Ember

When people talk without speaking,

And hear without listening,

Or look without seeing,

The darkness will ripple and take hold.

Chapter 1

People stared and murmured behind their palms at the struggling child. His captor, a woman in the blue, black and silver of the military uniform, dragged him towards a waiting carriage.

“No!” the child cried.

Lying low on the burning tiles of a nearby roof, Ember watched. The stench from emptied chamber pots drying in the dirt emanated from the street below. The tiles rattled as she shifted.

The boy deserved nothing better than to be dragged by the scruff of his shirt to the Upper City; magic had no place in the Lower.

Ember's hands trembled, and her blood fizzled.

The boy stretched for his mother’s outreached hand. “Nooo!”

Another uniformed man, Wolves the lot of them, restrained the crying woman in her doorway. A third Wolf glared at the crowds, daring them to intervene while he bounced his child clobber on his hand.

Hate shivered in Ember’s veins. She balled her hands into fists to quell them. Just the thought of magic constricted her lungs. Her heart beat so hard it hammered the terracotta tiles. A memory threatened to sear her mind. Ember thrust it away.

The captor shoved the toddler inside the carriage and slammed the door behind him. He yelled orders, and the driver cracked his whip. The carriage protested, then clambered away, towards the Upper City.

Good riddance. Ember would never mourn when a mage, child or otherwise, was weeded out of their lives.

“Told you he was a mage,” Ember spat. “Stain!”

“How?” Briz demanded.

Ember glanced sidelong at their newest recruit and her newest problem. The girl had come to them last week and still didn’t know the rules and hazards of their trade. If she didn’t yet know the danger mages posed, then the greenling had a long and difficult lesson ahead.

“Dirt, Meadhead,” Niff replied from Ember’s other side. She wiped a sleeve under her nose and sniffed. “The dirt. It don’t hang around him. It’s the magic. Sinks into their clothes and sticks.”

Niff, her long-time partner and sometime supporter, had cut her teeth before Ember had known gangs existed. Nevertheless, as the only two girls their age left in the gang, they had formed a pact of sorts: to look after the others’ back if they didn’t lose their own in the process.

“That don’t make any sense,” Briz grumbled, bushing away a tussle of dirt-streaked blond hair. The movement revealed the scar beside her eye, the one she refused to explain. She was clearly under some deluded impression that the two were conning her.

She would learn or else she wouldn’t last long.

“Believe what you will.” Niff shrugged. Her grin revealed all her yellow teeth.

Ember huffed. “If you want to last more than a flea’s breath under His Majesty’s protection, you’ll stay well clear of mages.”

They all shivered at the mention of His Majesty—the accepted term for Douse, the lord and master of their gang.

Ember didn’t relax until the carriage was out of sight. The mage and his magic along with it. Ember would not be going to Briz’s aid if ever she tweaked that damned bush and led a mage straight to their den.

“Come on,” she said and stood, one leg bent, the other practically straight on the tilted roof. Distance was the only cure for the hiss in her veins. “Show’s over, and we still don’t have His Majesty’s charge.”

“Aiyt, lead the way, oh formidable bub-tamer.” Niff mock saluted with a twitch of her eye towards Briz.

Ember glowered back before she swung one leg, then the other, over the edge of the roof and eased over the ledge. They were several stories above the ground. Despite the crumbling brick and absent windowsills, Ember could have scaled down the wall sleepwalking.

Red scabs peeked from the holes in Niff’s shirt as it billowed in her descent. Ember knew where a more than half had come from. She sported a good number of mirroring marks of her own. Niff’s loose mouth had landed Ember in one scuffle too many. The brat was an old niggle that never healed.

Ember thudded onto the first-floor window ledge and jumped the last metre to the ground. A second later, Niff plopped beside her. They shared a glance and turned to look up. And up.

Ember sighed, swore and stared at the baggage she’d been forced to deal with. Briz was methodically placing each and every foot and hand in the crumbling crevices of the brick.

Her hand slipped. Sand fell into Ember’s eyes.

Ember didn’t have an afternoon to waste on the twit.

Niff caught Ember’s eye and grinned. “I’ll leave you two nodcocks to your entertainment. I’ve got better flies to swat.”

Niff spun to leave, then paused. “Oh, and a warning for the wise: the Wolves are getting frisky. Remember that dunderhead with two thumbs on each hand and a sense to match?”

“Mmm?” She didn’t trust the hypnotic note in Niff’s voice, nor the way she drifted back to her.

“The bugger got booted from his gang not more than a drinker’s night past,” Niff replied.

“So?” Ember raised her brow. Niff’s fingers danced in the air.

“The Wolves clobbered him and dragging him by the toes to their cages. He was choking as they carried him off—”

Niff snatched at Ember’s bag of spoils. Ember thrust it between her and the wall. She leaned back and glared.

Niff grinned, spun, and waved. “Well, you’ve been warned. If the Wolves don’t catch your tail, maybe I’ll come by later to see how the greenling’s faring.”

Ember glared after her. So much for sisters-in-arms.

She threw her attention back to the airskull and shuffled away from the wall. Ember jigged from foot to foot, then grabbed her bag and checked its contents. Luck was in her alley. The weave hadn’t ripped, and her spoils were untouched. His Majesty would get his coin and sparkle that evening, which meant that both she and Briz would avoid a beating.

If His Majesty was in a good mood.

Ember glanced back up at Briz and growled.

The greenling was doing a brilliant interpretation of being a burr in Ember’s tail. Ember’s day was just going to get longer.

***

Nathaniel knew better than to comb the Lower City labyrinth, yet he’d still found himself in this mess of viper paths between sky-high terraces. Brick walls encased him, blocking his view and his route. His elbows ached with bruises and blood, and sweat dripped from his temples. His feet walked upon a mixture of disgorged stone and a substance he wasn’t entirely sure was mud. The filth reeked.

He cursed Garet, who’d thought these backstreets would be a great shortcut, but since they’d been separated, he hoped his friend was having better luck.

Nathaniel rubbed his brow on his cloak.

Entrenched superstition and an age of mistreatment meant mages were not welcome here. Nathaniel knew that, yet he was sorely tempted to use magic. His conscience held him back.

Nathaniel spun in search of an exit, swore, and stumbled over a pile of filth with fabric inside. He retched. That might be a body. He rushed away, nearly failing to hold back his lunch.

There was no escaping the fact that he was lost. He’d never been able to understand the maze. Any sense of direction seemed to have deserted him from birth.

His inner conscience warred. He could summon a spell to lead him free, to either direct him to a point he could envisage, or help him retrace his steps. Both options would be visible to anyone he crossed. Rumours would ripple like wildfire. Ones that his friends in the Lower City wouldn’t be able to quash.

That would mean goodbye to his hopes of finding his birth parents once and for all.

He slumped against the nearest wall and pressed his fingers to his temples. He certainly didn’t want to consider what those stains on the bricks indicated. This maze was a chasm for the poorest to disappear. Who knew what lived around the next bend and how civil the reception would be.

He needed to return to the market. That was the plan, but the practice was more complicated.

He’d already exhausted his encyclopaedia of oaths, so he huffed and considered. Markets were noisy. That amount of noise should bounce off brick, right? Ergo, he should be able to follow his ears.

He inhaled and stretched his senses. Birds cackled overhead and something clattered on the tiled roofs.

He winced and continued walking. Washing hung above his head, too high up to get in his way. He descended the occasional slippery step. Eyes glowed from the crevices in the walls. Those crevices might function as doorways.

A chill climbed his spine.

***

The market teemed with people shouting, bartering, and deceiving. There were many light hands slipping into pockets and open bags, or behind backs, yet this merchant guard had decided to pick on Briz.

Ember’s knife clanked against his sword. She swerved from the force of the guard’s blow. A sting crossed her cheek. Ember spun to face him and wiped the blood with the back of her hand.

All it had taken was for Briz to hesitate and fumble, and the situation had gone downhill quicker than a runaway cart. Ember had intervened, against her better judgement, and now the airskulled greenling had disappeared somewhere down the market, where meat sizzled over coals.

Ember swallowed; her stomach yearned. She gripped her knife.

The guard lunged. Raising her rusted knife, Ember dodged outside his reach. Metal screeched on metal. Since his arm had thrust out before her face, she stepped forward and bit down. Blood swirled into her mouth, and the guard screamed. He dropped his sword. Ember kicked it into the crowd. She didn’t know the first thing about using the heavy weapon.

People collected and ebbed around stalls. Shoppers, diverted from their tasks, formed a wide arc around Ember to watch the show. They jostled and shoved each other to gain the best vantage point. Their bodies, and the tents of merchants, formed a barricade against any chance of escaping to the maze, before the Wolves stormed in.

Ember spat out the blood and wiped her mouth. The metallic taste had her reeling.

Of all the airskulled trolls! she swore at Briz, the guard, the crowds; her curse applied to them all. She should have sat back on her heels. Some spectator might have stepped in before the guard went too far. It was Ember’s job to teach, not coddle.

Snarling his own curse, the guard snitched a dagger from his boot. His muscles bulged as he brandished the blade. After their first tickle and welcome, Ember could lay claim to the deep slice along the guard’s cheek and the teeth marks around his wrist.

The guard’s owner heaped curses upon her and her kind. He knew better than to call for the Wolves while his guard could deal with the issue—he’d lose money in a bribe to gain the Wolves’ mercy.

The Wolves would take one look—the street brat and the merchant’s guard whose owner had money cascading from his pockets—and act.

The guard circled. Dust danced. It stuck to every drop of sweat and loose fibre. It pricked Ember’s eyes. Ember kept her distance. The crowds cheered and shouted verdict or advice; she wasn’t sure which. The wall of bodies shifted and closed in tighter.

The guard sneered. His goading taunted her to take an impulsive attack. They both knew time was Ember’s enemy.

“Son of an ogre and a moronic marsh fly!” Ember cursed him. “Have you even realised your skull is filled with cobwebs? You look like an elephant sat on your face and a blacksmith tried to hammer it back into place!”

The guard’s face contorted into a blistering crimson. He moved to strike, but his foot didn’t move, so she didn’t react.

The crowd hushed; notes clutched in expectant hands.

The guard flipped his knife to his left hand and swiped, but his muscles contracted, signalling an attack with his right fist.

Ember swayed from the knife and dodged his fist.

Her eyes widened when silver flashed near her neck. A quick jab from his right pressed her back farther. Good thing she’d learnt from an early age no one ever played fair.

The guard lunged. Ember moved outside his arm, grabbed his wrist and nape, and hauled him forward. The guard yelped and stumbled. His feet sought traction from the dirt, but his leather soles provided little aid.

Ember drove her hilt onto his temple. Hard. Adrenaline had stirred every nerve and swollen the force behind the motion. At least the blow might penetrate some wit into the fiend’s thick skull.

The guard wavered, dazed. An indignant shout blurted from his merchant.

Heart bounding, Ember clenched the guard’s arm and thrust her foot into the side of his knee. She heard a crunch and felt a prick of guilt; she hadn’t meant to break the bone.

The guard yelped and collapsed. Ember let him fall. Her body shook.

Straightening, Ember stepped back. One step closer to the maze. Then another. Euphoria and guilt vibrated inside as she took one more and bumped into the body of a frozen witness. Around her, silence hovered on a leaf’s edge. The crowd held their breath to verify the victory.

The man at her back shouted. Cheers, cries and curses thundered down. Behind her, punters thumped backs and jiggled others for their winnings. Two hands slapped Ember’s shoulders.

She didn’t give a rat’s ass about their cockbrained betting. She needed to get away before Wolves descended.

High-pitched whistles screeched. Everyone jerked at the warning cry of the Wolves.

Ember’s heart lurched as she whirled and raced for the maze. People rammed into Ember from every side. An arm in the motion of passing cash almost knocked her out. The hand retreated.

“Hey!” the would-be receiver chased the other man into the crowd.

Bodies moved, and spaces formed. Ember could see the glimmer of the market beyond the human barricade. She didn’t pause—the whistles trilled a louder warning.

Ember plunged further, shoved past sweaty shoulders and ducked under flinging gestures that came inches from slapping her in the face.

The Wolves were closing in, cursing those on the outer edges of the dispersing crowd. Each note coiled a noose around her neck.

Ember elbowed a dawdling person from her path. A trail of indignant shouts drew closer and closer. The Wolves must have seen her. Whistles shrilled again. Ember’s heart pinched as she squeezed her way through the mess. Sun glinted off the glass lanterns strung up on wooden stands. Ember blinked away the sting and cursed the merchant, who glowered at her and signalled the Wolves. Not that they would need his help.

The slit to the maze was still half a block away. Ember’s lungs sawed. She saw the gap and dashed for it; the slit between buildings so derelict that the walls had broken off enough to lean against the other. Ember slipped through the space beneath and ran.

She didn’t slow until the brick had turned deep grey and the stains from people and time had layered the lower walls. The reek of excrement was intense. Nevertheless, Ember relaxed.

The dank pathways were little more than thin spaces between crumbling buildings. This was the poorest area within the Hathersage’s walls. Houses pressed against each other as if they fought for space in the uneven landscape. Each building squashed in as best it could. These lanes, no more than a tight squeeze wide, were the result of half-hearted efforts and indifferent hands.

Superstition kept the Wolves clear of these lanes.

Ember had no idea how much truth resonated in the rumours. She’d always encouraged stupidities that made her life easier, so she wasn’t about to shrug the advantage aside, particularly when that advantage meant she’d survive.

In the maze, law was what you made of it; the only authority worth a damn was survival.

Ember finally halted in the deepest shadow, and braced a hand against the brick to balance her wobbling knees. She almost laughed. She’d survived!

Pain stabbed at her side, at the point where the merchant’s guard had delivered a fist before he’d found his second dagger. Ember groaned and doubled over.

The nodcock! She hoped the guard found mosquitos in his bed that night. Of all the cockbrained idiots she’d had to cross!