The Unseen Hand

Ch 14: Sunken Treasure

Avaren exhaled and straightened her shoulders. Years spent in the company of governesses had taught her how to comport herself in all manner of situations. She had learned the proper way to dress, which utensils to use at the dinner table, how to address her elders and how to behave in the company of men. She had learned the differences between vulgar flirtations and the coquetries favored in court. Most importantly, she had learned how to control her temper.

"Fire in the heart fills the head with smoke." Avaren quoted the late Mejtress Trudchen who had burned the mantra into her heart with her paddle. She took several deep breaths until the roaring fire of her rage had banked to embers.

Feeling smug with the knowledge that she would make him pay for his crimes, Avaren returned to Jarle's side. She stuffed the jewels back in his pockets along with all of his tools. What good were jewels or the suitors who had procured them? Idle days of girlish games and lavish fetes had vanished along with her dignity.

Avaren unsheathed one of Jarle's daggers and used it to cut open the front of his shirt. Removal of the garment revealed a blotch of purplish bruises centered on a lump on the right side of his chest.

Slowly, Avaren set the dagger down. She had seen a similar injury before.

Some years ago, one of her father's footmen had been kicked by a rearing horse. The man had been in so much pain from his broken ribs that for weeks he had cursed the very act of breathing. By the look of the swelling Jarle had at least one broken bone, perhaps more. How the man had managed to carry her down hundreds of steps to the villa's landing was a mystery. The pain must have been excruciating.

Avaren stood and jogged around the pool. She squeezed between two calcite columns and stepped into a natural tunnel that led deeper into the cave. The rough corridor sloped up, twisting and turning before opening into a vaulted cavern fringed by rows of stalagmites.

Beams of sunlight pierced the far reaches of the cave, illuminating the rushing waters of an underground waterfall. Smooth-lipped plateaus and steps had formed where the cascade's runoff had pooled throughout the centuries. Tiny crabs scurried in the dark.

Avaren climbed down to the vault's sandy floor and walked past the sunlit gallery and into the shadows. She had discovered the cave on her tenth birthday six years prior and had since explored it with the zealousness of a child. While her father had believed her to be swimming in the shallows, she had whiled away the hours exploring windswept reefs in search of shipwrecked treasure.

For years, the hidden grotto had served as a refuge—a place where she had found respite from the tight-laced routines of Ca'd'Cel; where she could be herself and dream. With her father dead and no home to return to, the cave seemed nothing more than a hole filled with broken, useless trinkets. Worn curtains embroidered with silver thread hung over a sleeping pallet of layered blankets stolen from the villa's linen closets. Coins manacled together by coral and the passage of time were piled high inside broken chests. Barnacle-encrusted platters, mangled chalices, and rusted weapons rested on crates bursting at the seams with dredged baubles. An assortment of wine bottles and sand-filled glasses cluttered the innards of a lopsided cabinet. Moth-eaten shirts and gowns from bygone eras rested on chairs whose cushions had long ago disintegrated.

Avaren brushed aside the cobwebs and began to search for the one item that could save Jarle's life. She found the small trunk beneath a brass ewer. The chest with hammered silver ribs appeared untouched by time and the salt of the sea. Inside, nestled in red velvet, was a portrait of a Seh'nahiel nobleman and a cut-crystal vial. Avaren took the bottle out and shook it until the liquid inside shone a bright, pale gold.

She had found the magically preserved chest not far from the port of Reyza where her father had said the Ruarch had sunk. It was possible that many of the objects she'd salvaged had once belonged to the ship's crew, but she had never disclosed her findings to her father. The secret cave and its contents were her only link to a mother she had never known—a woman her father had rarely talked about and likely considered a monster.