Sandis ran until she couldn’t run anymore. Until her lungs were fraying sacks, her legs rubber bands with no more give, her skin a sweaty mess beneath the coat she dared not take off. She limped down a narrow road packed with narrow flats, not unlike the one she’d grown up in. The smell of the overflowing garbage bin in her path burned her nostrils, but she leaned on the brick wall beside it, out of sight. She closed her eyes, ignoring the looping pieces of hair glued to her forehead with perspiration, and wheezed, trying to catch her breath. After a moment, she slid down the bricks to sit on the road. This one was packed dirt and gravel, no cobblestones.
Her stomach growled. Leaning forward, Sandis pulled off one of her shoes. The thin sole was filthy, and the fabric stitched to it had started to tear. Her foot was covered in red spots, some raised and filling with fluid. Everything else was bruises. She pulled off her other shoe and gave her aching feet a moment to rest. All she could do now was breathe.
And pry her fingers off the gold trinket clutched in them. She had to use her other hand to do it—she’d been gripping the amarinth so hard, and for so long, her joints had stiffened and locked. Sandis made a protective wall with her knees and massaged her hand until the artifact dropped out of it.
She studied its thin, looping bands of gold and the pale, glimmering orb suspended in the center without anything to hold it up. The gold alone would fetch a good price, keep her fed for a month at least, surely. But the actual amarinth . . . it was priceless. Of course, if anyone found out she had it, they’d probably take it from her without a penny passing between them. That, she didn’t doubt.
She turned the amarinth over, trying to figure it out. Taking hold of one of the gold loops, she spun it. The device made that gentle whirring sound as the loops rotated around each other. Sandis released it, and it fell against her stomach, lifeless. It had suspended itself midair at the tavern. Its magic must have been spent. Yes, that was what Kazen had said. One minute, once a day.
She grasped the treasure and shoved it into an interior pocket in her coat. She had to stay out of Kazen’s grasp for another twenty-four hours before the amarinth would work for her. And then what? What could she accomplish in a single minute? She couldn’t move the way Rone had. She had no training in martial arts.
Frowning, Sandis slouched against the wall, stomach grumbling once more. Rone had been nice to her. Helped her. She’d be back in Kazen’s grasp by now if he hadn’t risked himself to protect her. And what had she done? Taken his amarinth. She pressed her palms against her eyes and took a deep breath, then another. She didn’t have the energy—or the water—to cry.
She was terrible, wasn’t she? But she needed some way to protect herself until she found her relative. Talbur Gwenwig had gold, if he was doing the gold exchange. Sandis would bet he’d have the resources to find Rone again. And Sandis would apologize and give the amarinth back. Get a job at a factory and pay some interest, if she could. But for now, she needed the relic more than he did. He was so confident and so strong . . . She was sure she needed it more.
Someone tapped her shoulder.
Sandis jumped, ready to run, but it was only a boy. Seven or eight years of age, she guessed, and in need of a bath. His clothes were thin, and his pants had holes over both knees. He didn’t wear shoes.
He held out a heel of bread to her.
Sandis stared at it, then at the boy.
“My mom says you look like you’re in trouble.” He glanced behind him, to where a woman of about forty years scrubbed clothes in an old washbasin in front of one of the narrow flats. The woman nodded at the boy—or, perhaps, at Sandis—and the boy turned back and continued, “She said she used to be in trouble, too, and we need to support each other.”
He offered the heel of bread again. With shaky fingers, Sandis took it. A tear burned her eye. “Thank you,” she whispered.
The boy smiled—he was missing several teeth—and ran back to his mother’s side. Sandis waited for the woman to look up once more; then she nodded her thanks and dug into the heel. It was delicious. It became hard to chew after a few bites—her mouth was too dry and the bread was old—but Sandis kept working on it until the entire thing lumped in her stomach. Then, gathering her courage, Sandis put her shoes back on and limped over to the woman and her son.
Without speaking, she knelt down and got the next piece of dirty laundry and dunked it into the basin, working out the stains one by one.
Sandis spent the night on the small family’s porch—it was warm enough to do so. The step was hard and uncomfortable, but Sandis was so tired that for the majority of the night, she honestly didn’t mind. She hadn’t dared accept their invitation to sleep inside. She knew how Kazen’s men worked. When they wanted someone, they hunted down their entire network. It narrowed where the quarry could hide . . . and usually motivated the person to stop running.
Perhaps it would be better, then, for her to wait for Kazen to give up before trying to find Talbur Gwenwig. To protect him. But if he was rich—and the presence of his name in the gold-exchange record whispered that he would be—maybe he could protect her. Celestial bless it to be so.
Until she found the man who shared her surname, Sandis fortunately didn’t have a network. It didn’t feel fortunate, but she reminded herself that it was better to keep these kind people—any people—at a distance. They would be safer, and she would be harder to find. Kazen would never want to give up, but even he had to run out of resources eventually, right?
It would be different if Alys had been the one to run. She had a low summoning level. Sandis didn’t. For one reason or another, her body could tolerate the possession of a strong numen. Though she had never tried, she suspected she could probably go up to an eight on the scale. That made her nearly irreplaceable.
Of the six vessels Kazen had owned yesterday, three had been capable of hosting a level seven—she, Heath, and Dar. Now he only had one. Heath had died beneath the weight of this Kolosos, and Sandis had run away. Alys and Kaili never hosted anything stronger than a five, whereas Rist had peaked at level six. There was a chance Kazen would never allow her to get away, regardless of the resources it cost him. If that was the case, she may have made a terrible mistake.
Sandis pondered this as she moved through the city at dawn, the first bells for factory shifts ringing. She crossed through the smoke ring, where most of the factories lay, and coughed her way toward the library.
The answer was to try to leave Kolingrad. She’d likely starve to death before she got to the coast, and even if she did survive the journey, she’d have to find a way of crossing without alerting the border guard. The ocean in the north was frigid, and no one would dare smuggle a vessel. She could steal a boat, but she didn’t know how to sail. To the south, the mountains were nearly as high as the heavens, and the passes were guarded. From what Sandis had heard, a person needed expensive and rare documents to get past the guards, and a lot of bribe money on top of that.
Not to mention that by leaving Kolingrad, she’d be leaving the others for good. Alys, Kaili, Rist, Dar. But how would she ever rescue them? She was struggling to rescue herself.
The triumvirate did not like people leaving the country any more than Kazen liked his vessels leaving the lair.
She fingered the amarinth as she approached the library. When did it open? Would they let her in? Her clothes were decently clean. She combed her fingers through her hair. She’d only been to the library twice before, both times when her parents and Anon were still alive. Her father had been eager for her and her brother to learn how to read.