Their informant, Maran, writhed in the arms of shadowy men, screaming as monsters in bloodred robes dragged a terrified, faceless little tow-haired boy away. Daks was close enough to reach them if he ran, but some invisible force held him paralyzed, and all he could do was watch. He shouted over and over, but no one seemed to hear. As the terrible scene played out in front of him, the little boy began to change. He grew to a man’s height. His hair darkened to an all-too-familiar auburn, and Josel’s heartbreakingly beautiful face now stared back at him, contorted in fear and sadness.
“I have to go, love. Can’t you understand that?” Josel cried.
Daks bolted upright, sweating and gasping. Throwing off the smothering wool blanket, he stumbled out of bed and braced his arms on the table by the window. Images from the dream swirled through his head but slowly faded to mist as he struggled to calm his breathing.
“Seven Hells.”
He clenched his jaw and slumped into the chair next to him before his shaking limbs could fold and dump him on his ass. The rain had finally passed, and a full moon shone through the window, barely visible above the tiled roof of the neighboring building.
Once his breathing had returned to something approaching normal, he glanced at the rumpled bed he’d recently vacated before turning his back on it. He needed to get out.
Just for a little while, he promised himself and the absent Shura guiltily as he pulled on his boots.
He’d only go for a short walk. He’d avoid dark alleys and stick to the main streets, like any other honest merchant or laborer heading home after a night at his favorite pub.
What trouble could he possibly get into?
For all its problems, Rassat was one of the safest cities in Kita, and not because of the King’s Guard. The guard could only put you in a cell or set you to hard labor, but the Brotherhood’s pain priests and their mysterious magics could take you as ritual fodder for the common good—they called it redeeming yourself through pain or something equally revolting. Even worse, they could make you disappear completely, to face unknown holy horrors and eternal damnation, falling through the Seven Hells forever. They had the gods on their side, after all… at least that’s what they claimed.
To be fair, Rassa still had its fair share of criminals. He was technically one of them, after all. But the less-than-law-abiding had to be smarter and more secretive than your average smash-and-grab back-alley thug if they wished to escape the Brotherhood and the forced piety of the rest of Rassa’s upright citizens. Safer or not, it wasn’t a bargain Daks would ever be willing to make. Better the demon you know? Not hardly.
After grabbing his cloak, he crept out of his room and locked the door behind him. Shura could get an extra key from Faret if she returned before him, but he highly doubted she would. He’d just get some fresh air, use up a little nervous energy, and work out the tightness in his muscles. He’d return before she was any the wiser.
From the back stairs, he could still hear the quiet hum of conversation rising up from the common room. Most of the crowd had probably gone home or found other lodgings for the night, but there were usually a few poor souls who’d stay until Faret either kicked them out or forced them to pay for a spot by the fire.
Faret’s wife, Jana, and Ilia were still in the kitchen cleaning up as he stepped into the room, and he nodded to them on his way through. Jana’s scowl in return wasn’t particularly friendly, but it wasn’t new either. Faret wanted a better Rassa for everyone, including his wife and daughters, so he gave safe haven to anyone he thought furthered that hope. But Jana didn’t have to be happy about it. Daks couldn’t blame her for that. He only had to worry about himself and Shura, and that was more than he could handle most of the time.
Outside, he took a deep breath of slightly fresher and significantly cooler air. Like its twin capital in Samebar, Rassat had been built at the mouth of the great Matna River, where fresh water met the sea. The air was damp and tinged with cook fires, fish, and the usual unpleasant smells of too many people crammed into too small a space, but at least the salty winds off the ocean helped break up some of the worst of it. Right now anything was better than inside the inn, where the walls and memories closed in on him.
He didn’t consciously choose a direction to walk. It might have been safer for him to head uphill toward the inner wall that marked the old city and served as a divider between the wealthy and the rest of Rassat, but the wind took him in the opposite direction—at least that’s what he told himself.
He’d been walking for some time, trying not to think about much of anything, when his surroundings became significantly more familiar in the moonlight. At that point he couldn’t exactly lie to himself anymore and say he was surprised at where he’d ended up. If Shura found out, she wouldn’t believe him, but this hadn’t been his goal; really it hadn’t.
After checking to make sure the shadows were uninhabited by man and rodent alike, he stepped off the tan-brick-lined street and slipped into an alley between two large warehouses before scanning the buildings around him for any signs of life.
The warehouse district began just inside the gates to the docks and ran along the southwestern wall of the city until it hit Arcadia—an ironic nickname given to the slums where the Unnamed and other unfortunates were allowed to scrape out a meager existence. The location was perfect for the temporary storage of goods going out and coming in from the ships, but it also
