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The Stray Spirit
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The Stray Spirit
LUTESONG BOOK ONE
R.K. ASHWICK
The Stray Spirit
Copyright © 2022 R.K. Ashwick
RK Ashwick Books
rkashwick.com
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. To request permissions, contact [email protected].
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ISBN (Paperback): 979-8-9855819-1-1
ISBN (E-Book): 979-8-9855819-2-8
LCCN: 2022906466
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First edition August 2022.
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Edited by Kim Halstead
Cover art by Andrew Davis
Map & Illustrations by Lucia Vázquez de Prada
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
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Want More?
Acknowledgments
About the Author
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
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Want More?
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter
One
As a bard, Emry was supposed to enjoy festivals.
And he did, most of the time. He loved the food, fried crisp and dripping with honey. The dancing, all bouncing lines and joyful circles. And above all, he loved the music—the warm echoes of a song in a packed tavern, filling the cracks in the crowd until nothing remained but the melody and the souls listening to it.
But his career had never hinged on such a song before, and so on this, the first night of Sada, he rushed up to the Red Rat tavern and knocked on the door. Heavy footsteps and a short, impatient huff answered from the other side.
“Set the flowers to the left,” a stout voice said—distant, as if calling over a shoulder. “No, your other left, you—here, I’ll just do it.”
As the footsteps stomped away from the door, Emry wiped his sweaty palms on his waistcoat and took in the facade of the Red Rat. Like the rest of the plaza, the proud stone building before him shone with festival cheer: white flower garlands, gold banners, an elegant wreath of greenery on the door. But the tavern’s exterior was nothing compared to the stage within, nor the crowds it would attract that night. Emry shifted the lute strapped to his back. He couldn’t care less about the decorations or drinks. It was the stage he needed.
Then the voice behind the door returned, shorter and gruffer. “There. Now don’t touch it. And don’t touch that. Actually—don’t touch anything.” The door finally swung open to reveal Tilla, the owner of the Red Rat, the bags under her eyes hanging as heavy as Sada banners.
“Tilla!” Emry smiled wide. “Happy Sada. I wanted to follow up on—”
Tilla rolled her eyes and began to close the door. “I don’t have any openings.”
“But”—Emry dropped his smile in a panic and leaned forward—“you said last week you’d have one for me.”
Another huff, this one more impatient than the last. “That was before André stopped by with flowers and a pouch of twenty gold.” She crossed her broad arms over her apron, where a little red rat was stitched into the corner. “What have you got?”
“I’ve got, um…” Emry patted his pockets, knowing full well he had two coppers and some lint if he were lucky. “I’ve got…”
“Happy Sada, Mr. Karic.”
“Wait!”
The door slammed shut, and Emry slouched away from it. He enjoyed most festivals, he truly did.
Sada was no longer one of them.
“You don’t know what you’re missing!” a voice behind him shouted, its sharp edge not directed at him, but toward an inn down the street. “He’s loads better than whatever two-bit musician you’ve got in your lineup tonight, I can promise you that!”
“Oh no.” Emry’s heart caught in his throat, and he turned to find a young woman with straight black hair and dark eyes staring down a neighboring innkeeper. He began a stiff speed-walk toward her immediately. “Oh no, oh no.”
“And another thing!” Stef raised a finger. Emry picked up his pace. He knew he shouldn’t have recruited her for this. What on earth was he thinking? “You wouldn’t know good music if it slapped you on the—”
“Stef!” He forced another smile her way. “It’s all right. We should go.”
Her gaze lost none of its fervor as it swung round to him. “It’s not all right—he promised you a spot!”
“I did no such thing!” the innkeeper said. Emry gritted his teeth. That was distinctly a lie, and all three of them knew it. But clearly, Sada wasn’t the festival of keeping promises.
“We’ll be going now. Happy Sada!” He rushed through the words before Stef could open her mouth, and carefully steered her to the edge of the mid-city plaza, away from the line of taverns and inns. “Stef, I appreciate the help, I really do, but I’m not trying to get blacklisted here—”
“Sorry, sorry,” she grumbled, then gathered her skirts and sat on a crate of garlands. She peeked into the crate, plucked a white flower from its depths, and nestled it behind her ear. “S’not like that place was worth it, anyway. Their stage is small and their beer is awful.”
Emry nodded along and sa
t on a crate opposite her. The sentiment was kind, but it didn’t matter how small the stage was. It was a stage in mid-city Tazlo, on the first night of the new year’s festival, in full view of the Guild. If he didn’t book a spot tonight, after three years of effort…
“Emry? Stef?”
Emry craned his neck to find the source of the call. It was difficult at first, searching between the carriages, streamers, and gawking tourists—but before long, a man with orange curls and a deep blue Academy coat extricated himself from the crowd, breathing out apologies with every step.
“Excuse me—pardon me, so sorry—ah, there you are!” He stumbled up and grinned at his friends. “Any luck?”
Emry shook his head, and Stef gave an indistinct grumble.
The man deflated. “I’m sorry.”
Emry’s mood sank further. He was already disappointing himself today—he didn’t need to disappoint his roommate, too. “It’s fine, Marko.”
“It’s not fine—they promised you a spot!” Marko gestured to the taverns, his round glasses slipping down his nose.
“That’s what I said!” Stef huffed and handed him another flower from the crate. “Here. Stole this just for you.”
“Thanks, love.” Marko kissed her on the cheek and twirled the flower stem between his fingers. Between his pensive frown and his long Academy coat, he looked every bit the thoughtful student. “And you’re sure all of mid-city is booked?”
“All of it.” Emry counted off the disappointments on his calloused fingers. “André’s troupe bribed the Red Rat. The inn next door gave their stage to their cousin—”
“Who sounds like a dying cow,” Stef muttered.
“Stef.”
“No, no. She’s right.” Marko nodded across the plaza. “What about the renovated alehouse? They’re new, they need someone fresh on the stage.”
Emry’s ire flared. “They said…” He flexed the fingers he had been counting on, then set down his hand and sighed. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Stef looked at Marko. “They don’t want a northerner.”
“They don’t want a northerner!” Emry burst, launching out of his seat. “Can you believe that? As if they’ve ever been to Senne. As if they’ve ever seen any of the stages up there—!” Stef giggled, and he set his hands on his hips. “What?”
“Your accent.” She tried and failed to swallow more giggles. “It comes out when you’re angry.”
His anger melted, and he twisted his mouth to keep from smiling. “Give me that.” Before she could react, he plucked the flower out of her hair and stuck it into his own dark curls.
“Excuse you!” Stef slapped Emry’s arm, then tugged on Marko’s sleeve. “Marko, are you witnessing this thievery?”
But Marko wasn’t paying attention to their petty squabble—he had twisted to look back out at the square, where two swirls of commotion had caught his eye.
The first was just ahead of them—a small huddle of musicians crowded around the stoop of the Red Rat, murmuring to each other and pointing. A rock settled in Emry’s gut. That was André’s troupe, down twenty gold and up one Sada opportunity.
The second bit of commotion was what the troupe was pointing to, what everyone else in the square was gawking at. It was the entire reason Emry needed that mid-city stage.
“Is that…?” Stef stood up, her hand still on Marko’s arm. Marko nodded.
“Ella Sorman,” he breathed. “That’s her.”
Emry rose to his feet to watch the woman descend from her carriage. Against the stark white Sada banners, she was a visual commotion in her own right. Her bright Avikan kaftan dragged along the cobblestones, and her brown fingers sparkled with gemstones. As she swept off toward the Lamb’s Ear Inn—her performance space for all three nights of the festival—the golden pegs of her lute flashed in the sunset.
“How much do you think that cost?” Marko asked, almost whispering out of reverence. “All that gold?”
“I’m sure the Auric Guild covers it,” Emry murmured. Gold was the music guild’s symbol, after all—and as the oldest and brightest of its members, Ella Sorman surely merited a great deal of it.
As the woman of the hour disappeared into the inn, Emry swallowed. She would be one of many Guild members descending into Tazlo that night—and with their descent, every single musician in mid-city now had the chance to be noticed by them. Every bribing bard, every dying-cow lutenist.
Everyone except for Emry Karic.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.” Stef looped an arm around both boys’ elbows and led them away, wrinkling her nose at the laughter spilling out of the Red Rat as they passed. “We’ll figure something out.”
They escaped to a tiny, tree-shaded overlook above the square, affording themselves an excellent view of both the crowds and the waterfall plunging the length of the city. Emry leaned against the railing and let the mist settle on his tawny, freckled skin. In mid-city’s eagerness for Sada opulence, they had swathed even this spot in festival regalia: golden banners on the balustrade, white petals on the ground, flower garlands hanging from the tree.
The gaiety of the space only made his situation more depressing.
“I don’t think I have a choice,” he said as Marko leaned against the railing next to him. “I’ll have to play at the Dancing Rabbit tonight.”
“What, all the way up-city?” Stef toyed with one of the pennants, its embroidered sheaf of wheat twisting under her touch. It was the symbol of the goddess Hara, plastered all about the city to attract luck for the new year. Emry could almost feel the emblem laughing at him. “Isn’t there anything farther down?”
Emry tensed. “The stages are all too close to the caves. I can’t risk it.”
Stef frowned at him. “Your family won’t be in town, not on Sada.”
“I can’t risk it, Stef.” Just the thought of it made his heart pound in his ears, until thinking of the remote, up-city stage almost soothed him. “There’s nothing else to do. I’ll go to Bron at the Dancing Rabbit and tell him I—”
The ground jolted underneath them, cutting off his words. Stef pitched forward with a yelp, and Emry grabbed her arm to steady her.
“You all right?” he called over the rumbling. She nodded, but he hardly registered it—for above him, the leaves in the tree were glowing white, as if they had trapped a patch of starlight. “What in Weir’s name is this?”
“Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon!” Marko said as he helped Stef to the railing, and for a moment, the three of them froze there in wide, tense stances. Out in the street, passersby clutched at street lamps and each other for support. Streamers and garlands shivered and dropped from their perches. One such bloom dropped past Emry’s nose, down to his boots—and withered before his eyes.
“What the—?” He turned to Marko, but before his friend could respond, everything stopped. The quake, the rumbling. Even the light in the tree winked out, as if it had never been there.
Once he was sure everything had settled, Emry slowly released his grip on the railing and shifted it to the lute strap crossing his chest. “Have you seen that before?” he asked, his eyes drifting up to the tree. Of the flowers that remained there, a scattering of them rattled in the breeze, as browned and shriveled as the one at his feet.
“’Course I have,” Marko said, brushing flower petals off his sleeves with a casual shrug. “Saw it once before, when I first moved here. Did you not get surges in Senne?”
Marko wasn’t the only one unshaken by the encounter. Stef was smoothing out her skirts, and out in the street, the passersby had resumed their normal flow. Their chatter was louder than before, but still casual, more curious than afraid.
“Surges?” Emry repeated. “That’s what that was?”
“They’re a southern thing,” Stef said, her central accent clipping the words for emphasis. “Just harmless earthquakes, that’s all they are. They pass by every five years or so. You’ve been in Tazlo for what, four years?”
“Three.”
“Ah. Makes sense you haven’t seen one, then.” She picked a lingering petal out of Marko’s hair and tossed it at Emry. “Hope another one doesn’t hit while you’re performing tonight. Wouldn’t be fun trying to play through that, would it?”
Emry grimaced and shifted the lute on his back. Fun didn’t sound quite right. Bad luck sounded more accurate, and far more in line with how his day was going.
“Well, I’m going to head to the Dancing Rabbit.” He sighed and faced the steep road heading up-city. “You two enjoy yourselves down here, all right?”
They both took a step toward him.
“Down here?” Stef snorted. “We’re coming with you.”
The Stray Spirit