Chapter 10: Eye of the storm

I opened one eye, startled by a noise, and woken up from my sleep. The street was ghostly silent, something that only happened late at night. I covertly moved my squinted eye, looking for the source of my concern. The room was empty save for Spare and me; there were no hidden shadows, nothing moved. The window was firmly closed from the inside, and so was the door.

Has it been my imagination? My alertness started fading as the sleepiness took over me again. It must have been.

I woke up the following day with the vague feeling that something was amiss. I remembered waking up and scrutinizing the whole room. Meticulously turning 360 degrees over myself, I looked for any clues of what had happened, but everything was right in its place.

“What are you doing?” Spare’s voice was the same one would use to talk with a deranged person.

“Last night, I woke up to a sound.” I explained, trying to sound reasonable. “It might have been the wood squeaking, or maybe a nightmare, although I don’t recall so.” I shrugged. I tried to play it down, seeing that everything was right where it was supposed to be.

He didn’t make fun of me, and his face didn’t reveal anything at all. He studied his surroundings, maybe looking for something I might have missed, but at the end shrugged. “Tonight, if you hear anything, wake me up.” His face remained calm, but having known him for so long, I knew there was a bit of uncertainty in his voice.

I nodded and then finished readying myself. I took a bread loaf and a sausage and left for my first work. Today I had two carvings, nothing extraordinary, someone wanted a book tattooed, and another person decided to have his official stamp always available on his skin. It should have been trouble-free, and in a certain way, it was.

The whole day, since the moment I abandoned the inn in the morning, I felt like I had a second shadow. I turned on several occasions, tired of the stabbing sensation on the back of my head, but there was nothing to be seen. Maybe I should have been subtler, turning a street and then waiting there to see it somebody followed me, but I wasn’t. The sewers teach you to run and hide, not the crafty art of catching your pursuers red-handed.

It was the same burning feeling I had every time I visited the association. The same hostility I saw in all those nobles’ eyes. But my shadow wasn’t that obvious; whoever followed me made sure to hide whenever I was alone in an open space and let me be when I met with my clients. Either my imagination was acting up, or they were following my steps, tracking my movements.

I was going back to the inn, having done all my jobs for today, absently thinking about my pursuers. It was darkening, and I wasn’t being as careful and aware as I should have. Something unannouncedly touched my shoulder. My mind went back to the admission exam and deduced I was being thrown to the ground again. I brought my left hand over my right arm while I jumped and spun to face my aggressor. The sword was already materializing on my hand when I saw Uato’s, my neighbor’s child, scared face.

“I-I am sorry!” I hurriedly said. “I thought you were someone else…” I let my voice fade and quickly reverted my sword back to its Ink form. My hand moved slowly until it was extended right next to the other, showing my empty palms to the poor kid. His face did improve, slightly, almost imperceptibly.

We stood there for a whole minute, looking at one another. I was on pins and needles, looking for a way to explain what just happened. None of the reasons I could think of would have worked; I couldn’t tell a kid someone was followi-

“That was so cool!” He suddenly grabbed my shirt’s sleeves and pulled them. “Do it again! Do it again!”

My face must have been a poem, but if anything, it made me forget about my problems for a moment. I was laughing like a madman while I tried to tell him I couldn’t. “I can’t!” My hand waved frantically; I was down to my knees. “I really can’t!”

We walked together the rest of the way, him continuously asking to see ‘that sword’ and me scrambling for justifications to fend him off. I could have shown him, but I had enough good reasons not to do so. The Ink’s quality was questionable at best, which meant I couldn’t bring it on and off that many times. Then there was the question of showing all my cards to my observer, if there was one, and if I hadn’t already done so. In the end, I let the poor boy down, who had to go home without seeing my magic, as he said.

A year, take or give a few months, had already passed, and the current hot year would give way to the cold year. Yet, the iciness I felt in our room was different. It might have partly been just pent-up tension, but there was something off, we both knew it, but neither could pin it down.

“Should we take turns sleeping?” I suggested after explaining the day to Spare. He agreed that it couldn’t be a coincidence that I had woken up the last night, and today I had been followed. He didn’t consider it a kid’s imagination, so I thought it was reasonable to be on the lookout.

“I’ll watch first,” Spare offered. “Four hours, and then I wake you.” I nodded, and without losing any further second, I decidedly went to bed; it didn’t take me long to fall to sleep.

“What! What!” I woke up screaming even before the scene came into view. It took me a few seconds to adapt to the lack of light and realize that absolutely nothing was happening. My hand was tightly grabbing Spare’s arm, and I had sat up somewhere along the chaos. My own chaos, but chaos nonetheless. “Ah… I’ll take over.” I bet my cheeks were bright red.

Spare didn’t utter a word, but I saw the amusement in his eyes. He went to his bed, and I crossed my legs over mine. With nothing better to do, I decided to go over the contents of Old and Modern Glyphs, trying to remember all the roots and its inversions. I didn’t know how to construct a phrase yet, but each passing day I was more convinced that the book wouldn’t teach me.

Glyphs are power words, used to imbue power to drawings, it repeated one time and another. They might be, I thought, but I’m sure they are part of a language, they must have their spo-

A cold stream of air interrupted my thoughts. There hadn’t been any noise, but I could feel the chillness on my bones; it was real, permeating my skin. I abruptly opened my eyes, and what I saw in front of me froze my body and mind. I’m not proud, I should have done something, but I couldn’t move. My muscles had tensed up, and I was so rigid that I felt my skin pulling.

Resting on the former window’s frame, now an empty square, was a crouching figure, covered in wide and black robes that waved with the wind. Today’s moon timidly shined on his back, just enough for me to see his masked face and a pair of deadly green eyes.

Nimble as a feline, the intruder jumped off the frame and landed on the floor, like a feather caressing the ground on its fall. He brought his hands to his waist, a pair of handles forming on his closed punches.

“SPARE!” I yelled, suddenly awoken by the imminent threat.

My hand moved on its own towards my arm. I have to invoke my sword! The hooded man was darting towards me, his sides shining with the metal’s characteristic bright; I could clearly make out the curved blade of a short dagger. Fuck! The word I had never used but had heard plenty came to my mind. He was lunging faster than I could make my sword appear.

“SPARE!” I almost begged, shouting at the top of my lungs.

I rolled to the side, closely dodging his two daggers and crashing without any control against the floor. My vision was blurred from the pain, but I managed to catch a sheen following my trajectory. I barely was in time to raise my sword; the two metals clashed, generating a brief rain of sparkles. My sword was blown away, a product of my loose grip and the lack of experience I had in those times. Still, the clash was enough to somehow divert his blade’s path, managing to only brace my leg.

I desperately rolled once more, attempting to elude his other slash. But I failed to completely do so. I felt a burning sensation developing on my right pectoral, followed by ominous wetness. It’s only a slash, I comforted myself. A stab would have punctured my lung. I felt a false sense of relief, thought myself to be lucky, but of course, it wouldn’t be so painless.

My breath felt heavy; air refused to stay in my lungs for more than a split second, it was hard to steadily breathe. I managed to get a hold of myself and stand up by thrusting my sword on the wooden floor and using it as support. I was just in time to witness the thin, sharp, and deadly weapon aimed at my head. And I could do nothing about it but watch.

I’m going to die; the thought popped on my mind, freezing me in the spot for the second time in the fight. I’m going to die; the metal was a palm away from me. I’m go- A kick with enough force behind to break some of my ribs, something that I think happened, pushed me from my side, lifting me from the floor and sending me crashing against my bed’s structure. Spare! My tired eyes caught my teacher in a fighting position; knees slightly bent, one dagger in each raised hand at his chin’s level, his back tilted to the front.

The enemy tried to ignore Spare, taking a step to the side and rushing for me. But he didn’t let him go so easily; some quick footwork moved him right in between the two of us, using his own body as a natural barrier to cover me. His head moved from side to side, and even though I could only see his back, I’m sure his eyes were saying ‘your opponent is me’.

I was firmly pressing against the wound, trying to stop the hemorrhage, but I was already accusing my loss of blood. My vision blurred at times, making it hard to follow their melee fight. Spare jumped from one spot to another, somehow managing to make our tiny room look enormous. The intruder didn’t find any clean hit; his weapons cut the air in front of Spare or were simply parried. Instead, he was forced on the defensive by Spare’s counter-attacks. His larger daggers and superior agility allowed him to gain the upper hand in the exchange.

It didn’t take long for the first hit to land. One unsuccessful thrust from the curved dagger was parried by Spare, twisting his waist and making the metals clash against each other. Abusing the momentum his spinning waist had given him, he swept the floor with his right leg. The enemy, already out of balance by the parry, collapsed to the ground like a felled tree. The masked man tried to block with his other dagger, but Spare fainted a stab to the head, fluidly becoming a clean gash on the stomach.

A moan echoed through the chamber, quite contained considering the gravity of the wound. Spare was about to put him out of his misery with his other dagger, but the man launched a timely kick to his stomach. It wasn’t enough to make Spare fall but undoubtedly sufficient to run away. He stood faster than any wounded man should have, almost simultaneously with the kick, and jumped through the window, leaving a trail of blood behind.

I was about to laugh with relief but instead found myself coughing a thick substance. My mouth filled with the taste of blood. How! Is my wound worse than I thought? I… I… words started to avoid me. I was having a hard time concentrating; the whole room was darkening. With all the adrenaline gone, the reality of the situation was slowly catching up with me.

“This is gonna hurt! Stay with me!” Spare rushed shout reached me. I felt something hot approaching my chest, and a moment later, it was like someone had lighted a fire on it. I ground my teeth and tightened my punches. I blinked several times while holding my breath. Cold sweat was dripping from my forehead. I don’t know how much time it took, an eternity probably, but finally, the feeling subsided.

“You are out of danger.” I opened my eyes, just now realizing I had been forcing them shut.

My sight went from Spare to my still dripping pectoral. It didn’t take me more than a second to register what had happened. That slash barely cut some skin, which was good news for my body, but devastating news for Spare’s formation. I could clearly see the central sigil, my failed attempt at capturing the rat, had moved from its old position. Not by much, only two to three fingers up my collarbone. Spare had burnt the wound to force my skin to scar, and then he had Inked over it to restore the drawing.

“How? Why?” I managed to babble.

“It was a Ga’ar,” somehow, Spare had gotten what I meant with those two disconnected words. “Nob-”

“That man was a Ga’ar!” I yelled out of surprise.

“No,” his head shook. “That was just a paid assassin. I meant that,” he pointed towards the missing window. “Only someone with knowledge about formations and sigils could compress a window of that size on someone’s skin. That must have been what you heard yesterday, the moment they finished the drawing and invoked it again.” He paused for a moment, scanning me. “We have much to talk about, but we must hurry and leave; they can be back at any time.”

I inwardly cursed a few times while my knees tried to make me stand. I would have pushed with my arms, but either of the multiple hits had left my elbows too bruised for it. I was almost standing, holding my right side where Spare had kicked me, when a pinch on my left ankle, nothing more than a subtle jab, made me flinch. Right, that slash grazed me, I sighed while lowering my sight to evaluate the wound.

It was not the pain nor the cut that made me shout “No!”. My pants had been torn from my knee to the ankle, leaving all of my skin completely exposed. That wouldn’t be terrible if it wasn’t because my blood-red Inkpot had been revealed. Spare’s eyes were moving from the flask to my eyes, and his face changed from that of perplexion to alertness and suspicion. He had an idea of what had happened, and I was dying to ask.

We hurriedly exited our room and rushed through the corridor, ignoring the other hosts’ heads peeping from their respective doors. No one with ears on his head could have missed the battle, shouts, thuds, metal, and groans that happened in our chamber. I followed behind Spare, using my last strength to catch up to his pace with my short legs.

He guided me through narrow and meandering streets until we reached the borders of the neighborhood. When met with the Hivar, we swam across a shallow section, making an extra effort to avoid the bridge and its guards. We slowed to a trot and walked for five more minutes, eventually entering a shack through a few loose wood planks on its back.

My pulse was still accelerated, and I gasped for air, but Spare didn’t wait for me to recover. “I can only think of one reason they’d come for you,” he pointed to my Inkpot. “Has anyone, ever, seen it?”

I closed my eyes and tried to recollect the past year. I had been in the underground hideout for most of those months, and the rest I had always been careful. “Not that I can’t think of…” I didn’t say it with much conviction, mainly because I wasn’t sure myself.

“Think harder.” His voice was as cold as steel. “No one,” he said with deliberate calm, “absolutely no one, would resort to a Ga’ar to secretly kill you if it wasn’t because of that Ink.”

“Maybe while playing with Uato...” I adventured, answering in a whisper. “Is it that good?” I asked, completely lost. Why would anyone want a flask of Ink so badly as to kill me? We were in the capital, everyone was showing off their vivid colors, and all of them were of the highest quality. Was mine special?

“What do you know of your Ink?” I had to reluctantly admit that I knew nothing. My mother wouldn’t even entertain the idea of talking about it, and I had to make do with the explanation that it was the product of everything she had. “Then it’s about time you know.”

We exchanged a tense stare. His hands were locked together; I could see them turning whiter each passing second. He was visibly agitated, uncomfortable even. His head was spasmodically moving, threatening to uncontrollably shake.

“That blood-red Ink...” His tone gave me a thrill; my hair stood on end. “That’s the Ink of the Royal house. Only them and a few selected nobles from the best houses have it.”

I- Wha- how? My head was a mess, I didn’t know what to do with that information. The storm had hit, but far from passing, I was in the eye of the storm.