Daindreth's Outlaw Read online

  Daindreth’s Outlaw

  by

  Elisabeth Wheatley

  Copyright 2022 by Elisabeth Wheatley

  All Rights Reserved

  Published by Avowed Publishing and Media, LLC

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Amira

  Chapter Two: Daindreth

  Chapter Three: Amira

  Chapter Four: Daindreth

  Chapter Five: Amira

  Chapter Six: Daindreth

  Chapter Seven: Amira

  Chapter Eight: Daindreth

  Chapter Nine: Amira

  Chapter Ten: Daindreth

  Chapter Eleven: Thadred

  Chapter Twelve: Amira

  Chapter Thirteen: Daindreth

  Chapter Fourteen: Thadred

  Chapter Fifteen: Amira

  Chapter Sixteen: Thadred

  Chapter Seventeen: Amira

  Chapter Eighteen: Daindreth

  Chapter Nineteen: Thadred

  Chapter Twenty: Daindreth

  Chapter Twenty-One: Thadred

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Daindreth

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Thadred

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Amira

  Epilogue

  Daindreth’s Traitor

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Amira

  Coming home had never felt like such a gamble. Always, Amira had known what to expect when she set foot in her own country. Life in Hylendale had not always been pleasant. There was her stepmother’s disdain, her father’s demands, and the mild distrust of the whole kingdom to deal with, but Amira had always known what to expect.

  Yet there was so much she didn’t know now. Had word already reached this far north that she had stolen the imperial archduke from the palace? A part of her still couldn’t believe she’d done it herself. Would her father help the empire hunt her down? Probably, she reasoned. This was the man who had been willing to hand both her sister and then her off to Daindreth, despite believing the archduke was a monster.

  This didn’t feel like coming home. This felt like stepping into a hunter’s field, not knowing if she was the fox or the hound. Were they ahead of their pursuers or walking straight into a trap?

  “Welcome to Phaed,” Amira said as she marched off the dock and onto cobblestone.

  Following her was Daindreth Fanduillion, Grand Archduke and heir to the Erymayan Empire, and his cousin Thadred. It had been a few days since she had stolen Daindreth from within the imperial palace. Empress Vesha had tried to use the cythraul that plagued Daindreth to control him and subject the monster to her own will.

  The demon was still inside Daindreth’s head, but he was dormant for now, as he always was when Amira was close. Amira had yet to find a way to make her effect permanent. So she and the two men had come north, seeking the Cursewood where it was rumored the Istovari sorceresses still lived. Those sorceresses had cast Daindreth’s curse in the first place. They seemed the most likely to know how to break it.

  “How far from here to Lashera?” Thadred asked.

  Amira had to think for a moment. “Seventy leagues or more, depending on your route.”

  Neither of the two men spoke, but Amira was sure she knew their thoughts well enough. The farther they had to travel, the more time the empire’s agents would have to catch up to them.

  Amira moved away from the docks and into the city. Thadred and Daindreth followed close on her heels. The carrack they’d sailed in on, the Irenmor, lay anchored at their backs with the crew still securing the rigging to the docks.

  Amira wondered how long it would be until the sailors were spreading word to every tavern keeper and prostitute in Phaed of the girl passenger and her two young male escorts. With Amira’s red hair and Thadred’s limp, they were a memorable trio.

  How long before Vesha’s spies found their trail?

  Her side still ached from the stab she’d taken while breaking Daindreth out of the palace. After a few days soaking the wound with ka, she’d healed much faster than she thought she would. Her newly acquired power shuddered through her veins. Ka congealed around her feet and rippled through her fingers, ready for a command.

  Since breaking the Kadra’han’s curse that had forced her to obey her master—first her father and then Daindreth—Amira’s power had doubled, perhaps even tripled. Sometimes, Amira caught herself weaving spells without meaning to. They were benign, useless things, just strands of ka threaded or knotted into shapes, invisible to the eye but detectable to a sorceress.

  Since freeing Daindreth from the palace, she could see the golden ka everywhere. It filtered on the breeze, rose from the packed bodies in the street, flitted above them, and scurried below them as seagulls, rats, and other vermin wove their way in and around the humans.

  Phaed was a young city. It had been a small fishing village until the Erymayan invasion, when Emperor Drystan had appropriated it as a supply station for his troops.

  Brothels had been the first permanent establishments, and then tanners, blacksmiths, potters, and other tradesmen had followed. At the end of the war, the steward of the city had been granted a knighthood for his service and now styled himself Baron Phaed.

  Once it had become a barony, the small fief had a monastic enclave installed for devotees of the goddess Lumë. Since then, the Phaed crest had been a single eye peering out from a lamp and the township had become a respectable stop along the coast.

  Phaed was the last port in safe waters before one crossed the Jaunty Straits, known for their swells and treacherous currents. It was a good place for merchants to deposit their liquid assets before heading across the sea to the western parts of the empire, where gold, silver, alum, copper, and gemstones were mined from the barren landscape and the carcasses of dead volcanoes.

  “You seem to know where you’re going,” Thadred remarked.

  Daindreth had been silent since leaving the ship.

  “I do know where I’m going.” Amira turned left at the third avenue they came to, stepping around a street sweeper with his broom.

  They turned into a street blocked off from horses and carts with a narrow row of poles that allowed only pedestrians to pass through. On the other side of the row of poles were buildings lined with cast iron grates that weren’t recognizable as grates at a first glance.

  The metal had been shaped into scrollwork, vines, or geometric shapes. Heavy bolts secured the grates to the buildings’ walls and guards with halberds slumped against the outside of most the shops.

  Amira inclined her head to one of the guards and stepped through the open entry of an establishment with “Beville and Daughter” painted across the top. Thadred and Daindreth stiffened as if in surprise, but followed her.

  At the moment, the three companions were poor. It had taken all the money Amira and Thadred had to orchestrate Daindreth’s rescue and secure passage here. Amira had mentioned to the men that she had a solution to their money problem in Phaed, but had left out the details.

  The room inside had a mosaic depicting the lamp eye of Lumë coated in a thin layer of street dust. There was a single wooden bench to one side and the walls around them were solid save for a wooden door in one corner and a barred window in front of them, giving a view of stacks and stacks of chests, boxes, barrels, and crates.

  “Good morning,” said a cheerful female voice. The voice’s owner took in their odd trio without so much as a blink. She stood behind the grated window with her hands folded neatly before her as if she had been expecting them. “Lucia Beville, at your service.”

  Lucia was of perhaps middle years with a face made pleasantly round from years of smiling. She took in the three with a sharp eye, no doubt comparing them to a thousand other patrons
and guessing at their backstory and business.

  Did she take them for runaways? Young nobles off squandering their parents’ money? Perhaps lost?

  Whatever she might have assumed about them, Lucia gave nothing away. She smiled, but there was a sharp look in her eye that warned Amira this woman was used to catching swindlers, liars, and cheats.

  “I’m here to make a withdrawal,” Amira said.

  Lucia glanced to Thadred and Daindreth as if expecting one of them to speak. When it became clear that Amira was the leader, she cleared her throat and returned her attention to the younger woman.

  “Under whose name will you be making a withdrawal?”

  “Cromwell,” Amira said. “Terrence Cromwell.”

  Lucia’s brows rose almost imperceptibly.

  This was the account Amira had always used whenever her father’s business had taken her to the western coast, usually in disguise. Phaed was technically inside Hylendale’s lands.

  “Then I shall need the password.” Lucia pushed a piece of parchment and a stub of charcoal under the grated window, the set of her mouth just a little harder.

  Amira prayed to every god that might be listening that her father’s lawyer hadn’t changed it. She hastily jotted down Elin and the withdrawal amount, then pushed the parchment back to Lucia.

  Lucia took the scrap of paper. “I need to compare this to our ledgers.”

  Amira nodded in understanding. She waited, adjusting her left cuff.

  Thadred leaned on his hickory cane sword, taking stock of their surroundings with a curious stare. Amira had found this cane to replace the one he’d shattered in rage back in the palace, right before she’d gone to rescue Daindreth. Anyone who saw the knight might take him for a manor fop sneaking out for an adventure.

  Daindreth studied the window of the depository, waiting for Lucia to return. He stood close to Amira, only a handbreadth or so away. She had only to lean into him to touch him. He noticed her watching him and met her eye.

  She offered him a slight smile. His brow furrowed ever so slightly then he smiled back.

  There was still a stiffness and awkwardness between them. The night she had rescued him from the palace, there had been no barriers. To Amira, it had felt like pure connection. They’d both been vulnerable and desperate in their own ways.

  They had escaped to the docks and Amira had passed out after boarding the ship. She didn’t remember much after that. The next morning, Amira had woken up alone with her wounds sewn and her head sore. Daindreth and Thadred had been outside the cabin, arguing in hushed voices.

  Amira had lain awake, unable to make out their words, but understanding their tones. In the few minutes it had taken for Daindreth to finish their discussion and come into the cabin, something had happened.

  Amira had remembered the humiliation of the night of the ball. She had offered Daindreth a place in her bed and he had refused—in front of half the imperial court. She remembered him ordering her to leave him forever.

  Daindreth had banished her and Thadred, using their Kadra’han curses to make them flee the capital palace in Mynadra. It had been part of his misguided effort to protect them, but Amira had broken her curse to come and rescue him anyway.

  Breaking the curse had almost killed her and rescuing Daindreth had almost killed her several times, but it had been worth it.

  She had still returned to the palace for him. She had still fought and nearly died to save him. He had helped her when she was hurt, but maybe...

  She remembered him pushing her away the first time they had kissed, fleeing like she was a temptress in an old fable. What if he only cared for her because of what she did to the cythraul? It was irrational for her to think that—Daindreth had been willing to sacrifice himself to keep her and Thadred safe. Yet Amira still found herself doubting. Afraid.

  She had become frightened and hidden back behind her walls once again. She was self-protecting, and she knew it, but...

  Amira hadn’t spoken to Daindreth in private since leaving Mynadra. Always, Thadred or someone else had been in earshot. She had spent some time thinking of the tongue-lashing she would dole out, but then her anger had faded, and it hadn’t seemed to matter. It helped that she’d overheard Thadred doling out his own tongue-lashing on the archduke—using language to rival a wharfside fishmonger.

  Amira tried to focus on the present. She had Daindreth, they were free, and they had a plan.

  Even if that plan hinged on the mercy of sorceresses who had left Amira for dead in a pool of her own blood and cursed Daindreth to damnation. It was better than nothing, she supposed.

  But Amira had overcome a dozen warrior sorcerers of greater strength than her own, a palace of soldiers, and two angry demons. Surely, she could find a way to make her Istovari mothers listen. Until then, they needed to stay ahead of the empire’s trackers.

  Vesha had promised Daindreth—use of his body and his life at least—to the demon that lived inside him. Allegedly, that was to guarantee the continued prosperity of Erymaya.

  According to the empress, the empire’s flourishing under her rule had been thanks to her familiar, Saan Thii, and other denizens of the Dread Marches who had struck a bargain with Vesha. Whether that was true or not, Amira didn’t rightly care. If the cost was someone’s soul, it wasn’t worth it, especially if that someone was Daindreth.

  Amira glanced to Daindreth. He stood stiff with his shoulders at an odd angle, like someone who expects to flee at any moment. He was uncomfortable here. He had probably never been into a city without a retinue of guards and retainers. She would need to teach him how to blend in.

  Daindreth noticed her watching him and inhaled, but the shuffling of Lucia’s return interrupted anything he might have said.

  Lucia returned carrying a small wooden box sealed with wax and a signet burned into the top. “Is this the correct one?”

  Amira had to clear her throat to hide her relief. “Yes. Thank you.” She stepped forward and took the box, studying it from the sides to confirm it was indeed the correct one.

  “It has been untouched since it was left here,” Lucia assured her. “As per the contract.”

  “I have no doubt,” Amira said, even as she tested the weight of it and reexamined the wax seal. It was the familiar mark of a polecat twisting in a circle so that it seemed to be running along the inside of the seal, the same mark branded into the top of the box. Cromwell had chosen the polecat as his family crest years and years ago, saying it was a humble creature to remind his heirs of their origins.

  In the pause, Lucia glanced to the archduke before she looked back to Amira. “All is in order, I assure you.”

  Amira nodded once. “Yes. It appears so. Thank you.” She stepped away from the barred window with the box held in both hands.

  Daindreth followed and Thadred trailed after them out the door. In the streets, they passed several bustling merchants on the way out, narrowly avoiding collisions with laden traders just come off their ships.

  “What have you got there?” Thadred asked, nodding at the box.

  “This should be enough to get us horses and as far as Lashera,” she said.

  Thadred arched one eyebrow. “That little box?”

  “Yes.” Amira broke the wax seal with a knife from her belt and the box lid swung open on its squeaky hinges.

  Inside, packed in peat moss lay five bars of honey-yellow, each one as wide and long as two of Amira’s fingers. Amira examined them a moment, confirming their size and weight.

  Thadred and Daindreth had both seen far more wealth than this and didn’t seem too impressed. But in that moment, Amira held enough money in her hands to buy a carriage, coach, and team of the finest rounceys this side of the continent. It was more money than many people would possess in a lifetime.

  If she had been alone, Amira could have found a way to travel to Lashera with less than one of these bars. With two companions and Thadred’s bad leg to consider, she couldn’t be quite so thrifty.


  Instead of leaving the depository district, Amira led the two men across the street to another establishment full near to bursting. This depository was lined with many barred windows, a clerk behind each one speaking loudly to merchants, sailors, gentry, and farmers in all shapes, sizes, and statures.

  Amira slipped out two of the gold bars and passed the box with the remaining three to Thadred. “Put this in your pack. Keep it safe.”

  Thadred muttered something sarcastic that was lost in the noise and bustle of the depository, but he did as she asked.

  Amira stepped inside and when she returned, she had three leather pouches jangling with smaller, less conspicuous coins. “Each of you take one,” she said. “You’ll be responsible for these.”

  Amira paused as she handed off the pouches, eyes locking on a figure across the street. A boy, maybe no more than nine with a woolen cap, watched them with wide eyes. When he realized Amira had spotted him, he took off running.

  Amira cursed, impulsively reaching for a knife, then stopped herself. He was a child.

  “What?” Daindreth followed her gaze to the fleeing urchin.

  “What is it?”

  “The town’s agents will know we’re here, if they don’t know already. Let’s go.” Amira spun on her heel and marched swiftly back out of the street.

  “That kid?” Thadred asked.

  “Urchin on the law’s payroll,” Amira said. “They’re in every major city and port. Local magistrates use them to spot suspicious figures. They get bounties if their tips lead to arrests.”

  Street sparrows was the common name for them. Urchins that were common and harmless as the birds but had a way of flying home to the nest and singing.

  Amira could sense the skepticism in the two men, but they followed her, watching the streets and alleys as they passed.

  “Could word have reached this far already?” Thadred asked. “Surely no messages from the palace could have gotten here before us?”

  “This is Vesha we’re talking about,” Amira answered.

  The empress and her agents had probably been able to deduce that the trio of fugitives left on a ship, or at least considered the possibility. If that were the case, Vesha would have every port and harbor on alert.