A Storm of Chaos (The Hunter Legacy #1)

Chapter Seventeen

It took just under two weeks for Kaya to return to Klave, and she had arrived in old clothes – having dumped the clothing given to her by the House of Wind – with the hood of her cloak raised to shield her face. She felt eyes on her as she moved through the uneven streets, those that snaked through Klave City in winding, haphazard directions around the stone-and-slate houses.

Klave City was bleak, but Kaya had always known that. She had been reminded of it each time she returned after an errand, yet despite that it had never bothered her as much as it did now. It was like a nail, slowly pushing into her heart the deeper she moved into the bowels of the city.

It wasn't just the desolation of the city that struck her upon returning; it was the stench as well. Why had she never noticed it before? There was a perpetual brine-and-salt smell that lingered throughout the town courtesy of Shipwrecker Bay and the decrepit fish market nearby, but there was simply an unsavoury stench clinging to the pot-hole riddled streets and houses that Kaya couldn't describe in any other way. The fresh air of Devenese seemed like an impossibility for a city like Klave.

Lord Lecreux's manor was in the centre of the city, a slate-coloured building of three tiers, with a peaked, black roof that had sharp, curling corners like claws. It was surrounded by wall of dark wood, capped by sharp, angled tiles to ward off anyone who might dare climb over it, and the wrought iron gate gave the impression, at least to Kaya, of cell bars. The houses on the outskirts of the manor were separated from it by a wide ring of cobblestones, but where in any other town there would be people mingling in the open space or children playing, the area around the Lord of Klave's manor was utterly quiet.

There weren't even guards at the gates, not when the only real threat in the city were those employed by Lord Lecreux himself, so Kaya slipped through undisturbed and followed the gravel pathway toward the front door. Somewhere at the back of her mind she was comparing everything to Devenese Manor; the lack of manicured gardens, of grass, the shadowed alcove of the front door that felt like the mouth of a beast as you passed through, how the manor itself seemed to loom over the city like darkness given shape.

Kaya did, at least, knock on the door to announce her arrival. It opened a moment later, and a gaunt face greeted Kaya from beneath a deep hood. She recognised his face but didn't bother to remember his name, and she simply quirked a brow at him, silently demanding he get out of her way.

The thug sneered. 'The bloodhound returns.'

Kaya slipped through the door as he stepped aside, and despite the maliciousness that seemed to seep out of the thug's very pores he didn't dare touch her.

Pity.

The entrance foyer was dark as well, an oak staircase curling up to the mezzanine where a corridor branched toward opposite ends of the second floor. A bronze chandelier hung from the domed ceiling, and it only occurred to Kaya now that the chandelier looked very much like a claw curling upwards. Directly ahead lay an arched door that would open to a courtyard, which would also pale in comparison to the interior garden at Devenese Manor, but to Kaya's left was a set of sliding doors gilded in gold, partially open to let out the sounds of coins clinking together.

Kaya drew in a steady breath and walked forward, rapping her knuckles softly across the door to announce herself before she pushed through. The room she entered was made of two parts; the receiving area, where a few armchairs and side tables were scattered for guests to sit while they waited, and then a formal meeting area that was a step up from the receiving area, and offered a low, wooden table for guests to kneel around on silk floor cushions. Her eyes swept up and along the table, a similar chandelier in the foyer suspended above it, and the walls of deep emerald decorated by bronze scones.

The table accounted for ten guests, but only the table of it was occupied. Kaya looked to him then, her expression smoothing over in a display of boredom, as she finally centred her focus on the Lord of Klave, Callidus Lecreux.

He, however, hadn't deigned to acknowledge her yet. Seated as if the cushion beneath him were a king's throne, Lord Lecreux regarded the gold coins sprawled on the table in front of him, a slender hand idly organising the coins into piles. He wore a fine black robe, trimmed in a shade of steel, the sleeves loose around his arms and flared at the wrists, and despite being only a decade or so older than Kaya Lord Lecreux's hair was a fine, sheet of ice-white silk draped over his shoulders. The rumour was he had sold his soul to claim the position as Lord of Klave, and the colour leeching from his hair had been the only physical sign of it.

Lecreux wasn't as fiercely built as some of his thugs either, but his weapons were his words, his cunning, and his wickedness. That, and the network of thugs and spies he commanded. Behind him, on the back wall, was a myriad of different swords, knives and daggers on display which he had collected over time. Two in particular, a pair of long, curved scimitars crossed blades and were at the centre of the display; it was Klave's emblem.

'Welcome back, Kaya,' said Lecreux, his head tipping up lazily to regard her. His voice was a gentle lilt, as smooth as the silk of his hair, of his fine robes, and his eyes were a light brown or a pale gold, depending on the light. 'I'm glad to see you've returned alive and well, despite that awful ambush. Did you encounter anything else of interest on your way home to me?'

Kaya thought of Devenese, of the young Emissary closely guarded by swordsmen who were also his friends, of the magical wards that were slowly failing to protect the House of Wind, and which areas of road were unguarded and which were not. She thought of how valuable this information could be to Lecreux, how it might benefit her to hand such information over.

But she thought of the housekeeping sisters, Sorelle and Helena; she thought of Marla, the chef who made sure Kaya had eaten enough food during her stay, because she had clearly been lacking good meals; she thought of Liren, the librarian who happily tended to his books and smiled when others enjoyed reading them.

She thought of unleashing Lecreux and his thugs on them, something dark and full of hatred rousing in her. Do it, the voice whispered. They threatened you with your existence. Do it.

But Kaya loosed a tired breath, expelling the feeling, and said, 'Nothing worth mentioning.'

*****

When she was finished reporting to Lecreux, Kaya returned to her small, rundown home that was – despite its state and despite its location – her only sanctuary. She had felt an itch at the back of her neck ever since leaving Devenese, and it wasn't until she was in her bathroom, standing before the mirror, that she gathered her hair into a knot atop her head, exposing the nape of her neck.

When Kaya had decided to convince Noah that she wasn't worth saving, she could have chosen more than one memory, more than one secret. Working for the Lord of Klave, after all, was not her only secret.

As if it had been reminding her, the itch at her neck finally subsided. Kaya lifted her hand and brushed her fingers against the nape of her neck, just beneath her hairline where another scar existed.

It was not a scar like Chaos, or a scar from an old injury. It wasn't really a scar at all.

It was a brand.

The brand of who she had worked for before Lecreux, who had trained her, set her on the path she was on now, and, of course, of who had given her the name Hellfire.

The Lord of Crime.