The Lyre Thief

by Jennifer Fallon

  They flew on toward the peak, past the sheer precipice where she had once sat, debating whether or not to throw herself off and end it all, when Brak had found her and talked her into living. R’shiel smiled as she remembered Brak’s answer that day when she’d asked him if not thinking about the future was how he coped with being a halfbreed Harshini.

  “That and large quantities of mead,” he’d told her.

  R’shiel had tried the large quantities of mead method. It hadn’t helped. She tried forgetting who she was. She’d even debated announcing what she was to everyone she met and making a living out performing miracles, except the very idea seemed rather seedy and unwholesome. What she really wanted was a chance to be as normal as being a now-surplus-to-requirements-being-capable-of-killing-a-god would allow her to be.

  And the only way that would happen, she knew, was if she could bring Brak back.

  It won’t be long now, she thought as Dranymire and the demon-meld headed toward the peak where Sanctuary once stood, before she would step into Death’s realm. Then she could find Brak and convince him to come back.

  R’shiel didn’t kid herself that Brak would automatically agree, even if he still remembered her name after almost a decade in the afterlife. He might be perfectly happy where he was and see no reason to return to this imperfect world. R’shiel was prepared for that. She loved Brak enough to want him to be happy, even if it meant sacrificing her own happiness to achieve it.

  But she needed to hear it from him. The deal Brak made with Death to trade his life for hers was made long before he could admit that he loved her, long before they became lovers. He would never have made such a deal, she was certain, had he loved her then the way he loved her by the time he died helping her destroy Xaphista.

  With a powerful beat of his wings, the dragon landed on the snow-covered peak, sending a flurry of snow in all directions. R’shiel jumped from the dragon’s back and stepped forward to examine the pristine peak. The air was icy and thin, but she hardly noticed the temperature, glancing only briefly over the spectacular view her position afforded her. She was so high, the sky so clear here, she could make out the thin ribbon of the Glass River glinting in the far distance.

  Of Sanctuary, the grand palace that had once perched on this peak, no trace remained.

  That was something of a relief. She and Brak had flung Sanctuary so far out of time and space it would have been unsettling to discover there existed another being in this world able to bring it back.

  “How will you find it?”

  R’shiel glanced over her shoulder. The dragon was gone and in its place were the scores of demons who had melded to form it, some of them winking out of existence as soon as they were free, the others—probably the younger demons—gamboling in the snow. The demon who’d spoken was Dranymire. He was perched on an outcropping of rock behind her, loftily ignoring the antics of his less dignified brethren as they reveled in being released from the meld. His large eyes studied her curiously, his leathery face creased with concern. He and his demon brethren had been loyal to a fault, but he clearly did not agree with what she planned to do next.

  “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “I am not looking at you like anything,” the demon said. “I am merely curious as to how you intend to do this.”

  “I have a plan.”

  “And I’m waiting to hear it.”

  “You think I can’t bring Sanctuary back on my own, don’t you?”

  “I think it is foolish of you to try.”

  “Why?”

  “The dead should remain dead.”

  “Not when they die before their time.”

  “Are you so certain it was not Brak’s time?”

  She nodded. “Absolutely. He traded his life for mine. If he hadn’t, he would still be alive.”

  “And now you have traded the life of one of your friends for his.”

  “Not really,” she said, her assurance sounding hollow, even to her own ears. “Brak has to agree to return first. By then I will have figured a way around that whole ‘friend’s life in return’ complication.”

  The demon blinked at her, unconvinced. “You are fooling yourself, demon child. And one of your friends will die because of it.”

  “No, they won’t,” she insisted. “Everything will be fine. Are you coming with me?”

  He shook his head. “I cannot follow where you are going. If we enter any one of the lower hells, there is no coming back for my kind and no deal you can broker with Death to change that.”

  On impulse, she stepped across the snow to the outcropping and hugged him. The demon wiggled uncomfortably in her embrace, almost yelping with disgust when she planted a large kiss on his forehead. “I love you, Dranymire.”

  “You are embarrassing us both, your highness.”

  “Will you wait for me?”

  “Not at all,” he said, shaking her off. “I will return to the Citadel and Queen Shananara, where my brethren and I shall relish the opportunity to serve a té Ortyn who knows how to behave like Harshini royalty.”

  “You’ll miss me, though, won’t you?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  R’shiel didn’t believe the little demon for a moment. She leaned forward and kissed him again and then turned around to face the mountain peak where Sanctuary had once stood—and where she intended to make it stand again.

  “It took the combined power of you and Brak to send it out of time,” Dranymire reminded her.

  R’shiel had forgotten that. What she had done, however, was think of little else since Death had told her how to find Brak. There was a solution here. She might not be able to reach Sanctuary alone, but a god could. Or a goddess.

  She just needed to call on the right one.

  “Kalianah!”

  “You’re summoning the Goddess of Love to aide you?” Dranymire sounded horrified.

  She glanced over her shoulder at him and grinned. “Never underestimate the power of true love.”

  “I never do.”

  R’shiel spun around to find the goddess standing behind her in her favorite manifestation—that of a little girl. She had thick blond hair and wore a thin white shift, oblivious to the cold winds swirling around the peak of the mountain.

  R’shiel bowed to the goddess. “Divine One.”

  “Why have you summoned me?”

  “I need your help.”

  “I offered you help once and you spurned it.”

  R’shiel took a deep breath. “I did not spurn your aid, Divine One. I didn’t know that asking the demons to possess Tarja while he healed would break the geas you put on him to love me.”

  “Nobody ever broke a geas I placed on them before.”

  “And probably never will again, Divine One,” she assured the goddess. “It was a unique set of circumstances that will likely never be repeated. But Tarja’s happy now, isn’t he? With Mandah?”

  “Mandah is dead,” the goddess informed her flatly.

  “Oh . . .” R’shiel hadn’t heard about Tarja’s wife dying. She felt bad for Tarja, but had always been jealous of Mandah, even though the poor woman was probably the most selfless person R’shiel had ever met. Perhaps that was why she’d always been suspicious of her. Nobody was that perfect. “I didn’t know . . .”

  “Well, I suppose she’s not really dead . . . any more than Damin Wolfblade is . . . but—”

  “Hang on . . . what are you talking about, Kali?”

  The little girl rolled her eyes. “What do you think I’m talking about, demon child? You, of course, and this ludicrous deal you have done with Death to get Brak back.”

  “Is Damin dead?” Her stomach churned at the thought Death might have taken Damin Wolfblade’s life on her account.

  “Death is holding their lives in trust until you decide if you truly want to bring Brak back.”

  “Then what has Mandah got to do with it? The deal was for the life of one of my friends. Damin is, but Mandah’s never be
en my friend.”

  “Mandah is Tarja’s wife, though,” Kalianah reminded her, “and the mother of his children. If you trade her life for Brak’s, how do you suppose Tarja—your friend—will react to that?”

  Tarja has children. R’shiel had been away so long, she didn’t know that.

  “Well . . . I suppose he’d blame me,” she admitted, thinking if Death had thought Mandah one of her friends, then the choice of whose life to trade for Brak’s would be a simple one indeed. There was no comparison, in R’shiel’s mind, between the worth of Brak and that too-sweet-to-be-true opportunist who had worked her way into Tarja’s bed almost as soon as the geas that made him love R’shiel was shattered. The fact that R’shiel loved someone else, and had rejected Tarja’s love as artificially imposed, did not, for some reason, mitigate her jealously of Mandah.

  “Tarja would do more than that,” the goddess warned. “He’d not just blame you. He’d blame the Harshini and all their gods, and so would every citizen in Medalon still looking back kindly on the good old days when the Harshini were a forgotten memory and the Sisterhood ruled their lives. You helped destroy the Sisters of the Blade, R’shiel, but you left Medalon to fend for itself.”

  “There has been peace for a decade now,” R’shiel reminded the goddess.

  “And that’s about all you can take credit for,” Kalianah said. “You took away Medalon’s government and gave them a military dictatorship supporting a Harshini monarchy they’d been trained all their lives to despise and eradicate.”

  Kalianah might well be speaking the truth, but R’shiel had never known the Goddess of Love to pay even the slightest attention to politics. She was all about who loved whom. Not why. “Who have you been talking to?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you haven’t even asked me yet if I love you. Rather, you’ve delivered a political lecture Zegarnald would be proud of.”

  The goddess looked down, kicking a small divot in the snow with her bare foot. “I may have spoken to Zeggie about it . . .” Then she looked up, scowling. “Love is love, R’shiel. If the people of Medalon don’t love their government, that affects me too, you know.”

  “Does anybody love their government?”

  “All governments are loved by enough people to keep them in power,” the goddess announced. “Now, what did you want? I have other places to be.”

  “I want you to help me bring Sanctuary back.”

  “Why? It’s perfectly fine where it is. It’s not bothering anyone, is it?”

  “It’s the gateway to the Seven Hells. Actually, the more I think about it, Sanctuary might actually be one of the Seven Hells—just the one closest to this world. That’s why humans can survive there for limited periods and how the demons can live there. It’s how the Harshini could make it disappear at will when they were in hiding. And why they had to bring it back every spring, or they really would end up dead.”

  “Did Death tell you that?”

  “He hinted at it.”

  Kalianah shook her head. “He is a fool.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because there can be no greater act of honoring the Goddess of Love than to enter the Seven Hells to bring back someone I love.”

  “Or no greater act of selfishness.”

  “I will not force Brak out if he’s happy,” she promised. “If he wants to stay, I will return to this world without him and never mention it again. You have my word.”

  That seemed to satisfy the goddess, as R’shiel suspected it would. Once this became about honoring the Goddess of Love, any political awareness the God of War might have managed to instill in his little sister was forgotten.

  “Very well,” the goddess said. “But don’t blame me if this folly brings you nothing but pain in the very hollows of your heart, demon child.”

  “I’ve had nothing but pain in the very hollows of my heart since Brak died helping me sort out your mess,” R’shiel said, thinking it was probably unwise to antagonize the goddess just as she was agreeing to help.

  But Kalianah didn’t seem to notice her tone. “Do you love me?” the goddess asked.

  “Of course I do.”

  “So be it,” she said and abruptly vanished into thin air, only a tiny white feather settling to the snow to indicate that she had ever been there.

  R’shiel bent down to pick up the feather. As she straightened up, she became aware the sun was suddenly in shadow. Turning to look at the peak behind her, she discovered the reason why.

  She might need a god’s help to bring Sanctuary back out of time, but the gods obviously did not need hers. The tall, elegant white towers of a palace now blocked the sun, reaching up toward the heavens from the top of the mountain as if they had been there for a thousand years.

  The sight took R’shiel’s breath away.

  Its gates open and unguarded . . . Sanctuary had returned.

  Part Three

  Chapter

  30

  DACENDARAN, THE GOD of Thieves, had no formal place of worship. To honor him simply required one to steal something. He really didn’t mind what his followers stole, nor was he a particularly jealous god. He knew his worshipers often prayed to other, less venal gods, as if that somehow made them better people. But every time one of those worthy souls cheated a merchant of a few coppers, kept something they’d found that didn’t belong to them, or even stole the heart of an unsuspecting lover, Dace had what he wanted.

  He didn’t care if nobody prayed to him. In fact, he preferred it that way. Prayers were a lot of work and always required some measure of effort on the part of the deity in question to answer them. There was the additional problem of whose prayers to answer and whose to ignore, until it all became just too much effort.

  Better to take the quiet, stealthy honoring of ordinary, everyday dishonesty, and let the other gods deal with all that tedious prayer answering.

  If Dacendaran had a temple, however, and if that temple had a high priest, it would have been Wrayan Lightfinger.

  Wrayan was a rare creature. Like Rorin Mariner, he was part-Harshini, which meant he had enough of the magical race’s blood in him to be able to wield true magic. He had, in fact, spent his formative years apprenticed to a previous High Arrion of the Sorcerers’ Collective, until he ran afoul of an ambitious young woman named Alija Eaglespike. Thanks to her unsuccessful attempts to cauterize his brain, the Halfbreed—at the request of the God of Thieves—had rescued him and taken him to spend the next two years living in the magical hidden settlement of Sanctuary among the Harshini.

  The God of Thieves’ intervention was the result of a foolish prayer. Wrayan was living proof of the perils of having one’s prayers answered.

  Years before his confrontation with Alija, he’d met a young, naïve princess named Marla Wolfblade and accidently frozen time around her. With no idea of what he’d done or how he’d done it, it took the intervention of a god to undo the spell. It wasn’t so strange that he’d asked Dacendaran for help. Wrayan’s father had been a Krakandar pickpocket of some considerable renown. He’d grown up actively worshiping Dacendaran, so when Wrayan had accidentally struck down the only sister of the High Prince on the night of her betrothal to the king of Fardohnya, Dace was the first god Wrayan had thought to call on.

  The consequences of that night had eventually brought him here, to his current position as head of the Greenharbour Thieves’ Guild, a position, given the longevity of his Harshini ancestors, he was liable to hold for a long time yet.

  Not that he was unhappy with his lot in life. He lived well, enjoyed the respect of his peers, and counted the High Arrion and the High Prince’s mother among his closest friends.

  But there were times when he wished he’d never been plucked from obscurity in the Krakandar markets, where he’d been making a tidy living scamming rich merchants with his magical tricks, by the old High Arrion, Kagan Palenovar, who brought him here to Greenharbour to join
the Sorcerers’ Collective. He would not have met Princess Marla, not traded his soul to a god nor have had to deal with the man he was waiting for now.

  It wasn’t that Wrayan Lightfinger had any specific prejudice against Medalonians in general or Captain Fletcher in particular. But by agreeing to meet with Cade, he was dabbling in affairs his gut told him he was better off staying out of.

  The High Arrion had asked him to meet with Cade as a personal favor to her. For reasons few people in this world understood, Wrayan found it difficult to deny Marla Wolfblade’s daughter anything.

  When the door opened, Wrayan was a little surprised—and more than a little annoyed—to see the Medalonian captain wearing his uniform, as he knew Kalan had advised him not to walk the streets of the Thieves’ Quarter wearing anything so obvious.

  “I’m here to meet with Wrayan the Wraith,” the captain said as he stepped into the office. It was sumptuous room, every item in it, from the heavy wooden desk to the delicate dragon-scale letter opener, stolen—at one time or another—from someone wealthy and careless in Greenharbour.

  “I am Wrayan Lightfinger. I don’t go by the other title much, these days.”

  Caden Fletcher studied him for a long moment, clearly skeptical of the claim. “Wrayan Lightfinger must be sixty years old if he’s a day. You might be his grandson, but—”

  “I’m part Harshini,” he reminded the younger man. “Given you live and work side by side with the Harshini in the Citadel, I’m surprised you need to be reminded of what that means.”

  The captain, to his credit, didn’t seem in the slightest bit intimidated. “I’m sorry, I thought immortality was something reserved for halfbreeds.”

  “I’m not immortal, Captain,” he said, indicating the young man should take a seat opposite the desk. “Just long lived.”

  “How do you know?”