Page 3 of Fate Promised

A faint whiff of blackthorn blossom filled the air. In May, these hills filled with the white flowers of the thorny shrub, declaring spring had arrived. But May passed a long time ago.

Triska rubbed her chest. “Gads, what was that?”

Juri peeked down the front of his shirt. A perfect replica of the symbol in the air was tattooed in gold on his chest. “I’m hit! That thing branded me.”

She rubbed her chest but didn’t look down her own shirt. “Maybe it marked me, too. It’s all … warm here. Is this magic?”

“Must be.” He scanned the cove. If there was magic, there must be a magicwielder nearby, but the beach stood quiet, the only movement the soft sway of the dune grass. “Let’s get out of here.”

They raced back into town, and he aimed for the stable next to the tavern. Warm and quiet, they often snuck away here. He liked climbing the rafters, and he’d swing around and tell Triska stories, trying to make her laugh so hard she fell over.

When they reached the main road, they slowed, and Triska rubbed her chest again, the worry lines back on her brow. “What was that? Will we get in trouble? Is something going to happen to us?”

He puffed his own chest out. “Nah. I told you. I’ll protect you.” A pleasant tingle spread from his heart. “And I’m coming back real soon to see you. Don’t worry.”

“I’ll write you.” Her eyes narrowed. “You write me back.”

He winced. “Yeah, yeah.” She knew how much he hated making his letters. Pencils always seemed strange in his hand. He couldn’t make the pretty loops and neat letters Triska did.

Before they could duck inside the stable, a group of older women saw Triska and made a beeline straight for them. The one in front, Mags, put her arm around Triska. “What are you two doing out here? Come on, dear, I’ll bring you home. Your father must be looking for you.”

Triska shot him a quick look, held up her ring again and smiled for the first time. “I’ll see you soon. I hope.”

He nodded and watched her walk away. He’d be back soon. She needed him.

2

PRESENT DAY

Juri dropped to one knee, and a crunch rippled through the silence. His lip curled up his eyetooth. Rat bones. He turned all sorts of meat into jerky but didn’t touch rat. Arched, faded brick surrounded him without a torch or gas lamp to cast light along the tunnel of the long-abandoned sewers. The air was stuffy and humid even though outside, with winter approaching, the wind blew crisp across this part of Ulterra.

Kyril, Juri’s pack brother, drew near, his hind claws scuffing along the silty floor. “Admit it, you lost his trail down here. He probably scurried down one of the narrow passages.”

While the sewers of Coromesto no longer collected waste, rainwater washed through the complex brick tunnels, spreading bits of dirt and flotsam along the floor where fungi and other plants scratched out a sunless living.

Juri studied the blackening brittlegill mushrooms at his feet. “Sod off, I didn’t lose him. He passed this way about thirteen minutes ago.”

Kyril chuffed. “Now you’re being a wiseass. You can’t know that.”

Juri pointed. “This mushroom is red. Well … it would be red in the light.” A vulk’s vision at night was almost as clear as during the day. Colors turned to shades of gray in the dark. “Brittlegill turns red about thirteen minutes after it’s cut or stepped on. After fifteen minutes, it turns black. This was stepped on, but it isn’t black yet.”

Kyril leaned forward and studied the fungus. “Huh.”

Juri stood. Even at his full height of almost eight feet, his ears didn’t touch the top of the tunnel. “Odd it’s growing down here. They like beech trees, usually.” Long forgotten by those who walked the city above, the old sewers lay under the roads of Coromesto, providing vermin with a safe place to tread, and others, vulk like him—the werewolves of Ulterra—access to pad through the city without being seen by the humans and magicwielders above.

He’d thought only the vulk remembered these tunnels. He was wrong.

A faint whiff of sulfur, almost too faint to scent over the stale, chalky odor of the sewers, threaded along a tiny current of air ahead of them. “I want to catch him before he leaves the sewers, and we’re near the large exit by the ocean. Let’s move.”

Both vulk sprang forward, padding silently along the brick and grit. No non-immortal—including the magicwielder they hunted—could outrun a vulk, and based on the tracks in the dirt, this magicwielder was dragging his right foot slightly. A slight limp, but one that would be noticeable when he walked and was probably slowing him down.

As they neared the western exit that lay hidden underneath the docks, fresher air greeted them, and a flickering blaze of light. Lanterns, or maybe torches.

He inhaled deeply. Not torches. Torches were wrapped in pitch, and the smoke burned more acrid. This was a flame burning on a wick.

He inhaled again. Two wicks. One tallow and one beeswax. A third inhale brought him a mix of sulfur and soap. Someone else had entered the sewers.

Juri gestured to Kyril, and they both slowed. Voices floated down the tunnel, and the scent of sulfur increased. The magicwielders were either using active magic now or they had recently. Why? Why down here?

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