Never (Prequel to The Amber Isle)

“I am Julesa, Lord Firmita’s daughter.”

  He blinked as she lowered the light. The fine features of her face were creased with impatience, her dark eyes seeming to absorb the light. Her black hair had been pulled into a bun and a single silver clip adorned her head. She waved a bejewelled hand from her long-sleeved white robes. “We must hurry.”

  “I agree but I have to ask why you’re here to... rescue me?”

  “That window is shrinking with every wasted moment. Follow me.” She strode from the room.

  Not unlike her father, was Julesa. Never leapt after her, catching up to the light and matching her stride. “What’s your plan?” he asked.

  “For you to be silent while I get you out of here.”

  “Wonderful. How assuring.”

  Julesa did not answer. Instead, she paused before a wall and depressed a hidden switch – possibly with her foot, since he did not see her hands move. A panel slid open and she stepped in then glared at him. “I told you, we need to hurry.”

  “I might like to take a look around first,” he said. There was still a chance he might find a map or some other hint before escaping. After all, he’d already gone through the trouble that came with being captured and divested of his knives, the least he could do was discover whatever secrets lay within the manor.

  “Are you a fool? Father will have you hanged if he realises you’ve escaped.”

  “Everyone dies from something.”

  She hooked the lamp on the wall and lifted something free, levelling it at him.

  Crossbow.

  Never winced as he raised his hands. Vadiya make, and in good order too, if the way the limbs gleamed was any indication of its condition. She held it like she knew how to shoot.

  “Would you like to choke on a bolt?”

  “Only if you don’t have anything softer.”

  “Enough playing the fool. If you made that forgery, you must have some brains at least. Use them now.”

  He folded his arms. “Then convince me or shoot me, dear lady.”

  “I’m breaking you out to send you to the city. I need you to stop something happening. If you agree, I’ll take you beyond the wall. If not, I’ll simply shoot you now.”

  Never grunted. Killing seemed to be everyone’s favourite answer to any problem around the Firmita manor. “What do I stop?”

  “An attempted robbery – Father is transferring some of his rarer pieces to loan to the Imperial Gallery.”

  “A thief to catch a thief?”

  “Indeed.”

  “And you know all this how?”

  Her eyes flashed. “That does not matter – you will take my word or die.”

  “Difficult choice. Can you guess what I’m thinking?”

  “Of course – what’s to stop you simply agreeing now, escaping and washing your hands of the matter? You could easily disappear.”

  “You know your scoundrels,” he said.

  She laughed; a cold sound. “I do.” From her belt she lifted a pouch and hefted it. The clink of coin followed. “Isn’t this what you live for?”

  “I do enjoy gold.”

  “Then if we have an arrangement, follow me.”

  He trailed the glow of her lamp into the passage and down a stair before entering a cellar. Crates of figs and pears were stacked along the walls, casting looming shadows. Julesa paused by a pair of barrels and gestured to them with the lamp. “Make yourself useful.”

  “Lucky for you I’m so good-natured,” he said as he strode forward to wrestle first one, then the other barrel aside. Beneath waited a trapdoor, which he lifted. Steel rungs descended into darkness. He stepped aside. “Lead on.”

  Lady Julesa started the descent and Never kept within range, a chill rising from below.

  He stepped into a rough-hewn passage where damp seeped through the walls. Did the passage run beside the manor’s well? Julesa walked on without comment until they reached another ladder.

  “We’re beyond the walls now. The tunnel opens into a small stand of trees,” Julesa said. She climbed swiftly now and at the top, doused the lamp before opening a hatch to the warm night air. Never climbed out after and crouched within the trees.

  The manor’s yellow glow rose over nearby walls, but no guard walked the parapet and no sound of alarm leapt out into the night. Julesa was already counting out coins, which she tucked into an inner pocket in her robe. The purse, now well over half-empty at a guess, she tossed to his feet. “You get the rest when you stop the theft.”

  “That occurs when?”

  “Three nights hence,” she said. “They will attack a covered wagon at midnight, before it enters the palace from the artisan’s gate – do you know it?”

  “I do. How many?”

  “A team of five – I trust that in addition to the gold I have given you, you have resources of your own you might call upon?”

  “Enough.”

  “Good. I will be watching,” she said, then removed two knives and threw them too, to the dirt, before starting back down the ladder.

  “How much are they worth?” Never asked. He had to – she’d expect it; and more, he couldn’t fight a touch of curiosity.

  “A great deal.” Her voice echoed.

  He closed the trap door with a snort and scooped up the knives – one of which was his own, the bone inlay a giveaway – and the purse. Only a single piece of gold within when he tilted it to the moon where its light fell between the leaves. Not a king’s ransom but better than a crossbow bolt to the face.

  Never started toward the road where it cut a pale line through the gently stirring grasses, east toward the capital. At first, he passed no-one on the road, which suited him well. The hush and the steady thud of his boots on the dirt was company enough.

  His plan had failed but new opportunities were afoot in the... uncharitable motives of others, often one of the best places to look when it came to finding opportunity. For Julesa’s offer did seem rather fraught with risk.

  No doubt she herself was behind the plan to rob her father.

  During the robbery, the ‘true thief’ would be killed but the relics would not be recovered, nor would Julesa herself. It would be hinted that the thief had done away with her somehow and all eyes would turn on the corpse and not the shadows where she – and whoever was helping her – were quietly slipping away.

  And who better to be the ‘true thief’ than Never – a man who’d recently attempted to dupe the Lord himself, and who had escaped.

  It was a clever plan – just not clever enough.

  Tomorrow, once he reached Isacina, there would be time to decide just how to deal with Julesa. If at all. He frowned up at the moon. Of course, there was still a chance those relics could tell him something, especially if the map he sought was there.

  And didn’t it have to be? Quisoan relics, especially pre-Empire pieces, were indeed among the rarest.

  Never chuckled. “Opportunity indeed.”

  He walked until the moon disappeared and only a whisper of starlight remained above, at which point he left the road and sought a depression, resting there with his cloak for a pillow.

  A few hours’ sleep would be enough. His limbs grew heavy now that he’d stopped, and when he closed his eyes, echoes of Julesa’s face swam before him, sometimes smiling, smug and haughty, sometimes weeping, her eyes wide.