SIXTEEN

  Meeting Fjodor went on for a little while longer. Ironing out the details of their arrangement took some doing, and Vidar dropped the names of those he remembered from his first attempt at teaching rune craft to thieves, hoping some of them might be spared to continue learning. Most thieves from Tyv's part of Halmstadt would be fine, as long as they didn't struggle too hard during the takeover of their territory.

  Next up was visiting Ida again. This time brought Vidar to a different part of town, where she explained their progress since their last meeting. They'd located some men a few rungs higher up the ladder of the thieves' guild and were getting ready to strike.

  Annoyed would be a mild word to put to her reaction upon hearing of his meeting with Fjodor, but after quite a few choice words about the state of Vidar's mental faculties, she relented. Joining forces with part of the thieves' guild was a path fraught with danger, but it also gave way to opportunities she couldn't walk away from. Her guild would never join, of course, but she would send word to Fjodor, using Vidar's instructions, to communicate her agreement in a temporary truce to focus on the thieves' guild's leg in Andersburg.

  When Vidar shared the tidbit about him teaching rune craft to more thieves, he thought for a moment that the girls would tie him up and keep him squirreled away to keep him from doing so, but they eased up when he once again offered them the same deal without having to pay for the privilege. Perhaps a few girls would want to give learning the craft a try, Ida decided.

  With everything Vidar set out to accomplish that day done and done with, he made it back to the workshop with a lightness in his step that was only a little marred by having to shuffle to avoid pain lancing from one or more of the places where the tattooist did his work.

  "Where have you been?" Alvarn shouted from behind the counter of the shop when Vidar walked in. The sign read 'closed', but the light was still on, and his friend looked to be counting coins.

  "The errands ran longer than I thought," Vidar said. "But I don't think we're going to have any more trouble with the thieves' guild from now on."

  Alvarn's eyes darted to the window, and Vidar turned to look over his shoulder. "What?"

  "We've had different people standing around outside looking through the window for most of the day. One of them even entered here with a knife."

  "What'd he do?"

  Alvarn shook his head and sighed before tying off a lightweight coin pouch. "Nothing. He stood around looking at the few customers who dared enter until they scurried out the door."

  "That shouldn't happen again," Vidar said.

  "I don't like this, Vidar."

  Vidar raised his finger to poke at Alvarn's chest. "And you think I like it? All I want is to sell runes and live a comfortable life! I just told you it shouldn't be a problem anymore."

  "You better be right," Alvarn said, his voice calm but hard. Then he narrowed his eyes and reached forward with far more speed than Vidar thought him capable of, grabbing Vidar's chin and tilting it up. "What did you do?"

  Vidar slapped the hand away. "What?"

  "That," Alvarn said, pointing to Vidar's forehead, then his own. "What's that?"

  "Well," Vidar began. "I kept losing my runes all the time. This way, I won't."

  Alvarn's eyes widened. "You mean that's not just paint?"

  "Not paint. Tattoo."

  "You tattooed a kenaz rune on your forehead?" Alvarn's voice was small, disbelieving. "Don't you know what it'll do if you rejuvenate a rune from there?" He shook his head again and wet his lips. "No, of course you don't. You don't know a damn thing."

  "What?" Vidar asked. "Oh, wait. You mean the head numbness? Don't worry, that doesn't happen with dragon's essence."

  Alvarn's eyes took on a wild tint, and he let out a disbelieving laugh that was very much unlike him. "I want some."

  "What?"

  Pointing to his chest, he repeated. "Transfer some to me. This, I need to study."

  "Are you sure?"

  To answer that question, Alvarn grabbed Vidar's hand and pressed it against his own chest. "Do it!"

  "Fine, fine. Take it easy," Vidar said, closing his eyes.

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  Drawing from the heartwell was already second nature, but transferring it took concentration. A bead of sweat ran down the side of Vidar's face, and he wiped at it with his free hand.

  Alvarn let out a grunt as his heartwell filled, and the sound turned to a strangled groan well before Vidar finished. In a few moments, Vidar transferred a good amount of dragon's essence from his heartwell to Alvarn's.

  "There," Vidar said. "Satisfied?"

  Sweat beaded on Alvarn's forehead, and his face was flush to the point of his glasses misting over. He removed them, panting. "That was unpleasant."

  "Stop whining," Vidar said, walking over to the door leading back to the workshop. "What of Rend?"

  "Sleeping," Alvarn said. He stood there, eyes closed, as if meditating.

  "I'm going to bed."

  "The water cleaning station," Alvarn said.

  Vidar grunted and turned away. His eyelids drooped, and his arms felt leaden. The pain from the tattoos was coming back with a vengeance too, and he needed to apply more of that ointment. "Tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow," Alvarn said.

  Stepping out from the front of the shop and back into the workshop, Vidar almost tripped over something he hadn't expected to find there.

  "Hey Alvarn?"

  "Yes?"

  "Why is the workshop filled with debris and trash?"

  "It's Erik's," Alvarn said. "For making his sofa."

  "What use could half a broken barrel have when constructing furniture?"

  "Don't know," Alvarn said, his thoughts pointed inward, far away from the current conversation.

  Vidar dropped the subject and stepped over the trash to reach the stairs, heading up. That dragon rider bastard needed to wake up soon, or he'd get dropped to the floor. That was Vidar's bed, dammit.

  Some time later, Erik snuck in and fell asleep on the floor. Alvarn followed soon after, his heavier footfalls on the stairs somehow bringing a sense of safety with them.

  That night, sleep would not take Vidar into its blissful embrace. He shifted and rolled on the hard floor and struggled with a sense of disquiet in his gut. Something was wrong, but he could not say what. It irked him. Kept gnawing at the back of his mind.

  When Rend let out a small groan, Vidar was almost grateful for something to break the growing sense of wrongness. He stood and walked over to the bed. It was pitch black. A kenaz rune set low provided light to see by. The dragon rider was still not awake. Rend's eyes were closed, and his skin was once again pale. Sweat ran down his face, and the bedding looked drenched. The boy made faces of anguish as he slept, and tiny whines escaped between his lips. He, too, was having an awful night.

  The leg at least looked a little better. No longer quite so squished, and most of the dark spots were gone. Without thinking, Vidar put a hand on Rend's chest and envisioned the boy's heartwell in his mind. It was empty. So that was why he was looking worse again. Fighting off the pull of tiredness, Vidar concentrated and pulled dragon's essence from himself, gifting it to his patient. His heartwell regenerated. Not a quick process by any means, but regenerate it did. Not so with Rend's.

  The dragon rider breathed a sigh and seemed to settle down a little.

  "You better wake soon," Vidar murmured. "You have much to answer for and many questions to answer."

  Vidar returned to his spot on the floor, grumbled about Erik's snoring, and closed his eyes, trying to claim some part of the night for himself. Sleep still would not come. Whatever wrongness he felt remained, and the fact he couldn't find any position that didn't mean sleeping on a tattoo didn't help either. At least he'd applied ointment to them. Hopefully, that would take care of some of the stinging.

  Hours passed without sleep. Vidar couldn't take it anymore. He got up, walked down the stairs, and sat by the workbench in the far-too-cluttered workshop. Deep in his own thoughts, he grabbed a wooden disc with a barrier rune painted upon it and spun it around his fingers. His gaze fixed on the bare wall before him, deep in thought. How long he sat like that, he couldn't say, but a sound, a gentle tapping on glass, took him out of his daze.

  Frowning, he put down the algiz rune, pushed himself and the chair back to stand. The sound repeated, but it was more of a thud this time, and Vidar wasn't sure what to make of it. Not wanting to show himself, he peeked out through the open doorway into the front of the shop and saw a boy right outside the window, his face pressed right up against the glass.

  The tension ran off his shoulders, and Vidar slipped a hand inside the shop and triggered one of the light runes affixed to the wall. Bright light filled the room and blinded the boy. His eyes widened in surprise before he fell back and down with a yelp.

  Two steps took Vidar across the shop. A click from the door, and then he was outside. "Who are you? What are you doing here?" He recognized those big eyes and the light brown hair. "You're one of the boys with Embla, aren't you?"

  "Not anymore," the boy said, getting to his feet and shaking loose snow off his, for this cold weather, inadequate clothes.

  "No? What happened to her?" Vidar asked. "Why are you here?" He couldn't remember the boy's name, but it wasn't important. He couldn't be over seven, and not a big lad by any means.

  "Place burned down. The building next to Embla's got squashed by the dragon fire. Flames jumped across, and we had to run. With people running everywhere, we got separated. I found some others, but no sign of Embla."

  "So, why are you here?" Vidar asked.

  The boy dug around in his pockets and came away with a crumpled piece of paper. He held it up for Vidar to take.

  "What's this?" Vidar asked.

  "Urgent message from the rune scribe's guild." The boy puffed up his chest with pride. "I work for them now. See ya!"

  With that, the boy ran off back into the early morning.

  Vidar returned inside and locked the door. Turning to the workshop, he flattened the piece of paper by running his hands across it. Whoever wrote this note was a pure bastard. Trying to make sense of the quick scribbles as the letters taunted him by melding together and wiggling the extravagant loops that everyone who wrote in cursive seemed to think so important.

  With his sleep-deprived, addled mind, reading that thing right off was impossible. So he found a pen, dipped it in ink, and printed letters below the cursive, trying to decipher a little at a time. Even his own printed words fought valiantly against his efforts to read them, but at least this way, he stood a chance.

  After almost giving up twice, he got the message. Taking out all the frivolous bits, the message was clear:

  "Come to the guild. Now. Regarding friend."

  "Now?" Vidar scoffed. Next time, he'd have to tell them to relay the message through their runner rather than writing it down on paper. But as he stood, he exited the house and locked the door behind him.