Dragon Eye Chronicles, Tome 1: The Hearthstone Thief

Chapter One

Had I not been drunk, I would have run from the woman who appeared in the alley like a phantom. It would have been the wise thing to do, but as I couldn’t claim to be wise, and I was most definitely intoxicated, I laughed instead. My sharp bark rattled down the narrow gap between overhanging houses and deep into the Brea City night. She didn’t smile, the woman. Didn’t even blink. Only her fingers twitched, hovering over the jeweled daggers sheathed against her thighs.

“Did Lyn send you?” My voice carried far, until the slumbering city noises devoured that too.

Dressed like she was, in dark leathers as though the night itself embraced her curves, she had to be an assassin. Her eyes absorbed the light. No sparkle, just hard, penetrating darkness. The city guards had daggers like hers, but she was no guard, not here among the stench of the docks and the shit-soaked alleys.

“I said I’d pay him. I’ve just been down on my luck lately.” The alley tilted, and I reached out a hand to steady myself against the wall. That last draft of beer had been a bad idea.

There were two ways this could go. She could kill me, which wouldn’t be difficult considering I could barely stand. Or I could hand over my bag as payment to whomever had paid her to track me down. Scratch that—three ways. She could kill me and take the bag. It’s what I would do.

I slumped a shoulder against the wall, dislodging red-brick dust that settled like ashes around my boots. I probably should have started begging for my life. I lifted my gaze and found her several steps closer, or perhaps she’d always been standing close enough to touch and I was too drunk to notice. A jewel—no bigger than a tear and inset high on her cheek—captured the subdued Brean light. Emerald, I assumed, such was the greenish color. I’d never seen anyone wear a jewel this way, as though it was part of her.

Her fingers twitched again. I groped inside my coat, reaching for a blade that wasn’t there. Ah, yes. I’d used it as payment for entertainment of the female variety. Tonight really hadn’t been the night to give away my dagger, worthless as it was.

The assassin dipped her gaze to where my coat hid my hand.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I slurred and tacked on a smile. If I couldn’t use a dagger, I’d have to use my wits. I’d been told they were just as sharp.

Slowly and methodically, her gaze crawled back up to my face. “Remove your bag.”

Shit. With a crisp, clean accent like that, she had to be highborn. Not from Brea, but close enough to speak the language. What in the Halls of Arach was a highborn doing stalking alleys, dressed like death on legs? Some very fine legs, they went all the way up to parts designed to distract even the most honest of men, of which I wasn’t.

“Are you a simpleton, sir?”

“No,” I grunted. “And I ain’t a sir either.”

“Then remove your bag.” She had ice in her voice, and her eyes too. Cold, bitter, unforgiving ice.