Thief of the Eclipse Short Story – Part 1: Patron
Last year I wrote a short story for a contest, but I never submitted it because the deadline conflicted with other (much more important) obligations. Also, I didn’t feel ready to share the story. Now, after a little more attention, I am sharing the short story in serial format on my blog over the next few months. I will post a new segment on the second Tuesday of each month until it all has been posted.
The story is in my Azinia setting and involves minor characters from my first Kaylee Nevins novel. It’s a fantasy short story, but it’s a little darker than my typical story (because that was part of the contest requirements). I wanted to share something from my main writing universe with my loyal followers and introduce new readers to my universe. If you enjoy this segment, please return next month for the next part.
Thief of the Eclipse – Part 1: Patron
For once the voices in her head agreed. “Don’t trust him,” they told her in unison.
Zelena glanced across the grimy candle-lit room at Adan and the man resting in a wheeled, wooden throne.
“Why’s he here?” she asked Adan.
“He’s the patron, not I,” Adan said. He tilted his head towards the invalid and his eyes twinkled with mirth, but his face remained passive. “You didn’t think I could afford someone with your special talents, did you?” A wide smile twitched at the corners of his mouth and spread across his face.
“It’s a trick,” her father’s voice whispered in her head.
Zelena’s hand tightened around the smooth bone-handled dagger in the pocket of her long coat. Adan’s power couldn’t hurt her now, but she felt safer holding the dagger. “I didn’t come here for a mission. I came to tell you to leave the boy alone,” she said. “He’s only a child. Leave him be.”
“RaDorian is not in danger. Not from us,” Adan said with a sigh. “His power was the only way to contact you when our other methods failed.”
“Killing them would solve the problem,” her sister, Usha, whispered in her head.
A shiver ran down Zelena’s spine and she loosened her grip on the dagger. She couldn’t lose herself to anger. She stole things, not lives. Never lives. Never again.
She took a deep breath. “By involving him, you put him in danger. If Father Remiel learned-”
“Stop this. We have no time to argue,” the man in the wheeled throne spoke up in a rasping voice. “Adan, leave us. I’ll explain everything.”
“Not before he promises never to contact the boy again.”
Adan shrugged. “I promise I won’t contact him, but tell RaDorian when the time comes he may contact me if he wishes. He’ll know when it’s time.”
Zelena crossed her arms and glared at Adan.
With a nod towards his companion and a flourish of his hand, Adan strolled from the room, closing the squeaky door behind him with care.
Zelena eyed the man in the wheeled throne. Red and brown blotches covered his sagging yellowed skin, and a patchwork quilt draped his boney legs like a shroud. He looked like a relic left behind when nobles abandoned this house when disasters befell Osage Grove during the last Alignment.
“Come closer, dear,” the disease man whispered. “My voice is not so strong these days.”
“Don’t do it!” her father shouted in her head. “He could infect you. He could hurt you.”
“I only work for the Eclipse Guard,” she said, turning towards the door. “Now that your companion has agreed to leave my young friend be, I have no further business here.”
“I know how your father died,” he said quickly and burst into a fit of coughing.
Zelena froze, her breath caught in her chest. Her father died when she was four. They were hiding on the streets, running from someone. He left her and Usha alone while he foraged for food, but one day he came back…different and died soon after. That’s when she started hearing his voice in her head, but after all this time she’d never discovered the truth about his death.
She turned back towards the diseased man and took a step forward. He was still coughing, a blood-speckled kerchief to his mouth. The candles flickered as the stale air shifted around the room and she resisted the urge to flee. The rancid smell wasn’t just from rodents that had found their way beneath the once polished hardwood floors. This man didn’t have long left to live.
When the coughing stopped and the man took several long wheezing breaths, Zelena asked, “What do you know of my father?”
“If I tell you now, you wouldn’t help me.”
“Then how do I know you speak the truth?”
“I knew your father. He had a heart-shaped mole over his ear.”
“He knows nothing,” the voices in her head hissed. But she blocked out their cries. Her father had a heart-shaped mole over his left ear! It was hidden under his hair most of the time, so few people knew about it.
Her face must have given away her thoughts, because the diseased man gestured to the only other chair in the room and said softly, “Let us begin again. My name is Lazaro and I need your help.”
“What must I steal?” Zelena asked with a sigh as she sat.
“Memories.”
— to be continued —
