Sorry for posting late, my dragoneers. The person who proofreads my book just took a really long time to get through it. But it's all good now and I'm so excited for everything after this chapter. Shit just goes down and stuff happens and people meet people and the book falls into everything that I've been dreaming about for like a year. I AM SO EXCITED!!!!! And I hope you guys can feel the energy I give off while I write this, lmao.
Dagen
It was snowing.
Not a patina of frost, or a few wayward flames, but a dousing of white. Flurries rushed around him, landed on Dagen's nose or caught on his lashes. His cloak, embedded in cold-resistant runes Norah had created months ago, was the only thing that kept him warm. The wide, cobbled streets were clear of snow either by frost mages or however else Khalier cleared people-high layers of snow.
Dagen still hated the stuff. Snow left footprints to track. It fogged windows and people would rarely leave their homes, enjoying the white hell from inside before a crackling fire. Metal bars froze to his stiff fingers as he climbed up fire escapes or rails. His nose ran, forcing him to make noise and sniff.
And it was almost summer.
Raider City had snow once every blue moon, but winter meant freezing rain and ice. Spring in the city always meant increases in slave auctions. Raiders went off to distant villages when the grounds weren't frozen for the cages on wheels. It also meant a flooding of eager merchants selling goods since the seas were kinder. And when the merchants came, the sharks followed. Adam said they migrated, following the fish to warmer waters.
But Dagen just knew that spring meant extra caution. Guards would be wary of anyone approaching, no matter how innocent or disarming they looked. If Ultan's people ever caught him stealing it meant drowning in shark-infested waters or losing a few fingers or an entire hand.
Dagen made his way through the market streets, blending into the throng of dragons and people on their way to work.
"Do we have the things?" Eoin trotted beside him, eyes searching the foggy store windows with a determination of a boy given an "important" task. But there was fire in his eyes-- eagerness.
Dagen reached into his pocket, digging past the rings and things that caught his interest for the crumbled strip of paper. "We have one more thing."
He knew he didn't have to get everything on the list, Norah had even said it, but it was a challenge. To find specific things among hundreds of stores.
"Oh." Eoin skipped down the street, hands swinging. "She says the food sucks."
Easy enough.
There was a cafe seven stores down with bright, earthy colors. Bleary-eyed people trudged in and out, collecting around the cafe where the baristas rushed about. It was too easy to slip in unnoticed and steal a few boxes of food from the open selection of the giant refrigerator the cafe had.
Slowly, the people thinned and the streets emptied. With most of his work done, he took the main roads toward the giant building towering above everything else. A glass dome sat in the middle of the pale grey building. It looked as much like a capital as it did a building that could withstand a great war.
Dagen took extra streets, making sure creatures like Quinnlyn weren't following him, and found his way inside the Halls.
A bell rang and students bustled out of classrooms. Voices exploded, laughter boomed. People fell into two flows like salmon. Limbs brushed his and Dagen glared, feeling for unwanted fingers in his pockets.
As quickly as they came, they left just as fast. Then Dagen was blessedly alone.
The first day he'd come here, Norah wasn't in the room Riveta said she was. He thought she'd lied when he found an empty, barren room, but Riveta didn't seem like the person to lie. But that didn't mean it was still impossible.
After searching, Dagen sighed, and found Holland in his office on the other side of the school where the students were.
"Etin isn't happy we've moved her." His face was grim. "He killed her guards. When you go in, if you sense him or see the tendrils, you leave. Do you understand me? You leave."
He'd nodded then and Holland showed him Norah's new room, tucked deep into the school. Far from people and windows.
Relief eased his tight shoulders when the guards saw him with Holland and didn't pat him down. Holland said they searched everyone else except a selected few.
Even now, without Holland, they opened the stone door, smooth and polished to a shine. It was a risk to let him in without searching. He could easily kill her or slip her a knife to do what she wanted with.
The doors clicked shut behind him, the movement quick and precise. Not meant for her to see more than a glimpse outside.
Every time, Dagen felt like he was entering a hospital. The walls were too white, the shade that was blinding. The floors were polished smooth, beaming the stale lights into his eye. In all black, he felt like a smudge. A stain.
But there was color. A tiny bed, just big enough to hold Norah, was pressed against the wall, facing the tiny TV on the floor. Three pillows were thrown to the back of the wall, forming a make-shift couch. The white sheets were a mess.
She wasn't at the tiny desk stuffed in the corner where they played card games, but the bathroom door was open and the light was on. And he felt the icy death inside.
Dagen peered inside as if he was inspecting a potential house to break into, and found her slumped over the white tub on iron stilts. There was a shower head above it and white curtains pulled to one side, hanging out the tub. Splashing and whistles brought a beat of relief through his chest. She wasn't dead, just busying herself by flicking the water.
Dagen stepped into the tiny room, a lazy smile sliding across his face. "I think you need to be in the water for that to work."
He joined her on the tiled floor, propping his arms on the tub's rim.
Squirm swam back and forth through the tub, his blue and white body disappearing beneath the snow Norah had built up on half the tub. He slid onto it like a seal and shook. Water flicked Dagen's face but not Norah's.
How considerate.
"How are you?" she asked quietly and he knew it hadn't been a good day. Norah twisted around to bring a bag of chopped, frozen fish and tossed a head in the water.
Squirm dove like a dog sprinting off a river dock and snatched the fish. He spun onto his back, floating on the water to gnaw on the fish.
"Good," Dagen said. "There's a lot of snow."
"You hate snow."
The comment made his stomach fizz like thousands of delicate champagne bubbles. He had never been around someone long enough for them to learn him.
Dagen tried to decide if he liked it. He might.
"Everyone stays inside when it snows. Makes it hard to break into their homes," he sighed, leaning onto the tub with an elbow. The picture of careless boredom.
Norah eyed him sidelong. "A true bad boy would have still broken in."
He grinned wide with a thief's arrogance. "I never said I didn't."
She gave him a dry look. "How long did it take you to perfect breaking-and-entering without getting caught?"
Dagen sighed, pulling up old memories of icy rain and too little taverns to sleep in. "Three winters. And then I got the hang of it. I only got caught one time after that--a few months before I met you. And that was because there was a dog Eoin failed to mention."
His brother gave a shy, cheeky smile from the floor. "He was cute."
"Not a bad boy after all?" Norah mused. "Oh, don't forget Quinn. She caught you, too."
"Quinn doesn't count."
"Don't want to break your streak?" She got Squirm to sit on his hind legs, trying to place a fish on his snout. He grimaced, and she took his face with gentle fingers, "Stay."
He shook his head from side to side until he went suddenly still. Norah met Dagen's stare, "I forget sometimes I'm a commoner."
When Squirm held perfectly still with half a fish on his nose, Norah wove a hand and he dropped it. She rubbed his belly as he ate. "Good boy. You're so cute."
Eventually, they drained the tub and Norah dried Squirm with a towel. She sat on the bed as Dagen rummaged through his bag. He showed her the food from the cafe and the DVDs of movies and shows he thought they'd both be interested in. He put one on--a comedy. Because Norah could use a laugh and he could use new jokes.
They sat on the makeshift bed, eating in silence while Squirm sat on a towel on Norah's lap.
"This guy isn't really funny," Dagen muttered around a bite full of food. Norah nodded her agreement and they ruffled through the shows again before settling on a murder-mystery. "To give us ideas," he said.
"For murdering people?" she mused. "Let's do it."
He put on the show and settled carefully onto the bed to eat. The opening credits rolled and Dagen wanted to ask about the guards. But he had seen the god kill its victims before and it was never clean. But if they did talk about it, he'd say that they signed up for the job. She shouldn't feel bad about it.
"I stole things," he said with a tinge of eagerness.
"I'm shocked." Her irritation faded like a cool breeze. She turned, eyeing his pockets. "What'd you get?"
He dipped an apple slice into peanut butter and reached for his things. "I don't know." He dumped jewelry, rings, and tiny trinkets that had caught his eye on the bed. "I just got bored and started taking stuff."
"You're very good at stealing," she murmured, and there was a sort of awe in her eyes that made him sprawl across the bed. Like a cat basking in the sun's heat.
"I have very nimble fingers."
He stared at her long enough for her to meet his smirk. Amusement flashed in her eyes. "Really?"
"Would you like to see?"
"A generous offer, but no," she mused.
Eoin huffed, folding like wet paper at the desk. "Can we watch animal shows?"
Dagen slid his attention to him, but it was Norah who said, "It's Tuesday, there aren't any until later."
Dagen forced his mind out of the den of tongue and skin. But... If it ever happened, he wouldn't want to be caught red-handed. "Did Holland come by yet?"
Normally, he made sure to trek the halls carefully, always peeking around for any Holland. Norah had said Evra worked in the buildings like Holland, and Bronn frequently had to endure this place when his work called for it.
"Yeah, this morning," she answered. "He visits before work with Riveta and then sits with me during his lunch and visits again when he gets off."
There's a knock and the door peeps open just enough to see a shaved, tan head. "Hello, Norah." Hazel eyes searched her face and ears for tendrils. When he saw none, the door creeped back a bit further, but not fully. "Training will start in ten minutes."
"Okay," she said.
The guard glanced at him, then shut the door.
Squirm yawned and stretched from his sleep and hopped off Norah's stomach and she set him onto the floor. He wandered the room, weaving between nooks and crevices like a weasel.
Dagen watched the show as Norah gathered her clothes from a backpack and changed in the bathroom. He cast frequent glances at Squirm weaving around the table, then under the bed.
Dagen blinked, looking off the head of the bed to see Squirm saunter out. It gave him an idea. "You're like a weasel," he mumbled.
He reached to pick him up. Squirm, well, squirmed. He set the creature back on the floor. "It's because I'm not a girl, huh?"
He reached for a half eaten apple. "Norah, can Squirm have apples?"
"I don't know," she grumbled behind the door.
Reaching over the bed, Dagen dangled the apple until Squirm stopped by the door and trotted over. He sniffed it, antlers flaring slightly. Dagen waited patiently as the creature nudged the apple slice, gently taking it from his fingers to drop onto the floor. He ate it, swallowing it whole.
Dagen wiggled his fingers and Squirm sniffed them, nudging for more food. "This is the start of a very profitable friendship."
The door opened and Norah walked out in baggy leggings that used to be tight, and a grey, short-sleeved shirt. "You? Making a friend? Who?"
"I have friends," he said, defensively. "I have..." He didn't like the snicker Norah made when he tried to think of a list. He huffed, "I'm a very nice person. And charming, too. I can have friends if I want."
"You've never had friends," Eoin said, sitting on the bed, legs folded.
Dagen shot him a sharp look, his voice sharper. "Because I don't like people."
Norah crooned, slipping into a black jacket. "Do you want to be my friend, Dagen?"
"No."
She stared at him, the sneer on her face but her eyes were calm. Almost sincere.
Shadows pooled between them like an oval wall,
Dagen exhaled, slumping deeper into the pillows. His brother gave his goodbye's while he kept silent.
"I'll see you in a bit," Norah said and disappeared in the shadows.
Dagen didn't move from his comfortable spot on the make-shift bed. He fed Squirm more apples, and found the frozen bag of fish Norah stored in the sink, encased in ice. Her own personal freezer and untouchable to him. Unless he wanted to shatter it and reveal what he did, which he didn't.
So, he gave the rest of his apple slices to Squirm who gobbled each one with chirps and whistles. He sat there, finishing the episode of the tv with his cloak thrown over him like a blanket. Slowly, his anger simmered away. But he still did not want to think of the conversation.
Mercifully, Eoin said nothing. Too focused on the show
He managed to get through two, hour long episodes before the shadows appeared again. Solid like onyx stone but the edges faded like smoke.
Norah trudged through, sweat dripping down her temples and darkening her grey shirt. She didn't look at him as the portal snapped shut like drawn curtains, her eyes emptier than normal but still gleaming flat with rage. She headed straight for the bathroom, already taking off her shirt.
Dagen went still. His gaze slid over her jutting ribs, too pronounced to be healthy, and the bruises spotting her body. He drank in the gleaming skin and the muscles shifting in her back as she tossed her shirt into the hamper in the bathroom. Bright red straps of her sports bra traveled between her shoulder blades, meeting into the band holding everything together. It would be too easy to undo it. A flick of his wrist is all it would take--
A quiet, strangled noise made him turn to Eoin. He puckered his lips, shoulders hunching.
He stared back, still brooding when the door kicked shut and the shower ran.
"Don't give her cooties," he whispered harshly, afraid she would hear.
Dagen turned back to the tv, pulling his cloak higher onto his chin.
Norah came out in the beginning of a new show, dressed in loose, grey sweatpants and a matching top. She plopped onto the bed, her eyes still flat and angry and shuffled beneath the white sheets and a glimpse of black.
Dagen eyed the cloak he'd given her as she bundled it beneath her head as a pillow. Her eyes drooped as her anger faded, replaced with exhaustion. No, something deeper. Emptier.
She rolled onto her stomach, head turned away from him, but Dagen knew what she was doing.
"You have to stay awake," he said.
"I don't want to," she grumbled.
"How long has it been?" he wondered.
"I don't know. Two days. Three."
He glanced to Squirm whining on the floor. Then saw his paws as he tried to jump onto the bed. Dagen reached over and set the wiggling creature on the bed. He curled up on Norah's back, purring as he shut his eyes.
"You missed three episodes," Dagen said. Holland might be pissed if he found out he let her sleep and he didn't want to deal with a screaming, thrashing girl. "This dude here." He pointed to the tv. "Ran into a building to stop a serial killer from cutting a girl's throat."
Careful of Squirm, Norah turned onto her back. She schooched up into a sitting position, still mostly slumped. He finished explaining the show but Norah was still bleary-eyed, and the empty, cold was radiating off her.
Dagen tried to think of what else to ask.
"So what was it?" He knew she had held something back at the safehouse. "The deal. Training for what?"
She shrugged. The kind that meant she didn't want to talk. Dagen held his tongue, but curiosity got the better of him.
"Why did you take it? What was so good you went to him?"
Vast, cold power cracked in the room, but her face remained unreadable. It was destruction and death intertwined and Dagen knew better to fight it. He opened his senses, welcoming the cold with open arms.
"To amuse a god." The words were tight as taunt wires. "I was sick of not progressing, and if I'm going to be tortured I might as well get something from it." She surveyed him and he flashed a flattering smirk. "When did you know?"
He knew what she meant. "The first night." He pulled out his dagger and twirled it. "Our abilities are two sides of the same coin."
She flashed an annoyed smile.
He said, "your abilities feel different when you use them." At her questioning glance, he added, "It's cold, but a really cold, cold."
"Amazing."
He thought about shoving her. Norah snickered as if she knew that too. "But when you use it, it--don't make fun of me for this--like it was calling to me. Whispering."
Norah's face fell, eyes flaring. "That was Etin taunting you."
"So he knew I was there and let me?"
She shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."
"Why?"
She shrugged again. "You were challenging him by watching and he took you up, only he didn't kill you."
"What a pity."
Norah didn't smile, only stared at the tv. "Do you like the show?"
He didn't want to talk about it anymore, either. He said, "so far."
They finished the episode, moving onto the next while Dagen finished a box of fruit and cheese. His gaze flicked to Norah whose eyes were distant, her face shadowed in thought. He wondered what she was thinking. Or remembering. Or both.
Friend. The unwanted word invaded him like cheap whiskey. Poking him everytime he looked at her. He wasn't sure if the word was taunting or inviting.
Dagen had never had friends. Not as an adult. And not as a child. He was too quiet and sat too far in the back for people to notice him, even while he saw them. Listened and watched as they passed notes and whispered in each other's ears to giggle. He'd sit at lunch tables learning who sat with who. He watched them make plans of weekend sleepovers, talk about who was cuter, or gossip. But the friends never lasted. Eventually, they;d be seated at different tables and Dagen had no interest in being a part of that cycle.
And Eoin wasn't really a friend. He was his brother and a ghost too young to understand what was happening most of the time.
The word, friend, did not suit Dagen. He was a thief. A necromancer. He stole, he drank, he had sex, and moved on to different places before he could recognize faces. And that was fine with him.
But there was something about Norah that drew him back again, and again.
He'd thought about it in the safehouse when the Hollands drove him mad and he considered leaving. He knew he didn't have to put up with the skeptical looks, and questioning every word he said. He knew why they did it. He lied, he stole, and he drank, but it still irritated the shit out of him. But thoughts of freedom made him think of Norah.
He didn't know why.
Maybe it was because she didn't leave him drained and exhausted after their talks. Or that she didn't care about how much he stole or how many people he fucked. If anything she asked questions, asked him to teach her how to steal, then how to revive the dead. No one had ever been interested in him. She was a mansion with locked doors and tiny windows. He caught glimpses inside her, could picture her layout, but never fully.
Dagen's favorite things were locked doors.
But Norah was not a house and she could be filled with cheap trinkets. And he had no interest in picking her open.
Friend.
Dagen's senses sank in icy darkness and he knew Norah was pissed about whatever she was thinking.
Silently, Dagen sighed through his nose. Friend.
It sounded like risk, like moving tables. But something pushed him. Something said why not, she's on death row anyways.
He faced her. "Love--"
Ice dumped down his back. His heart stuttered.
Two Norah's lay on the bed. One staring at him, the other still and limp.
Everything froze and started at once.
Dagen scrambled to her. Norah's body phasing through his, like a cold breeze through a window.
Gingerly, he cradled the back of her neck, laying her flat on the bed. Hooves trampled over his chest, his breathing quick and shallow. His fingers went cold with sweat.
She hadn't been dead long. Her lips weren't blue. And the drop he'd thought was anger, happened no more than a minute ago. But it was long enough to have missed the spark.
No. No, he would have sensed that. That spark was one of life, a hand stretched out for help. It was sunlight to his shadows.
"What happened to you?" Eoin wondered gently. Softly. "Are you dead?"
Dagen's focus stayed wholly on her. His mind fell silent, even from Eoin's questions, and Norah's burning stare.
He waited the seconds out with his hand over her heart, the other against her head--her temple.
There might not be a spark. It didn't happen to everyone.
Norah said nothing and Dagen could feel her piercing stare wholly on him. He couldn't look, couldn't risk to take his mind off anything that wasn't that spark.
Seconds passed. Each one too long. Each one leaving her brain without oxygen--
A tiny star exploded. Bright and wonderful.
Dagen lunged for it, wrapping his death around her soul. It thrashed, pulling back into the endless, black abyss. But his fingers were iron chains, each reach pulling that star up to the surface.
His lungs blazed with cold. His muscles ached, as if he were physically dragging up her body from sludge.
He had never done this before. He didn't know if this was right. He was passing through darkness. But Dagen had gone by instinct his whole life. Stealing was instinct. Silent walking was instinct-
Norah gasped and rolled away, coughing.
Relief rocked him off the bed, his knees sliding to the floor. He laid his head on the mattress, struggling for breath.
"Did she die?" Eoin's voice was soft, worried. Scared.
He couldn't breathe enough air to speak. To even nod.
Norah coughing faded into silence. Dagen drew his eyes up.
Her back was to him, face buried in white sheets.
"If you're going to keep dying." Dagen mustered his careless, humorous voice. "You're going to need a friend to watch out for you. And since nobody is around." He panted. "I have to step up."
No room for her to reject him.
She rolled, empty eyes landing on him. He'd seen corpses with more life. But Dagen was not afraid.
His face softened, understanding slowing his pounding heart. She did not want to be brought back.
Dagen reached to brush back the hair from her eyes. "I know, love." He had never heard his voice so soft. "But we haven't finished the show. We have ten more episodes to watch."
She sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. Defeated.
She seized.
Dagen jolted back. A sickening rush flooded him.
He did it wrong. He brought her back wrong.
Norah rolled away, groaning through clenched teeth. Fighting her scream.
"Go." Her breathing came like boulders on her chest. Her tendrils thrashed in her neck. "He's angry."
She didn't give him time to respond and shoved him back.
Etin.
The realization pushed him onto his feet. He didn't care about dying, but being torn apart was not a way he wanted to die.
"Get out," she seethed. Her face twisted, caught between pain and rage.
Tendrils wrapped around her, fast and hard like whips. Tendrils trying to break. To shatter.
Dagen slipped out the door, his brother fading through the wall. He didn't glance at the guards, only muttered, "Don't go in there."
His nerves shot with storms and lightning. It made him stalk into the hall, trying to get away in case the god decided to destroy more than guards.
Each step, he felt the lack of his cloak. Felt naked as nobles and students glanced at him.
His feet carried him from hall to hall. He knew where he was going, knew who he was going to find. He just didn't know why he wanted to tell Holland.