Miracle Child

The Blind Spymaster

Vesper's POV

The King didn’t offer any more explanation, but I didn’t need it. He’d summoned me for my affinity for Ways. We would be traveling to Psyrus, so a Way would have to be prepared for the journey. It wasn’t going to be difficult, but there was more to this than solely preparing the Way for the King. He’d expect me to prepare a protective detail. Again, nothing very difficult, but I didn’t immediately head out. I wanted more information, and since I was already here, I could pay a visit to the best source of intel there was.

I didn’t much care for Solaris. Made entirely out of pale and reflective materials, the entire city was blinding under the ever-shining twin suns, and it hurt my eyes. I was more used to the Underbelly, the city directly below Solaris. It was mainly a training ground for my kind, but raptor families resided there along the edges of the hollow left behind from where Solaris used to sit, before the King, supposedly, lifted it into the sky. The large city blocked most of the direct light from the suns in the Underbelly, but we all preferred the dark anyway. Still, our best informant resided here in the city. He was one of the few raptors who were passed onto a citizen when he outlived his usefulness to the King. His damage internal enough to appeal to one of the ladies of the city.

I ducked into a very popular “tea shop” to the displeasure of everyone around. There were various shops and businesses in the heart of the city, and while, technically, we weren’t barred from these places, it was heavily discouraged. Even the raptors leashed to their new masters were simply ignored. At least they were in the public eye. Behind closed doors, or rather the opaque opal curtains that I headed for, was another matter entirely. There was a slight shift in the pressure of the air as I shouldered past the heavy, thick material, and I frowned at the slow, low beat that I could feel in my chest as the curtains fell closed behind me.

The female seated behind a simple desk at the first door glanced up with a smile that quickly fell when she recognized me. Her eyes were a dark gray, nearly black, and the emptiness of them had me fighting off a shiver. I hadn’t worked with this raptor before she retired, but my mother had. She was a wild, outspoken thing, and the King had ruined her for it. Her hair was a dark red, another reason the King despised her, and arranged in a lovely braid over her shoulder, curls fraying out to make the hairstyle appear loose and messy. It hung down below to pool on the desk where she was absentmindedly playing with the end. Her face, now blank and empty, was striking, with sharp edges enhanced with makeup, and she wore a black slip of a dress that was like a second skin.

A broken doll. That’s what she always looked like to me, and I had to force my eyes away from her as I walked past, dropping a few gold coins on the table in front of her. Payment for the time of the male I wished to see. There weren’t any other places like this on Solaris, or really anywhere. If a Fae wished for company, they would have it. There wasn’t enough of a client base anywhere else to set up a shop like this either. Here, however, with retired raptors, there were plenty willing to buy time and freedom to do what they wished to these failed protectors. Beyond each doorway was one of my kind, blood bound to one of the citizens of this city being sold to the public as a commodity. I f*****g hated this place.

I stepped past the third door on the left and shut it behind me, willing myself to calm down as the shadows had begun darkening along with my skin. Inky black tendrils crawled up and down my limbs, pushing at the barrier of my body, begging to be let free. I could free my people in an instant, could kill the ones that held their lives in their hands so easily. Another set of bounds clamped at the shadows under my skin, making pain radiate through my body. The blood bond clamped down on my powers, and I hissed out a breath as my magic and my very blood battled in me.

“Hello nephew,” said a whispery, barely there voice. I looked up to see a dark-haired male leaning against the wall next to the room he exited. He looked a lot like my mother. Tall and lean with black hair and pale skin. His eyes used to be the same black as his sister’s, but now, they stared, sightless and pale at me. His hair was short, with little black feathers throughout, and his black trousers clung to his legs like all the clothing in this place did. It was all he wore, leaving his chest on full display.

“Uncle,” I responded, facing him, as I walked to the center of the room. This was a simple sitting room with a large, deep purple couch, a short plain dark wood table, and a couple of matching chairs. There were no windows, the only source of light was the flickering candles across the room, and the walls were covered with tapestries of abstractly suggestive patterns.

He walked to the couch and sat. His movements were sluggish yet fluid, and I swallowed past the revulsion. Drugs potent enough to influence our kind were hard to find and incredibly dangerous. Whether it was something his master did to him, or he did to himself, I couldn’t be sure, but it wasn’t my place to ask or even judge. I think I’d rather die than end up in a place like this. His pale, unseeing eyes fell closed as he leaned back onto the plush couch, and I waited until they were open again before I sat on the edge of the table, not wanting to touch anything in here.

“You want to know about the King’s debt,” he said, or rather rasped through shredded vocal cords. I nodded, knowing he could see through the shadows in the room. It was how he heard as well. His ears were useless after the King’s fury destroyed them. Just like it had destroyed his eyes. Just like it had destroyed his throat. It was a blessing for our people, but I missed the man who’d helped raise me. I couldn’t even remember how his voice had sounded. The King believed the male was harmless, so he hadn’t advised the female who took him to take precautions against his abilities. My uncle had full access to his gifts, without restraint or boundaries. He couldn’t kill his master anymore than I could harm the King, but that was the only limit. He’d become incredibly important to our cause, and all it cost was his ability to see, hear, and speak, along with being here. It wasn’t an even trade, but he never complained.

His magic was similar to my own, but his shadows were just shadows, nothing solid, nothing more. He saw and heard through them and could hide things with them, and his reach was far beyond what my own was. He had shadows across Erythium, and even some in Psyrus. He listened and watched all day, every day, and relayed the information to us. He was where I went every time I was in Solaris. I was the only one who could freely visit him like this. Mother was rarely allowed on Solaris anymore, and we had no other family.

The darkness in the room deepened as he searched through his shadows, and my own itched to be released. His eyes focused on the darkness above his left palm, and I knew he had found it when his back straightened, and he leaned forward to span the shadow between both his hands. Still, I waited, holding my own magic in check until he began speaking again.

“Her name is Ryanni,” he said, finally, his brows furrowed in concentration as he broke out into a sweat, “and it appears she’s from Durkain.”

“Appears?” I asked, hesitantly, and his face turned up to me with a frown.

“The shadows know her name,” he said, something in his face turning sort of soft, “They sing it, actually, but all I’m getting is glimpses.” I waited as he turned back to the shadow between his hands, observing the strange sort of ease in his face. I wasn’t feeling the least bit of ease in this situation, and it only grew worse with the smile that curled on the older male’s mouth. It was small, tiny, but the first genuine one I’d seen from him in a century.

“What’s happening?” I asked, and his face turned up, the smile fading from his mouth but not from his eyes.

“My shadows are dancing for her,” he said, his voice more of a breath than it normally was. I blinked at him, a low pit of dread building in my gut. Ryanni of the kingdom Durkain was not going to be a simple mortal. Shadows didn’t even dance for many Fae. My family was one of the few who had the shadows’ favor.

I spoke with him a bit longer, getting a description of the mortal as well as hearing about the turmoil in the nearest LunFae camp. We’d been stirring them up for a while, but it seemed there would finally be some action taken. The ‘war’ had been raging since before the rise of the King, but for as long as I can remember, it was mostly skirmishes in the Wilds and the occasional spy, scout, or assassin. Hopefully, with a full-blown war at the King’s doorstep, he’d allow us more freedom with our magic and more of us would slip through the cracks.

For this mission, I would need at least two higher-ranked raptors to protect the King on the way to Psyrus. Thankfully, the Way I would need to use was close, but it was still in the Wilds. The Wild Woods bordered the SolFae lands to the north, just past the Northern Bridgetown where one of the four tethers for Solaris grounded. The Wilds were home to the Free Folk, residents of Erythium who owed allegiance to neither the Sun nor the Moon, and time and distance passed as they saw fit. Securing a safe path to the Way wouldn’t be easy. The Free Folk hated the King, and should they decide to, they could lead us straight into the LunFae camp. So, while still in the shopping district of Solaris, I secured several gifts that would, hopefully, earn their favor.