NOVEL NEXT Chapter One: A Terrible Idea
Chapter One
A Terrible Idea
When later ranking the worst ideas he’d ever had, jumping backwards off the roof would barely make the top five, maybe three. At the time, though, it felt like the smartest thing he’d ever done. Flipping off the two large and very angry men as they skidded to a halt at the edge of the rooftop, Roja grinned to himself.
He was going to be rich, he thought as the whole world was reduced to a single moment. Weightlessly floating through the air, the fiery red hair he was named after catching the evening sunlight in his face, he was going to remember this moment for a long time. For better or for worse. Rich.
Well, not literally rich. He didn’t really know what wealth was, coming from nothing and then somehow finding himself even poorer when both his parents were killed five years ago. But rich for him.
There was an “oomph” from underneath him, exactly as he’d planned it. Planned, and perfectly executed by his co-conspirator. “Wh— Roja?!” the godsmaid gasped as she tried to pick herself up. Legima was a nice enough woman, thirty and therefore too old to even be considered the same species, and she’d been moved to that exact spot to break Roja’s fall by his partner in crime. He didn’t waste a second, rolling over and pushing himself up off the gravel. There was no time for dusting off, no matter how his back screamed at him.
“You got it?!”
Roja grinned a toothy and likely slightly bloody smile — he’d smacked into a door on his way out — at Maria, and tossed her the bundle. She caught it deftly and broke into a sprint, Roja right behind her and Legima’s shouting hot on his own heels. They ducked into a side street, and began the track back to their own district.
Slipping through the gate that separated Coalis’ inner city from the outer was relatively easy. The guards weren’t paying all that much attention, and mostly trying to keep people out. They did need a distraction though, and it came right on time. A small rock hit one of them right between the eyes, and they immediately chased down the culprit, a blur from a nearby rooftop. Maria and Roja made use of the noise, and moved onto the next spot on the route.
Jumping through a doorway into a courtyard, Roja knocked on the wood for good luck. He knew where he was going. This had been a multi-stage operation, and now they needed to make their way through the escape-plan. The next member of their entourage joined them, jumping down from the roof sling in hand. He did not look happy.
“This was a bad idea,” Selico said as he stuffed the sling into his pocket and ran to keep up with them. “Do you have it?” Maria tossed him the package and he took a quick peek at the contents before closing it again. It’d be a shame to have gone through all this trouble only for them to lose it now.
“You bet we do,” Roja grinned. “Don’t look so glum, Seli.” In his defense, Seli always looked glum. He ate his food looking miserable, and he enjoyed hanging out with friends looking like he didn’t. His friends knew him well enough to know he was just really, really bad at expressing himself.
“I’ll look happy when we get home safe,” Selico replied, lying as he tossed the package back to the boy. Roja just gave him a blisteringly cheeky grin he knew would annoy the older boy, and pushed himself to run harder. They just had to get into their dormitories, hide the stash, and then he could just pretend his run-in with Legima had been a misunderstanding, and deny everything else.
They skidded around a corner, kicking up dust and stones, only to come face to face with two diacons, men studying to become godsmen in their own right, though right now they were studying Roja and Maria’s faces for what they were sure was either mischief or crime.
Of course, they were guilty of both.
“Scatter!” Roja was already moving while making the call, throwing himself between the two diacons. They both tried to grab him at the same time, got in each other’s way and gave the boy just enough time to slip out of their grasp and run on, Maria and Selico running around them.
Okay, that hadn’t been according to plan. But since he didn’t recognize the men, odds were they hadn’t recognized him either. After all, the orphanage was a big place, and the city even bigger. He could’ve been any old street rat. With bright red hair. Surely.
They were basically home free now. He tossed himself through a window that had been broken a while ago — it had been an accident, but nobody would listen! Maria helped him up, while Selico went around the long way. If the three of them were seen together, people would definitely be suspicious.
Roja and Maria dusted themselves off. They were in an empty storage room, one where the autumn harvest was usually stored. That was months away, so they wouldn’t be accused of anything if they were seen coming out. Maria opened the door a little, still catching her breath.
“Clear,” she said. Roja took a step forward, and smacked into her hand. “Wait,” she said too late. He rubbed his twice-sore nose again, though it didn’t seem to be broken. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. Him and Maria had both gotten into enough tussles for aesthetics to not be their primary concern. “Okay, now it’s clear,” Maria said with a grin and a wink, and stepped into the hallway, a cautious Roja behind her.
If he carried the package like he looked annoyed to be carrying it, nobody was likely to stop him for it. He’d learned early on that nobody bothered you that way, and he’d gotten away with a lot of smuggled food. The haul was a lot more valuable this time around, though.
The peristyle surrounded a small courtyard, the columns’ once-ornate carvings eroded over generations. There was a small class being held for some of the younger kids. Things hadn’t always been this way. Class? For orphans? It was almost absurd to think about. Coming to the first door, Maria knocked. A young, sleepy-looking face opened it, brightening up when it saw them.
“Do you have it?” the kid asked, practically salivating.
“Keep your voice down,” Roja said. “And yes, I do.” He retrieved the book from the parcel, and slipped it through the door. “If anyone finds this, you’ve never heard of me.”
“Roja, we live in the same building,” they said.
“Okay, fine, yes. But you didn’t get it from me.” The kid grinned, nodded, and closed the door. Good. That was one. Casually but carefully doing their rounds, Maria and Roja went from door to door. The posh and the rich from the inner cities had more books than they knew what to do with, and it was more than the kids here would ever get to see, no matter how many lessons they got from well-meaning noblewomen and strict godsmaids.
The last stop. Roja gave the secret knock, and Selico opened the door quickly. They slipped inside and slumped down against the door, releasing all of the built up tension in excited giggling. Selico glared at them, but finally cracked a smile too.
“Go on,” he said. “Open it.”
The package on his lap, Roja dug into its depths. There was one book remaining. When they’d gone up to the inner city for the first time, they’d found there were several houses full of books. A lot of those were books about natural sciences and history, but there had been stories as well. Heroes and monsters and magic and faraway lands.
Of course, some kids had wanted the history books, and Roja had been happy to oblige them, too. He’d made sure to do his research — that was to say, badger every adult he could — before he’d started even planning his grand heist. But it had come to fruition, and they’d gotten away scot-free. And the three of them, of course, had made absolutely sure the haul included something for them, too.
The book was ornate, and very new. The hinges were still slightly slick with oil, and the carvings on the front looked as sinister as they were fascinating. The cover depicted a dragon in flight, except that the artist had managed to imbue the wood with so much life it looked like it could almost pull itself free from the page.
Dragons weren’t real, of course, but legends were legends and kids were kids. And if and when Roja and Maria and Selico had gotten their fill of whatever was in this book, they knew they’d be able to sell it for a pretty price that could buy them… Well, Roja wasn’t quite sure about that. He didn’t know how much this book would actually sell for, and what things were actually valued at. He ran his hand over the meticulously designed cover, and read the title, with a bit of effort.
“De Ratione Magicae,” he mumbled. “A pra-practical guide on the nature and nuh-nurture of magic, magical beings, entities and other p-pen-pneo—”
“Phenomena,” Selico said. “Fancy way of just saying ‘stuff’,” he added. The three of them chuckled as Roja opened the book. There was a hole in it. For a brief moment, Roja worried he’d ruined the book in the fall, but quickly realized it was a part of the design. In the middle of every page was a hole that ran through the entire book. In that was a little green gem. The text wrapped around it, and on several pages, small notes had been made around it, and diagrams used it as a center.
“Woah,” Maria said, “you reckon that’s real?”
“Why wouldn’t it be, right?” Roja said. “Why? You wanna wear it as a necklace?”
“Shut up,” Maria said.
“You wear it.”“You shut up,” Roja grinned and flipped through the pages. There were drawings of foreign plants and whole talks about monsters and magic. He bit his lip in his excitement. It would take him months to make it through all of this, and he couldn’t wait. Then he got to the center page.
It was wrong. Specifically, the drawing on it was wrong. It was a drawing of a creature that haunted his nightmares. Everyone knew it by now, of course. The attack had shaken the Capital to its very core. The death toll had been… too high. But there it was. A figure, cloaked in shadow. Hollow, even on the page, a mask that resembled a grinning skull. His blood froze in his veins and he quickly turned the page, but it felt almost wrong to touch the paper now.
“Hold on,” Maria said, her voice a little unsteady too. “What’s this one?” She stopped on a page that had a drawing of the gem. “What does… Do… Do shoitheach mean?”
“Probably a dirty word,” Roja joked. Maria elbowed him in the ribs. “Ow! I don’t know!”
“I’ll ask Adhamh next time he comes through,” Selico said. “It sounds like something he’d know.” Roja nodded, but Maria was already going down the page.
“It’s like someone’s diary or something,” she said, and read out loud. “‘I truly believe I’ve found what was supposed to be the vessel for a spirit, once upon a time. If it is, then this spirit is long gone.’”
“All right, all right,” Roja mumbled. “You don’t have to show off.”
“You’re just mad because you skipped reading classes,” Selico said. Roja stuck out his tongue. Maria ignored them both and pushed on.
“‘The magecraft who sold it to me,’” Maria continued, her voice a little droning, “‘swears high and low by the incantation to release its energy, but it has so far proven to be inert. It is too simple to be true, regardless. Sgaol mi—’”
Maria hadn’t finished speaking the syllable when Roja’s sight blurred slightly, little stars sparkling at the edge of his vision while a headache burrowed his way behind his eyes. “Ow,” he shouted, and then looked at the others, also rubbing their heads. They’d all cried out in pain at the same time.
“What was th—” Selico said just as the door was pushed open. Legima and two diacons stared down at them. They stared back up. Before anyone else had a chance to move, Selico’s sling was already out, and a small pebble hit one of the diacons square on the nose. “Run!”
Maria and Roja dove between the men’s legs, not thinking about the repercussions. Right now, they needed to get away, and hide this book, no matter how hard it was to focus with their headache.
Back through the teristyle, their only obstacle was a young-ish woman, probably another godsmaid in training, although she wasn’t wearing the traditional headdress. Not that she was a problem. Roja dove left as Maria jumped right, around the woman.
Well, they would have. Both of them found themselves lifted off the ground, one in each of the woman’s hands as she held them by their tunics. That wasn’t right. He was practically fifteen, there was no way a woman her size would’ve been able to pick him up like that.
“Hello?” the woman said. Just then Legima and the diacons came up behind them, and Roja closed his eyes. They were going to lose the book for sure.
“Your Majesty!” Legima said as the woman put Roja and Maria down, although she kept a firm grip on their collars. “I… I apologize profusely…”
Roja looked up at the woman in shock. “Your eyes,” she said. “Yes, I see it too.” Who was she talking to? She didn’t seem regal at all! This was the Mad Queen Vera?
