“You are going to fight a seven-hundred-year-old mercenary?” Jala gasped, staring at Finn in disbelief.
Finn glanced between the two of them and flashed a charming smile. “And we are going to bet my life savings on the fight,” he said.
“What?” Jala and Valor both spoke at the same time and froze to stare at Finn in disbelief.
“I will win. I always win. You both know that. We are going to spend the next two days making everyone believe I’m going to lose, though, and then we are going to bet everything on the fight,” he explained. He watched them both, smiling happily until the silence stretched uncomfortably. The smile slowly faded and he frowned slightly. “It will work,” he assured them.
“Do you know why we are going to see my brother, Finn?” Valor asked finally in a voice filled with resignation.
“Not a clue, Val. You said it was a surprise,” Finn replied, unbothered by the change of topic.
“I reached majority last year but I never collected the funds. I’m about to ask my brother for what I’m due in the form of lumber, food, and supplies to repair Merro,” Valor explained with a sigh.
“Well, I hope we have both learned a valuable lesson about surprises. Had I known that, I probably wouldn’t have chosen the path I did. Too late for regrets, though,” Finn said dryly.
“I’m regretting this entire day. It’s not too late,” Jala said weakly, her gaze fixed on Finn. If she had listened to him and not interfered he wouldn’t be in the position he now was. If he died during the duel there would be no one to blame but herself. She watched him and felt a lump of dread settle into her stomach.
Valor stared up at the passing clouds for a moment and then gave a long weary sigh. Reaching across to Finn he plucked the flask from his pocket and took a healthy swallow. Returning his gaze at last at Finn, he raised a slender silver eyebrow. “So she called you daddy?” he asked, sounding faintly amused.
Finn shook his head slowly and reclaimed his flask. “No, I lied about everything but her sleeping with me and her father catching us. That’s the benefit to having a reputation for telling the truth. When you do lie, everyone believes you.”
Chapter 2
Gaelyn
Wind whipped through his clothes as Shade moved to a lower ledge of the roof. As far as he could tell there were no streets in the city that were safe. Absently, he brushed a lock of hair from his face and cursed as a talon grazed his skin. You have claws he reminded himself for what seemed like the hundredth time. Though the Fionaveir had given him a week to get used to the Blight form, he still wasn’t. He wasn’t sure if he ever would be. Mastering the camouflage talent and remembering he had talons seemed to be the most difficult part of it so far. It had been the only way they had determined that he could locate Charm inside this city without being killed. They had guessed that Eldagar had fallen completely and from what he could see they had guessed right. The city had a sweet rancid smell to it filled with rot and old blood. Had he been in his normal form it would have sickened him. The instincts of this form relished the smell however, and it was mental revulsion he felt, not physical.
Reaching a hand into his pocket he gripped the trinket the Fionaveir had given him to locate the missing rogue. The stone pulsed in his hand and grew warmer as he turned toward the southern part of the city. With caution bordering on paranoia, he headed toward the south where the legendary fortress loomed dark against the skyline. As far as safe houses went, the Blights couldn’t have chosen a better one. Eldagar was infamous for its walls and defenses.
His plan was a simple one: locate Charm, break the Spell Hawk out of the storing gem in his pocket and get out of this city without another glance back. It sounded simple at any rate. He had thought, with the use of the trinket, finding Charm would be easy. So far, he had been looking for two days and it was proving quite the opposite of easy. If the Fionaveir were testing him with this assignment, they had chosen a difficult test.
Movement on the street below caught his eye and he froze in place, watching two of the creatures infesting the city pass by. From this distance they looked normal. He could have seen them in Sanctuary and not given them a second glance. That was perhaps the most frightening thing about the creatures. At least with Kali’s other creations you knew what death looked like. A Bendazzi could hardly be mistaken for a house cat. The Blights however simply looked like everyone else, true wolves in sheep’s clothing. The creatures were silent as they passed. Most of them that he had seen so far had been. He was beginning to believe they used mental communication with each other. It was that, or they simply didn’t communicate, or it was pheromones perhaps. He had heard of creatures using scent to communicate, though it didn’t seem an effective way to him.