Chapter One
Three years ago.
The night was thick and wet with the damp of summer heat. It was the kind of night that sent sweat slithering across your skin, making your pores gasp for air. Kya lay close to the ground and watched through pale blue eyes as the road adjacent to the Marsyn Pipeline lay still and silent.
On nights like these, being lookout became monotonous and often she found herself drifting into her own imagination, that was until Brydan kicked her shins and scalded her for being a brainless whisp of a girl.
The night gave a shudder and Kya strained her eyes against the darkness. Nothing but a glossy black beetle skittering across the sand. She could hear its many feet tapping against the grains. There was no one else out there but Brydan’s soldiers.
She sighed, leaning back against the piled up remains of burnt out carriages, her legs almost invisible in her leather trousers.
Brydon often got his men to stake out the area beside the pipeline and the breach in the Other Side where the wealthy of Alata used magic to move between the Two Plains. They were two worlds living simultaneously, like twins, only one desolate as a dried river bed and a death sentence to anyone who became trapped there, and the other was plump and fat with magic drained from the first. Kya knew only scraps of news that trickled down through the ranks of the Sanddri soldiers. There were royals and riches sitting pretty and preening in Alata with the world at their feet, and she wasn’t one of them. That was all that mattered. That she had to survive. So, in a world that forgot her, she in turn forgot them.
There were rumours of a third kingdom, something evil and magical, oozing wraiths and slowly decaying beneath Marsyn. Despite the stories of those who claimed to live to tell the tale over a cold beer in a crummy old pub, no one had ever proved it existed.
Kya was a wraith in the night, silent, invisible, and she was bored. Bored of Brydan and his stupid rules, where only he could choose when she used her magic, bored of long nights with little to do. Bored of being the only girl in a snake pit of testosterone, where any idea was either laughed at or ignored entirely. She could take them all down, one by one, and then she would make them all forget. That was if Brydan didn’t hold the key to commanding her magic. She sighed, the bonding tattoo itching beneath her sweat peppered skin. There was nothing she could do about it now. Her best bet was to stay put and prove herself, which became more difficult with every dreary day that dragged its heals into a gaping laughing mouth of eternity.
Reaching down into the dust beside her, Kya pulled out a watch. With flecks of magic, the hands glowed, telling her that it was half past one. As a soldier of Sanddri, she wasn’t allowed possessions, because, with unfathomable rules and rights, she was one. She had been rolling the crisp gold metal through her dirt smeared fingers, hearing some of the older men sparring when she saw him standing beside her from the corner if her gaze. She had jumped, fumbling to hide the item. But for some reason when Brydon had seen her stuffing away the watch in fright that he might take it, he let her keep it. She never knew why. Usually he would have snatched it away and laughed in her face. It was the only kindness that he had ever shown her.
At once, the sand around her finger tips began to quiver, the clacking of the dry wood shaking her senses. Dirt danced over her warm brown skin, skittering across her slumped form. Her heart leapt, pulse ripening to meet the demand of her adrenaline.
The pipeline whistled, air breaking through from the Other Side until bright lights sliced its fingers through the clammy night. It blinded her, until she heard a gasp of magic as the world belched out a carriage. No. Not one. Three. And all heavily guarded. The convoy snaked along the pipeline, the idle chatter of the guards drifted in the stillness, flecks of starlight bouncing from highly polished armour. Kya tried not to think about the fact that this was probably the last conversation they would ever have. Her magic shifted hot against her mind and she knew that Brydon had released her. Stifling a cry of awe as her body filled with light, Kya squatted deeper into the shadows.
Metal sliced the silence, shining with blood and sweat. The guards began to arm themselves as the first cry went up. She could sense Brydon moving like a wolf, his pack surrounding the deer that strode straight into their jaws. They were just nobles, she told herself, they would never care about me.
Swathed in the shadows, Kya waited as the Sanddri Soldiers decimated the convoy, screams blasting the night apart, body after body slumping to the ground with a wet thump, blood stinging the air and drenching the black sand. The thief’s ransacked the carriages and took what they wanted. Now it was Kya’s job to make everyone forget. To make anyone left alive forget. Brydon liked to leave an invisible mark, a brand just below the skin that itched and throbbed, but could not be found. He liked people to fear him, but never to know who he was.
Taking a shuddering breath, Kya rose from the ruined carriages. She reached deep into the swirling contents of her mind, lush with power and the ability to see whatever she wished, her magic relaying back to Brydon where the gold was hiding. Then she stepped out of the dark and paced through the ruins, through butchered flesh and singed wood.
A man groaned as Brydon drew his weapon, a slash of silver was all it took. Kya didn’t flinch. Because this was her life. This was it. Ever since she had been sold into his hands by her old master, she had seen nothing but blood and death.
Reaching the back of the convoy, Kya kicked away a slash of fabric that grasped to the wood with animal desperation. Spun in gold, the threads decorating the wood glittered red with smatterings of blood. These people must have been wealthy, she mused, and somehow that eased her guilt.
Reaching down with a gloved hand, she silently slipped inside the carriage, her foot landing with a crunch. Gold. And it was spilled everywhere. In awe of the fortune before her, Kya realised too late that something was moving. They tumbled her to the ground, pinning her in the bloodied gold. A blade sang in the night, unsheathed and poised to attack. They began talking, demanding to know who she was.
Catching her breath, Kya reached beneath her heavy coat to where her dagger nestled. The blade glowed white with her contact as she twisted around just enough to see the man who pinned her there. Young. Not much older than herself, with dark hair and striking amber eyes. His lips shook gently, spit and blood oozing across his soft skin. She could tell from the wheezing breath that his ribs were broken. Kya lunged, slicing his cheek and when he hissed, jammed the dagger into his stomach. The boy recoiled, his eyes widening and his mouth gaping silent curses. He gasped for air, and his face watched her. Those deep amber eyes, like the remnants of a fire between coals, dimmed as he grappled for the dagger rising from his flesh. He winced, feet struggling against the floor, before he fell back against the shredded leather seats with a crack. They swallowed him like a parents’ blanket would swallow a scared child, as though they would protect him. His eyes never left her ash smeared face. He wanted her to watch him die, she realised, as he crumpled to the floor.
In the thick air, a sob bulged through cloth. Kya twisted, seeing a girl leaning back against the curtains. Panting and covered in dirt and blood, she scrambled back into the rubble. Kya almost felt sorry for her, shaking and dirty in her blood stained cloths, but she had a job to do. She couldn’t let her go just because she cowered, just because her old morals stirred in protest in the pit of her stomach. No, the girl would live to tell the tale of the Marsin robbers, and nothing more. Kya closed her eyes, breathing deep and feeling the air reach every inch of her lungs. Silence encased her, and, numb to the night and the death and the blood, she opened her eyes. They gleamed silver as the moon. The girl let out a cry as white smoke drifted lazily, almost mockingly, from Kya’s fingertips. It reached the girl, finding her nose, her lips. Coughing, her eyes turned white, then she fell back against the carriage.
Kya straightened, scooping some of the gold into her hands and watching it glitter under the moon. She strode into the night and shouted for Brydon to come. The girl was dragged from the wreckage and left at the entrance to the Other Side.
Kya twisted the gold over between her nimble fingers, a theif admiring their goods like a sailor at sea with bulging nets after a dry spell. If only this could be hers, she could leave. But Brydon had plans for her, and she knew that he would never let someone like her leave. She was too useful.
The Soldiers of Sanddri hauled their takings onto their carriage, Kya’s magic no longer disguising it as a boulder. The Soldiers began to sing and chat as they shoved it creaking and overflowing towards the portal that hummed in the dark, glowing pale green and snaking in a strange circle. Those soft and delicate colours, dancing like the edges of a fairy’s gown. The portal led back to Sandrii, the caves hidden from all but Brydon.
Kya glanced back towards the wreckage. The portal gurgled open, barely big enough for one person, as the girl dragged her bruised body through the sand and stumbled towards the light. She stopped, just short of the portal, turning back to face Kya. Her brown eyes pinned her for a second, just a heartbeat, hair in ghostly whisps about her pale face. Kya blinked and she was gone. Despite her rising doubt, Kya told herself that the girl would never remember who she was. No one ever did. Because she was like the night, and they were searching for her in the day.
