked, then remembered him saying that they needed some items.

“Yep,” he confirmed, sounding almost content. “Ah, here we are.” He stopped, and I let my gaze wander up along the façade of an inn which looked grubbier, more derelict and more disreputable than any place I had ever spent a night in, and the Gods knew my standards weren’t high. The plaster on the walls was crumbling away, revealing ancient, cracked rock walls, the windows looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in decades and I suspected that the two balconies that ran along the front could come away at any moment. The tavern sign proclaimed it to be the Maiden’s Virtue, though the picture showed a big-breasted girl in a tiny skirt which was lifted up by a man wearing a mining helmet and a lecherous grin.

“Are you serious?” I said wearily, raising an eyebrow at Zashter.

He sniggered. “Don’t let appearances fool you, Little Firelocks.” He pushed the door open and went inside, and with a resigned sigh I followed, Shani and Mior on my heels.

Once inside I blinked in surprise. The interior was clean, roomy, warm and well-lit. It was close to dinner time, and the smells that wafted from the kitchen made my stomach grumble and my mouth water. I gave Zashter a baffled stare, but he merely curled up the corner of his mouth in that characteristic smile that had become as familiar as his voice.

“It’s a rogue’s tavern,” Mior said by my ear, grinning when I looked around at him. “No respectable citizen would
deign to notice a place looking this shabby, but if you know it’s here…”

“
Or if you recognise the sign above the door,” Zashter added. “I’ll point it out to you later.”

A man appeared from the kitchen and Zashter greeted him in a voice that could almost be called jovial. They clasped each other’s forearm, following it with the quick gesture that was the greeting of thieves amongst each other, and Zashter asked, “Do you have two rooms for a few nights?”

The man nodded, casting a hooded glance at me and my sister. I quickly made the gesture to indicate that I too was a thief, then added with a few motions that Shani was with me and fell under my responsibility. The innkeeper gave a tiny nod, then peered at us when we moved closer. “Huh, more twins? Don’t see that every day,” he remarked, then turned back to Zashter. “Got two rooms in the back, if that suits?”

“Perfectly,” Zashter said. “Have you got any food ready?”

The man cocked his head. “You’ve got a nose, right?”

“All he can smell is that piss-poor brew of yours, Tae,” Mior answered instead with a grin. “Your food is good, but I’d swear you use
all
the fluids you get from your goats, not just the milk.”

“Oh aye? And you know what goat piss tastes like then, do you?” The innkeeper demanded, then grasped Mior’s hand with a wide grin. “Shut your lying mouth, or better, put some of that good food of mine in it. Four bowls of stew?”

“Do you have a bath?” I asked before either of them could answer. Much as the thought of food appealed to me, we had been out on the road for a week and I felt grubby and in need of a long soak. Zashter raised an eyebrow at me, but I ignored him and waited for an answer.

“Out that door, second left,” Tae replied. “Cold water’s free, two silver if you want it hot, and five coppers extra if you want soap.”

It was a reasonable price, so I nodded my agreement. “Which room is ours?”

“Follow me.” The innkeeper selected two keys and disappeared through a different door, which turned out to lead to the staircase when I trailed after him.

The bedroom continued the clean and spacious theme, with a large double bed, a soft mattress devoid of bugs, linen that smelled fresh and vaguely floral and even the luxury of a pitcher and wash basin. Our room was on the second floor, though at this side of the building that appeared to be the first floor. Both rooms had balconies, but they looked as rickety as the ones out front and I decided against trusting my weight to them.

I dropped my rucksack onto the blanket, dug out my spare set of clothes and made my way back downstairs, where Tae was stoically dragging a cloth across the bar. I nodded at him in passing, found the bathroom and locked the door behind me before stripping off my soiled clothes.

The plumbing was as good as the rest of the tavern – in no time at all I had a full, hot bath foaming with soap, and with a satisfied sigh I sank up to my chin into the bubbles, letting the heat suffuse me.

For a quarter measure I simply sat with my eyes closed, enjoying the soak, but then I started getting restless and dunked underwater to wash my hair, before leaning out precariously to grab my clothes and give them a quick wash as well. I was just rubbing the last stubborn mud
stain out of my trousers when someone banged on the door.

“Have you died in there? Other people want to wash as well, you know!” Zashter called.

“So? Other people can wait,” I replied, peering at the fabric. Was that still mud? I dunked it down again just to be sure.

“I could just pick the lock if I wanted to.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” I sloshed water over the rim when I jerked upright involuntarily, and heard Zashter snigger.

“Doesn’t sound like you’re too sure about that. Let’s see…” There was a moment of silence, then I heard the distinct clink of metal on metal and a brief rattle. It sounded too ostentatious to be a true attempt at picking the lock, but I stood up and reached for the towel nonetheless.

“Fine, fine, I get the point, impatient fuck. You could have just waited!”

“I’ve waited for over half a measure already.”

“Oh, you’ve been timing me, have you?”

“Don’t I keep telling you that you need to get faster?”

I heard the distinct grin in his voice and couldn’t help smiling too. “I wasn’t aware that that stretched to my cleaning habits as well.”

“Expeditiousness in everything, Little Firelocks.”

“Yeah yeah, I’m nearly done.”

I dried off and dressed quickly, wrapping a towel around my hair, then wrung out my wet clothes and slung them over my arm. As I opened the door I held it wide for him and gave an exaggerated bow. “Your majesty’s bath.”

He raised an eyebrow, then sauntered past me with an amused smile on his face which disappeared when he saw the bathtub with its grimy water. I was walking out of the room just as he whirled around and glared at me.

“I’d have emptied it,” I sniggered, “but someone was rushing me.”

I saw him tug off his boot and closed the door just in time to hear it hit the wood on the other side.

*   *   *   *   *

When I had spread my wet clothes out in my room I returned downstairs and found Shani and Mior in the common room, bent over a bowl of stew each. It looked plain but smelled rich and spicy with a hint of something sweet, and the fragrance woke up my stomach again. I signalled Tae for a bowlful and plunked onto the wooden bench next to my sister. There was a tankard of ale waiting for me, but just one sip nearly made me spit it out again, and I understood that Mior hadn’t been teasing Tae about his ale – it really was undrinkable.

“Ooh, look who smells all soapy,” Shani remarked with a grin as I still spluttered.

“Not you, that’s for sure,” I replied, keeping my gaze fixed on the doorway to the kitchen, knife and spoon at the ready and hoping that the food would live up to its smell.

She snorted. “Someone was hogging the bathroom.”

“Don’t you start. Someone else is hogging it now anyway.”

“He won’t
be long,” Mior said as my food arrived, together with a good chunk of dark, crusty bread, still warm from the oven.

“And this is a good thing? I needed a quarter measure just to get the sand out of my hair.” I speared a piece of meat with my eating knife and put it in my mouth, and a wealth of flavours exploded on my tongue. “Mennia’s Mercy, this is godly!”

“Tae employs a good cook,” Mior agreed, squinting from me to Shani. “So if it takes that long for you, then how long do
you
need to wash your hair?”

“Not as long as I need to dry it,” Shani replied, wiping her bowl clean with her last crust of bread.

“No, I can see that,” Mior chuckled. “I’ll let you go before me then.”

“Such gallantry!” She blew him a kiss, but I didn’t register Mior’s reaction, because at that moment Zashter walked back in, wearing nothing but his trousers.

For several heartbeats I forgot about my food. His hair was wet and slicked back, emphasising his strong jaw and sharp cheekbones, and the dark curls on his chest invited the touch of questing fingers. I had already noted – all too often – that he was lean, with narrow hips and strong shoulders, but his sculpted abdomen exceeded my wildest fantasies, and his butt when he turned around and ordered his food made me want to feel it clench under my hands as I pulled him deep inside of me.

I realised I was staring just as he turned around again, and bent over my stew to hide my flustered face. A quick glance to the side showed that, to my relief, Shani and Mior were too engrossed in each other to have noticed my lapse, but my resolve was tested further when Zashter sat down opposite me.

He had indeed been faster than me, but no less thorough. He looked scrubbed and rosy, and his scent as it wafted towards me made me close my eyes and inhale it deeply. I was sure that the bathroom held only the bland, run-of-the-mill soap that I’d used, but on him it smelled so enticing that I wanted to lick him to see if his taste matched up to it.