Page 3 of Ashen Wings

The grand entrance doors groan open and I file into the bustling crowd of merchants and civilians, leaving my massacre behind.

2

Finnick’s apothecary is two miles from the Academy. Charred rock and scorched earth crunches under my boots as I follow the maze-like streets, taking a left into the mercantile district. Spice sellers and stone carvers seated at their carts avert their eyes as I pass.

Any other day I’d humor myself and engage their fear with a smile or a smirk, but my palms sweat with the rapid rise of panic as the apothecary gets closer. Finnick absolutely will have received the report of my slaughter by now. He’ll have to clean up the mess. So, I keep my eyes focused on the cracked basalt cobblestone and travel in silence.

At least I’m not returning empty handed.

The apothecary front comes into view—an ashy red door with chipped paint. There’s no shop sign. No wares displayed in carts or shelves out front.

But everyone knows this place.

Smoke’s one stop shop for retaliation, revenge, and secrets. There’s a small basin of sun-warmed water beside the faded old steps. I pause and take inventory of my reflection. Gods, I’m a nightmare worse than Morvayne. Skin paler than snow, matted hair to match. White ridgelines of past assignments carved across angular cheeks and a sweaty brow. My eyes flash amethyst in the pool’s reflection—a trait from parents I barely remember. A mother stolen from me by a wound left to fester. A father slain on the battlefield.

You’d think after twenty-eight years I’d be able to look upon the features so clearly theirs painted on my face. I skim a hand across the water’s surface, rippling my image, and fortify my mental shields.

The apothecary’s interior is a damp contrast to the city’s burning air. Smoke is carved from the basalt and boulder of Terrafyre—an ever flowing volcano that molds and shapes the continent. It’s said our ancestors were molded from cooling lava flow, and I believe it. Smoke’s citizens are fiery…especially the riders. Even more so their dragons. There’s a reason our military is the strongest on the continent.

Unbeatable, unbreakable, inextinguishable.

“Nova!” Finnick’s bark makes my spine jump. The old mercenary turns from the shelf of various jarred herbs and minerals to face me. “I thought I was clear…In, out, no mess.”

“I know Finnick, I’m sorry. Things didn’t really go as planned,” I say, picking at a scab on my thumb.

“Seventeen casualties, Nova. Seventeen. Do you know what that’ll cost me?” Finnick’s leathery brow creases as he treks toward me, lacing his long, skeletal fingers across his chest.

“Seventeen?” I hadn’t kept track of the guards as I hacked my way through them, but damn…that might be my highest record yet. A flicker of guilt long since buried scratches the back of my throat, but I swallow it down. There’s no sense going there when what’s done is done.

Finnick’s ember eyes simmer as he retrieves a ledger from behind the stone counter and flips through the pages—each one with a name written in clean, blunt writing at its header. His thumb lands on my page.

“Now, you’re lucky our client paid in advance, but I’ll have to factor in the clean-up fees for this one.” He scribbles a charcoal pencil across the page. “With your current debt repayment and the seventeen casualties, that leaves you with…five hundred stipen.”

My body tenses. “Five hundred stipen? No way. Melark’s a high ranking officer. This job was worth way more than that, Finnick. You’re shorting me.”

He arches a brow and slams the book shut. “Seventeen casualties, Nova. Maybe had you done the job as expected you’d have more left.”

“Five hundred stipen won’t even buy me a full dinner tonight, Finnick. I need more,” I say, reeling over the debt I’d slowly been chipping away.

“Do not test me,” he replies as he hobbles back to herb shelves. “If anything, I’m being generous. You’re lucky I don’t send you back to the slave sector. Tell me, Nova, how many scars are there on your back after only two years in? Do you want to add more? Five hundred stipen. That’s what you get.” His tone is final.

“How do you expect me to ever repay my debt when you rob me of an honest pay?” My fists curl at my sides. I remember every face. Every punishment I received as a child. Every whip slicing through my skin. Every slaver. Their days are numbered.

“Simple. You want to buy out our contract, do more jobs. Don’t make a mess.” He shrugs, and my jaw clenches. The old mercenary never intends on letting me go. He purchased me at auction when I was eight years old. It’s been twenty years. Twenty years of killing, stealing and sneaking around for him, for his laundry list of unnamed clients.

On my sixteenth birthday I packed a bag, waiting until the midnight chimes, and left. I made it all the way to Smoke’s border, too. But our neighboring factions aren’t kind to refugees and the border is heavily patrolled from land and sky. No one gets in. No one gets out.

In Smoke, freedom comes at a cost, either stipen or lives.

“Now, tell me what you found.” He holds a stipennote toward me.

I sigh and pocket the measly payout. “I found a transaction record. A courier delivered an unregistered package to someone called Cael Fleetwing in Shadow.”

“Damnit,” Finnick curses, scratching the ungroomed stubble on his greying chin. “I’ll alert the client of our findings. If those stones are across the border, there’s no chance of recovery.”

Shadow—the land of eternal darkness. Where souls wander through blight-stricken forests and unbonded black dragons breathe darkness itself.

If that’s not terrifying enough, their king is a creature of nightmares.