The Ritual by H. Anthe Davis, Erica Dakin Read Free Book Online

“I can’t tell you our full plan, but I suppose I can tell you that we’re after some specific items, so we’ll need to go to where they are. On the way, however, there should be plenty of opportunity to improve your skills. Does that satisfy you for now?”
    Satisfy. I shrugged, pushing the thought away. “It’ll do. Besides, I suspect that you wouldn’t care if it didn’t.” I winked at him, and this time his grin stayed.
    “True enough. So, how long did you train with Naerev for?”
    “Seven years, since I was sixteen. We left him a year ago.”
    “So you’re twenty-four. Where are you from?”
    “Innis, up north. Grew up in the orphanage there. We might have stayed, but then Shani started setting things on fire.” I stared ahead, lost in the memory. “She was terrified, didn’t know how she was doing it, but then they brought in a sorcerer who explained things to her, showed her the basics of controlling it.”
    “And no doubt told her that Lord High-and-Mighty or Count Snooty, or whoever your local elf lord was, would be coming to collect her to be his sorcerer slave,” Zashter finished for me with quiet venom in his voice. For a moment his heart was in his eyes as he looked at his brother, and I deduced that their story was much the same as ours.
    “Shani was so innocent,” I murmured, wanting to preserve that moment of camaraderie, wanting to think that he really was a kindred spirit after all. “She asked whether I would be going too.”
    Zashter gave a short, mirthless laugh. “I can imagine what the reply to that was.”
    I nodded morosely. “She got a beating for asking, on top of the derision at ever having thought of something so silly. So we escaped, ran off.”
    “How?”
    “She set the superintendent’s bedroom on fire. It was a good fire too – big and fierce. You know,” I added, “I’ve sometimes thought that that sorcerer purposely taught Shani how to concentrate her fire. He was a half-elf as well. I like to think that maybe he wanted to help us, wanted us to escape. Wanted us to do what he himself had never been able to do. Anyway, it gave us enough cover to hotfoot it out of there,” I finished, resurfacing from my memory. “What about you two?”
    “Very similar, as I’m sure you’ve guessed already,” he said, staring ahead. For a few heartbeats that was all, but then he sighed. “They never understood what it was like for us, being twins. Never understood that separating us would have killed us. Maybe not our bodies, but our souls. I doubt they even cared.”
    “ I understand,” I replied quietly.
    He looked at me, his expression pensive but guarded. “Yes, you would,” he admitted, and turned his gaze forward again.
    Without the mockery, sneering and sarcasm his voice was beautiful, I reflected. Velvety smooth and warm as the sunlight on my face. It seemed unfair that someone could be so beautiful in so many different ways. I studied him covertly, wondering how old he was, then couldn’t resist asking him.
    His mouth quirked into a smile. “Twenty-seven, or thereabouts. And before you ask, I’ve been a thief since I was thirteen, and I learned from Milarev.”
    That stopped me in my tracks. Every thief had heard of Milarev, and stories about him ranged from brilliant feats of subterfuge to barely plausible heists. Sometimes I had wondered whether he even existed, so to hear that now confirmed caused an irrepressible sense of awe.
    “Gods, no wonder you’re so good,” I blurted out before I knew it, and winced when it turned his easy smile to an arrogant grin.
    “I’m the best, Little Firelocks,” he said, the confidence in his voice as solid as granite. “You ought to thank the Gods on your knees that I’ve agreed to take you on.”
    I stared at him, wondering how he could be nice one moment and loathsome the next. “So modest too,” I managed to say, then added viciously, “so why have I never heard of you?”
    A flicker of annoyance passed