She did like to play games, after all.
Then she glanced over at him and for a fleeting moment their eyes met. Kiam forced himself to look away first.
“She seems happy enough,” he said with a shrug.
“Really?” Adham asked in mock amazement. “You’re looking at her face?”
“You’re a pig, Adham.”
“I know,” Adham agreed with a grin. “Comes from spending all my time away from civilization. You still killing people for a living?”
“No. I quit being an assassin a while ago. I renounced my lifelong oath, left the guild, and took up needlepoint.”
“Just can’t keep you away from sharp objects liable to draw blood, can we?”
The music ended and Olivah led Rakaia back to his grandfather, where she knelt down beside his chair and said something to him, although Kiam had no idea what she and old Frederak had to talk about. Not far away were Gidion Narn and his family, trying to edge close enough to the princess to appear as if they were included in her party.
“Did you want to meet up for a drink later?” Adham asked. “A few of us are planning to escape this madness as soon as it’s polite to leave and find some real entertainment.”
Kiam really wasn’t in the mood for this party, let alone another one, but it would strengthen his alibi. This kill required there be no doubt it was anything but a terrible accident. Unfortunately, any death tonight, however seemingly innocent, would still throw suspicion on him. It was no secret in Hythria that the High Prince’s youngest stepbrother was an assassin, or that he regularly attended the Spice Traders’ Ball as a guest. Damin traded shamelessly on his profession at times, when it suited him to make a point with an adversary. To have Adham Tirstone and his friends vouch for his whereabouts when the accident happened would remove any suspicion at all that the guild had a hand in Gidion Narn’s death.
“Sure,” he said, as across the dance floor Rodja Tirstone stepped up to the podium where the orchestra was ensconced. “Where will you be?”
“The Tailor’s Thimble,” Adham said. “Do you know it?”
Kiam nodded. It wasn’t that far from Gidion’s mistress’s house. That was convenient. “I’ll see you there.”
“Excellent. We can catch up then and you can regale me with exciting tales of your . . . needlepoint.” Across the floor, Rodja waved to Adham to join him on the podium. “I have to go. We have some gifts to give.”
Adham left Kiam to cross the now empty dance floor. The orchestra players were taking a well-earned break, but there was clearly an announcement imminent. On the other side of the ballroom Gidion was tapping his foot impatiently.
I’m with you, Gidion, old son, he said silently. I want out of here too, although would you be so anxious to leave, I wonder, if you knew you were going to die before you got home?
Rodja called everyone to attention and the crowd spilled onto the dance floor to hear what he had to say. Kiam lost sight of Gidion for a moment, and when he looked for him with his family, he was gone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to thank you all for gracing our humble home tonight with your presence,” Rodja began. His comment raised a laugh in his audience. There were few homes in Greenharbour less humble than this one.
Kiam looked around, and spied Gidion making his exit. His mistress was more enticing, apparently, than whatever Rodja Tirstone had to say.
“Firstly, I would like to welcome our guest of honor, Her Serene Highness, Princess Rakaia, to the ball and welcome her to Hythria.”
The crowd applauded, and a moment later Rakaia, looking lovely and more than a little uncomfortable with all the attention, was helped up on to the podium beside Rodja. Kiam wanted to stay. He wanted to see her, speak to her one more time, even just hear her voice, but Gidion was getting away and there was no future in wondering . . .
Get a grip, you fool, he told himself sternly. There is work to be done.
Kiam melted back through the crowd to follow Gidion as Rodja announced that he, Selena, and his brother Adham would like to offer their wedding presents to the princess and their good friend, the lord of Highcastle tonight, in honor of the long relationship the spice traders enjoyed with the custodians of Hythria’s southernmost pass into Fardohnya.
It was all a sham, he knew. Rodja considered the Branadors to be worse bandits than the poor fools who raided the Widowmaker Pass so regularly. If he was honoring them now, it was politics and not friendship or generosity at the core of it.
Kiam didn’t wait around to find out what the presents were. He had a spice merchant to kill.
KIAM STAYED IN the shadows as he followed Gidion back toward his carriage. The man was weaving a little as he walked, for which Kiam was grateful. If Gidion Narn’s death was going to be attributed to a drunken and unfortunate stumble, it helped matters no end if he was seen to be visibly intoxicated before he left the party.
Gidion headed first to the tent where the servants and slaves attending their masters were gathered, to call out his driver. Kiam took the opportunity to run through the darkness to the gate. Once he was out of sight of the parked carriages and their drivers, he unbuttoned his jacket, quickly turned it inside out, and put it on again, pulling up the hood concealed inside to shade his face. Then he pulled a small length of chain wrapped in cloth to silence it, out of his pocket, swinging it around a couple of times to test the weight of it. A moment later he heard the carriage coming.
Kiam waited until the vehicle slowed down so the driver could check the street beyond before he turned. As soon as the driver was past him, he trotted alongside the coach and jerked the door latch, hearing the catch jam open, thanks to the sliver of metal he’d slipped inside earlier. With one smooth movement, he swung himself into the carriage, pulled it closed, and swung the silenced chain through the open door window. The momentum swung it back around on itself, through the door and the open window, holding the door closed, temporarily.
He sat down beside Gidion, who was so inebriated it took him a moment to register that he had a passenger.
The spice trader stared myopically at Kiam for a moment, before asking, “Eh? Who are you?”
“Your guide to the afterlife,” Kiam told him softly, not wanting the driver to hear.
Gidion was too drunk to understand what that meant and Kiam gave him no further opportunity for discussion. He reached across the seat, grabbed Gidion’s head with both hands, and then wrenched it sideways until he heard the bones crack.
Gidion slumped in his seat. His death was instantaneous and painless and probably far less painful than what he appeared to be doing, which was drinking himself to death. Kiam glanced out of the window of the carriage. He didn’t have long to stage his accident. They were almost at the corner where one of many street urchins the guild paid to be their eyes and ears was waiting with Broos.
Kiam dragged the trader’s dead weight onto the floor of the carriage, turning him so he was facing the door. Once that was done, he took a sliver of wood from his other pocket and jammed it under the bottom of the door so it wouldn’t open until it was jarred. Then he removed the cloth chain, satisfied the door would stay closed, and turned to the other side of the carriage. A quick look outside to confirm the street was empty and he opened the door, stepping down from the slow-moving carriage to the cobbled street. He ran along beside it for a moment to ensure the door was latched properly on the undamaged side of the vehicle, and then dropped into the shadows, confident that if he ran, he could beat the carriage to the next corner through the back alleys of the houses lining the street.
He arrived not a moment too soon. The carriage was headed toward the corner. He let out a low whistle. A moment later a young girl emerged from the shadows, barely taller than Broos, with the dog walking beside her on a rope.
“Well done, Meggie,” he whispered, handing the child the coin they agreed on earlier for her to mind his dog. “You run along home now. It’s late.”
She bit into the coin t
o test its authenticity and then handed him Broos’s lead. “Sure thing, Ky. See ya ’round.”
Meggie melted into the shadows without another word. Kiam slipped the lead off Broos, knelt down to ruffle the dog’s velvety soft ears fondly, and then whispered, “Where’s the cat, boy? Is he over there?” Kiam pointed to the street corner where the carriage would appear any moment. “Is it over there? Go find the cat!”
He let go of Broos’s collar and the dog bolted toward the street in search of the promised feline. As he ran after him, staying in the darkness of the alley, Kiam heard a shout and then a horse whinnying in fright. He arrived at the intersection in time to see the horse rear up, the carriage brake suddenly, and Gidion Narn tumble out of the carriage with a thud to land on the cobblestoned street as Broos vanished into the darkness, still searching for a cat.
The driver leapt from his seat and took some time to calm the horse before he noticed his passenger on the road. By then, a few lights had appeared in the windows of the houses around them, as the noise woke the sleeping inhabitants. The first one to reach the scene found the driver kneeling on the road bedside his master, trying to revive him, even though he lay there, staring into nothingness, his head at an unfortunate angle.
“There was a dog!” the driver blubbered, clearly distressed, although whether by the loss of his master or his fate if he was found to be responsible for the accident was hard to tell. “A huge dog! It came out of nowhere and spooked the horse. He must have fallen out of the carriage . . .”
Kiam didn’t wait around to hear the rest of it. He moved to the other end of the lane, reversed his jacket again, and then headed off toward the Tailor’s Thimble to meet Adham Tirstone and his friends.
At some point in the evening, he was sure, they would hear the terrible news that one of Rodja and Selena’s guests had been killed on the way home from the ball in a tragic accident.
Chapter
56
BY THE TIME they reached Greenharbour, Rakaia was satisfied she had been able to convince Mica that trying to kill every living Wolfblade to avenge the wrongs done to him in the past was not likely to achieve anything other than get both of them killed, too.
Mica seemed to accept her logic, although she did fear he was just agreeing with her because she was turning into a nagging wife, and agreeing was the only way to shut her up. Whatever the reason, by the time they rode through the wide gates of the vast, white-walled southern city, with its crowds and smells and unbearable humidity, she was content he would do as he promised.
They were going to find a ship as soon as they could, sail away from Hythria, indeed this entire continent, and never look back.
Oh, how my life has changed from where I thought it was going.
When she’d fled Winternest, Rakaia’s only thought was to find a way to her uncle’s home in Lanipoor, where her mother had promised her she would be safe. Now she wasn’t so sure. Returning to Fardohnya meant living in hiding. She would be welcomed into her uncle’s home, of that she had no doubt, but she would be placed straight into his harem with his wives and his daughters and unlikely to ever leave it again.
She had been free long enough now to see her uncle’s protection for what it was—just another form of incarceration, no matter how pleasant or safe it might seem.
Rakaia still remembered the lies she’d told Charisee about why she was running away. Have an adventure, she’d told her unsuspecting little sister. Have some fun. Not die of an unfortunate accident before I reach my majority because I’m one of Hablet’s wretched unwanted daughters.
At the time she’d thought she was lying; telling Charisee whatever she needed to hear in order to play along with her ruse. Looking back, she realized she’d spoken a truth of which she wasn’t even aware. She did want adventure. She wasn’t just surviving on the road as a vagabond; she was having the time of her life. The uncertainty of her existence was thrilling. Not knowing what the next day might bring was exhilarating.
Rakaia wasn’t pining for her lost life as a princess. She was sorry she hadn’t escaped it sooner.
But she couldn’t stay in Hythria, and Fardohnya was too dangerous. Medalon was too full of Harshini, any one of whom might casually scan her mind and learn her secret—although they swore they never abused their magical powers like that. And Karien? Well, it was full of Kariens. That was enough to keep anyone away.
That left the countries across the Trinity Straits and the Dregian Ocean. Denika, maybe, or one of the Trinity Isles.
And that’s where the ship plan came in. They would find a ship sailing as soon as possible and put this land behind them.
Just to be certain Mica didn’t change his mind, Rakaia had the introduction letter the warlord of Krakandar had given them tucked away in her saddlebags where it wasn’t likely to tempt him. She’d wanted to toss it on the fire—along with that ridiculous red Medalonian officer’s jacket he insisted on wearing, even though it was sweltering in the city—but Mica had convinced her the letter might help them secure a berth on a ship, so with some reluctance, she had confiscated the letter and tucked it away, out of sight and out of temptation’s way.
She was glad of that more than she could say, when they stopped at the first likely looking inn and were informed by the tavern owner there were no beds available and they’d be lucky to find a place to sleep anywhere in the city, what with the wedding carnival going on.
“What wedding carnival?” Mica asked.
“The High Prince’s sister-in-law,” the man told them, without looking up from his sweeping. “Demanded a full-on Fardohnyan wedding, apparently. Don’t know what it’s costing poor old Branador, but given we’re never normally this busy in summer with the Warlords all out of town, I find myself very kindly disposed toward the young lady.”
The man went back to sweeping the taproom floor. Before Mica could decide to sing the man into evicting another guest to make room for them, Rakaia grabbed his arm and dragged him back out into the busy street.
“What’s wrong with this place?” Mica asked, assuming her anxiety to be gone from the tavern was simply because she didn’t like the look of it. “It’s clean enough.”
“We have to leave the city. Now. Let’s just find a boat and be gone from here.”
“Why? Didn’t you hear him? There’s a royal wedding about to happen. A Fardohnyan royal wedding, no less! There’ll be a carnival. Every minstrel for a thousand miles will be here. They hand out gold to complete strangers at Fardohnyan royal weddings. There’s a fortune to be made.”
“We don’t need a fortune, Mica. We can make all the money we need when we get to Calavandra, or wherever it is we find a ship to take us. We don’t need to hang about here, hoping for someone to throw coins at us.”
“But a royal wedding . . .”
Rakaia wanted to scream at him for not getting it. “That’s right, Mica. A royal wedding. Whose royal wedding do you suppose it is?”
“The man said it was the High Prince’s sister-in— . . . Oh.”
“Oh, indeed.”
Mica nodded in understanding and put his arm around her. “You’re right. We shouldn’t stay.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking around. Nobody was watching them. Nobody was looking at her oddly. No one was pointing at her, whispering, “Look, that’s the real princess over there.”
But they had to get out of Greenharbour. She was a fool for not realizing they should never come here in the first place. Surely there were other ports along the coast where they could have found a ship to take them away from Hythria?
“How far is it to the wharves?” she asked, untying her horse’s reins from the hitching rail outside the inn. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand, surprised by the sweat beading there. Talabar was humid, but this place was ridiculous.
“A fair way,” Mica said, frowning. “I was a child the last time I was here, so my memory might not be that good. This is a very big city. I remember that much.”
“We’ll find them,” she said, swinging up into the saddle. “After all, Greenharbour is supposed to be the largest port in the whole world. I’m sure the docks are rather hard to miss.”
Mica smiled at her as he mounted his own horse. “Then we will find a ship and I shall sing us a royal cabin so my lady may travel in the style to which she is accustomed.”
“I’ll settle for a ship sailing on tonight’s tide and a clear space on deck,” she said. “And let’s just stop throwing around words like ‘royal,’ and ‘my lady,’ shall we?”
He bowed to her with mock gallantry. “As my royal lady commands.”
“I am going to have to hit you, Mica.”
He grinned at her, and then leaned over in the saddle to kiss her, whispering against her lips, “Whatever you are to the rest of the world, Rakaia, you are my queen.”
Her heart clenched a little at his declaration. She wondered again if Mica had done something to her to make her feel like this, but almost reached the point where she didn’t care. Mica loved her. She loved Mica. She kissed him back with a grin, saying, “In that case, I command you to take me away from this terrible place, groveling minion, so I may continue my adventure!”
Then she gathered up her reins and turned her horse south, with Mica by her side, happier than she could ever remember.
Provided, of course, she didn’t let herself dwell on the fact that her happiness might well be coming at the cost of her best friend marrying an old man in her place and it would shatter into fragments in a heartbeat unless they were able to find a way out of the city before someone realized the princess at the center of this marvelous royal wedding wasn’t a princess at all.
THE SHIP THEY found to take them south after a long afternoon of refusals was a smart little two-masted trader named the Sarchlo.
The captain, a handsome caramel-skinned young man with a ready smile, told them it meant “unsinkable” in Denikan. Rakaia spoke a smattering of Denikan and was fairly certain it meant nothing of the kind, but the ship seemed in good repair, the decks were polished, the brass work gleamed, and the captain’s sister, a shy young girl of about twelve or thirteen, somehow gave the whole outfit an air of respectability.
The Lyre Thief Page 39
