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Table of Contents
Bonus Books
Ian-Night Wolves
Book 3
By Lisa Daniels
Chapter One
Winifred slipped into the dark alley, hood drawn over her bright red hair. Her blue eyes scanned the doors, seeking the entrance. An entrance obscure to anyone but those who understood the graffiti it indicated, since it was written in short hand Golubrian. Not exactly a known writing method in Kanthus. Hardly even known in the kingdom it came from, either. Stepping over a puddle illuminated by the glowing cobblestones, boots clacking, she finally reached the door with the Golubrian short hand that said: Lost my Brothers, But Soon we Rise. Part of the paint had been smudged, leaving a half-complete glow. She knocked four times, then two. Then she waited, glancing around to make sure no one had noticed her.
A moment later, a slit opened in the door. She saw the shadowed, glaring eyes of the sentry. An irascible man, Daved. He hated Kanthus, of course, and lived in its bowels. Hard to like something if you didn't bother to appreciate the beauty. Winifred found that attitude a flaw in most of the Golubrians here.
“What you want?” a man's voice snarled out of the slit.
“Dark sun, lost age, humans run, never caged.”
The man blinked, the scowl deepening. “You may enter.”
The sound of several bolts and locks being undone from the other side entertained Winifred for a few moments. The door opened, and he stepped to the side, admitting her.
He gave her a rather nasty leer, attention trailing over her body. Didn't matter that she'd covered herself up perfectly and padded out her clothes to make her body shapeless—he still wanted to imagine the woman underneath. Sure enough, seconds after she had stepped through, she heard, “Give you twenny. We'll do it nice and quick by the door, and you'll have more in your pocket. Win-win, eh?”
In response, Winifred raised her hand and let several lightwoven fish swim out. She increased the number until there were about fifty minnows bobbing in the air. “I think you'll find I'm worth more than just a quick fumble, sir.”
The man fell over himself apologizing. “Just forget I asked, eh? Forget I asked.”
She ignored him, now going down the stairs, deciding to keep her swarm of fish nearby. The swarm denoted her as at least a level eight lightweaver. No mean feat. Creating multiple light sources, not needing a fixed binding, and being able to attach them to either moving objects, or objects at a distance.
A level eight lightweaver, working in the palace as a servant to a Fjordan princess. She was glad that the lights helped to obscure her blush. She knew how to handle uncouth men like that, but it always left an unpleasant taste in her mouth, and a burn on her cheeks. She'd encountered far more of that mindset when she went undercover. If people didn't see the rank, they automatically saw her as bait or prey.
And Winifred had been working undercover for a long time. Problem was—she enjoyed her cover.
“Why do you work as a servant?” Kiara had asked. “Your talent is wasted.”
“It's not, Princess,” Winifred whispered, reaching the bottom of the stairs. Nothing was ever wasted.
The minnow school made people avoid her, not wanting to interfere with such a high-level user. Very few individuals could make it so far up the ladder, but there was always something blocking Winifred from going further. And she had seen it in her mistress, Kiara. A nobody, barely capable of even binding light to a single fixed object, wielding a light sword and shield like the knights of old.
Not bad for a nobody. Winifred was proud of Kiara for sticking to who she was, no matter how much people might have disapproved of her behaviour.
Other figures dressed in heavy robes littered the underground tunnels. Cramped, claustrophobic, not a place for the faint-hearted. People wedged in tunnel gaps were selling wares or offering illicit gambling stations. The kind that would get them persecuted and killed if the police force of Kanthus ever found out about them.
Finally, Winifred stopped outside another door. Without bothering to knock, she pushed her way in. A woman with clouded blue eyes and knife-sharp cheeks stared at Winifred, and her lips cracked into a wide grin. Give Winifred another twenty years, and she'd likely look the same. Gray tinged the woman's once vibrant red hair.
“Hello, Mother,” Winifred said. She took down her hood and let the minnows dissipate into nothingness. The little room was illuminated by blue and yellow lamps, which gave some parts of the room a greenish hue.
“Winnie!” Her mother, tall and bony with the kind of appearance that made one think she'd been stretched on a rack, hobbled over to hug her daughter. “How's it going at the palace?”
“Fine, Mother.” Winifred endured her mother's smell as best as able. She did love Susan, of course, but her years spent in the palace had made it harder to stomach the old smells of home. “How's everything going?”
“Oh, we're getting near a breakthrough, we are,” Susan said, still grinning as she stepped away from her daughter. “Not long now. You just keep doing what you're doing, cosying up to all them filthy monsters. You doing god's work. The final stages of our plan are getting in place, and we got some fresh blood brought by our coin.”
“Yes, Mother, and glad to hear,” Winifred said, with a slight twinge of guilt. Her mother was Golubrian, and so, apparently, was the father she'd never met. Mother had raised Winifred with an unhealthy dislike of rich people, a fondness for stealing their items, and a deep belief that the monsters of Kanthus needed to be purged for the good of the world. After all, if you allow the night hordes to take over your cities by letting them breed, there's soon going to be a shortage of actual humans.
The Kanthians loved their gods. False gods, Susan spat when she had to mention them, always accompanied by her drawing the circle of protection in front of her heart.
Winifred's mother belonged to a sect in Golubria known as the Cult of the Sun. They believed in vanquishing the night hordes, in returning the light of day to the world, and claimed that the sun was shackled to the moon. Any creatures linked to the moon must then be purged.
Kanthus had creatures of the moon running in their palace. So by logical extension, the Cult believed that the elimination of such creatures would help humanity prosper further, and bring them one step closer to returning the sun.
Winifred grew up in this environment, alongside her extensive cultural training to be a servant of the palace. It took some forged papers to get her the job as Kiara's handmaiden, but she made it there in the end.
“We'll finally destroy those beasts and free humanity from their grasp,” Susan said, now stroking her fingers through Winifred's hair.
Another twinge of guilt settled. Hard to smile about this when Winifred found herself actually liking Kiara. She didn't really speak to the werewolves, the Highborn that dominated the court. The one time she had seen them, it was in an environment where she and Kiara were carried off to safety.
Saved by the monsters they were supposed to kill. Winifred had fed the Cult information about the schematics of the palace, the main residential floor the werewolves resided on, their routines, their shifts. She did it all for Mother.
And she did nothing for herself.
“Mother,” she said, aware that it was futile. She needed to try, anyway. “How can we be sure that the Kanthians are part of the problem? We're discovering different kinds of magic. Different lightweavings. Isn't it possible that the werewolves are simply another branch of magic humans have been able to adopt?”
It made a kind of sense to Winifred. Were not the yellow eyes, in a way, a form of light trapped in their irises? She had always thought when she observed the glint of yellow that it looked like they had the sun in their eyes. That somehow they were a piece of the sun themselves, and not these twisted monsters her mother made them out to be.
Susan gave Winifred an indulgent smile, as if Winifred was talking nonsense. “Oh, they have another branch of magic already, sweetie. Dangerous, corrupt magic. The kind that plunged us into eternal night, scrabbling in the dark.”
Did Mother have to be that dramatic? Winifred sighed. “I can't help but feel that what we're doing isn't going to help at all. Kanthus isn't going to thank us for ridding them of their gods.”
“False gods,” her mother hissed, face twisting into something ugly. “Being led astray by darkness! So we will show them how that darkness will make them fall. We will counter their darkness with another.”
“I'm just saying, Golubria is considered a slave-empire. They won't see it as liberating.” Winifred hesitated a moment. Counter their darkness with another?
“We are all slaves,” Susan said, making Winifred hold back the urge to roll her eyes. “We are all slaves in the eyes of our gods. It is an honor to be one. I understand it's hard. You're speaking with the Highborn every night. You're living in their lives. It's easy to forget who you are, easy to be enticed by that life. And that's the trap, you see? Because it blinds us to the truth. So don't worry, my daughter. I forgive you.”
The magnanimous tone was seriously starting to piss Winifred off.
“I forgive you, and ask you only to work there a little longer. You have already provided all the information we need. I summoned you here because I wanted to give you something. Come.” Susan beckoned her daughter over. Winifred followed her mother, a little curious, and more than a little nervous.
Was it really going to end that soon? All her years serving in the palace with her forged papers. It had been another life. Far better than grubbing around in the sewers, or living in the plain city of Golubria. Winifred had gone into the palace, harboring most of her mother's beliefs, but with an element of doubt wedged into her heart.
Within two weeks, she realized just how wrong she was. Interacting with Kiara made it worse. Speaking to Kiara's “monster” husband didn't exactly reinforce the idea in Winifred's mind that he needed to be eradicated for the good of humanity.
Blast, those werewolves actively fought the night horde.
So if they were the night horde, they had long since chosen the side of humans. Surely that exempted them from Golubria's vision?
Be nice if Winifred could explain to her mother that Kiara was a pretty cool girl. Zany, maybe thinking and speaking too fast for some people to keep up, but overall a great person to serve. A slave in Golubria would have loved serving under her, though they would have probably been nervous if they didn't get whipped for over a week. Slaves were taught that the whip was divine, that the punishments they received helped show their god that they were seeking penance for their actions.
Funny statement, that. Since a lot of the times, people whipped their slaves because they liked having someone to take it out on. No other reason. She still remembered how her mother had bought a slave once from the country market. “Whenever you feel like it, you can whip this one into shape. It's a divine act, so don't feel bad for doing so. The slaves themselves will be grateful in the afterlife, when they're received in the arms of the Lost Sun.”
What Winifred recalled was a lot of screaming, quiet sobs at night, with the slave trying to convince herself that she would be rewarded after death, but terrified of the next whipping.
The only times Winifred hit her was when Susan needed reassurance that her daughter wasn't running astray.
The slaves that did accept their “divine” position were even worse, Winifred thought. Encouraging their friends and family to endure the whip, to serve merciless masters and allow them to do whatever they wanted.
Winifred tested out her mother's faith at one point by volunteering to be a slave.
“Oh no,” her mother had said. “You mustn't. Some people are meant to be slaves, and others are meant to rule over them. You're a ruler.”
“But isn't it divine to be a slave?”
“Yes, yes, of course. But you wouldn't want to live like that, would you? There are plenty of slaves clamoring for the position. We need more people controlling them, we do. So I won't hear of you running off to join them.”
She wouldn't admit, of course, that being a slave was shit. Winifred didn't understand why everyone else around her seemed to so readily accept the situation. But she also didn't want to disappoint Mother, so she stayed with it.
Susan took out a small box from her desk, opening it up so that the lid hung on its hinges. Susan's hair hung down her shoulders, a vicious red, as if seconds from bursting into flame. Winifred had enchanted strands of her mother's hair to give it such an ethereal glow. Many women in the slums had lined up for the service, and they made a tidy profit off it. “Here, darling. A gift for you.”
Winifred stared at the bracelet in the box. The leather was threaded with rippling blue tendrils of light. A multicolored gem sat in the heart of the bracelet, and Winifred for a moment forgot her doubts, her unease. She gasped. “Mother! Where in the world did you find this?” Such a beautiful, enchanting thing. Her eyes followed the fractal patterns in the gemstone, which shifted colors as the angles she viewed it from changed.
Susan smiled proudly at her daughter's excitement. “The Lyceum of Golubria contains many precious and unique treasures. Spent almost all our savings and a few gemstones to get it. For you—your adult-gift.” She handed the bracelet to Winifred.
Winifred, awed, clipped the bracelet on. Instantly, it hummed, attuning itself to Winifred's magic.
The incredibly rare bracelet would absorb excess light energy from Winifred, storing it. Give it some time, and she'd be able to achieve lightweavings well beyond her base power. “This... I thought these devices no longer existed!”
“Oh, there's always a few. Mostly they're hoarded by some of the snotty culture nations in the east. Very rare in the west. Your gift is a divine blessing, my little one. So only the best for you.” Susan then pursed her lips. “Also got you this.” She showed a black stretch bracelet. “To cover it. Don't want some nasty commoner trying to swipe it from you.”
Winifred nodded, instantly pulling the stretch bracelet over the amplifier. “Mother... you shouldn't have spent almost all the savings on this. I'm not worth that much.”
“We'll have wealth soon enough,” Susan said, kissing her daughter on the forehead. Instantly, the elation Winifred felt at her mother's rare gift dissolved once again into trepidation. Her heart twanged painfully.
Despite her mother's kindness, Susan could also be extraordinarily cruel to anyone who wasn't her family, or an upper Golubrian.
Why couldn't you just be purely good or truly evil, Mom? Winifred hugged her mother. It'd make it so much easier to choose a side.
As it was, Winifred for now chose the middle ground. Helping her mother, and being a friend to Kiara. Respecting the customs of Kanthus, even as the Cult of the Sun sought to undermine them.
It all had to end at some point. She just wished she could have kept the double life going for longer—not having to worry about the end. Pleasing both sides at once.
“Of course, precious, if you feel like you need to pull out, I'll let you. But it is best to maintain the front.”
“Yes, Mother.” Winifred hugged her tall, lanky mom again, before saying she needed to get back to work, before anyone grew too suspicious. She left the room, heard a slave crying from one of the rooms she couldn't see, but kept going anyway, until she had made it back out into the alley. Rushing for the palace. Planning to scoop up some food along the way, to add a good reason for her disappearance. There was a small donut stall on one of the side streets, and Kiara loved the chocolate stuffed ones there in particular.
Winifred didn't notice the man slip out of the forever shimmering lights, the dancing shadows from the carts. Neither did she detect him following her with the swiftness of a predator.
She really should have been paying more attention to her surroundings.