A Court for Thieves

by Morgan Rice

  She sent a flicker of thought, and the forest cat stalked into the inn. Sophia heard the gasps around her. The man’s brothers slunk back against the wall in fear. Most of the inn’s inhabitants gave ground at the sight of the predator.

  “I’d say that you had one chance to let go of me,” Sophia said. “But you used up your chances back at the river, when you tried to kill me and my friends. Sienne, attack.”

  The forest cat leapt forward, snarling. The thug fell back, his screams rising in intensity as claws and teeth sliced into him.

  “That’s enough, Sienne,” Sophia said, calling her back. The forest cat slunk back to her side, licking blood from his paws. The would-be thief lay on the ground, moaning in pain. Sophia felt no pity for him. Instead, she moved to kneel by him, drawing a knife.

  “All my life,” she said, “I’ve had people thinking that they can do what they want with me. They think that they can take what they want without consequences. They think that they can try to kill me. You made a mistake though. You left me alive.”

  She left him, but not out of any sense of mercy. She simply didn’t want people hunting for her and the others. She left him ravaged by claw marks, standing with the knife still in her hands. This was the reason that she’d sent the others around the back. She hadn’t wanted them to see this. She hadn’t wanted them to stop her. She might not live for vengeance the way Kate did, but she was sick of being so weak that people thought they could take advantage of her.

  She looked around at the faces of the farmers there, marred by terror and anger in equal parts.

  “This man is a thief, a killer, and a would-be rapist,” she said, as they tried to make up their minds whether to stop her. “Not one of you tried to stop him. If you try to stop me from leaving, you’ll get the same justice he did.”

  She stalked out, and managed to keep from shaking until she made it to the cart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Kate fidgeted as she waited behind the rocks, staring out over the ocean. She tried to make herself into a thing of unmovable rock, still as the chalk cliffs nearby. It didn’t work though. She’d been waiting there too long for that.

  “Nine-tenths of warfare is waiting,” Lord Cranston said, in the rocks not far from her. He wasn’t crouched and stiffening like Kate and the others there, but was instead sitting comfortably on a camp stool he’d arranged for the purpose. He was even reading a book of what appeared to be poetry, occasionally reading sections aloud in Ancient Helene as if Kate would understand.

  “It feels as though we’re working on the other tenth as well,” Kate complained. Birds wheeled overhead, the waves crashed on the shore, and still there was no sign of their enemy. Down in the rocks, their men had taken up positions that wouldn’t give away their presence. Even the cannon had been covered with foliage to disguise them.

  “Now wouldn’t that be a thought?” Lord Cranston said. “Warfare without the awkward business of being shot at.” She heard him sigh. “Sadly, I don’t think it will be happening today. Look.”

  Kate looked out over the water, following the line of Lord Cranston’s pointing finger. As she watched, she saw ships go from dots to more obvious shapes, landing boats swarming from them like ants from a nest. They moved in closer with rapid, synchronized strokes, and Kate braced herself for the moment when they would land.

  So did the others. She could see men readying weapons, loading muskets and drawing swords for closer work, the tension building. Still, the whole beach was quieter than Kate could have believed, so that she could even hear the cawing of the birds above the rest of it.

  One landed close to her, and Kate found herself staring into the eyes of a large black crow.

  “Like the Master of Crows you were telling me about,” she said.

  “What’s that?” Lord Cranston asked. Kate saw him look across at the crow, and she could feel his concern rising. “Crows aren’t seabirds. There’s something wrong.”

  Soldiers appeared, moving down the beach at speed, and Kate knew then that they’d been spotted. The landing parties were a distraction.

  They turned to face the new foe, but their lines were set to take on an enemy force coming from the sea, not one coming at them from the land. They were still reorganizing when the enemy lifted muskets and fired, filling the air with lead and acrid smoke. Men fell, screaming. Something whizzed past Kate’s ear, taking a chip from the nearby rocks.

  “Return fire!” Lord Cranston yelled above the noise of it all, and whatever good humor he’d had before had disappeared now. Kate heard the crack of flintlocks, and the thud of arrows. She jumped up, firing a pistol, and saw a man fall in response. Above her somewhere, a cannon boomed, and she found herself thinking of Will, hoping that he would be all right.

  Then the landing boats hit the shore, and there was no time to think of anything else but survival.

  “Go to the men there,” Lord Cranston said, pointing. “Tell them to pull back to my position. Do it now!”

  Kate nodded and set off, sprinting and dodging as projectiles flew around her. A man in an ochre tunic came at her and she ducked under the swing of a sword, coming up with her own already drawn to plunge it into his back. She sensed a flicker of hostility from her left and barely brought her weapon around in time to bat away another sword, kicking an attacker away.

  On another occasion, Kate might have followed that up, pressing forward for the kill, but she had an order to fulfill, and just the tone of Lord Cranston’s voice had been enough to impress on her the importance of it. Kate could see it for herself. The men who had wheeled to meet the attackers on the beach had set themselves against that new threat, only to leave themselves vulnerable to the ones coming in the boats.

  They needed to pull back, but already, the ones from the boats were starting to form a firing line, ready to bring down all the soldiers who were caught out in the open. That included Kate, who was too far out now to be able to find cover.

  She did the only thing she could think of, taking emotion and throwing it at the men the way she had with some of Siobhan’s constructs back in the forest. She took all the pain and confusion she could find, from the horror of her first kill to her earliest memories of fire and pain. She flung it like a net, catching as many men as possible in it, and she saw them stagger, stunned by it if only for a few seconds.

  “Pull back!” she yelled to the men on her side, and to her surprise, they listened. Perhaps they’d just gotten used to her running errands for Lord Cranston, and now they didn’t question it when she spoke for him. Maybe he’d known what he was doing, having her run all over camp on his behalf.

  Whatever the reason, they started to pull back, while in front of them, the soldiers in the ochre tunics fumbled with their weapons, not quite able to bring them to bear as they struggled with everything Kate had thrown at them.

  They sprinted back to the rocks, and Kate went with them, catching a straggling enemy with her blade without even slowing down. There was no time to fight then, only enough to hit and run, leaving a wound that would probably take the man out of the fight for a while at least as she ran for the cover of the rocks.

  Kate made it to them as the effects of her mental attack started to wear off, shots sounding now as Lord Cranston’s men started to fling themselves into cover. Some weren’t quick enough, falling as lead balls hit them. Kate saw a man go down just in front of her, and she rushed from the rocks, dragging him back while stone chips flew around her.

  From their cover, Lord Cranston’s men fired back in staggered volleys, designed to allow the men who weren’t firing enough time to reload. The archers filled in the gaps with arrows, and the cannon above fired again, sending up sprays of wooden splinters as they shattered the landing boats below.

  It seemed like an impossible storm of violence, and Lord Cranston stood in the middle of it as calmly as if he were taking a stroll, shouting orders and trying to marshal the response. Despite it all, Kate could see that it wouldn’t be e
nough. There was no way that it could be. She’d saved the men on the beach and allowed them enough time to regroup, but even dug in, there was no way for them to stand against so many opponents.

  Then Kate felt power rising up inside her that she didn’t understand. It felt as though she could feel everything around her, from the heartbeats of the men to the curl of the waves nearby. She felt connected to it all completely, and somehow, she knew that it was hers.

  Siobhan had told her once that weather magic was not for her, but in that moment, Kate instinctively understood it. That scared her a little, because she suspected that the forest woman would not be happy that she understood that kind of power untrained, but right then she didn’t care. She reached out with a tendril of power, and then the mist began to rise.

  It began slowly, in curls of vapor that mingled in with the smoke of the firing weapons, but Kate found it growing, mingling with dark clouds and drizzling rain that wet the powder and the sand alike.

  Slowly, it grew, until Kate could only see a few paces in front of her, and the enemies disappeared in it. At least, they did for everyone else. In this thick fog, it was like being in the thick forest, unable to see far ahead, but able to hear, and touch, and pick out the distinctive signatures of minds.

  Without a word, she slipped into the mist, her sword ready for what was to come.

  Kate picked a spot where the clustering of minds was thinnest, running forward in silence. A figure came out of the mist, looked shocked at her sudden appearance, and tried to raise a sword. Kate struck him through the throat and kept running, already away in the mist by the time shouts sounded behind her.

  She struck at another man in the mist, and this time he was quick enough to get a blade up to parry. He sliced back at her, and Kate swayed away from the stroke, barely avoiding it. She thrust, and then rolled her wrist to take her saber around her opponent’s parry, hacking into his arm.

  Again, she ran on.

  Kate sprinted from spot to spot, feeling for the spaces where the enemies were the most spread out, picking off stragglers wherever she could and then disappearing as men rushed forward, trying to catch up with the one who struck at them from nowhere. She hit a group of them next, coming in from behind to cut down one man, then thrusting through the chest of another as he turned to face her before running back into the mist.

  It seemed as though she was the predator then, and they the prey, but Kate knew just how dangerous a game this was. She could feel the men trying to coordinate with one another to find her, even as she could feel their fear rising. She needed to be silent and deadly with every attack, killing and then moving away again before they could come at her in numbers. They just needed to tangle her up in violence for a few seconds, while more of them could turn to fight against her.

  Kate kept running, kept killing, kept hoping that what she was doing would be enough.

  Around her, shots started to sound as men who hadn’t dared to fire in the mist before risked it in the face of the silent killer stalking them. Booms erupted as men fired at shadows or flickers of smoke, and musket balls hit the sand around Kate, sending up showers of it.

  Kate could feel men watching for her now. There were groups of them huddling together, their weapons ready, and Kate could pick up the poised readiness in their thoughts, prepared to fire arrows and musket balls at the least provocation. That gave Kate an idea, and she smiled grimly as she crept between the two largest groups, waiting for her moment.

  “Here!” she yelled at the top of her voice, then threw herself flat.

  The world erupted around her, with men firing blindly from both sides. Some screamed as their own side shot at them. Some of them, thinking that it was the enemy, continued their attack. Projectiles flew above Kate, close enough that she was sure one must strike her in a second or two, yet there was only the sound of men dying all around her.

  An officer’s voice called for the men to cease their fire, but it was in vain at first. He yelled it louder, but Kate guessed that it was the need to reload more than any real obedience that brought the cacophony to a halt.

  Kate rose from her belly and ran, knowing that she would only have moments before men closed in on the spot where she’d been standing with steel. She felt for the minds ahead of her, and already there were men moving to cut her off. She leapt at one in the mist, but it was starting to thin now, and he saw her coming. He parried one blow, then another. It was only on the third that her saber slipped through the man’s defenses, cutting him down smoothly. By then, men were already closing in, and Kate had to run again just to burst through the circle of hands that grabbed at her.

  There were too many of them. She was fast, and she could fight, but there were men closing in on all sides now, and even she could fall under the weight of numbers. She cut one down, but more were closing, and she was running out of room to run. She took a chance, reaching out for the strange, unfathomable power she’d touched once more.

  As suddenly as it had come, the mist lifted.

  Kate found herself staring at Lord Cranston’s men, drawn up in order, with their weapons raised. For the second time in less than a minute, Kate threw herself flat as fire roared over her head into the enemy’s ranks. Then Lord Cranston’s men were charging, and the battle swept over her, into the ranks of the now depleted enemy forces.

  A hand clasped Kate’s, pulling her up. Lord Cranston was there, standing in the middle of the battle while around him men fought and died. And ran. The enemy were running now, making for their boats with the terror of men who knew they had little chance of making it.

  “As your commander,” he said, with a stern look, “I really must reprimand you for going off alone, without any orders. It was a foolish, idiotic thing to do.”

  Kate stood there, not knowing what to make of that, at least until Lord Cranston smiled.

  “But I’m glad you did it,” he said. “You saved us, Kate. The men won’t forget that, and neither will I.”

  “Kate! Kate! Kate!” the men around her yelled as they lifted their weapons into the air.

  Around Kate, the battle was winding down, and she could see some of the men looking at her with something like awe. It seemed as though, in a matter of minutes, she’d gone from merely Lord Cranston’s servant to the hero of the battle. More than one came up, clasping her hand as if she’d just done something impossible. Kate saw Will over by one of the cannons, waving. She wanted to go to him, but there was no way to leave Lord Cranston’s side with his eyes on her.

  There were other eyes watching her too. Kate saw the crow sitting on the edge of the battlefield, staring at her with an intensity that had nothing to do with anything natural. It watched her for a moment or two longer, then took off in a flurry of movement.

  Kate knew that it wasn’t over. They’d won the battle, but something had just noticed her presence.

  And that could only mean more danger.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Sebastian stood impatiently outside the doors to his mother’s chambers, waiting for the moment when he would be allowed inside. Even he had to wait, because as his mother had often told him, she didn’t have the luxury of ever being anything less than the Dowager.

  Sebastian sometimes wished that he could be something other than a prince, though. It would have made things simpler with Sophia, for one thing.

  He could hardly believe, as he stood there, that she had done all that Angelica had said about her. That she had come here in a fury looking for him, and ended up hurting Rupert. He hadn’t wanted to think it was real, but it was what the guards were saying too: that they’d chased her after she’d attacked the prince.

  Sebastian swallowed at that thought, thinking of what might have happened if they’d caught her. He was glad that they hadn’t, even if she had struck Rupert. He knew his brother, and it was hard to believe that Rupert might not have done something to deserve it.

  The harder part was that she had come there to tell him how much she hated h
im. That part was impossible to get past. A part of Sebastian wanted to believe that it couldn’t be true, but everyone in the palace had seen Sophia there. They’d seen her running out, after everything that had happened. He knew that she had to hate him.

  He deserved her hate, after what he’d done in sending her away. He deserved the pain of his wounds, because they weren’t even close to being enough punishment for not having the courage to ask her to stay. When he’d met Sophia’s sister, he’d assumed that she would try to kill him, and the truth was that if she had, it would have been no more than he deserved.

  There was no time to think about that now, though, because servants chose that moment to come from his mother’s room, throwing the doors open for him to enter.

  “Prince Sebastian,” one announced, as if his mother hadn’t been the one to send for him in the first place. It was a ruler that he was there to see, his queen rather than just his mother.

  “Come in, Sebastian,” his mother called, and there was an informality to it that was at odds with the rest of it. She was there in the sitting area of her suite of rooms, perched informally on the edge of a chaise with a set of tea things laid out on a small table in front of her. Sebastian had no doubt that it would be the finest the Far Colonies had to offer.

  She rose to meet him, forestalling his attempt to bow by wrapping her arms around him. It was one of the few times Sebastian could remember his mother hugging him like that. Normally before, there had been servants or courtiers, others to do the jobs involved in raising him, while simultaneously seeming to preclude closeness with their very presence.

  “I’m glad that you’re safe,” his mother said, holding him in the hug for a moment longer. “When I heard everything that the messengers had to say… I didn’t want to believe it. I told them that if they were lying to me about my son being in danger, I’d have them sent away in disgrace.”

  Sebastian could imagine her doing that, but it didn’t make him feel better. Even in what he suspected was a declaration of motherly love, there was still a reminder that the formality of the court could never entirely go away.