Chapter 3 - Acantha
Acantha drew back from the crumpled figure on the floor, taking a few sharp breaths to steady her pulse. She held her sword aloft for a few moments more, ready to strike again with the pommel if it looked like her first blow hadn’t done the trick… but it was pretty clear the stranger was out cold. Cato, he’d called himself—if that was his real name. In the course of their conversation, she’d learned little else about him other than that he was a liar and a trickster. That was more than enough information to go on.
He’d almost gotten her, too. The oldest trick in the book, distracting your captor then making a lunge for your weapon… it was muscle memory that had kicked in, centuries of training moving her body to intervene. That was troubling. Was she getting soft, after just a few short months of relative peace? There had been a time when her reflexes were sharp enough to draw, strike, and sheathe her blade before the echo of the first syllable of a shouted order had faded away. Acantha made a mental note to take this as a warning to redouble her training efforts. The moment you grew complacent was the moment you’d lost.
She couldn’t rely on the stranger staying unconscious for long. She kicked his staff away for safety then did a quick search of his body, quietly reassured to notice that he was still breathing. A blow to the head like that wouldn’t be life-threatening for a dragon, but this man wasn’t a dragon, was he? She’d known that the moment she’d laid eyes on him. But he didn’t look much like a wolf, either. Every wolf she’d met had bright silver eyes, the same bright color as a freshly-forged sword. Cato’s eyes were the color of an overcast sky. He wasn’t dressed much like a wolf, either. She’d never seen a wolf in long, flowing robes like these she had to pull the billowing fabric this way and that as she searched him for hidden weapons. There were several. A couple of throwing knives at his belt, a long, sharp dagger strapped to the back of his calf… not to mention the armor. Under the soft, shifting cloth of his robes was a set of hardened leather armor, buckled tightly around his upper arms, his chest, his midsection. There was a bracer on his left wrist, too, but his right was bare. The skin wasn’t, though. She narrowed her eyes at the patterns that covered his skin… beautiful, strange patterns, almost like writing, though it wasn’t in any language she could make sense of.
She confiscated the weapons and the satchel, narrowing her eyes as she recognized a few of the Items in it. So he’d helped himself to more than just this cabinet, had he? How long had he been in here, rummaging through their most closely guarded secrets? She was absolutely going to have words with the guards who’d been at the doors to the Archives—very sharp ones. Complacency again. Though the Palace was full of passageways and tunnels leading in and out, many of them secret, there was only one entrance to the Archives, which was the door she’d come in through. There was always a guard stationed there… and it had always been considered one of the more boring assignments. Even so, her soldiers knew better than to let some complete stranger walk past them—visitors to the Archives were usually infrequent enough that a guard could keep a list of visitors in their memory without too much trouble, though that had been changing lately with the increase of visits from wolves. How had he snuck in unchallenged? She’d walked straight past the guard on her own way in—her soldiers would have reported such a strange visitor immediately if they’d seen him.
It would all require further investigating. But first things first, she needed to get this man somewhere secure. He’d already made one attempt to slip away from her, and she was a little embarrassed by how close he’d been to succeeding. There would not be a second attempt—not on her watch.
It had been a long time since they’d had any cause to use the cells in the Palace. She could remember a few occasions on which prisoners of war had been held here for a few days, in a place occasionally referred to—uncharitably—as the dungeons. But it had been a long time since dragons and wolves had been actively at war with one another… a cold, grudging peace had been maintained for at least a few decades before the recent radical restructuring of their relationship, and the cells had been left empty. Well, that was about to change. Acantha was breathing heavily by the time she reached the top of the steps that led down into the depths of the Archives with the thief’s unconscious form slung over her shoulders like so much baggage and his staff clutched tightly in her fist. The satchel of stolen goods she’d left down there, after a moment’s consideration. It would be useful evidence of his wrongdoing when he was hauled before the Queen, but it was safe where it was for now.
The look on the face of the guard at the entrance to the Archives was almost comical, but Acantha was in no mood for laughter. He hastened to help her with the prisoner, but she refused, sending him on instead to ready a cell before sending word of what had happened to the royal attendants. It was the middle of the night, and not an emergency worth waking anyone for, but this Cato would need to be dealt with sooner or later.
“I swear, Acantha, nobody came past me tonight,” the soldier said before he left, his eyes full of worry. “The scholars and Morgan left a few hours ago, but nobody went in. Nobody.”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Acantha said shortly, biting her tongue on a barb about how the thief must have appeared out of thin air. He clearly felt remorseful enough already—it would unseemly for her to level another attack at him. Besides, she’d only exchanged a few words with Cato and she knew he was a trickster. Who knew what kind of tricks he’d played to get himself through the door?
She let herself relax a little once she’d gotten him into one of the cells. They weren’t bad little rooms, all things considered. The designers of the palace hadn’t been interested in tormenting their prisoners, only keeping them secure. Each cell contained a simple bed and a table for meals, with a private bathroom attached through a door at the back of the room… hardly luxurious, but it wasn’t an unpleasant place to spend some time, if you ignored all the metal bars that surrounded you. When Acantha arrived with her prisoner, the bed in the first cell had been hastily made with sheets that still smelled faintly of dust. They were clean, but they hadn’t been used for a long time.
She set the thief down on the bed, and something made her linger there, looking down at his unconscious face. Something about him was troubling her. He had to be a wolf, because she knew in her bones he wasn’t a dragon—but if she was honest, he didn’t feel much like a wolf, either. And there was the question of his strange appearance. Looking at him now, she could see that his braided white-blond hair was quite long, falling past his shoulders, and probably to his mid-back if it was loose, she surmised. Morgan occasionally braided her long red hair that tightly, and it always took a few inches off the length. Cato’s braids were intricate and clearly well-practiced, and rather beautiful in their way… and to her surprise, Acantha could see what looked like glinting stones woven into some of the braids, pressed against his scalp.
The braids, the tattoos… this man clearly took a lot of care with his appearance. But vanity didn’t seem like the whole story, somehow. Uncharacteristic curiosity driving her movements, she unbuckled the wrist bracer from his left arm, revealing yet more tattoos trailing across his bare skin. Tattoos weren’t a common practice among dragons, though she knew a few wolves who enjoyed decorating their bodies, but these didn’t look anything like the ones she’d seen before. They were all part of the same strange, looping pattern, and there was a continuity to the design that put her in mind of language, though she couldn’t even deduce the order of the words, let alone any meaning.
She took a look at the bracer in her hands, frowning a little. There, on the inside of the piece of armor, still warm from its contact with Cato’s skin—three gemstones, embedded in the hardened leather. What for? What possible purpose could they serve there? She tapped one with the tip of her finger, mystified. They couldn’t be decorative, or they’d be on the outside… but nor could she see how they provided any further protection. She thought back to the satchel she’d confiscated from him. There’d been a couple of gemstones among the miscellaneous things he’d lifted. Maybe he just liked them?
That wasn’t a good enough explanation, and she knew it was going to bother her. Something about the stones unnerved her, and she’d already nearly experienced dire consequences for ignoring her gut instincts once tonight. Working quickly, she stripped the unconscious stranger of all of his armor, tugging at the buckles to remove each piece and resisting the urge to study the bare skin that was revealed… his muscular shoulders, his chest, his midsection… all of them covered in those strange tattoos. It felt curiously intimate, undressing this stranger, and she didn’t like the odd feelings it seemed to engender, a fluttering in her chest, a certain awkwardness of her hands as she replaced his robes and left him in peace on the bed there.
Her gut was telling her to confiscate the gems in his hair, too, but that was too much. He’d wake up eventually and realize she’d been playing with his hair in his sleep, and how would she justify that? So she took the bundle of armor out of the cell and locked the door firmly behind her, stowing it with the stranger’s staff in the locked storage room down the hallway. Everything in here smelled like dust, and Acantha couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in her as she set the armor on a shelf and left the staff leaning against the wall beside it. First a year of absolute chaos, and now a stranger the likes of which the Palace had never seen? If this marked a new wave of weird changes, she wasn’t sure how she was going to cope with it. Tradition and routine were her watchwords, and there was nothing in any tradition she’d ever observed about handsome thieves with gemstones in their hair…
“Enough,” she muttered aloud, turning on her heel and locking the storage room behind her. The stranger stirred in his sleep when she passed his cell, and she felt an odd touch of relief at this confirmation that he was still alive… she’d hit him rather harder with her sword’s hilt than she’d maybe meant to, shocked by how close he’d gotten to retrieving his weapon. Some part of her almost wanted to hang around until he woke up, just to make sure he was okay. What if he needed medical attention?
But no sooner had the thought crept into her mind than she’d put it aside, shaking her head a little at her own haphazard thinking. That wasn’t her role here. She was the Captain of the Guard, not a nurse. It wasn’t her job to babysit a prisoner. She had more important tasks to see to. She had to go back to the Archives to make sure he hadn’t done any further damage, she had to adjust the guards’ roster to allow for the prison to be part of the rounds now that it was in active use… and after that, she needed to work on a report for the Court in the morning about exactly how this had been allowed to happen. Late as it was, Acantha had a feeling she wasn’t going to be getting much sleep before dawn.
So she only lingered a few minutes more, watching the sleeping form of the thief through the bars with her green eyes narrowed. He was a nuisance and a mystery, that was what he was. That was why she felt so curious about him, why even now she could feel herself fixating on who he was. It was her job to guard the Palace, and he’d interfered with that.
That must have been why he didn’t leave her mind for the rest of the night.
Chapter 4 - Cato
Cato was woken slowly by a dull throbbing pain in the back of his head, and as he came drifting slowly back into the waking world, he was greeted by a full-blown sensation of absolute dread that had him sitting up quickly. Then he winced as the motion jarred his head. The hand he put to the back of his skull felt lighter than it should have, and after a moment’s confusion, he swore under his breath as he realized he’d been stripped of his armor. Every piece of it, he thought with a scowl even the pieces that involved taking his clothes off completely to remove. At least he still had his robes on. But knowing that someone had stripped him naked in his sleep, taken his armor and then dressed him again… it was a violation. An absolutely necessary violation for anyone who wanted a mage like him to stay in prison for any length of time, but a violation nonetheless.
He wondered if it had been the guard who’d caught him in the Archives who’d done it, and as he thought of her, his hand shifted around to his throat to check the wound she’d left there. A small nick, easily healed. Such control she’d exhibited with that sword… and such brutal strength, too, when she’d brought it crashing down on his skull. How long had he been out cold, he wondered as he looked around. Long enough to be dragged to a prison cell and stripped of his armor. Cato swore under his breath as he got gingerly to his feet, the throbbing pain in his head not easing up. The first thing he did was to rattle unsuccessfully at the door to his new cage. Stupid, really, the need he felt to check that the prison cell was actually locked, but people made mistakes sometimes.
He certainly did, at any rate. How else had he gotten here?
Cocky of him, to think he’d be faster than her. It was his own blasted fault that he’d given her the opening. Should’ve been more patient. Should’ve talked her around a bit more, waited for her guard to drop. Better still, he should’ve justgone. The words weren’t complex, the magic he needed was on his person… all he’d have needed to do was mutter a few syllables and poof, he’d have been standing before Haspar and the others, laughing about that close call.
Well, now his armor was gone, and so was that particular avenue of escape. Blasted clever of them to take it off him. Maybe these dragons knew more about magic than he’d thought… it didn’t take too much training to sense the power in an object.
But it was okay. He’d been in worse scrapes than this before, he told himself as he paced the cell, checking its dimensions. He’d been in worse accommodations, too, both as a prisoner and as a free man. The bed was soft, and there was even furniture here, a table for him to sit at as well as a pitcher of water. He drank greedily from it, imagining that the coolness of the water might soothe his aching head a little.
Time to take stock. They’d taken more of his weapons than he’d hoped, but he wasn’t completely unarmed here whoever had stripped him of his armor clearly hadn’t thought to do the same with the gemstones woven into his hair. And there was always a way to communicate with Haspar, if he really needed to but he wrinkled his nose at the thought. No need to call for rescue just yet, if he could avoid it. There might still be some bragging rights he could retain here, if he could still get out with the gauntlet…
The gauntlet. Dammit. His satchel was nowhere to be seen probably stashed away with his staff and armor, evidence of his wrongdoing. Cato’s heart sank and he bit his lip with frustration at the thwarted heist. Hewantedthat gauntlet dammit. How dare they take it from him? Just because it wasn’t his, and because he’d been stupid enough to get caught? No justice in this world, it seemed.
Step one: get out of the prison, by any means necessary. They’d taken most of his weapons, but he still had his charm—and though the stony-faced woman who’d caught him in the Archives hadn’t seemed particularly enamored of him, he had a feeling she’d have cracked in another minute or two. They’d have to send a guard to check on him at least every now and again, and Cato was nothing if not an expert at striking up a conversation, building rapport in even the unlikeliest of places. That was how he’d kept his place in Haspar’s coven, wasn’t it? If he could sweet-talk the most powerful mage he’d ever met, he could talk a few dragons into letting him out of jail.