The Lyre Thief

by Jennifer Fallon

  And with that dire announcement, the discussion about the demon child was ended. The Lord Defender turned back to escorting Princess Marla through the Citadel, pointing out the sights as they rode.

  As they passed the Temple of the Gods, Cade stared at it for a long moment, trying to recall the important information Tarja had sent him to Hythria to collect.

  Something about a covenant, he thought. Or something that was stolen?

  The memory was fleeting and he couldn’t seem to pin it down.

  Once they were past the temple he forgot all about it, the memory drowned out by a strange snippet of song that was suddenly stuck in his head and wouldn’t go away.

  Chapter

  66

  THE CITY BELLS were tolling midnight by the time Rakaia reached the docks. She was frantic as she ran toward the Sarchlo’s berth. Captain Berin had been adamant about the time he planned to sail. And she still didn’t know if Mica was on board or lost somewhere in the city.

  Charisee’s friend had assured her Mica was no longer in the palace, but that didn’t reassure her at all. He might be anywhere in the city, and there was something amiss, otherwise Charisee would not have risked tipping her off about the Harshini coming to read the minds of all the wedding guests. For that matter, whatever had happened was serious enough to get the Sorcerers’ Collective involved in the first place, which didn’t auger well for anyone in the city not wanting to bring themselves to the attention of the authorities.

  Oh, Mica, please don’t let it be something you have done.

  Out of breath, a painful stitch in her side, Rakaia finally spied the Sarchlo getting ready to cast off.

  And pacing back and forth in front of the gangplank was Mica.

  Filled with relief, she called out to him. He turned and ran to her, catching her in a fierce hug, and then holding her at arm’s length to check if she was all in one piece.

  “What happened to you?” he asked, pale with worry. “I was frantic when I got back to the ship and found you weren’t here.”

  “What happened to you?” she said. “You promised me you wouldn’t go near the palace. I’ve been searching for you all day!”

  “You two sailing with us or staying down there for a chat?” Captain Berin called down to them.

  “We’re coming!” Mica called back, taking her by the hand and almost dragging Rakaia with him up the perilous plank. As soon as they were aboard, two of the crew pulled the plank up after them and set about casting off.

  Mica and Rakaia dodged the busy crew as they began to raise the sails and negotiate their way clear of the docks. A fresh breeze had picked up, unusual for this time of night. Not only did it offer a welcome relief from the heat, but it filled the sails quickly and pushed them away from the wharf.

  Away from Greenharbour. Away from Hythria forever.

  Just as I promised you, Charisee.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was going,” he said, kissing her to prove how remorseful he was.

  She pushed him away. “You promised you wouldn’t.”

  “I promised I wouldn’t kill anyone,” he corrected. “And I didn’t.”

  “Why did you go at all? Suppose someone recognized you? You didn’t wear that stupid jacket into the palace did you? Everyone will remember that.”

  “Nobody in Hythria remembers Mikel of Kirkland,” he said. “He’s long dead. And I tossed the jacket in a sewer. You were right about that, too. It was silly to wear it all the time. Hot, too.”

  “Even so, it was an unnecessary risk,” she said, not prepared to let him off quite so lightly, even if he was admitting she was right about something. “You scared the life out of me.”

  “I didn’t mean to. It’s just . . . well, it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. I had that letter of introduction, they were handing out gold like it was candy, we needed more coin, and . . . well, I wanted to see who you were marrying.”

  “You mean you wanted to see Lord Branador?”

  Mica grinned. “I’m a jealous man. I thought I should check out the competition.”

  She hit him on the chest playfully. “You’re an idiot.”

  “Are you sure you want to run away with me? I’ve seen what you’re leaving behind. He’s quite a catch, you know. Never seen a man drool quite so elegantly—”

  “Stop it, you fool,” she said, trying to stay angry with him. “It’s not funny. Poor Charisee is married to that drooling old man now, thanks to me.”

  “Do people really think she’s you? I don’t think you look anything alike. I mean, she pretty enough, I suppose, but you’re much prettier.”

  Rakaia shrugged. “People see what they want to see, I guess.”

  “Well, you won’t have to worry about her so much now. I gave your sister a wedding present from both of us.”

  “What present?”

  “I sang for her. Every soul who heard me sing today will never doubt that Charisee is Rakaia.”

  She glanced around but the crew was busy. Nobody was paying them any attention at all. “You sang them into believing she was me?”

  He nodded, very proud of himself. “As many as I could. Whatever else befalls your sister from this day onward,” he assured her, “you need not fear her being exposed as a liar will be one of them.” He frowned for a moment, then, as he thought of something else. “Actually, speaking of liars, do you know something really odd? I swear, just for a moment today, I saw Jakerlon at the wedding.”

  That made no sense to Rakaia. “Why would the God of Lies be at Charisee’s wedding?”

  “Well, he wasn’t at Charisee’s wedding, was he? He was at yours. That’s a pretty big lie, when you think about it. Knowing Jakerlon, he was probably just soaking up the ambience of her deception. He likes to hang around humans even more than Dacendaran. He says they lie all the time. That’s why, even though he’s an Incidental God and not a Primal one, he’s just as old and powerful as Gimlorie and Dacendaran.”

  Rakaia shook her head. “I forget sometimes, until you start talking about the gods like that, what a strange life you’ve led.”

  He smiled and kissed her soundly. “Well, it is strange no more. I have you, we have a ship, and we have a whole world to explore. And I’m glad you talked me out of killing anyone to get vengeance. You were right. It wasn’t going to change a thing. Do you forgive me?”

  She nodded, pleased beyond words he had let go his poisonous need for revenge. He would never be truly happy while that need ate away at his soul. “Actually, I’m kind of glad you did go, Mica. Otherwise I would never have followed you and had a chance to see Charisee. I even managed to speak to her.” Rakaia debated telling Mica about the circumstances of their discussion or the reason Charisee had arranged for her to flee. None it of seemed to matter now. They were safe, and in truth, she didn’t know the reason anyway. Mica had kept his promise and Greenharbour was dwindling rapidly in the distance as the Sarchlo sailed into the night.

  “Is your sister well?”

  “I think she’s thriving, actually,” Rakaia said, now that she’d had a little more time to reflect on her discussion with Charisee. “Oh . . . and she gave me this.” Rakaia dug into her pocket in her skirt and pulled out the gold coin her sister had handed her as part of the gift giving earlier in the day.

  “Excellent!” Mica said. “I got one too. We’re rolling in cash now. And I bought you a gift from the wedding, seeing as how it was like, you know . . . your wedding.”

  She laughed at that. “Gift? What gift?”

  Mica grinned like a child with a secret he was bursting to tell. “A gift so precious it almost doesn’t have a price. Although, at some point, we’re probably going to have to name one.”

  “What are you taking about, Mica?”

  “Wait here,” he said. “I’ll bring it to you.” Then he kissed her again and hurried off, heading below to retrieve her gift.

  Smiling at his childish enthusiasm for pleasing her, Rakaia walked across
the deck to lean on the railing. The fresh wind was cool on her face, driving them on so quickly, Greenharbour was almost lost to sight already. She sighed with contentment, truly glad she was leaving the city behind. She had no real idea of where they were headed and certainly no idea of what her future might hold, but she could never remember being so happy.

  Her bliss lasted for all of another minute or two before Mica returned with her gift.

  “Surprise!”

  Rakaia turned to see what he’d brought her.

  Mica stood behind her on the deck, grinning like a fool, his hands resting on the shoulders of a tall, fair-haired lad of about eleven or twelve. “This is Little Wolf.”

  “I told you not to call me that,” the child said. “I have a name.”

  “So you do, Little Wolf, so you do. Say hello to Aja.”

  “Hello, Aja.”

  “He’s going to be joining our troupe. He tells me he plays the mandolin.”

  “This is your present?” she asked in shock. “Why would you buy me a slave boy?”

  “I didn’t buy him,” Mica assured her. “He followed me home. I swear.”

  She glanced over her shoulder and realized they were too far out to turn back and return this child to whoever owned him. Assuming he wasn’t an orphan, of course, although by the well-fed look of him and the elegant cut of his white linen shirt, he clearly had someone who looked out for him. Those hand-tooled boots he wore were not the boots of a pauper, either.

  Rakaia shook her head at Mica’s foolishness. He was about the same age as this lad when Brakandaran delivered him to Gimlorie. Had he found this child on the streets and decided to rescue him in some misguided attempt to save another child from the same fate?

  She smiled reassuringly at the boy, who was almost as tall as she was. “Did you really follow Mica home?”

  The boy nodded. “Yes, my lady.”

  “You don’t have to call me that. Why did you follow him? Don’t you have family back in Greenharbour?”

  The lad shrugged. “It seemed like the right thing to do, my lady.”

  “You sang to him,” Rakaia accused Mica, which explained the boy’s unresisting demeanor. “He didn’t follow you at all. You ensorcelled him.”

  Mica grinned at her unrepentantly. “But he’s here now,” he said. “And trust me, his family don’t deserve him.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because this is Jazrian Wolfblade,” Mica told her. “And when Adrina and Damin have suffered enough with the pain of losing their precious eldest child, they can pay us handsomely for his return. So you see . . . it’s just as I promised. It’s a good revenge, don’t you think? Maybe even better than killing someone.”

  Her mind was suddenly blank and she felt sick to her stomach. Rakaia didn’t know what to say. She glanced around, but none of the crew was taking any notice of them. It was impossible to tell if that was because they genuinely weren’t interested or Mica had sung them into compliance as well.

  Rakaia found herself confronted with a stark choice and little time in which to make a decision.

  She could fight Mica on this or go along with it.

  Fighting him would be pointless. If she tried, he would just sing to her until she agreed with him, and then she would lose more than just the argument. She would lose her free will and become a puppet dancing to Mica’s enchanted song, just like all the others she’d seen him sing into submission.

  Or she could play along with this insanity, and the first chance she got once they reached the Trinity Isles, she could find a way to send Jazrian home.

  Assuming they made it to the Trinity Isles. The Wolfblades were a powerful family and Mica hadn’t just taken vengeance on Adrina and Damin.

  He’d kidnapped the crown prince of Hythria.

  Surely the Hythrun would bring every resource at their disposal to bear to recover him, including the Harshini and all the magic they could bring to the search. The Harshini could call on the gods, for that matter.

  How did one hide from a god?

  Mica’s foolishness meant they were living on borrowed time at best, so it wasn’t much of a decision at all, really.

  She smiled at Mica and nodded her approval. “It’s better than good,” she lied. “It’s inspired.”

  He beamed at her. Relieved, happy, and trusting.

  Rakaia held out her hand to Jazrian. “As for you, young man, let’s find you something to wear that’s a little less obvious. Then I suggest we all try to get some sleep because tomorrow is going to be the start of a whole new adventure for all of us.”

  The lad nodded, still under the influence of Mica’s song, probably the only thing saving him from blind panic.

  For his part, Mica just stood there, happier than she’d ever seen him, fingering the small golden lyre he wore on a chain around his neck, apparently oblivious to the consequences of his need to even the score against Adrina and her family—a woman he had once admired and adored.

  There was a lesson in that, Rakaia realized with a small stab of fear as she headed below with Jazrian Wolfblade to find him somewhere to sleep.

  She would do well to remember what Mica was capable of when he felt he had been betrayed by a woman he loved.

  Chapter

  67

  “NOBODY REMEMBERS SEEING anything,” Kiam told Adrina in the small hours of the night, once they’d looked into the minds of every guest at the wedding. Not surprisingly, nobody had opted for being interrogated by the Assassins’ Guild, so he’d had little to do but stand by, look threatening, and watch the Harshini work. “At least, they haven’t found anything so far. Glenanaran said he’d send word if he found anything.”

  It was almost dawn. Nobody had slept. Adrina was pale and distraught, the mother in her devastated by the loss of her son. The High Princess in her was faring marginally better, and the only thing, Kiam suspected, preventing her from falling apart completely. Broos must have sensed her distress, as he padded silently to her side and laid his head in her lap. Without thinking, she smiled faintly at his audacity and began to stroke the dog.

  The whole family had gathered in the main hall. Every adult member of the Wolfblade clan currently resident in Greenharbour was here—Rodja and Selena Tirstone, their son, Eyvan. Rodja’s younger brother, Adham, Luciena Taranger and her husband, Xanda. Darvad Vintner, his wife Rielle and their eldest son, Andrue, Kalan Hawksword and her daughter, Julika, who’d been an attendant at Rakaia’s wedding.

  Every one of them ready to do whatever it took to find Jaz and bring him home.

  Although it was the early hours of the morning, Kiam walked in on a discussion that had been going on for quite a while, he gathered. Everyone wanted to help and there were already maps of the city being laid out on the temporary table Darvad had arranged to be installed, in preparation for a much more detailed search of the city. Gaffen was already out, combing the streets around the palace, and he was fairly sure by now the Thieves’ Guild would be looking for the missing prince, too.

  The Assassins’ Guild hadn’t offered to help in the search directly, but Elin had released Kiam from any other guild business until the young prince was found. He also hinted that he would turn a blind eye if Kiam found the people involved and took it upon himself to undertake any uncontracted kills necessary to take care of the miscreants who dared to harm their prince.

  The problem was that nobody knew where to start looking.

  Rodja Tirstone rubbed his temples tiredly and looked at Adrina. “I know we discussed this already, but is there any chance Jaz ran off of his own accord? I mean, we used to do that sort of thing with Damin, Narvell, and Kalan all the time when we were kids in Krakandar. It was a game, giving our guards the slip.”

  Adrina shook her head. “Not Jazrian. Marlie would do something like that in a heartbeat, but Jaz is much more sensible.”

  “Then if we’ve ruled out a prank, someone has taken him or killed him,” Luciena Taranger concluded. Her husband, Xanda,
was standing behind her. He must have said something to her because she looked up at him crossly, saying, “I’m sorry you don’t like me being so blunt, Xanda, but time is of the essence here. I’m sure Adrina would rather we stated the problem and started working on how to fix it than beat about the bush being diplomatic so we don’t hurt her tender feelings.” She turned back to Adrina. “Have you closed the port?”

  Darvad answered her question. “Just after midnight,” he assured her. “We’re lucky, really, that a Fardohnyan wedding feast meant most of the ships’ captains in port decided not to fight the inevitable and they delayed their departure until their crews sobered up.”

  “Most?” Xanda asked.

  “I believe a couple of ships left port on last night’s high tide, but there won’t be many of them.”

  “I’ll find out from the harbor master which ships they were and where they were headed,” Luciena promised. “I’ll contact my shipping agents by bird in whatever ports they’re headed for and arrange for them to be met and searched when they arrive.”

  The door opened again and Wrayan Lightfinger walked in. His expression was grim. Although he wasn’t strictly family, he was close enough to be included in this war council, and besides, even more than Kalan, who was High Arrion of the Sorcerers’ Collective, the head of the Thieves’ Guild had a direct channel to the gods.

  Adrina looked up at him hopefully. “Have you spoken to Dacendaran?”

  Wrayan shook his head. “I tried, but he’s not answering me.”

  “Not surprising, really,” Adham said. “And it may be a good sign.”

  “How can you say it’s a good sign, Uncle Adham?” Andrue asked. He was just twenty and apparently not in the least awed by being included in this powerful company.

  “Because it might mean Jaz has been stolen, rather than killed,” Adham said. He turned to Wrayan. “That’s a possibility, isn’t it?”

  The wraith nodded. “If Jaz has been killed, Dace would be blaming Zegarnald and bitching about it to anyone who’ll listen to him. If he’s not answering, it could well be that he just doesn’t want to answer any awkward questions.”