The Decoy Princess

by Dawn Cook

  The knife thrust belligerently into my hand was warm from his body. He had kept it. I had thought he had sold it to buy a horse. “Thank you,” I said sharply. “I thought Kavenlow searched you.”

  “That’s what he thought, too.”

  I frowned, tucking my knife into the wide sash of my dress where it belonged. The weight of it felt comfortable. “Your knives are with my handmaiden. I’ll get them when I can.”

  “I would appreciate that.”

  We continued. Confused and angry, I walked beside him, Garrett before us. Jeck took a deep breath as we passed a window, glancing up and down the hall. There were sentries at either end, but they were too far away to hear. “Has Kavenlow explained to you about your—hands?” he asked, and I started, shocked from my anger at the shift in topics.

  I said nothing, looking at Garrett in concern as I came to a wide-eyed halt. Jeck stopped with me, and when Garrett continued Jeck pulled him back, pushing him roughly into the wall. The young prince’s eyes narrowed, but he stayed put.

  Frowning, Jeck took off his foolish-looking hat, his gaze drifting over my shoulder to the sentries coming to a halt out of easy earshot. “It’s just that . . .” He hesitated. “Oh, to hell with it,” he muttered. My eyes widened as he made a fist. Drawing it back, he swung it at Garrett with a small grunt, as smooth and sweet as honey.

  I gasped. The prince saw it coming but had no time to react.

  Jeck’s fist smashed into his chin. Garrett’s head snapped back and hit the wall with a hollow thunk. Shocked, I gathered my skirts and stepped back as the royal crumpled.

  Satisfaction heavy on Jeck, he shook his hand free of the pain. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

  My gaze rose to the guards jogging our way. “It’s all right,” I called, and they hesitated. “We’re fine. Prince Garrett is fine. Thank you.” They came to an uncertain halt. “Go on back.”

  Laughing among themselves, they returned to a respectful distance, gossiping. I faced Jeck squarely, a quiver in my middle as I waited to hear what he didn’t want Garrett to know.

  Jeck rubbed his hand, meeting my gaze from under his shock of black hair. “Tess, Kavenlow is your master. And that he cares for you is obvious. But he . . .” His stance shifted from foot to foot, and his shoulders hunched. “Has he told you why your hands hum?” he asked.

  “He . . .” I hesitated. “He said I returned from the dead with the punta’s ability to heal.”

  He nodded, a tension easing in him. “Did he also tell you that you can kill with them?”

  I took a step back, frightened. Seeing my cold face, Jeck nodded as if I had confirmed something. “No. He hasn’t,” he said.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I demanded, my stomach light and my knees weak.

  He leaned close, his brown eyes carrying a sly anticipation that settled over me like a chill. “I’m saying Kavenlow is your master, but nothing says it has to stay that way.”

  Shocked he dared make his offer a second time, I drew back. “Kavenlow is my teacher. I am young, Captain. Not stupid.”

  I turned with a flounce, gasping when he grabbed my upper arm. “Wait,” he demanded.

  I froze in fear as I heard the snick of steel from leather. It wasn’t Jeck but the sentries at the end of the hall. Swallowing hard, I tugged free of Jeck’s loose grip and waved the guards back. I was shaking inside, but if I was going to have this conversation, I wanted them close.

  Jeck took a step from me, darting a glance at the sentries. “Tess, hear me out,” he said softly as Garrett lay slumped between us. “You’re young, and raw with talent. I can see why Kavenlow took you as a student. But you’re just that. A student. What I’m proposing isn’t uncommon. Apprentices are wooed from their original teachers more often than not. It’s hard to trust the man who continually poisons you.”

  My anger faltered at the truth of what he was saying. Seeing it, his brown eyes probed mine. “That’s why Kavenlow didn’t have you recognized for so long. Your high tolerance to venom makes you extremely valuable. But, Tess, he can’t teach you to heal with your hands. He didn’t even recognize you had the ability, did he.”

  It wasn’t a question, and he read my answer in that I was unable to look at him.

  The tips of Jeck’s black boots shifted under my gaze. “The force you can direct through you swings both ways, and willynilly experimentation is likely to get you or the one you are trying to heal killed.”

  I felt a stab of fear and I looked up. I wondered if that was why Kavenlow had been so worried when he told me why my hands hummed.

  “I can teach you things he can’t, Tess,” Jeck said, his low voice running through me like ice in a river. “Things he won’t. I know he has high ideas and plans for conquest by commerce. But he’s wrong. The world doesn’t change that quickly. Be my apprentice, and I will teach you things Kavenlow can’t—or won’t.”

  “Kavenlow knows what he’s doing,” I said, but even I could hear the doubt in it.

  Jeck smiled, straightening to look over my shoulder. “Your loyalty suits you. But ask him . . . ask him if what I say is true. He has never been honest with you with about his past—your past. It’s ugly, Tess, the things he’s done, the atrocities he’s capable of. He has outright lied to you. I never have. I never will.”

  My eyes fell from his as a seed of doubt wedged itself deep, buried under my denial.

  “While you’re in Misdev, let me at least teach you how to heal with your hands,” he continued. “I’m sure once you know enough, you’ll decide I’m right and stay. If not, return to Kavenlow.”

  It sounded too easy. But then I realized I could take him for all his knowledge and bring it back to Kavenlow.

  A pleased expression was in Jeck’s eyes when I met them. “You just had a thought to take what you could from me and leave,” he murmured.

  Fear washed through me, shortly followed by a flush. Jeck chuckled, making me feel foolish. “I’m better at this than you, Tess,” he said. “Come and learn from me with the sole intent to steal, and I guarantee I’ll come out of the arrangement better than you.”

  Though my knees were weak, pride narrowed my eyes. “You’re mistaken, Captain Jeck. I accept your offer. Teach me what you will, but I will stay Kavenlow’s apprentice.”

  There was a scuff from behind us, and we both spun. My hand was at my topknot, and Jeck’s was tucked behind his jerkin. It was Kavenlow, his venom-induced skills allowing him to get this close without alerting either of us. He was better than both of us combined.

  “What are you two doing in the middle of the hallway?” he demanded, ignoring Garrett slumped unconscious on the floor.

  Squinting in the bright light from the window, I looked at Jeck. “He asked me to be his apprentice,” I said, feeling vindicated when Jeck clenched his jaw and his eye began to twitch.

  Tension pulled Kavenlow tight. “Chull bait!” he muttered. “You couldn’t wait, could you,” he said, his face red behind his salt-and-pepper beard. “You think you can come here and charm my apprentice from me? She spat in your face, didn’t she?”

  Jeck crouched, and grunting in effort, he slung Garrett over his shoulder. “She said she would take me as her instructor,” he said, puffing as he rose to a stand and put his hat back on.

  Kavenlow gripped my arm in sudden fear. “Tess!”

  Face warm, I frowned at Captain Jeck. “I said nothing of the kind,” I replied hotly, walking almost sideways as I followed Jeck down the hall as he carried Prince Garrett. “I said I’d let him teach me how to heal with my hands while serving as ambassador. I’m using Captain Jeck, and he knows it.”

  Jeck chuckled, and Kavenlow went white. “Tess, no,” he said urgently as he paced beside me. “That decides it. You aren’t going. He’ll wring what he can from you, then use it to take Costenopolie. That is, if he doesn’t outright kill you!”

  “He won’t kill me. He wants me to be his apprentice,” I said, not caring that Jeck
was listening. “And he can’t watch me all the time. When will another opportunity to walk freely in King Edmund’s halls come again? Let me go, Kavenlow. I’ll be all right.”

  “No,” Kavenlow said, sounding as if he had bit the word off, it was so sharp.

  “But I want to go,” I insisted. “Kavenlow, let me go!”

  Under the weight of Garrett, Jeck laughed breathlessly.

  “What the devil are you laughing about?” Kavenlow asked, his eyes angry.

  Jeck shifted Garrett to a more comfortable position and started down the hall. “Let me go. Let me go,” he said in a high falsetto. “That’s all she has been saying since I met her.” He eyed Kavenlow from under his hat. “Let her go. Or don’t you trust your own work?”

  Hunched and muttering obscenities, Kavenlow strode down the hallway between us, the guards trailing behind. “I have a week before Garrett goes back,” Kavenlow said. “You are not leaving with Captain Jeck, Tess.”

  I said nothing, smug in the knowledge that Contessa would listen to me before him. I was going. I would learn how to heal with my hands if nothing else. The other thing—the killing—I wasn’t so sure about.

  Duncan’s raggedy silhouette appeared at the distant end of the hallway. Hands moving expressively, he talked with a sentry until the soldier gestured toward us. Duncan followed his gaze, an eager stance coming over him. “Tess?” he called from the top of the hall, “Do you want to go get your horses? We have a few hours before your sister’s coronation.”

  I looked from Kavenlow to Jeck, feeling the weight of an apple in my pocket. I wasn’t Costenopolie’s princess—I was Kavenlow’s apprentice—and I had a present to collect. “Yes,” I called out as I slipped from them both and went to walk the streets with Duncan, free for what was probably the first time in my life. “I’m coming.”