The Lyre Thief

by Jennifer Fallon

  “Anyway, with this treaty renewal coming up, I thought I’d take him with me to Medalon. The Defenders are the best-disciplined army in the world. They make my lads look like amateurs.”

  “I agree, sire, but . . .”

  “They take their officer cadets in at twelve or thirteen, knock the stuffing out them completely, and turn them into real men. Perhaps a few years in the Defenders where nobody cares he’s the Fardohnyan heir will knock some of the arrogance out of Alaric. It should buy him some respect in our army at the very least. I know we can’t afford another incident like the one with General Kabar.”

  So Hablet had been listening all the times Naveen had tried to warn him of the dangers of a king’s heir held in such contempt—and, after this unfortunate affair, actively despised—by a nation’s standing army numbering close to a hundred thousand men. “But what if something happens to him? He’s your only son.”

  “Then I will declare war on Medalon and wipe them off the map.”

  Naveen couldn’t tell if the king was kidding or not.

  Hablet laughed at his expression. “For pity’s sake, Naveen, we’re at peace. He won’t be in harm’s way. My son was a gift from Jelanna herself. The Harshini won’t allow it.”

  “Have you approached Lord Tenragan about this?”

  “Not yet. But I floated the idea with Belendara. She was so impressed by the suggestion, she said she might reconsider her refusal to allow magical healing of my . . . ailments, to expedite our journey.”

  Ah, that makes more sense. Hablet was doing this to get out of pain. Perhaps he was doing it to ensure he lived to see Alaric grown. As he’d heard nothing about this until now, Naveen wondered if it was the Harshini ambassador’s idea, although the magical race was so incapable of violence it seemed odd she would suggest Alaric be sent to join anybody’s army, let alone another nation’s.

  Maybe the Harshini just thought it politic for Hablet to stay on the throne until Alaric was grown, too.

  “I shall tell the quartermaster to include his highness on the passenger manifest, your highness.”

  “He’s a good boy, Naveen.”

  “Of course he is, your highness.”

  “You scared the living daylights out of him with that head.”

  “I’m sorry, your highness.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “You’re right. I’m not.”

  The king grinned at him. “Wish I could have seen it. By all accounts he screamed like a little girl until someone took it away.”

  “Then perhaps the lesson was learned, your highness.”

  “I live in hope, Naveen,” the king said with a sigh. “I live in hope.”

  Chapter

  21

  RAKAIA WOKE UP in a strange room. She was lying on a comfortable—although hardly luxurious—mattress, sunlight streamed through the diamond-paned window, and there was a demon sitting at the end of her bed.

  She had no idea how she came to be in the bed, where she was, or why there was a demon standing guard over her. Rakaia’s last clear memory was of a dragon swooping down over the Widowmaker Pass.

  She wasn’t in the pass now, she guessed, or anywhere near it. The room was warm with no visible heat source other than the sunlight. The very air was warm, which meant there was no snow on the ground outside, nor the thin, chill air of the mountains.

  Afraid to move, Rakaia studied the demon out of half-closed eyes. It perched on the bedframe like an odd-shaped bird, its large, liquid black eyes fixed on her with an unblinking stare. The demon’s small, upward-pointed ears twitched back and forth. Its skin seemed gray and wrinkly from where she lay; like an old leather bag shoved in the bottom of a trunk for a few years, before being taken out and dusted off.

  She moved her head a fraction. As soon as she did, the demon vanished, leaving Rakaia to wonder if she’d imagined the demon, puzzling over where she was and how she came to be here.

  A quick inventory of her limbs reassured her she was whole and unharmed, although naked under the linen sheet and the thin woolen blanket. The realization she was naked panicked her for a moment as her last conscious memories surfaced. For an instant, the horrible specter of Aja being raped before her very eyes almost suffocated her with its vividness. It made her doubt her sanity. Was that a real memory and this place an imagined sanctuary she had retreated to inside her mind? Had her turn come? Was she really still in the Widowmaker Pass being brutally attacked by a bandit bent on taking more than the contraband he could carry off?

  Or was this place real, and Aja’s fate just a terrible, ghastly nightmare?

  As if in answer to her question the door opened and a pretty, redheaded serving wench of about eighteen or nineteen walked in. She carried a tray with a pitcher and a bowl on it, kicking the door shut with her foot before she turned to look at Rakaia.

  “You’re not dreaming,” the girl said.

  Rakaia pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked around. The room was not very large, with plaster, whitewashed walls, a table with a water bowl and pitcher by the door. It wasn’t a cell, so she probably wasn’t a prisoner. Rather, the room had the impersonal feel of a place meant for travelers. This was an inn, she guessed, not somebody’s home. “Where am I?”

  “Testra.”

  “Testra!” she cried, sitting bolt upright. “How in the name of the gods did I get to Testra?”

  The younger girl smiled. “On the back of a dragon, actually.”

  Rakaia opened her mouth to ask how, but another memory suddenly replaced the image of Aja and the bandit. A dragon. And a leather-clad, redheaded dragon rider.

  “It’s you!”

  “That’s a rather ridiculous statement, when you think about it.”

  “I mean . . . you. You rode the dragon. I remember now. We were in the pass. There were bandits. And then everything just seemed to stop, except you . . . and . . . and I . . . or how . . . or . . .”

  “Shout it a bit louder,” the girl said. “I don’t think they heard you in Denika.”

  “Why am I in Testra?” she asked, in a somewhat less shrill tone.

  “Because Testra happened to be in the general direction I was heading.”

  “Did anybody else . . . ?”

  “Get out of the Widowmaker alive?” the girl finished for her. She shook her head and sat on the bed, offering Rakaia the tray. It turned out to be a pitcher of ale and a bowl of thick stew with a trencher of bread beside it. “Death had all of them on his dance card, I fear.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is R’shiel té Ortyn.”

  Rakaia didn’t know what to say. So she just bowed her head in awe and muttered, “Divine One.”

  “Stop it.”

  She looked up in surprise. “But you’re the demon chi—”

  “My name is R’shiel. I don’t care who—or what—you think I am. Your payment for being rescued from rape and certain death in the Widowmaker is that you never mention that name again, fair enough?”

  She looked about eighteen, but Rakaia knew the demon child had to be considerably older. And Rakaia was not about to defy someone so powerful. “Yes, your highness.”

  “My name is R’shiel. I don’t need a title. I certainly don’t need to be worshipped. What’s your name?”

  If I lie, will she be able to tell? Will she destroy me? Turn me into something with scales?

  “Ra . . . Rakaia,” she said, not prepared to risk it. No need to add family name, though.

  Fortunately, the demon child didn’t require any further information. “You should eat, Rakaia,” she said, rising to her feet. “This inn belongs to a friend, so you’re safe here. I’m going to head into town to find you something to wear. After that, I’ll have to be on my way, I’m afraid.”

  “I was heading for Tarkent.”

  “I do apologize for disrupting your travel plans, your highness.”

  Rakaia experienced a moment of panic, thinking the demon child had guessed who she was,
until she realized the R’shiel was mocking her. Smiling sheepishly to cover her fright, Rakaia shrugged. “I’m sorry. You saved my life. I must sound really ungrateful.”

  “You do, but you’ve been through quite a bit these last couple of days, so I’m prepared to cut you some slack, as they say on the riverboats. Will you be here when I get back?”

  “I don’t have any clothes.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” R’shiel said with a smile. “Dranymire?”

  Rakaia started as the demon reappeared at the foot of the bed, splashing ale onto the tray and soaking the bread.

  “Divine One.”

  “This is Rakaia,” she said. “Will you keep her company until I return?”

  “Do I have a choice?” the demon asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Then it will be my pleasure, your highness. Why is she gaping like that?”

  “She’s not used to demons.”

  Rakaia heard, rather than saw, R’shiel leave. Her eyes were fixed on the leathery demon who returned her stare with his solemn, liquid black eyes, which made Rakaia certain he could see into her very soul.

  Chapter

  22

  ADRINA WAS NOT a patient woman. She paced the tiled floor of the anteroom outside the royal bedroom in the apartment she shared with her husband until sunset, waiting for the Harshini healers to restore Damin to health. To while away the time, she amused herself with the many and various ways she planned to torture and kill the would-be assassin who had dared to attempt to take the life of the High Prince of Hythria.

  “For pity’s sake, Adrina, will you stop pacing?” Kalan asked. “You’re worse than Julika.”

  “I can’t. And I don’t know how you can sit there so calmly.”

  “I’m amusing myself by imagining all the things I’d like to do to the man who did this.”

  “So am I,” Adrina admitted, taking the seat opposite Kalan. “I have several methods in mind, all of them resulting in gruesome death.” She fidgeted with her skirts as she spoke and realized the state of them. She should change before she spoke to the children. It would be difficult to reassure them Damin was fine if their mother was still covered in their father’s blood.

  “You can only kill him once, Adrina.”

  She jumped to her feet again to resume her pacing. “I haven’t been able to settle on any one particular fate, so I thought I’d do all of them.”

  Kalan smiled sympathetically. “An interesting proposition. How do you plan to manage it?”

  “I will make the Harshini bring him back to life over and over. Then I can kill him as many times as I please. Trust me, this assassin will learn the meaning of the ancient Fardohnyan art of mort’eda—the blood-oath of vengeance that has brought down entire dynasties. He will pay, Kalan, as will his parents, his children, anybody who has so much as glanced in his general direction . . .”

  Kalan seemed amused, rather than threatened. “Gods, Adrina, no wonder my mother worries about you.”

  Before Adrina could answer, the main door to the apartment opened without a knock to request permission. She turned to give the miscreant a piece of her mind until she realized it was her mother-in-law, and she wasn’t alone. Elin Bane, the Raven of the Assassins’ Guild, was right behind her.

  “Did you arrange this?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Adrina.”

  “I want to hear it from him.”

  The Raven closed the door and then turned to look Adrina squarely in the eye. “Not my guild, nor any branch of it I am aware of, ordered a hit on the High Prince of Hythria, or any member of his family.” Then he turned to Kalan, who had risen to her feet and bowed politely to her. “High Arrion.”

  “Lord Raven.”

  Adrina believed him. In truth, she’d never seriously considered the possibility the Assassins’ Guild was behind this. It was good to hear it stated aloud, though. For that alone, Adrina was grateful Marla had bought Elin Bane to the palace, despite the adverse gossip such an event might precipitate.

  “How is he?” Marla asked Kalan. She displayed no visible emotion, unlike Adrina, who was quite sure the others could see her anger as a steaming, palpable thing. But then, this is what Marla was always like in a crisis. Calm and practical. To a fault.

  “We don’t know,” Adrina said. “The Harshini are still with him.”

  “It’s been hours.”

  “Does anybody know how long a magical healing like this takes?” Marla directed the question to Kalan. Her daughter was the head of the Sorcerers’ Collective, after all. If anybody knew the answer, surely she would.

  “It depends on the wound and how soon they got to work on it,” the Raven told her before Kalan could say a word.

  “Are you an expert in Harshini healing now?”

  “The Lord Raven is here to help, Adrina,” Marla said. “I know you’re upset, but a bit of civility would not go astray.”

  The Raven wasn’t offended. “Actually, your highness, I am something of an expert.”

  “When an assassin is commissioned to kill someone, they’re instructed to make certain he’s dead enough that the Harshini can’t bring him back,” Kalan explained.

  Elin nodded. “If there is likely to be a Harshini in the vicinity, we have to kill the target in such a way that he is beyond healing.”

  Adrina was almost equally appalled and enthralled by this rare glimpse into the world of assassins. “Exactly what does that involve?”

  “Bloody organs, mostly. They’re the hardest to heal. The heart, the spleen, any of the major arteries . . .”

  Princess Marla frowned. “Where was Damin stabbed?”

  Kalan answered for her. “Barandaran says the left lung.”

  “Then he should be all right,” the Raven said. “Once the Harshini are done with him.”

  “Assuming they are ever done with him,” Adrina complained, glancing again at the locked bedroom door. She turned back to look at Elin Bane, her anger subsiding enough for her to think of other things. “Why are you here, Lord Raven, if your guild had nothing to do with this?”

  “I thought he should interrogate the prisoner for us,” Marla said. “The guild has . . . ways . . . of encouraging men to share what they know.”

  “I’ll bet they do,” Adrina agreed. “But why ask Damin’s assassin anything? Why not just order Wrayan or one of the Harshini to take the information from his mind?”

  “We did,” Marla said. “I sent a message to the Thieves’ Quarter the moment I learned of the attack. Wrayan’s been with him these past few hours trying to do exactly that. He says there is nothing there except a song that keeps repeating, over and over, in his mind. He seems to think the song is a mask for something else.”

  “What song?”

  “Some children’s nursery rhyme, he says.”

  The news seemed to intrigue Kalan. “Didn’t you have Wrayan do something similar to us when we were younger, to stop Alija reading our minds, Mother?”

  Adrina stared at Kalan. “He did what?”

  Marla shrugged, as if such a thing were quite an everyday occurrence. “What Wrayan did to us was more sophisticated than this.”

  Kalan turned to Adrina to explain. “Wrayan shielded all our minds against anyone reading anything deeper than the most shallow thoughts when we were children. The shields are still in place as far as I know.”

  “This is different,” Marla told Kalan, almost, but not quite, excluding Adrina from the conversation. “Wrayan says it’s like . . . noise . . . filling up the space to stop anything else but a single purpose taking hold.”

  “Is he a regular guard or an imposter who somehow managed to sneak into the palace?” Elin asked.

  “He’s a regular,” Marla said. “Even worse, he’s from Krakandar. He had a distinguished career in the Krakandar Raiders before he joined Damin’s personal guard.”

  Adrina saw Kalan pale, and wondered how much that information would sting. Krakandar was the Wolfblade home and,
more importantly, their seat of power. To hear Marla talk, the whole province would gladly lay their lives down for the Wolfblade family.

  So much for that theory.

  “Do we know where he’s been?”

  “What do you mean?” Kalan asked.

  “I believe the High Princess is asking if this man has traveled anywhere recently, where he might have been infected with this . . . song,” Elin said.

  Nobody seemed to have the answer. “I’m hoping we’ll know more after the Raven has spoken with him,” Marla said.

  Before she could say anything more, the door to the bedroom opened. Barandanan, the Harshini healer Kalan had brought from the Sorcerers’ Collective, and his companion, Telenara, emerged from the room, shutting the door behind them. The Harshini were dressed in their traditional long white robes, but they were splattered with blood and both Harshini looked haggard, their black-on-black eyes dull, their tall, slender frames slumped with exhaustion.

  Adrina headed for the bedroom door determined to assure herself Damin was alive. She was so certain he had died in her arms earlier, she wasn’t going to be convinced her husband still lived until he told her so himself.

  “A moment, your highness,” Telenara said, still blocking the door.

  “I wish to see my husband.”

  “And you shall, your highness,” Barandaran said. “But we need to speak with you first.”

  “Does my son still live?”

  “Yes, Princess Marla. He lives and we have healed him to the best of our ability.”

  “What’s the problem, then?” Kalan asked, perhaps the only one in the room with the authority to take that tone with the Harshini.

  “He’s asleep,” Telenara said.

  “Then I promise not to wake him.”

  “Would that you could, your highness,” Barandaran sighed.

  “You can’t wake him?” Kalan asked.

  The Harshini shook his head. “Not at all.”

  “Let me try,” Adrina demanded.

  “There would be no point, your highness. He will not wake until Death is prepared to release him.”

  For a moment, everyone in the room went silent.

  It was Kalan, the one among them who was most familiar with the ways of the Harshini, who asked the obvious question. “How do you know that?”