Excerpt from The Power of Blood

Crimson drops fell to the floor, audible in the momentary silence of the torchlit cell. One of the two men who occupied this small space knelt on the floor. He raised a hand to his face. The fresh diagonal slices on each cheek stung, but the injury to his pride was far worse. He had been caught.  

After all these years going unnoticed, his luck had finally run out. As he stared down at his own blood, watching it spread across the stone, he went over the plan in his head. It was meticulous, from the first step into Blackhold Manor to the carriage exchange on 17th and Wallend. Every action executed with precision, every moment calculated to perfection. 

The other man spat on the floor, breaking the stillness. The jailer didn’t care for the intricacies of a well-planned heist. He only cared that the knife in his hand had done its work. The cuts on the thief’s face marked him as a criminal. The guard’s voice filled the damp cell, “I can’t imagine you’ll be doin’ any work ‘round here anytime soon. Or ever again, fer that matter.”  

The thief paid no attention to the guard. Instead, he was fixated on what had transpired that night. His movement through the manor was undetected. Had he been seen, the guards would have pounced immediately. He had always been more than fair to the carriage drivers, and they knew nothing about him. He never injured anyone, left any traces, or kept any items at his home. Most importantly, the fence, his preferred dealer of stolen goods, knew he would never rat her out. And yet, he could not say the same about her. She was cold, almost unreadable—great for doing business, terrible for building trust.  And there it was, the only possible flaw that could lead back to the now-marked thief. The fence. He clenched his fists, eyes fixed on the small pool of blood.  

The jailer cocked his head as he cleaned his knife. “Would’a been better for the both of us if you just told me what I wanted to know, but I guess it can’t be helped. I’m sure the detective can get you to talk.” The guard sheathed the knife and tucked it back behind his amber cape. The cell door locked, and the thief was alone. 

He finally took in his surroundings. Moonlight poured in through the bars on the cell window and onto the floor. Stone floor, stone walls, reinforced wooden door, and oddly enough, a wood ceiling. Floorboards. Slices of firelight streamed through the cracks, occasionally interrupted by a passing shadow. Activity above. More guards. Even though his head had been covered with a burlap sack on the way here, he knew where he was—his captors had no real intention of hiding it. Still, he had never seen inside the Capital Prison before. He must be in a temporary holding cell, because this wasn’t the kind of place you’d put permanent residents. 

He pulled his hand from his face. The skin around the cuts was tender. The wounds would heal, but the scars would never disappear. He’d be marked not just as a thief but as a failed thief. Credibility in his line of work had a one-strike policy. He’d have to worry about that later. For now, he needed to figure his way out of this cell, this city, and this mess.  

The stairs he had been thrown down upon his arrival groaned under heavy boots. He had precious little time to hide and only energy enough for one trick. He ran his thumbs through the blood on his cheeks and traced red lines across his forehead and the backs of his hands. He muttered words in a nearly inaudible whisper and crouched into the corner of the cell. By the time a massive, bald man approached, the thief was silent. The man peered into the cell, furrowing his brow as he slowly unlocked the door. The thief knew the trick took—he always felt a sickly cold when he used magic. It wasn’t perfect and gods knew it didn’t make him invisible. He was still there, unconcealed in the corner.  

The bald man entered the cell, leaving the door barely cracked behind him. He looked through the lingering moonlight into each corner except the one that the thief was in. Aversion. A great boon to any master thief. He crept silently from the corner. He could feel the cold settling deeper into his fingers and toes as he reached the door. The other man looked around, his eyes only landing where the thief had just been. 

He slipped behind the bald man, finally reaching the edge of the open door before a meaty fist slammed it shut. The thief nearly jumped at the stranger’s speed, but he was more surprised that the man’s piercing blue eyes were staring nearly straight down at him. “Kyrs Loc’Haen,” the man rasped, his eyes fixed on the wall to the right of the thief’s head.  

Fuck. My name? How? Kyrs’s mind reeled. A name, simple enough, but never given in this line of work. It couldn’t have been the fence. She didn’t know his real name. Who then? Certainly no one in the city. Even he hadn’t spoken it in years. When names were needed, his was Swift. Five, no, six years he’d used that pseudonym. It had become his identity, inside and out, but now it shattered around him, leaving him feeling vulnerable and even colder than before. 

“Oranthian male with ash brown hair, tan skin, grey eyes,” the bald man paused, his mouth slowly curling into a wicked grin, “and a scar on each cheek.” Kyrs began to stand to face the brute, but another fist slammed square into his face before he could react. The cuts on his cheeks split further as he saw red and then black. The floor seemed to falter below him as he fell and lost consciousness.  

The darkness gave way to the memory of a place and people long left behind.  

“Pain. You cannot touch the line without it, child.” The grim woman towered over Kyrs. She offered him her hand. He could feel the scars that marred her palm. “But you mustn’t succumb to the cold. If it reaches in, you must fight it from your core, lest it sap the very life that warms you.” Her voice was toneless, her face impassive. Around them, bees flitted between flowering buds of violet and yellow. The scorching heat of summer had not yet reached the cloister of Erron Garden in the House of the Two. 

Kyrs’s teacher had never shown emotion, but he thought the corner of her mouth lifted slightly as she pulled him to his feet. For some reason, she took a liking to the stonemason’s whelp. 

“Is there some other way to touch the line, Giersa?” Kyrs asked as he brushed dirt off the back of his pants. 

“For some.” Giersa looked down at her scarred palms. “But not for us.” She shook her head and dropped her arms to her sides, allowing the sleeves of her simple, burgundy robes to drape over her hands. “The line is a greedy thing. The more you ask of it, the more it asks of you. The mages tend to offer objects of value; we offer ourselves. But never too much. I have seen people waste away as the line took its share.” She placed a hand on Kyrs’s shoulder. Her pale green eyes bore into him. “Never too much,” she commanded. 

“And how much should I offer to become invisible?” Kyrs laughed. 

Giersa’s expression went blank, and her grip tightened around his shoulder.  

“That hurts, Giersa.” He tried to pull free, but she held fast. Black feathers sprouted from her arm, emerging from beneath her skin. As her nails grew into large black talons, they sank into the flesh of his shoulder. From all directions, crows began to gather, undulating in the space like living smoke. They dove and clawed at his face. He tried to swat them away with his free hand, but Giersa lifted him towards the sky. 

“There is power in pain, power in blood.” Giersa’s voice was now twisted and raw. From her back, two large wings tore free from muscle and skin. Bones cracked as they set in place. Black feathers blocked out the sun.  

A question pulled him from his nightmare. His mind spun as he regained consciousness and dragged himself across the blood-damp floor and leaned against the wall. He tried to push the nightmare away. The throbbing pain in his nose helped. 

“What?” Kyrs’s vision began to clear. 

“What is your name?” The voice flowed from a figure in the open cell door like spider silk in a soft breeze. 

“Swift,” he replied out of habit. 

“Why are you here?” 

“Skipped out on my bar tab.” He grinned. It hurt. 

 “Would you like to leave?”