Chapter 1
At the end of a Circle
“What lies at the end of a circle’s path is the fiction that you are in the same place you started."
-Rozakian Proverb
Kaiden covered her mouth with the back of her hand as she yawned, a rare surviving habit of etiquette that survived her eight years of life on the road. The decorous Onyx Courts, of which she had nearly twice as many years of memories, were an unpleasant place for anyone who found joy in the base as Kaiden did.
However, she found almost as little happiness in her current situation surrounded by the tense patrons of the inn. She stood out among them, as even while sitting, her curving dark horns gave the impression she was tall, rising nine inches above her slightly curly red hair. Her thick and long tail rested just above the floorboards. She was wearing less than most locals would for late fall, a simple thin dark-blue blouse and tan breeches fastened to long black boots. She knew that her appearance was only part of the reason the men were uneasy, what she had come here to hunt was the other.
She sat hunched over her bowl of thin stew that, when brought to her, had four small strips of chicken. Although not much of a cook herself, it was still hardly much of a step up from the dried bread and over-salted fish of the past week.
The cook was certainly not the reason that the tavern was nearly full. It must be the drink, a spiced mead somehow a copper twin cheaper than anywhere else, a fact she knew because she asked for accommodations that had good and cheap booze specifically. The smell of the pungent spice overpowered any other scent in the common room. It was the kind of place that attracts locals more than travelers.
It was the last week of the month of Crowns, named so because of the red, orange, and golden leaves decorating the boughs of trees and littering the ground beneath them. It wouldn’t be long before people made their own offerings as well in the month of Prayers in hopes that the twin gods might make the coming frost season shorter. But before the austere month filled with fasting and litanies, the land became rich in color this time of year, not just from the trees but also from the people. All but the most destitute would put on clothes of vivid colors, feast, hang multi-hued patchwork textiles from the trees sewn in the previous frost season, and attend the festivals. Depending on the size and wealth of the community they could last the entire six days and would attract traveling merchants, menageries, and street performers of every kind. Crowns End is marked with competitions with large towns and cities offering substantial prizes for the winners and a large public feast followed by music and dancing. The last week of Crowns was a joyful celebration of the seasons of plenty.
Or at least it was supposed to be. With eyes like green gems, she scanned the public room noticing the sour countenances on nearly all the men’s faces, many of whom carried cudgels tucked in their belts, some with nasty looking metal studs driven in.
Kaiden stretched her back, sending a large splash of golden scarlet out of the mug in her right hand onto the sawdust covered boards of The Dying Sunflower as both elbows reflexively pulled back. This accentuated her normally modest bust and, coupled with the half-drunken groan as her spine cracked, drew leering gazes from a few men sitting at nearby tables. They probably would have thought better of it if they were less intoxicated themselves. This did not go unnoticed by Kaiden, and a wicked grin displaying two sets of sharp canines in the direction of a man, whose eyes lingered a little too long, made the suddenly much more sober patron stare down long and hard at the reflection at the bottom of his mug.
Although you would be hard pressed to find humans anywhere that viewed daemons favorably, the humans of Ferrias were slightly bolder towards her kind, a consequence of the wealth that their exportation of crops to her frosty homeland brought.
She chuckled at the thought of what her mother would have done to any one of these men if she caught them looking at anything but the ground in her presence. Many humans knew of the infamous Crimson Curtains of the royal family in the north lands but any noble who had station owned a patchwork of lesser beings who thought they were anything but, adorning their family estate.
She swallowed a sudden pang of homesickness along with her disappointing meal and by the end of it she was unsurprised to find herself still hungry. However, she knew she would get the rest of what she wanted from a cup rather than a bowl. Her people had a strong constitution and so she would need much more than the average human. She got up from her bench and headed to the counter to get three more mugs of mead, as the serving maid seemingly didn’t like coming to her table after she joked about adding some more meat to her thin stew while eyeing one of her arms.
Hours passed and the day was just about to turn to night. After she finally quenched her thirst, and needing to get up before the sun, Kaiden stumbled from her table as a smaller patron entered the tavern. She walked towards the counter to make it clear to the owner that she expected a better offering for breakfast.
“Kell!”
The innkeeper’s exclamation brought the boy that she would have guessed was somewhere between eight and ten years old to her attention. As she came close Kaiden abruptly noticed the markings on his forehead just before he turned to the keeper behind the bar, making her eyes go wide.
Shock mixed with drunkenness caused her to trip over her own feet. With a yelp, she fell forward and smashed the curve of one of her horns on the back of the kid's head. With a groan, more for the hassle this will cause than for any pain she felt, Kaiden climbed up off the floor and saw what little conversation in the common room had died out with all eyes divided between her and the motionless boy. Some of those eyes had anger in them, but luckily for her, most held fear. It would only make what she came to do harder if she had to kill anyone, but looking at the blood matting his hair where she struck the boy, she was concerned it might be too late.
The innkeeper rushed to the stricken boy and upon seeing the blood, he quickly tore his apron off. While wrapping it tightly around the boy’s head, he called out to the serving maid.
“Sybil!”
A girl around the same age as the boy came out of the kitchen. Upon seeing the boy on the ground, she rushed over and dropped down next to him, tears already welling up in her eyes. Noticing the alarming amount of crimson staining the hair around the wound, she started to shake and knead the hem of her dress.
“W-what-”
“Sybil, just listen, I need you to get the butcher’s knife and place the blade inside the stoves grill, the handle should be thick enough to keep it from falling in. As soon as it turns red- Sybil look at me- As soon as it turns red bring it to me. We may have to burn it to stop the bleeding. Go now! And fetch the honey while the knife heats.”
Struck by the assertive tone, a now sobbing Sybil fled back into the kitchen.
He lifted the boy and slid him onto the counter sending a couple of mugs to the floor. With trembling hands, he applied pressure to the back of the boy’s head, he then called out to his patrons to fetch a mender. The room remained silent and still as Thomas stared, aghast, at faces that refused to meet his eyes. Kaiden could tell by his face he was fighting a growing desire to curse them all out and stared at a patron named Henry with a gaze so vicious that the man could not look away.
“You will bring me a mender in the next ten minutes Henry, or I will see the guards informed on the delinquency of your tab. Go now!”
The red-nosed man stood frozen, undoubtedly dumbfounded by the combination innkeeper’s livid tone and his own intoxication.
Briefly taking one of his hands off Kell’s head to grab the last mug in arm’s reach still on the counter and, while shouting at the man, threw it at him.
“I SAID GO!”
That sent the thin man scrambling out of the inn and down the street, howling in a drunken voice for help.
The stain on the apron grew large enough to no longer be obscured by the keeper’s hands. Seeing this made the frustration he felt too much to bear and was demanding another release. He looked backward at Kaiden.
“Lord Krast may have forced me to house you, but I owe this boy. I don’t know how I’ll do it, but if he dies, I’ll...” His eyes almost glowed with the unspoken promise.
Rather unimpressed with the threat, and a belligerent drunk, she barely held back a cutting response and settled for a snort. Still, she needed that boy alive for her own reasons and what this fool was doing would not save him.
“Move aside.”
It was a command that would usually have been followed, coming from one of her kind, as evidenced by the silence of the patrons, too fearful to act or say anything against her. However, the young man had to be yanked away from the boy and sent sliding across the floor, sending saw dust high in the air along his path. He quickly rose to his feet and began to yell profanities as he started to run towards her, but the patrons sprang into action to restrain him. One of the men holding him back spoke in a soft but urgent voice as Thomas violently continued to jerk against their hold.
“Your sister needs you alive, Thomas.”
Glaring at the man Thomas practically spat at him as he started yelling something, but Kaiden let the shouts of the innkeeper fade from her mind as she focused on the symbol painted on the boy’s head. The first clue in years on her quarry and she might have ruined it within seconds of discovering it.
While looking down at him she reached around for a pouch she had at her hip and took out a small vial of dark purple liquid. Unwrapping the wound, she parted the hair the best she could with one hand and uncorked the vial in her teeth.
“I went through a lot of trouble for this, boy.”
She paused for a moment, unsure if she really wanted to waste something so precious but with a growl poured half of it onto the wound before wrapping it back up and then, tilting his head up, poured the rest down his throat. After making sure he swallowed it she started to apply pressure to the back of his head, being mindful of just how fragile humans were.
After a few minutes and the sounds of more than one broken dish, Sybil finally rounded the corner of the kitchen. She looked comical with flour making a large patch of white on her now frazzled black hair and her arms clutching the jar to her chest as if she didn’t trust herself not to drop it. Seeing the horned woman instead of Thomas made the girl jump and somehow nearly drop the jar anyway.
“Give it here.”
“W-what are you going to do?”
“I’m about to eat him and I prefer sweet meat. Now give me the honey or you’re next you stupid girl!”
Letting out a squeak, Sybil placed the jar at the edge of Kaiden’s reach before backing quickly into the kitchen.
Kaiden doubted that the wound would become tainted, not if what she was told was true about what was in that vial. Then again, she never fully trusted the person that gave it to her. So, she tore a sleeve off her blouse and doused it in honey.
Sybil Came out of the kitchen again, this time with a glowing red butcher’s knife. She held it shakily in front of her with both hands as if ready to use it on Kaiden and slowly approached.
“You won’t be needing that, for me or the boy, take a look.”
With the serving maid hovering on her side, Kaiden unwrapped the apron, and indeed the bleeding had almost entirely stopped even without pressure. She poured some honey over the much smaller wound and wrapped the sleeve back around the boy’s head.
Kaiden walked to the nearest table, now empty. Apparently, the previous occupants had dashed off earlier either to fetch the guards or simply to be away from the woman who tossed a man like he was a half-filled sack of grain.
“You may come coddle the boy now.”
The men restraining Thomas hesitantly let him go and he rushed over to the counter. The next few minutes would see a lot of crying on Sybil’s part and comforting on Thomas’s.
Irritated that she knew she would not be going to sleep tonight Kaiden grumbled as she reached into the same pouch that held the purple vial and pulled out some dried roots which she promptly started to chew. The horrible bitter taste would bring with it long-lasting vigor only a few minutes after consuming, but the side effects would be most unpleasant for days afterwards.
Lord Krast allowing her to hunt within the city had been an unpopular decision to say the least. Nearly killing a kid within hours of arriving... even if the boy lived, she needed to be ready in case this made the lord rethink their deal.
Half a dozen nervous guards soon arrived but stayed near the entrance, likely waiting for more of their number to arrive. An aging man with spectacles, carrying a large bag was soon shouting at the guards to make way.
“Which one of you brutes…” He trailed off upon seeing Kaiden, he was clearly uninformed of all the details.
“Master Hugh, over here!” Thomas called out to what was undoubtedly the healer.
The amount of blood on the floor and counter as well as on Thomas made Hugh’s wrinkled face turn grim. After he set his bag down next to the boy, he quickly took out a couple of wax paper pouches from his bag as well as a needle and thread. He took some powder from one of the envelopes into his hand.
“Unwrap his head Thomas and show me where it’s at, my old eyes have a hard enough time seeing even in daylight let alone in candlelight. We need to be quick, or we’ll lose more blood than we save.”
Thomas obeyed and after parting the hair increasingly frantically in several places, couldn’t find the wound.
“It was right here; you can still see-”
“You won’t need to use your blood-wort.” Kaiden yawned before continuing, “What I gave him sealed his wounds, probably even knit his skull back together. Unless you got a way to put his blood back in his body there isn’t anything you can do.”
“And what did you give him?” There was a strange edge to Hugh’s voice as the old man stared hard at Kaiden.
Another yawn was the only answer given.
Master Hugh proceeded to examine the boy but after a few minutes he came to the same conclusion as Kaiden.
“Since the wound is healed up, there really isn’t much I can do for now. I’ll leave some medicine that promotes blood growth and come check on him tomorrow.”
Hugh eyed Kaiden warily, clearly still concerned about the nature of the medicine given to Kell, before talking quietly to Thomas so only he could hear him.
After a lieutenant arrived at the scene the dozen guards or so guards now properly entered the common room of the tavern feeling more confident with their current numbers, amusing Kaiden.
Humans always thought more of themselves than they should.
The lieutenant looked the boy over and briefly talked with Master Hugh, Thomas, and Sybil. Kaiden, now feeling the effects of the roots eaten earlier, stood up as the man approached her. The man’s sour face spoke volumes and she already knew what he was going to say.
“Since this was an accident and you rendered aid, I see no reason why this needs our intervention.” That he stood rigid and staring straight ahead, refusing to even look at her gave away his personal feelings on the matter.
“I’ve been instructed by Lord Krast to keep a couple of guards with you for the duration of your stay, hopefully this will prevent any escalation of further… accidents.” That last word was stained with disgust.
The lieutenant promptly turned and exited the tavern clearly eager to get away from Kaiden. It wasn’t long after that two sullen looking guards came inside and took up position near the front counter.
After a few minutes of reassuring Sybil that everything was going to be alright Thomas picked up Kell and started to take him upstairs.
“Stop!”
The effects of the scale-roots made the command harsher than intended. Kaiden visibly calmed herself before she continued.
“Bring him to my room.”
It took a while before Thomas and especially Sybil would comply with her demand. What finally settled it were the guards left behind. They made clear that Lord Krast had given Kaiden authority to do whatever she needed to complete her task, within reason. After an hour or so of hovering and making it clear that they would be checking on him early in the morning, they left to clean the mess in the common room before heading to bed.
With the guards taking a table near the stairs, Kaiden was finally alone with the boy. Looming over the side of the bed in her rather small room of the inn, she closely examined the mark on his forehead, the scale-roots she ate earlier making her keen on taking in all the details.
It was certainly painted in the style of the wild clans. While it’s true that in these lands the young would play war games often having one side pretend to be the savages of forests, painting their faces with mud, but they were rarely accurate, and certainly not with as obscure a clan as this. It was the real deal, the first true lead on her quarry in two years and she felt excitement bubbling up within. Her border-line frenzied gaze focused on Kell’s forehead was only partly due to the scale-root.
