The shielded past the dr.., p.1
The Shielded Past (The Dragon Rogues Book 3), page 1
THE SHIELDED PAST
The Dragon Rogues Book 3
D.K. HOLMBERG
Copyright © 2022 by D.K. Holmberg
Cover by Damonza.com
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Author’s Note
Series by D.K. Holmberg
Chapter One
It was the time of day that Jonathan always appreciated, the time when he had first come to be known as the Dragon, and he felt a part of the night—a part of the quiet of the city, little more than a whisper of wind sweeping along familiar streets. Occasional wisps of fog and shadow mixed together, providing places to conceal his passing, and a trace of strange energy filled the air. Not all of it was magical energy, though some of it was. As Jonathan made his way through the streets, he did feel some magical presence, but what he detected was minor.
Thankfully, the streets were empty. They had passed a small gathering leaving the tavern a few streets back but had quickly moved away from it. In this part of the city, the streets were narrow enough that no carts would be able to pass through here during the daytime, and the homes lining their route were darkened. It made it easier for them to navigate unseen. A subtle stench hung in the air, an undercurrent of rot that Jonathan had not fully grown accustomed to since returning to the city.
He glanced behind him to make sure that the others were still there and was not disappointed. Not that he had expected to be. Matthew would have stayed with him, and thankfully, he didn’t have his sword unsheathed, ready for a fight at any moment. Leland stayed close to Matthew, his hair now cut short, his clothing fitted and befitting somebody with the wealth that they all possessed, though there was still something haggard about the man.
And then there was Elizabeth. Wearing pants and a jacket cut in the popular style, though muted so she didn’t stand out too much, she strode forward as if she owned the streets. That brought a smile to Jonathan’s face, or would have if he hadn’t been worried about her getting caught up in the same kinds of things that he had when he had been younger.
“Any issues with your facade?”
Elizabeth glanced over, her golden hair tied back with a length of blue silk. It was the only flash of color she allowed herself. “I’m doing fine with it, Jonathan. You don’t have to worry about me doing my part.”
“He’s always going to worry,” Matthew muttered, keeping his voice low.
None of them knew if they needed to keep their voices down, as none of them was certain if Elizabeth could maintain a muting through the facade, though Jonathan had increasingly suspected that she had discovered the key to keeping sound from passing through. They had tested it, and it had seemed to be effective, but once they started moving—especially at any sort of pace—there was always the possibility that it would fail. This was Elizabeth, though, and Jonathan had seen how capable she had become, and he didn’t want to accuse her of anything that would make her think that he didn’t trust her ability with facades, but he also knew that they needed to be cautious.
“I’m just asking the same questions I ask every time,” Jonathan said.
Elizabeth grunted softly, and she twisted a bracelet she had on one wrist, which was made of a silver metal, with faint markings that Jonathan could not quite make out. He had no magical sense from that bracelet, though it was an enchantment, and a powerful one at that.
“We haven’t been taking many jobs, so I don’t know that you can make that claim,” Elizabeth said.
“Quiet,” Matthew whispered. “We’re getting closer to the target.”
Everybody fell silent, and there was a seriousness to the procession that Jonathan appreciated. But Elizabeth was right. They had not been taking many jobs together lately. Mostly that was out of a lack of need, primarily because the last job they had done had ensured their wealth, but it was also because they didn’t want to draw any additional notice to themselves. Not only from Heziah—though the sorcerer had gone quiet, and Jonathan wasn’t even convinced that he was still in the city, but Matthew remained concerned about it—but also from those within the Society, like Jonathan’s sister.
This was a job they had needed to take, though. When word of an El’aras artifact came to them—well, to Matthew—they had all agreed to go after it. Not for the money, though they would be paid for the job, but to figure out why the El’aras artifacts were coming through the city.
Matthew slipped forward first, and Elizabeth kept pace with him, holding the facade around him, using her control over it to ensure that he was completely concealed inside the facade. Jonathan and Leland trailed behind. Matthew had a small, pointed object in one hand, and he held it tightly, his knuckles whitening as he squeezed it, as if he were trying to press all the power out of the enchantment.
“Anything?” Jonathan whispered.
“If your source is right—”
“It’s our source,” Jonathan said.
Matthew nodded, and he took another step forward. They were moving slowly now.
The facade was invisible from their direction. The buildings were all double story here, many of them with storefronts on the lower level, though some were multiunit houses. Many of them had not been well maintained over the years, and paint had faded, and a few windows were missing and had been boarded over, shutters having cracked and fallen. None had the gardens that were found in nicer sections of the city, though none had yards either. A few carried the feel of ancient structures, made out of stone rather than the wood that most of these buildings were built from, and they had a few sculptures in the stone that drew his attention briefly.
It was late, and there was no one else out on the street. If there were, no one would see anything other than a possible blurring of magic, but even with that, Elizabeth was so skilled with her facade that it would be nearly impossible for anybody else to notice that they were passing through here. She had grown so competent that Jonathan knew there were very few people who would even be able to detect any presence of her facade.
Matthew pointed.
They followed him, and now that Elizabeth stayed close to his shoulder, she gripped the bracelet with her free hand while holding the other one out in front as if she was bracing herself. Jonathan didn’t think that posture was necessary for what she was doing, but he suspected that the effort of trying to work through the resistance of the El’aras charm on her wrist made it so that she felt like she needed to use some sort of bracing, if only so that she could fight through it.
“Are you holding it—”
“I’m holding it just fine,” she said, her jaw clenched slightly. “I’ve gotten used to working through this. It just takes more concentration. And since we’re getting close to where we are going to take the next step in the job, I figured that I should concentrate. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like fewer distractions.”
Jonathan smiled to himself. She was different from the young girl that she had been when he had first brought her into their team, and now she carried a confidence that he appreciated. It was a confidence that they would need with all that they were doing.
Matthew slipped forward, one hand near the hilt of his sword. When they reached the simple storefront, he paused. He swept his gaze back and forth along the street before settling it once more on the building. There wasn’t much here to identify it as anything of importance, other than the fact that Jonathan had a distinct sense of magical power from inside. He felt nothing from Elizabeth, though that was her El’aras charm taking away his ability to detect anything. And he didn’t feel anything from Matthew, but he had his own El’aras connection, and so there was no need for that. Leland wasn’t using his abilities now, so Jonathan knew that what he felt came from the other side.
“Something’s in there,” Jonathan said.
Matthew swung his gaze around. “You feel something?”
“I don’t know what it is, but there’s power inside.”
“Maybe this is the wrong place, then.”
“They could be using standard enchantments to protect it,” Jonathan said.
“Or they could just be trying to hide it from us,” Elizabeth said.
“I don’t know.” Matthew paused, straighte ning as he swept his gaze around him. “We have to be on edge for the possibility of a trap. I think this is right, as everything that we’ve heard has suggested this is where we need to be, but maybe it is a trap.”
“Do you want to go back?” Jonathan asked.
He knew the answer to this, but he wanted the others to hear, mostly so that there was no question about what they were doing, and no question about why they were doing it.
Matthew shook his head. “No. I don’t want to go back. Besides, if we do, we run the risk of missing out on this. Someone’s going to notice that we came through here. Once they do, this gets moved, and we lose our chance.”
Jonathan held Matthew’s gaze.
He understood the complexity of this operation, much like he understood the reason Matthew wanted to keep moving, but he also didn’t want the others to risk themselves if the reward wasn’t going to be worthwhile. And in this case, the reward was mostly in what Matthew might find—and be able to use.
“What do you mean, they will notice that we came through here?” Leland asked.
Jonathan leaned forward, looking at the door. He didn’t see any sign of enchantments worked into the simple, faded oak doorway, but it was possible that he wouldn’t see them. If there were any placed on the other side, they could be concealed, and he wouldn’t even know. “When we were coming along the street, I felt the presence of several different enchantments. I suspect they were triggers, little more than to detect whether anybody was coming through here, along with the time of day. We can hide within the facade, but it is a lot harder for us to conceal our presence to magic.”
“Even with these?” Leland asked, holding up his own bracelet. “I thought the whole purpose of these was to conceal us from those who can detect magic.”
“I don’t know that the enchantments were designed to detect magic, though,” Jonathan said. “Just somebody moving. And obscuring that is a far more complicated task. But now that we’re here, we’ll work quickly, and we can finish the job before anybody has a chance of discovering what we’re doing.”
“But if they know that someone is here, why wouldn’t they just wake up?” Leland asked.
“They might,” Matthew said. “Now, do you want to open this door, or do you want me to force my way through it?”
Leland looked over at Jonathan, as if waiting for confirmation that this was what he wanted to do, and Jonathan nodded. At this point, he wanted to get the job over with just as much as Matthew did, but for a different reason.
Leland glanced at Elizabeth. “What do you think?”
“I want to do this. Besides, if there are more of these,” she said, shaking her wrist, “think of how useful they might be in what we have to do.”
“We don’t have to do anything,” Leland said. “When we took care of Vileforn, we made sure of that.”
“We don’t have to, but it’s fun, isn’t it?”
Leland stepped forward, shaking his head and grumbling under his breath. He didn’t say anything loud enough for Jonathan to hear. His shoulders sagged a bit. As he neared the door, he hesitated.
Maybe it was time to reconsider their lockpick. Then again, maybe it was time to reconsider whether they even needed to be taking jobs like this. They had enough money… didn’t they?
Leland swept his hand along the surface of the door. He didn’t touch it, but he didn’t need to. Jonathan couldn’t feel anything from him, mostly because of the El’aras enchantment he was wearing, but he suspected that Leland was pushing out with his own magical connection and doing so in a way that permitted him to probe through the door.
When he was satisfied, he looked over at Matthew. “There is a series of locks here. More than I would’ve expected in this part of the city. Five, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Can you unlock them?”
“It’s going to be tricky. They’re all interconnected. I have to unlock all of them at the same time. I think if I had an enchanted key, this would be easier—”
“Can you unlock them?” Matthew asked again.
Leland glanced at Elizabeth, then Jonathan, before he nodded quickly. “I can do it. Just give me a moment.”
He started to mutter under his breath. Jonathan couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he had a distinct sense that Leland was irritated with the job. He had once used actual lockpick sets, but now he didn’t even bother. His magic was on the spectrum of sorcery, but it wasn’t exactly sorcery. And it wasn’t similar to what enchanters used. It was more akin to how Elizabeth formed her facades. Weak magic that had a highly specialized purpose. In the right person, and with the right experience, that power could be focused and harnessed so that it could continue to concentrate in a way that could be utilized. And Leland had practiced enough that he had begun to understand his own power to the extent that he no longer doubted what he was capable of. There had been a time when Jonathan had tried to push him, to encourage him to try to disrupt magic, though Leland had claimed that he was incapable of such feats. Now Leland no longer doubted or denied what he could do.
Jonathan leaned close to Matthew, and he lowered his voice. “Five locks?”
“Seems a bit excessive,” Matthew said.
“It’s more than what I expected here. Somebody really doesn’t want us to get in.”
“How sure are you that they care about us?” Matthew said. “This kind of thing is more likely to keep out them.”
And by them, Jonathan knew that Matthew implied the Society, but if it were the Society that whoever had built this lock wanted to restrict, there would be other defenses here.
Jonathan frowned, and he stepped closer to the door, moving away from Matthew.
“What is it?” Elizabeth asked.
“He’s probably right,” Jonathan said, waving his hand toward Matthew. “And I hate it when he is. I need to see if there’s anything else here we need to be careful with.”
“What sort of anything else?” Elizabeth asked.
“The sort of thing that would be tripped by magic.”
“You mean like the kind of magic Leland is using?”
Jonathan nodded. “That very same thing.”
He frowned as he considered. He was inside Elizabeth’s shielding, the facade itself holding around him, which had some benefits but also some complications. By being held inside the facade, he was caught in the power of the facade, and it restricted him, such that he couldn’t detect magic quite as well. Partly that came from his proximity to Elizabeth and her El’aras enchantments. Jonathan didn’t wear any El’aras enchantment of his own, but that was because he didn’t have any magic of his own. His ability was simply to detect the use of magic around him.
“I need you to constrict your facade,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Push it away from me. I’m going to slip along the street, testing for what might be here.”
“What about Leland?” she asked, pitching her voice to match his. She was a quick study.
“He can keep working. I don’t think that he’ll get through this that quickly.”
Then again, it was possible that Leland would be able to finish with the locks faster than Jonathan knew. Leland, like Elizabeth, had rapidly progressed with his skill as he had used it more and more. He’d become more than just competent. He’d become confident.
That was useful when taking jobs, but they had not been taking that many jobs lately, and Leland in particular had not been challenged. Elizabeth practiced her facades constantly, even using them through the streets, as if testing whether she could maintain the facade around her without anyone knowing that she was there. Leland didn’t have the same opportunities to practice.
“Give me a signal if he’s getting close,” Jonathan said.
“What about Matthew?”
“He’s going to stay with you. If anything happens, I want him to make sure that you’re safe.”
