Book Blitz and Giveaway! CITY OF MASKS by Ashley Capes (Bone Mask Trilogy #1)

Chapter 1

The chill of prison bars against his temple did little to ease Notch’s headache. Decades of dank didn’t help either, nor snoring from another cell, where someone was impersonating a bear. Or dying. In the poor light it was hard to tell.Notch squinted. Noon sun barely crept through the small, grated windows on his side of the building. Even cells across the way were shadowed. Sunlight, in addition to a piece of bread and some water, were high points, while the straw ‘bed’ and stale body odour of criminals were typically unpleasant. Worse places than Anaskar City prison existed. At least he hadn’t been beaten yet – a twinge in his shoulder reminded him how much some guards enjoyed their work.

His cellmate raised his voice and Notch turned. The man had probably been speaking for some time; his drawn face was expectant. Years of imprisonment had washed out his Anaskari tan.

Notch leaned against the bars. “What is it, Bren?”

“Did you kill her, truly?”

“No.”

Bren nodded. “Innocent then.” He knelt in the corner, his fine coat of blue long since gone to grime, his face pressed against the stone wall. “Listen to this one.” He scratched at an armpit with some vigour. “It’s hard to see but I think it says ‘death to the Shields of Anaskar’ and it’s got a signature, but I can’t make it out.”

Notch grunted. Nothing special for a convicted man to write; since waking on a pile of old blankets that morning and meeting his cellmate, he’d heard a dozen similar sentiments. Through Bren’s meandering introduction, Notch had winced, probing his body. Both arms and chest were heavily bruised and his head so fragile he wouldn’t be surprised to learn a wagon rolled over it last night. Possibly twice. He wasn’t drunk, though the smell of ale was on his breath. One damn drink, that was all.

And there was blood.

His leathers and tunic were splattered a dark red. Not his own blood, the City Vigil told him as much when they hauled him off the street, as if he couldn’t figure that much out. But whose? His own memory was unreliable, which made no sense. He hadn’t been drunk, truly drunk, since right after the war. When he bore another name. A name he left on some tavern floor, after making a convincing go of drinking the memories away. A good bath did for the sand on his body, but the blood-soaked sand in his mind? No amount of ale had washed that away.

And now the Vigil were telling him he’d been so intoxicated he had to be dragged to the prison?

Unlikely.

“The Shields probably caught him doing something bad, that’s why he wrote this,” Bren continued, tapping on the wall. His too-bright eyes looked up at Notch.

“I’d say so.”

“Like us, Notch. We’ve done bad things, we have.”

“So you keep saying.”

Bren laughed, its shrillness cutting through Notch’s skull. If it hadn’t been unsettling, Notch would have thumped him, but there was something wrong with Bren. Any fool could see that.

“The guards say you’ve got a few days. That they can’t hang you sooner, because there’s too many in the queue. Waiting to hang.”

“Thanks, Bren.”

A moment of quiet fell between them. Distant voices drifted from beyond the prison walls. Notch clenched his jaw. He should have been out there. On his way to another job. The Blue Lady, a fat merchant ship, would have sailed with most of his possessions on board.

His father’s sword.

No chance of seeing it again. He wrapped his hands around cold bars and squeezed.

“The guards say it too, the guards say you killed her,” Bren said, unperturbed.

“I know.”

He crept forward. “So?”

“So I don’t remember.” He frowned. “But I wouldn’t harm a child.”