by Lisa Shearin
Imala Kalis was the director of the goblin secret service. Like Tam, she wanted the prince in and the king out, but nothing would put the brakes on a coup faster than the future king and his chief mage drowning.
Tam came to the surface, pulling in as much air as his lungs could hold, his arm locked around Chigaru’s shoulders. The prince appeared to be out cold.
“Pakil. Zukat. Help the duke.” Imala snapped and two goblins jumped. Literally.
Tam twisted in the water, and I saw it.
A crossbow bolt sticking out of Chigaru’s shoulder. The explosion didn’t throw him in the water; an assassin’s shot did. The explosion must have made the prince drop his shield, just before that bolt arrived. Talk about bad timing.
The crowd on the waterfront was getting bigger by the second. Armed goblins were stalking through the crowd, looking for a hit man that they weren’t going to find. Anyone hired by Sathrik to take out his baby brother would have enough sense to be long gone by now. Once he found out that his shot just took Chigaru in the shoulder, he’d be back for another try. But for now, he’d have ditched the crossbow, and was probably having a drink in a dockside dive.
Tam was climbing a ladder that extended from the water to the dock with Chigaru limp over his shoulder. The prince was almost as tall as Tam, and all lean muscle. Yet Tam was climbing that ladder like Chigaru weighed no more than a child.
Imala turned toward the yacht that was now being tied to the dock. “We need a healer!” For such a tiny woman, she had no problem making herself heard over the chaos.
A mage ran forward, leaping like a cat over the distance between the yacht’s deck and the dock. He saw me and his lips pulled back from a pair of very impressive fangs in a snarl. Judging from his robes, he was one of the mages I’d played boat tug-of-war with; judging from that snarl, he recognized me, too.
Mage and healer, and both pissed. He clearly wanted to do something about it, but he had a job to do first. He glared at me and then knelt beside Chigaru, turning all of his attention to the prince. The bolt had taken Chigaru in the right shoulder just below the collar bone. I remembered Chigaru as being left handed. It wasn’t going to kill him and it wasn’t going to slow him down. Much.
“He’s not breathing,” Tam growled.
What?
Imala pushed her way through to him, while Tam quickly rolled the prince over and worked on getting the harbor water out of Chigaru’s stomach. No water came out of the prince’s mouth. The bolt hadn’t hit anything vital . . . so how did . . .
Maybe all the assassin needed to do was get the bolt in.
“Tam, poison!” I yelled and tried to push my way through the crowd to him. Phaelan was right behind me. Most people got out of my way; the rest I shoved out of my way. Four needlessly large goblin guards rushed in to stop us. There’s not really a polite way to lift someone off their feet and remove them from an area, and these guys didn’t even try.
The goblin mage/healer glared at me. “She pushed the boat into us.”
Instantly, every goblin on that dock was looking at me like I’d sprouted two horns and a tail. Mob mentality promptly took over. I felt the growls of the two goblins who were holding me clear down to my toenails. They clenched their hands around my arms like they were getting a better grip to tear me apart. Phaelan was on the receiving end of the same treatment.
And I couldn’t say a damned thing to prove that I wasn’t a prince killer.
The weather wizard controlling the boats had probably fished himself out of the harbor and was long gone by now. The pilots were blown up so there was no proof that they were Khrynsani, not elves. And to top it off, Chigaru’s people were well aware that I didn’t like him, and he didn’t trust me.
It was too much and too complicated for anyone to believe.
“No one move!” Tam roared. That order was intended for every goblin on the dock and yacht, but Tam’s dark eyes were leveled squarely on our over-eager guards. Their grip lightened. A little.
Imala knelt beside the prince, quickly pulling his long, wet hair away from his neck and throat. She hissed a curse, and pulled a tiny dart from the back of the prince’s neck with her gloved hand. She quickly but carefully examined the wound, the dart, and lifted back one of the prince’s eyelids.
“Baelusa,” she told Tam.
I had no idea what baelusa was, but Imala’s glare and Tam’s spat curse told me it meant plenty to them.
The goblin healer knelt beside the prince, his healing magic a living, pulsing thing. He placed one hand over Chigaru’s chest, holding the other a few inches above the prince’s mouth. A spiral tattoo on the back of both hands darkened from blood red to almost black. I felt the steady strength of air being pulled into Chigaru’s lungs and being pushed out from his nose and mouth.
The harbor around us was chaos, but no one on the dock moved or spoke.
Suddenly, the goblin prince gasped and started coughing.
Tam’s glare went from the guards to the goblins gathered on the yacht’s deck—the prince’s courtiers, personal guards, and mages. Imala’s eyes quickly took in the faces of everyone on that deck, storing them for later questioning.
One of them had just tried to assassinate their prince.
That dart had taken the prince in the back of the neck. The person who fired it had to have been standing behind him. Every goblin on Chigaru’s yacht had been standing behind him. One of his own tried to poison him. Khrynsani disguised as elves tried to blow him up. And an unknown assassin armed with a crossbow wasn’t about to be left out of the fun and took his own shot.
Someone—or several someones—wanted Chigaru really dead. Blown up, shot, and poisoned all in less than ten seconds. I think the goblin prince just set a new assassination attempt record.
Imala stood and carefully wrapped the dart in a small square of cloth. That done, she turned to our guards, who were still dutifully not tearing us in two. “Release them,” she told them. “Now!” she snapped when they didn’t immediately obey.
They did as ordered. As I straightened my doublet, I noted with satisfaction that she memorized their faces for later, too.
So there.
“Raine,” Imala called with a pointed glance back at the fancy goblin courtiers on the yacht. “Would you be so kind as to tell me who fired this dart?”
Imala knew I was a seeker, and that finding or simply identifying someone based on their connection to an object was one of my best tricks. Phaelan and I walked over to her and not one goblin dared to stop us. I carefully accepted the cloth-wrapped dart from her.
I glanced at the healer. “When he removes that bolt, I might be able to tell you who notched it.”
The head of the goblin secret service gave me a dazzling smile complete with dimple. “You’ll have the eternal gratitude of the goblin people.”
I knew of at least two goblin people who wouldn’t be grateful—the ones whose faces I’d be describing to Imala.
As Tam stood up, one of the goblin guards picked up his robe from the dock and respectfully draped it around Tam’s shoulders. The robe fell past the heels of his boots, and even sopping wet, Tam looked like a prince himself. Though Tam would have been the kind of prince who could wake a sleeping princess at fifty paces. Just because we weren’t involved didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate what was there in all of its tall, silvery-skinned, black-eyed wicked sexiness.
Imala nodded to her pair of dripping-wet agents who moved to prevent anyone from leaving the prince’s yacht.
“They were only doing their jobs, Raine,” Tam said, his voice low. “Something blows up and a Benares is close by.” He glanced at Phaelan. “Make that two.”
Phaelan snorted. “They do their jobs too damned well. Raine was trying to stop that boat, not push it.”
“And I had it until Chigaru’s mages horned in on my spell,” I said. “There wouldn’t have been an explosion if they’d let me finish.”
“Let you finish him off!” the healer s
narled.
“Chatar!” Tam snapped. “She is not at fault. That will be all.”
The goblin thought about saying something, and decided to do as ordered. I knew he wouldn’t forget me, and for my own health, I memorized his face, too.
Tam’s hand was on my elbow, steering me away from the prince, his trigger-happy guards, and spell-happy mage. Phaelan gave the healer an I’m-not-through-with-you-yet look and followed us.
“You can understand his animosity, Raine,” Tam said. “Those pilots were elves.”
“Those pilots were Khrynsani,” I shot back. “Two of their assassins with glamours.”
Tam scowled. “What?”
“You didn’t see them when they dropped their glamours?”
“No. They were too close to the yacht.”
Oh, freaking marvelous. Even the goblins thought they were being attacked by elves. No wonder Chigaru’s healer wanted to take my head off. The Khrynsani hadn’t succeeded in blowing Chigaru up, and the assassin hadn’t shot a fatal hole through him, but the damage had been more than done. Within the hour, every goblin on the island would believe that a pair of elven suicide bombers had tried to assassinate their prince. Regardless of which Mal’Salin brother they were loyal to, more than a few goblins would see it as their duty to start sending elves to slabs at the city morgue.
With an enraged shout and some decidedly un-regal swearing, Chigaru expressed his displeasure at that healer/ mage removing the bolt. For what I could see, the healer had cut away the prince’s leather doublet, revealing body armor underneath. Well, at least the prince wasn’t completely stupid and had taken some precautions. The bolt hadn’t penetrated far. I turned and looked at the shoreline.
There were a lot of civilians who didn’t need to be here, and entirely too few city watchmen and Guardians. With the exception of his own people, Chigaru had sailed into Mid’s harbor with no protection whatsoever.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone he was arriving early?”
Tam lowered his voice even further. “I didn’t know,” he said barely moving his lips. Impressive. He clearly didn’t want anyone to know that little piece of information. Tam shot an exasperated look in the prince’s direction. “I didn’t know until Imala told me, and she didn’t know until half an hour ago.”
Phaelan laughed, a short bark. “The crazy bastard’s trying to commit suicide.”
I looked at the prince and almost smiled. “Someone’s going to get a lecture.”
“And then some,” Tam promised. “I know what he was trying to do—and I’ll be having a long talk with His Highness about never doing that again.”
“Playing assassin bait?”
Tam nodded once. He wasn’t looking at the shoreline; he was looking at the windows of the buildings within crossbow-sniper distance of the yacht. There were entirely too many of them, and the shooter was long gone, probably already planning his next attempt.
There couldn’t be one.
If Chigaru died, the hopes of preventing the goblins from inciting a war died with him.
The goblin king wanted that war and he wanted the Saghred’s power to ensure he’d win it. More than a few elven government power brokers wanted the rock for the same reason. Prince Chigaru might not have sense enough not to display himself like a two-legged pincushion, but he drew the line at using the Saghred. He knew the danger and he’d rejected the rock.
That was why it was in my best interests to keep him alive by telling Imala Kalis exactly who wanted him dead.
A guard approached Tam, carrying something wrapped in a piece of cloth. “The bolt, Your Grace.”
Tam took and unwrapped it. Black steel with a red band around the shaft below the fletching. Armor piercing. Our assassin wasn’t taking any chances. Chigaru starting to fall into the harbor a split second before that bolt was fired was the only reason he was alive right now. Tam closely studied the bolt, but was careful not to touch it, then he handed it to me.
“Did the healer touch it with his bare hands?” I asked.
“Probably.”
I looked at the healer, and found him glaring at me again. That one was determined to be a problem. That was fine; I could be a problem, too. I met his glare and raised him a solemn promise. It wasn’t good to pick fights with people who thought you were in cahoots with a pair of suicide bombers, but he’d started it. Childish, I know. But I wasn’t going to be intimidated, and Chigaru’s goblins needed to know that from the start. Though it wasn’t the best way to convince them that I was on their side.
I looked away from the healer. I was taking the professional high road. I could always memorize his psychic scent from the bolt for later.
I turned my full attention to the bolt in my hands. As a seeker by trade, I’d done a lot of work for the city watch in Mermeia, where I’d lived until three months ago. More than once I’d been called to a crime scene only to find that the object I most needed to use had been handled by nearly every watcher on-site, contaminating it and rendering it useless for seeking. It was their emotional imprint I’d get, not the perpetrator’s. So the only person I’d find was the stupid watcher who’d last picked it up.
I should get three presences from the bolt: the healer, the prince, and the assassin. If any more than that had touched it in the last few hours, that could be a problem, but there was only one way to find out.
Tam glanced around. “You need someplace quiet.”
“At least where everyone isn’t looking at me like I’m the assassin.”
Phaelan pointed at somewhere behind me. “How about over there?”
I turned and looked. The office for the harbormaster’s men responsible for this dock. That’d work. I made for it, and found my way blocked by a big, burly, and belligerent dock worker.
“Sorry, ma’am. That’s for harbor personnel only.”
I didn’t think he looked sorry in the least, but he was about to be.
As soon as I opened my mouth to say something I probably shouldn’t, a familiar presence and voice came from right behind me.
“She’s on official Guardian business. Step aside.”
Mychael.
Suddenly all the chaos got less chaotic—at least people got a heck of a lot more polite.
A tall elven warrior wearing full battle armor tended to have that effect.
Mychael Eiliesor was the paladin and commander of the Conclave Guardians, the most elite magical fighting force in the seven kingdoms, protector of the Conclave of Sorcerers, and the top lawman on the Isle of Mid—which essentially meant if it happened on this island, it was his business.
A few weeks ago, we’d become each other’s business.
Not many people knew about that, and considering who and what I was, and who Mychael was, that information needed to stay as private as our activities.
“We need to talk,” Mychael said. No expression, no hint of what might be going on behind those tropical sea blue eyes, just four words that rarely meant anything good.
I’d just played tug-of-war with five goblin mages and a boat full of explosives. It’d been the first of three assassination attempts on a visiting goblin royal before he even set foot on dry land.
Oh yeah, Mychael definitely wanted to chat.
He looked at the bolt I had in my hands. “Can you find who fired that?”
“If I can get somewhere quiet enough to hear myself think, I should.”
Mychael glanced back at the prince and his wall of goblin muscle. “His healer seems to have things well in hand.”
“He’s working fast so he can come after me.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing.”
Mychael nodded toward the harbormaster’s office. That had to be the best suggestion of the whole day. There had to be at least one chair in there, and after all the magic I’d just slung around, I needed to sit down. We went in and Mychael closed the door. The only furniture was a table, a couple of chairs, and a cot in one corner. The cot was tempting but the shee
ts looked like if they’d ever been washed, it’d been in the harbor. With a groan of pleasure, I sank into the nearest chair and treated myself to closing my eyes.
“Are you all right?”
I opened one eye. “What? No ‘why are you in the middle of an angry mob?’ ”
Mychael almost thought about smiling. “The answers to some questions are obvious. There’s an explosion, then you and Phaelan are in the middle of an angry mob. Obvious.” He took another chair for himself. “That and I had men watching the waterfront this morning.”
I did smile. “I thought I detected a tail.”
“As you should have since you weren’t supposed to leave the citadel without an armed escort—and I told them not to bother hiding.”
“I had a meeting,” I said. “A private meeting. One that wouldn’t have been private if I’d been leading a parade of Guardians.”
“Did your meeting have anything to do with that explosion?”
“Not directly.” I hesitated. “It was about our family project.”
Mychael knew exactly what I was talking about. I’d told him weeks ago that if it was the last thing I ever did, I was going to ruin not only Taltek Balmorlan, but anyone else who had the poor judgment to pick that scumbag for a business partner.
“This is the other cousin you’ve told me about?” Mychael asked.
“That’s the one. Phaelan’s big brother. Apparently he’s also Chigaru’s personal banker.”
Mychael blinked. “A Benares banker?”
I grinned. “He uses the name Peronne. But yeah, a Benares banker. Great, huh?”
“And convenient. However, he was nearly the late Chigaru’s former banker.”
“Came damned close. You hear what all happened?”
Mychael arched an eyebrow. “My men are trained observers.”
“Did they observe that those bombers were Khrynsani assassins?”
“A few were close enough to detect the glamours.”
“Too bad most every goblin on the waterfront isn’t as gifted.” I told him about my role in the boat tug-of-war and the messy results.
Mychael frowned. “Khrynsani assassins and a weather wizard. Was he a goblin?”
