The Whitefire Crossing - By Courtney Schafer Page 0,79
than coin or charms. Though Red Dal did plenty of freelance work, he made the biggest money from jobs on commission. Between highsiders, merchant houses, and ganglords, he had no shortage of customers desperate to get their hands on valuable goods protected behind wards. I’d lifted everything from intricate Sulanian bone sculptures to a spymaster’s secret records.
“I’ve never met anyone strongly Tainted. Could you truly fly, and shatter ward patterns, like in the tales?”
Mother of maidens, but the memories burned like salt in a wound. “Yes.”
He checked at the bitter violence of the word. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to...I was only curious.”
“I know.” Most were, even Ninavel natives who’d had some trace of the Taint themselves. Didn’t make talking about it any easier. Before I could come up with a change of subject, he spoke again.
“What happened, then, after you...after?”
“My handler sold me to someone else.” Another set of memories I didn’t care to revisit. Those first weeks in Tavian’s hands were a black blur. Some Tainters never surfaced from the soul-destroying depression that followed the Change, and ended up dead because they just didn’t care anymore. That might’ve been me, but for Jylla. Her handler had sold her off to Tavian scant weeks before me. Somehow, we’d pulled each other through, our shared shock turning first to anger, then determination.
I’d thought we’d had a bond nothing could break. Yet she’d stolen every kenet I owned and cast me aside like all we’d shared meant nothing. I kicked steps over a mud-smeared snowbank with sullen violence.
“Your handler sold you to an outrider?” Kiran asked.
“Of course not. What in Shaikar’s hells would an outrider want with a newly Changed city brat?” Tavian’s gang had sold taphtha, lionclaw, and other addictive drugs to merchant house men who preferred to keep their vices secret. Tavian had wanted a runner boy who could slither into unlikely places for drops, and knew how to keep his mouth shut.
Jylla, he’d had other uses for. The old, sick anger twisted in my gut, no matter that Tavian was seven years dead.
“But then, how did you...?”
I reined in my tongue with an effort. Not Kiran’s fault he’d dredged up memories so bitter. “You’ve heard us talk of Sethan, right? Some two years after my Change, I met him on the street one day.” And by “met,” I meant “tried to steal from.” I’d had this crazy idea in those days that I’d prove you didn’t need the Taint to steal. I’d become the best thief in Ninavel, and then Red Dal would take me back. Gods, what a fucking idiot I’d been.
I’d known better than to pick pockets; too dangerous without the Taint, if the mark wore warding charms. Instead, I’d resorted to simple snatches from busy street markets. Once my chosen mark was distracted in a conversation, I’d grab his parcels, take off down a side alley, and climb straight up to a roof. Most people never thought to look up, and I’d had no idea that adults who weren’t handlers could climb.
Yeah, and then I’d tried that on Sethan. Gods, I’d nearly fallen off the wall when he swarmed right up after me. We’d ended up in this crazy chase all over walls and rooftops. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake him. He’d finally caught up just as I started a suicidal jump across a blank section of wall, some hundred feet above a flagstone courtyard. I’d known that without the Taint the jump was too far, but Red Dal had hammered into my head that death was preferable to capture. Sethan had grabbed the strap of my rucksack and somehow managed to jerk me back and keep his own precarious hold. He’d dragged me onto a roof, ignoring my kicking and biting, and yelled at me not for stealing, but for nearly killing myself.
“We got to talking, and he invited me to come climbing with him on real rock,” I told Kiran. Once he’d stopped yelling, Sethan had told me I was a hell of a climber, and I’d heard in his voice that he meant it. It was the first time since my Change anybody’d told me I was good at anything.
“It was just some easy cliffs next to the Juntar mine, but I wasn’t even halfway up before I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life climbing.” The dizzy elation I’d felt on the cliff had been a drug strong as any Tavian sold. I’d never thought