The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) Garrett Robinson (poetry books to read TXT) 📖

We turned our steps towards the Sunspear.

As we ambled away from the Shade hideout, Kaita watched us go, rage and grief burning in her heart.

She wanted to swoop down on us. She wanted to claw our eyes out in her raven form, and then she wanted to take her cat form and rip us limb from limb, feasting on our steaming flesh. No, that would be too quick. She would drag us off into the wilderness and play knives across our skin, and then leave us bleeding in the night to be a vampire’s feast.

None of the Shades were supposed to die. Dellek, especially, was not supposed to die. It was only supposed to be Pantu. Instead, he alone had survived. What an evil joke of the darkness below.

She had thought of intervening when she saw us enter the house. But she still feared the cold fury in Mag’s eye, and the brilliant flash of her spear. And in the end, she had hesitated too long. She had seen us emerge from the house, bloodstained but still alive, and she knew that all the Shades inside had been murdered.

Now she would have to find another way to lure us along the trail. But first she would kill the boy. With his own blood, he would atone for the far, far more valuable lives that had already been lost.

She watched the constables emerge from the house, Pantu in tow. Sinshi still had him by the scruff of the neck, dragging him like a wayward pup. Yue seized his shirt and pulled him away from her constable, shoving a finger in his face to give him a final admonishment. When she had finished with him, she shoved him away, and Pantu went scuttling down the street.

Kaita took wing, flapping to catch up with Pantu and watch him from above.

He ducked around the first corner he could, then poked an eye around it to watch Yue and the other constables. They stood in conference for a moment before Yue bade them all leave. From so high in the air, Kaita could not hear what she said to them, and she did not care. The constables vanished into the streets of the town.

And then, to her great surprise, Pantu snuck from cover and made his way back towards the Shade hideout.

Kaita swooped lower, watching him, her mind whirling. What was the boy doing? Did he have something stashed away in the hideout? Or did he have no other home in Lan Shui to which he could return? Suddenly she regretted not having learned more about the boy from Dellek. He had seemed so insignificant.

She watched as Pantu opened the hideout’s front door. He paused there for a moment, recoiling with a hand over his mouth. If she had had lips, Kaita would have sneered. Weak. Weak, and a fool. But after a moment he mastered himself. He slipped inside the door, shutting it behind him.

Kaita felt a thrill race through her. She had him now.

With a flap of her ebony wings, she landed in the alley beside the hideout. Her eyes glowed, and in a moment she had resumed her human form, complete with the form-fitting clothes she was able to bring with her during transformations. After listening and watching to make sure there were no witnesses, she crept to the front door of the hideout and slipped inside.

The house was utterly silent. She felt the pulse of the evil magic within, seeping up through the floor from the chamber below, where the Shades had performed their rituals. It pulsed through her body, far more powerful thanks to her magic. She breathed deeply, relishing the feeling of the power.

For a moment she considered: should she seize the strength of the cauldron? Could she even do so? No one knew what it would do to a wizard.

Best not to risk it. Not yet.

Silent as a cat, she crept from room to room, ready to reach for her magic in an instant. But the house seemed empty. Frowning, Kaita sped to the stairs leading up. She climbed them, impatience making her incautious—her footfalls were now audible. But if the boy was upstairs, he would not be able to escape her anyway, even if he did hear her.

He was not upstairs. She searched every room, even under the beds, as though this were a child’s game of catch the imp. After searching under the last bed, Kaita straightened. She looked towards the stairs leading down, her eyes narrowing.

There seemed no possibility the boy knew of the basement. Dellek would never have permitted him to learn of it. Yet it was the only place left.

She returned downstairs and opened the secret door. Ignoring the torch, she leaped down the steps two at a time, soon reaching the underground chamber. There she paused for a long moment, letting her eyes adjust to the thin shafts of light that came through the floorboards above.

The chamber was empty.

Kaita gave a low, outraged cry. He had heard her. She did not know how, but he must have, and he slipped out of the house when she was searching for him. Or mayhap he had climbed out a window. Either way, he was not here.

She had another thought. Avoiding the cauldron, she went to the cabinet at the end of the room. Stooping, she opened it. But it, like the chamber, was bare. There should have been a store of magestones. But it seemed that when the hideout came under attack, Dellek had hidden them somewhere. Or mayhap she had thrown them into the cauldron. They were not where they should have been, in any case, and Kaita could waste no time seeking them out.

She tried to calm herself with long, slow, shaking breaths. The boy did not matter. He was insignificant. Less than nothing. Revenge would have been sweet, but it was nothing compared to her mission.