Prince Nera Mossveil's Arc

Chapter 9 of 23

Nera set his hand on the drainpipe and stopped. A cold wind cut down the lane that did not belong to a southern market at dawn. It smelled of frost and lake water. He looked up. Three figures stood at the mouth of the alley where no figures had been a breath before. Two heads on one body, pale as winter glass. Beside them, a fire fairy in red plate, and a love fairy with roses in her hair. The frost pair had come down out of the north on some errand of their own, and the other two had crossed his path by accident of road. "Prince," said the male head of the frost pair. "We know your face," said the female head. "From a paper in the wine shop," the male finished. Nera lowered his hand from the pipe. Behind the fire fairy, half a step back and quiet, stood a red-haired fairy in pink and mint. Atletha Duststone. His House Steward. She should have been at the castle. Her wings carried his colors along the lower edge. She met his eyes once and looked away. "You followed me," Nera said to her. "I rode with them," Atletha said. "They were faster." She nodded at the fire fairy. "Blazen Emberwing. His wife, Rosalind Emberheart. We crossed at the ford." One sentence each. She did not explain more. Nera's plan cracked open in his head. A dead buyer left the bounty standing. He had no lever to make the man call it off. He had been climbing toward a knife with no answer waiting at the top. Atletha stepped closer. "Who among the buyer's own people would want the bounty called off?" she said. "His creditors. The paper he owes. Kill the buyer and his notes come due to the guild. The guild eats the loss on you." She had thought about it on the road. She had come south to say it out loud. Blazen spoke next, short. "We settle debts in fire where I come from. Here you settle them in ink." Rosalind did not speak. Her hand rested near her hip, and a small flame lived in her palm, banked low. The frost twins watched the wine shop window. "Guards changed," the female said. "Thirty seconds," the male said. "Go now or wait an hour." Nera went. He climbed the pipe, crossed the tile, and dropped through the corner window feet first. The buyer was at his desk with a cup halfway to his mouth. Nera put the fairy-blessed dagger under his jaw and named the guild by the name Atletha had given him. He told the buyer to write a letter cancelling the price, sealed, addressed to the guild clerk, or he would leave the man's ledger open on the desk with a knife through the debt page and let the creditors read it at dawn. The buyer wrote the letter. Nera took it, took the seal, and went out through the roof. On the ground the fire fairy and his wife were already turning north. The frost twins were already gone. Atletha waited by the drainpipe with a spotted fawn cradled against her chest, one wing bandaged, alive. "From the stables," she said. "Gareth said it would not settle without you." Nera took the letter, the seal, and the fawn. The bounty was called. The herd was still scattered. He had one hand full of paper and one hand full of living thing, and a long ride north ahead.