Page 24 of Silvercloak

Food and sex were the most potent sources of pleasure, so essential to the survival of the species that human bodiescravedthem, magical or not. Pleasurehouses were notched into every street, strung with twinkling red lights and black awnings and tangled ivy vines. No ascens were ever exchanged; they were a place in which sex flowed freely, joyfully, fueled by achullah and flamebrandy, bodies entwining against rough walls and satin bedsheets. Most of the King’s Cabinet could be found in a pleasurehouse the evening before the Great Wards were recast around the city walls each month, filling their wells until they overflowed with raw power.

As a country, Vallin vastly preferred revelry and bliss over the grittier power of pain. Nyrøth, on the other hand, was a culture entirely devoted to the latter—beds of nails and carved-up forearms, spiked cuffs around bleeding thighs, streets lined with whipping posts and pillories, dark-windowed shops flogging thumbscrews and torture racks, government officials scarified from the neck down. It was a point of pride, amongst the Nyrøthi, to see how much they could take, how potent they could make their power.

There was areasonnobody would declare war on the tundral north—they were brutal, unconquerable, their military and their royals forged of steel and suffering. And this culture of sadism and masochism was bleeding farther south, into the Eastern Republics of Laudon,Esvaine, and Tarsa, kissing at the edges of the devout queendom of Bellandry.

Atherin was idyllic by comparison, a work of hedonistic art, but Saff had spent long enough patrolling the city to know the Bloodmoon vise had grown tighter. Rows of shutters were closed despite the pleasant breeze, and a Wielder washed the cobbles clean of blood smears, cursing beneath wine-furred breath. A wizened mage with a braided beard installed deadbolts made of deminite—which nullified magic’s power—to his front door. Such bolts might have saved Saffron’s parents’ lives, all those years ago.

As she walked, she felt horribly like she was being followed. The danger of her imminent mission was already toying with her senses. Paranoia blurred the shadows, making her smell smoke where there was no fire, until at last she reached her destination.

The Cherrymarket was a vast cobbled cacophony of stalls that never wound down, even in the dark of night. Named for the bountiful copse of ever-blossoming sweetcherry trees at its heart—forming a natural pavilion over the plaza—the plaza was boxed in on three sides by narrow townhouses, tall-pillared Saint halls, and a purple-domed Augurest temple. On the fourth it was sided by the gushing River Corven—the very lifeblood of the high-walled city.

Atherin was landlocked in the center of Vallin, and spliced along its belly by the Corven. The capital was flanked by mountains to the east, where the river’s source was notched, and valleys to the west, which swept all the way down to Port Ouran. Trader boats sailed up and down the arterial river and sustained the capital with imported gold and silver, silks and cottons, cocoa and coffee and spices and salt.

Today the Corven was topped with dozens of riverboats in purple and navy and emerald. Beside it the Cherrymarket hummed with activity, its vendors flogging everything a mage could possibly require. There was a stall dedicated entirely to different types of feathers—raven and phoenix, owl and parrot and sirin—which were important for all manner of flight tinctures. One sold vials of waneweed elixir, useful if one wanted to temporarily shrink down to palm-size, while another sold luxurious bolts of cloak silk with different defensive and amplifying properties.

Papa Marriosan’s Gelateria, run by Auria’s kind-faced, potbellied Brewer of a grandfather, sold a vast array of enchanted flavors. Coffee and walnut, to literally put a spring in one’s step. Bitter lemon-grapefruit, to put hairs on one’s chest. Honey-pistachio, to make one more attractive to wildlife (invaluable for apothecaries seeking rare ingredients). Saffron’s stomach grumbled at the heaped mounds of chocolate gâteau gelato, which promised substantial aphrodisiac effects, but she thought it might not be altogether prudent to mount her captain like a steed, so she decided against it.

She found Aspar by a hot chocolate stall, holding two red paper cups.

At the sight of Saffron, the captain held one out. “Your favorite.”

Saffron took a long, rich sip of peppermint cocoa, struggling to contain the groan as her long-empty well of magic gradually filled. After six months behind deminite bars—nature’s opposite to ascenite, suppressing magic rather than fueling it—the utter lack of magic in her body had felt like a gnawing pit. Like absence; like grief.

Aspar studied Saffron as though searching for evidence of corruption or disease. “How was Duncarzus?”

In truth, the stint had been mind-numbingly dull. After a fraught first week—she’d been accosted in the mess hall by a thief she’d arrested during her time on the streetwatch—she was moved into protective custody and given a cell all to herself. It was dark, cold, and lonely, but at least it was quiet. It gave her time to think, to prepare, to mull over the prophecy and the mission ahead. And part of her—the part permanently suspended as a traumatized six-year-old—had been secretly glad not to have to talk to anyone. She vastly preferred the solace of her own thoughts.

“Fine,” she said, and it wasn’t wholly a lie. She’d always possessed the kind of internal grit necessary to persevere through bleak times.

Never one to dwell on a subject, Aspar dug around in a dark leather pouch tucked under her cloak, pulling out a green velvet coin purse. “At the gamehouse, lose this money first. Preferably on the roulette wheel. Something that depends on pure chance, so you can’t be accused of being skilled or unskilled, rigging the game either way.”

A shadow by the nearest stall shuddered and shifted, and a paranoid heat spread up the back of Saffron’s neck. Again came that cloying scent of smoke, lightly spiced, like the achullah Nissa was so fond of. The thought of her old lover sent an unexpected lance through Saff’s chest.

“There’s a loan shark booth in the southwesterly corner,” Aspar continued. “Pular Sistan. A nasty Enchanter who operates out of the gamehouse with the Bloodmoons’ blessing. Because the more desperate they can make their patrons …”

“The more ascens they make. The more power they build.”

Because ascenite was not just money. It was the great magical amplifier. And the more the Bloodmoons had, the more dangerous they became. The harder they would be to bring down.

Aspar grimaced. “Borrow a further thousand ascens from Pular, to make sure your situation is truly dire.”

Saff took the green coin purse, and a curious frisson darted through her. Not dread or fear, but anticipation.Excitement,even. She’d worked her whole life for this assignment, and nobody felt more at home in a gamehouse than her—although she’d always boycotted Bloodmoon establishments in the past.

“Once you’ve lost everything,”Aspar continued, “including the additional ascens you borrow from the shark, plead futilely with the teller for a while, then sell yourself to the Bloodmoons.”

“Do you know how or where it’ll happen? How I’ll be … initiated?”

Tortured. Branded.

“The Bloodmoon compound is a few streets away, connected by warded tunnels we’ve never been able to breach. I’d imagine you’ll be taken there for interrogation and initiation, and based there throughout the duration of your assignment.”

“How will we communicate?”

“Sparingly. Useet vocos,but don’t jump straight in with intel. You don’t know what company I might be keeping, and this mission is highly classified. I’m the only one who knows the truth. So start with a code word.Dragontail.If I’m free to talk, I’ll sayrising.If not,falling.”

“WhyDragontail?” The word sparked a glint of recognition somewhere deep in Saffron’s subconscious.

Aspar looked at her then. Truly looked at her.

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