Charisee soon forgot about being arrogant, untrained, or anything like it, however, as she spied several mares grazing beside their new foals in the paddock on her left.
“Broos! Look!”
She ran to the fence, the dog having no choice but to follow, as she dragged him along by his makeshift lead. Two mares grazed beside their foals close by the railing, the closest a piebald filly with a dark patch over one eye. She climbed up onto the bottom rail of the fence to watch, Broos tugging at the lead.
“Oh, Broos! They’re so gorgeous!”
The hound didn’t share her enthusiasm. He was tugging on the lead, trying to get her to drop it. Charisee tightened her grip and scolded him to be still. The last thing she needed was Broos deciding the foals were prey, jumping over the fence, and deciding to make a meal out of one of them.
She turned back to the foals, her heart almost bursting at the sight of them. They were so sweet. So innocent. She envied the simplicity of their lives, with nothing to do but nurse from their protective mothers and gambol in a sun-kissed meadow . . .
Her moment of tranquility shattered abruptly as Broos started barking.
At the sound, the startled mares and the foals dashed toward the fence on the other side of the enclosure, as far from the noise as they could get.
She jumped down from the fence to better control the dog, and discovered the reason he was so excited. Kiam was heading toward them on foot, striding as if he had a purpose, rather than going for an idle walk, as Charisee had been doing.
As he neared her, she saw the look on his face and knew something was terribly amiss. “Kiam? What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer immediately. First, he bent down to pat Broos and take the makeshift lead from her before he spoke. When he looked up, his expression was grim. “I’m sorry, your highness, but we have to stay here in Warrinhaven for a while longer.”
They know, she thought, feeling the blood rush from her face as she saw how serious Kiam was. Somehow they know. That’s what the courier came to tell him. Did they find Rakaia? Is she in Greenharbour already, exposing me as a liar?
“Has . . . has something happened?”
Is this what you call “looking out for me,” Jakerlon?
“Someone tried to kill the High Prince.”
Charisee had to consciously stop herself from letting out a sigh of relief.
“Wh—who?” she managed to stammer, hoping she seemed shocked at such dreadful news and not relieved that, yet again, she hadn’t been exposed as a fraud.
“The messenger didn’t say.”
“Is Prince Damin all right?”
“He’s in a coma. They’re not sure when he’ll wake.”
“Then you must leave now,” she said, certain that was what Kiam had come to tell her. “At a time like this your family will need you.”
Kiam shook his head. “That would have been my first choice, but Adrina—and the guild—wants me to stay here with you. She’s afraid this might be the first wave in an attack against the whole Wolfblade family.”
Charisee tried not to appear too pleased about that news either. Gods! I am the most horrible, horrible person!
“Then surely you are more of a target than me?”
A thin smile flickered over his face. “It’s nice of you to think that, your highness, but really, I think Adrina is worried more about you than me.”
Charisee nodded in understanding. Although she hadn’t seen Adrina since she was a small child, it was easy enough to figure out her older half-sister’s reasoning. This was unlikely to be about a threat to Rakaia the princess so much as the High Princess not wanting to deal with a houseguest in the middle of such a crisis. “Of course. The last thing Adrina needs right now is an irritating younger sister underfoot. Are we to stay here?”
“I’ve spoken with Lord Rahan,” Kiam told her. “His wife isn’t too happy about the filthy assassin remaining under her roof, but Cam’s an old friend of the Wolfblades. I hope you don’t mind the delay.”
“I’m the last person anybody should be worrying about at a time like this,” she said, mentally kicking herself for sounding like such an idiot before the words were even all the way out of her mouth. That was Charisee the slave, not Rakaia the princess, speaking.
Kiam studied her face for a moment, almost as if he didn’t believe her. “How did someone like you manage to come from a viper pit like the Talabar Royal Harem?”
Charisee shrugged because she didn’t know how else to answer that question. “Just lucky, I guess.”
Kiam considered her in silence for a moment, his expression impossible to read.
Is he looking at me like that because he likes me, or because he can tell I’m a fraud?
“There was one other thing. Lady Saneyah wants to know if there is anything you need, now that you’re staying longer? She’s happy to give you your own handmaiden while you’re here, but she wanted to know if she needs to provide you with . . . anything else?”
“Like what?” She couldn’t imagine what he was asking her. And he was asking her something, she realized. Something she didn’t understand.
“Ah . . . I think her ladyship wants to know if she needs to arrange your own court’esa for you. She doesn’t keep her own anymore, so I gather it’s going to be something of an inconvenience to find a suitable one out here in the country on short notice, but she did offer.”
Say yes, the sane voice in Charisee’s head yelled silently, feeling an even bigger fool for not understanding what Kiam had been hinting at. Here’s your chance. Tell Lady Saneyah you insist she provide a loronged court’esa for your entertainment and then make him teach you everything you need to know—every skill Rakaia spent the last four years perfecting—before you get to Greenharbour.
Get him to show you how to make Lord Branador not want you.
“Aren’t you court’esa trained?”
As soon as she uttered the words, Charisee felt her face go red. She wanted to die. Even if she hadn’t just blurted the question out like a stupid slave girl, Kiam was a member of the High Prince’s family. He was probably so insulted that she’d implied his position was equivalent to a slave’s he would never speak to her again.
“I’m sorry . . . ,” she said, shaking her head, as if that could somehow undo the damage. “I didn’t mean to imply . . . I mean . . . it’s not that I thought . . . I know you’re a free man. Your stepbrother is the High Prince. You’re a guild assassin. I really didn’t mean to insult—”
“I’m not insulted.”
She risked looking up at him, terrified of what she might see, but he was smiling faintly, looking at her as if he could see right through every one of her many, many lies.
And then he reached out and brushed the loose hair from the side of her face. “Actually, I’m kind of flattered.”
His touch was electric, but Charisee didn’t believe him for a moment. He was toying with her. Letting her dig herself in deeper and deeper until she was so far down this hole of embarrassment and offense that she’d need a rope to climb out of it. “But . . . I just suggested you were a whore.”
He shrugged. “In my line of work I’ve been called far worse, your highness.”
“I really didn’t mean . . .”
“That you want to sleep with me?” he said, lowering his hand. He smiled. It was a small, intimate smile, the sort of smile one reserved for a lover, not a princess one was supposed to be guarding as a duty. “Pity, your highness. I thought that was exactly what you meant.”
Rakaia would have slapped him, Charisee knew. She’d have some witty rejoinder that would cut this well-connected assassin down to size and walk away with her dignity intact.
All Charisee could do was try not to look like a fool and wonder what it would be like if Kiam kissed her. Wonder if the God of Liars was right. Wonder how she was going to survive the next few months when she couldn’t even handle a simple question about how she’d like to entertain herself during this unexpecte
d delay in their journey.
I should just confess now, and get it over with.
But she didn’t. Almost as if Jakerlon had taken possession of her, she smiled up at the assassin just the way Rakaia would have done and stepped a little closer to him. “Well, you did say my wish was your command.”
His gaze was fixed on her with an intensity that made her want to melt. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“And I wouldn’t want to put Lady Saneyah to any trouble.”
There was a moment, Charisee knew, where he was telling himself to step away. She could see it in his eyes—that fleeting moment of caution—but it only lasted a moment and then his mouth was moving slowly toward hers.
Charisee closed her eyes and raised her face to him. I’m honoring Jakerlon, she told herself. He said I should embrace my lies . . .
She could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek, the anticipation almost making her heart stop—
Only to have it skip a beat completely when Broos barked loudly at them, impatient with being made to sit on a lead, with so many interesting things to chase so close at hand.
Charisee squealed with fright as she jumped back and then burst out laughing in her awkwardness.
Kiam grinned at her and tugged on the lead to silence the dog. Their moment was lost, however, and would probably never return. He glanced around. They were alone but for the distant slave crew mending the fences. As he turned back to her, she thought he seemed more than a little disappointed, but that might be just her own regret reflected in his eyes.
“Perhaps I should head back to the house,” he suggested, his voice unaccountably raw.
“That might be wise,” she agreed. Whatever Kiam was feeling, her frustration was a palpable thing.
But then he added in a toneless voice that filled her with hope. “Shall I tell Lady Saneyah you have no need for any . . . additional . . . companionship?”
She searched his face, looking for the answer. “If you think I can find . . . other ways to kill the time, then I suppose . . .”
Kiam took her hand then, and lifted it to his mouth, placing a lingering kiss on her palm. “Your wish is my command, your highness.”
Charisee couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say because all her concentration was required to keep her weak knees from folding underneath her.
He never gave her the opportunity to spoil the moment, in any case. Without waiting for her to reply, the assassin turned and strode off toward the distant house, Broos still on the lead beside him, leaving Charisee clinging to the fence for support, wondering how it was possible to be so terrified and so excited about what her future might hold, all at the same time.
Chapter
32
MICA WOKE SCREAMING almost every night from his nightmares.
Rakaia discovered this disturbing fact the first night of their journey after leaving Vanahiem. Until then, Rakaia had always been in the company of the other members of the minstrel’s troupe and she was never close enough to him at night to hear him crying out. But once they boarded the barge for Bordertown, and Rakaia found herself in the next cabin, it was impossible to ignore his tortured slumber.
By day, Mica was charming, amusing, and endlessly entertaining. He couldn’t seem to help himself. Without being asked, as the barge sailed south with the current on the broad silver river that cut Medalon almost in two, he entertained the crew and the other passengers—a sour Blue Sister from the Citadel named Delana and an elderly couple from Brodenvale on the way to visit their daughter in Bordertown—with songs and jokes and clumsy magic tricks that didn’t work almost as often as they did, although he bungled his attempts at magic tricks so good-naturedly, Rakaia wondered if it was all part of the act. Nobody seemed to mind. Mica was the sort of person you just naturally fell in love with, and Rakaia was no more immune to his charms than anybody else on the boat.
But at night, through the thin walls of the barge’s cabins below decks, his songs became cries of torment.
Two nights of Mica’s pain were all she could take. On the third night, as soon as Rakaia heard him cry out, she slipped from her narrow bunk and felt her way through the darkness to the door.
“Are you going to him?” a weary voice asked from the other bunk. She was sharing her cabin with the Sister of the Blade, a dour, middle-aged woman who seemed to mightily resent how far her order had fallen this past decade, and who’d made little attempt to socialize with her cabinmate.
“I didn’t meant to disturb you,” Rakaia whispered apologetically, as another agonized cry rent the quiet night.
“It’s that racket he’s making that’s disturbing me,” Delana grumbled. “Probably disturbing everyone in a five-mile radius.”
“I’ll quiet him down,” she promised, with no real idea how she might do anything of the sort.
“Stay with him,” Delana advised. “The boy sounds like he needs a hug. At the very least,” she added, as she turned to face the wall, “you’ll be close enough to smother him with a pillow if he doesn’t shut up.”
Rakaia figured Delana wasn’t expecting a response. She unlatched the door, closing it softly behind her, and made her way along the companionway to the master’s cabin in the stern, which Mica had somehow managed to sing the captain into surrendering.
She opened it and poked her head through the doorway, not sure if Mica would welcome her visit or send her away.
“Mica?”
The only answer was a mumbled cry from the bunk. His words seemed to be gibberish and she wasn’t even sure if Mica was answering her or still lost in his nightmare.
She slipped into the cabin and closed the door behind her. In the moonlight coming from the window in the stern, she could just make out Mica’s sleeping form on the bunk. The cabin was about twice the size of the one she was sharing with Delana. So was the bunk.
“No! Don’t leave me here alone!” Mica cried out suddenly, sitting bolt upright.
Rakaia hurried to his side. “Mica? Wake up! You’re dreaming.”
He turned to stare at her, but his eyes were blank and she realized he was probably still asleep.
“Mica?” With some trepidation, she placed her hands on his shoulders and shook him gently, not sure of the etiquette for waking someone caught in a nightmare. Should you wake them at all? Was it better just to let the dream run its course?
But then he blinked and the blankness faded from his eyes and he seemed to become aware of his surroundings.
“Mica?” she asked gently. “Are you all right?”
“Um . . . I suppose . . .”
“Do you know where you are?”
He nodded, glancing around. “On a boat.”
“That’s right. We’re heading for Bordertown.”
He was silent for a moment and then he cocked his head slightly. “Why aren’t we moving?”
“We’re docked for the night. Remember what the captain said? Nobody in their right mind sails the Glass River in the dark.”
“I remember,” he said. “Is something wrong? Why are you here?”
“You were having a nightmare.”
He didn’t seem surprised. Perhaps Olena or Norn had heard him cry out before and said something to him when they were in his company.
“Did I wake you?”
She smiled in the darkness. “I think you woke everyone between here and the Trinity Isles.”
“What was I yelling about?”
“The only words I understood were ‘don’t leave me here alone,’” she told him, taking a seat on the edge of the bunk. The master’s cabin had quite a large window. Even with no light, the moonlight outside was sufficient, once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, for her to see the tears on his cheeks and the pain her words evoked in his eyes.
“I’m sorry I woke you.”
“Do you remember what you were dreaming about?”
He shook his head, wiping his eyes. “No.”
Liar, she thought, but didn’t press the ma
tter. She understood he might not want to talk about it.
“You should try to go back to sleep.” She rose to her feet, wondering if it was a good idea to leave him alone.
Mica grabbed her hand before she could move away from the bunk. “Will you stay with me?”
Rakaia hesitated, not sure if that was advisable. She’d known Mica for barely a month. She wasn’t sure how he’d interpret her agreeing to spend the night with him, however innocently. “Are you sure?”
“The nightmares only happen when I’m alone.”
She debated the wisdom of agreeing for a moment and then thought of the others on the boat. If he kept up yelling out like this every night, the captain might simply refuse to take them any farther and then she’d never get back to Fardohnya. “Move over, then,” she instructed with a sigh.
Mica threw back the covers and pushed himself back against the wall to give her room. She climbed in beside him, the two of them barely fitting side by side on the captain’s bunk. He threw the blanket over her once she was lying beside him and then somehow managed to work his head under her arm until she was holding him like a mother holding a frightened child with his head resting on her breast.
She stiffened a little with the intimacy of their embrace, but she could feel Mica relaxing beside her so she held him in silence for a while, while he clung to her like a small child, as if her very presence could drive his demons away.
“Will you sing to me?” she asked, to relieve the uncomfortable silence as much as a desire to hear him sing.
“No.”
“Why not?”
He lifted his head and looked up at her, his eyes glistening in the moonlight. “Because you like me.”
“Everybody likes you, Mica.”
“Everybody likes my singing,” he corrected, in a small voice that almost broke her heart. “You’re the first person I’ve met since I came back who likes me because I’m me.” He settled his head on her breast again and said nothing more.
Rakaia didn’t know what to say to that, but in the end, she didn’t need to say anything. Before long Mica’s breathing slowed and deepened and she knew he was asleep.
The Lyre Thief Page 23
