A Court of Lies

by Kate Avery Ellison

  He frowned at her. He did not like this plan. He didn’t like any plan that the Seeker devised. “Quickly,” he said.

  Auberon and the dragonsayer turned back to the Seeker’s sister, who was still huddled against the wall.

  “I can’t,” Jade murmured. She began to rock back and forth. “The shadows are deadly.”

  “This will help,” the dragonsayer said. She looked at the Seeker woman. “Jade…? I’m going to look inside your mind. But you have to use your power. Try to read my mind.”

  Jade made a soft noise of assent, as if coming back to herself. She reached out her hands, and the metal gloves on them clinked as she brushed them together. “What about these?”

  Auberon bent over them with a sound of frustration. “What happens when you use your powers?”

  “Nothing,” his sister said. “As I cannot touch flesh with them.”

  “I have an idea,” Auberon said. He put his ungloved hands over the metal ones that chained his sister, and then instructed the dragonsayer to touch his hands with hers.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “I can channel her power through mine.”

  They huddled close to each other, and Nath paced, scanning the entrances for any signs of vicious killer gangs with names like Deatheaters with one eye, watching for the Seeker to try something suspicious with the other.

  “It’s working,” the dragonsayer said after a moment. “I got a glimmer of something.” She fell quiet, focusing, her eyes open and unseeing. The Seeker leaned over her, and together, they were silent.

  Somewhere in the distance, a shout echoed. Jade whimpered again, and the thing in Nath’s arms nosed at his arm as if looking for reassurance. He patted it and felt a tiny nose sniff his fingertips. A faint purr came, followed by a sneeze.

  Something warm and gentle uncurled inside Nath. Once, when he was a young boy, he’d found a puppy in the gutter. A tiny thing, the runt of its litter, white all over except for a black patch on one eye. He’d named it Pirate and fed it scraps and milk from a rag. He’d loved the puppy, and Pirate had learned to fetch a stick and bring it back, and to sit on command. Then his father had found the puppy and killed it, because, as he’d roared at Nath afterward, they didn’t need another mouth to feed.

  Nath drew the bundle closer to his side and vowed to keep this little thing safe.

  As if sensing his thoughts, the bundle wiggled, and the creature inside let out a louder purr.

  The dragonsayer pulled her hand back from the Seeker’s and exhaled.

  “What did you see?” Auberon demanded.

  “Other prisoners did something. Splintered her mind. It wasn’t even the Seeker guards—they threw her in here without interrogation,” the dragonsayer said.

  “Her power felt weak,” Auberon agreed. “Almost as if—”

  “Let’s talk about it later,” Nath interrupted. “Did you see how to get out of here?”

  The dragonsayer pointed at the tunnel. “We can go this way, but we need to be ready. We might be attacked.”

  “Wonderful,” Nath muttered. He lifted his sword and gestured for Auberon to lead the way.

  They once again began to move through the darkness of the tunnel. Nath scanned the shadows, his pulse thudding, sweat trickling down his back despite the chill of the air. The Seeker had his arm around his sister, who stumbled as she walked. The dragonsayer moved to take the lead, which Nath didn’t like, but he didn’t say anything.

  She was, after all, a queen now.

  A howl came from the left, catching them off guard, and then figures wrapped in tattered cloaks were leaping from holes in the walls, hands outstretched, bare fingers gleaming through holes in the metal gloves the prisoners wore.

  “Skullsplitters!” Jade cried out. “They must have tracked us.”

  One jumped on Auberon and knocked him and Jade to the ground. He found back, clamping a hand on the prisoner’s head. The prisoner screamed and thrashed. Two more closed in on the dragonsayer, and she smiled before she sent them flying.

  Nath forced one of the prisoners back with a swipe of his sword. Another rushed at him, and he hit the prisoner over the head. The man fell like a stone.

  “Now who’s the skullsplitter?” Nath snapped at him with a sneer.

  Another wave of the prisoners was wiggling through the holes in the tunnel wall.

  “Go!” Nath shouted, and they ran, leaving the prisoners behind.

  They ran and ran. Darkness and shadow, blue flickering light and moans of misery swirled around Nath as he followed the others through a maze of tunnels and open spaces. They stumbled and fell and leaped up again.

  In the distance, Nath saw a glow of light. The door. The door to freedom. They ran toward it, and the door opened to let them out.

  He staggered, and Tibus caught him with one hand on his shoulder. Kael wrapped an arm around the dragonsayer. Auberon and his sister came through last of all, and they slid to the ground, breathing hard, as the door closed behind them.

  “You were gone a long time. Kael was about to come in after you, disguise or not,” Crispin announced, and then he burst out, “She’s bleeding!”

  “It’s not my blood,” Jade managed. She was breathing in great gasps. She pushed herself up and looked around her. She took in the sight of Kael, Crispin, and Tibus.

  “Have we been rescued by… Monarchists?” she demanded, turning to Auberon.

  But the Seeker didn’t answer her. He was staring at Kael and the dragonsayer, his eyes scorching and his mouth pressed in a thin, taut line as Kael brushed his fingers down the dragonsayer’s cheek. It was a tiny gesture, but it said volumes.

  Nath wanted to laugh. He’d just come through a nightmare of darkness and death, and they were still in danger—there was much to be done if this mission was to be successful, but right now everything seemed right in the world. The dragonsayer and their fearless, bold, inscrutable leader didn’t hate each other anymore. In fact, he supposed their feelings were quite the opposite.

  Nath exchanged a look with Tibus, who grinned uncertainly in a way that made Nath think the soldier hadn’t known either—although he may have suspected.

  “What now?” Auberon snapped.

  “How fares the dragon, Catfoot?” Kael asked.

  “The dragon is in position,” the dragonsayer reported, closing her eyes briefly. “And the hole in the wall is almost finished. But we must get the dragon skull I promised.”

  “Quickly,” Kael said.

  ~

  The warden sat at the desk in his chambers, trying to write in his daily log, but instead of seeing the words he’d scrawled on the book before him, he saw the face of that female Seeker again.

  Something about her stuck in his mind. Something about her was familiar. Too familiar. He’d seen her before, and it was important that he remember who she was.

  He couldn’t recall why for the life of him, though.

  The warden dipped his pen in the inkwell again and continued recording the events of the day. Blizzard threatening overhead. Gruel for breakfast, as they were running low on eggs. The guards were playing that obnoxious card game again, the one that he was truly terrible at, and they kept trying to entice him to join in. He suspected they knew how bad he was and wanted to fleece him for his finest cloak. But he was not going to give it up. He’d gotten this cloak as a present from his mother when he’d graduated from the Citadel—she’d presented it to him on the bridge after the ceremony—

  The warden’s hand stilled.

  The bridge.

  The bridge to the Citadel.

  That was where he’d seen the female Seeker. On the bridge of the Citadel… running from the soldiers.

  He stood abruptly, his chair falling over as he shouted for the guards.

  She wasn’t a high-ranking Seeker.

  She was a fugitive.

  ~

  The group reached the storage area the warden had described at last, and one of the keys on Kael’s stolen guard’s armor fit the pad
lock on the door. Briand went first as the group slipped inside another vast space, the air above them filled with darkness, the room black. Only the echoing sound of their footsteps betrayed the size of the room until Kael touched his sputtering blue torch to an unlit stalk on the wall, igniting it. Light filled the corner of the room in which they stood, illuminating stacks and stacks of barrels, and beyond them, empty space.

  Briand gazed around her. Where were the bones the warden had said they stashed here?

  “I don’t see any dragon bones,” Crispin said. His voice echoed in the stillness.

  “Dragon bones?” Jade asked.

  “They made a deal with a dragon,” Auberon told her quietly.

  “That seems… unwise?” she muttered.

  “I know what I’m doing,” Briand said.

  The bundle Jade had given Nath to hold, Briand noticed, was still tucked in the crook of his arm. It wiggled and squeaked loudly, and Crispin jumped back.

  “What is that?” he demanded, alarmed. “Did you find that in the Tomb?”

  Jade came forward and took the squirming pile of rags from Nath’s arm. “It’s a baby rypter,” she said, cradling the bundle in her hands.

  All the color drained from Nath’s face. He drew back in horror. “A rypter?”

  “The only one that survived,” she said. “The guards throw the old rypters that can’t work anymore into the Tomb. The prisoners kill them for food when they get too weak. Snowball was pregnant, but she nearly starved. Her other pups didn’t make it through the birth.” She pressed the bundle to her cheek.

  Nath cast his gaze about the room as if trying to find something—anything—to say. His hand reflexively reached for his sword.

  “Don’t you dare,” Jade snapped, clasping the bundle with the baby rypter inside close to her chest. “I know you Monarchists hate the rypters without cause, but Snowball’s baby hasn’t done anything to you.”

  “Without cause?” Nath thundered incredulously. “Oh, I have cause!”

  “What are you going to do with it?” Crispin demanded, looking as worried as Nath.

  “I’m going to keep it,” she replied, a flush rising in her cheeks. “Its mother saved my life.”

  “You’re not bringing that thing with us!” Nath shouted.

  “Quiet, all of you!” Briand said, her voice low but cutting, and something about her tone silenced them.

  “Listen,” she said, holding up a finger, her head tilted to the side.

  Faintly, a bell was clanging.

  An alarm.

  “That can’t be good,” Crispin muttered. “What is it?”

  Auberon raised his head. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “They know we’re here.”

  Jade looked at her brother anxiously, and he laid a hand on her arm as if to comfort her.

  “They’ve found the guards, perhaps,” Kael said. He looked at Briand. “We’re out of time, Catfoot.”

  “I—” she began.

  Then the door burst open, and Seeker guards filled the opening.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  BRIAND FLUNG HERSELF at the guards before anyone else had a chance to move or speak. They closed around her, the closest one reaching his bare hand for her head. He flew back and hit the wall hard, landing in an unconscious heap. The second guard didn’t pause as he tried to do the same, and he met the same abrupt and stinging fate.

  The third guard hesitated.

  That was when Tibus ran him through with his sword.

  Auberon swept to the crumpled guard’s side and placed an ungloved hand to the man’s head. “They’ve remembered our girl here,” he reported, flicking his gaze to Briand first before looking at the others. “The warden saw her in the Citadel.”

  “We have to go now,” Kael said, sheathing his sword.

  Briand met his gaze. Love and trust shone strong in his eyes. He was not commanding her. She was his equal. A thief-queen. More than a tool, more than a weapon.

  He was giving her the choice to keep looking for what she’d promised the dragon.

  The lives of her friends came first. She’d sort out the dragon business later. If they made it out.

  The alarm was still sounding, the clanging echoing through the prison, making a mournful, ominous sound.

  “Sir?” Nath asked.

  “Let’s go,” Briand said.

  They started for the door when Auberon shouted, “Stop!”

  They halted.

  The Seeker stretched out a hand. “There’s a faster way. Not the way we came. They’re looking for us now—they’ll find us if we go that way.”

  “That isn’t the plan,” Kael said with a low growl.

  “The plan,” Auberon said sharply, “was to make our escape before our deception was realized. The plan has already been rendered worthless.”

  Kael looked at Auberon with narrowed eyes. “And what way are you proposing we go?”

  Auberon pointed right.

  Kael’s frown deepened. He crossed his arms. “To get to our exit point, we have to cross through one of those portions of the map that you didn’t remember.”

  “I can find the way,” Auberon promised. He looked at Briand as if seeking solidarity from her, but she was silent.

  Could they trust him?

  She wasn’t sure.

  “As delightful as this conversation is, we’ve got company,” Nath interjected.

  Five more Seeker guards appeared, carrying spears and axes.

  “I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as knocking them unconscious,” Briand said to Kael. She drew her blades as he lifted his sword, and with Nath and Tibus at their sides, they fanned out to face the approaching opponents.

  “Crispin,” Kael said. “Stay back. Keep watch over our Seekers.”

  “Your Seekers?” Jade said, raising one eyebrow angrily.

  “Any Seeker who isn’t ours, I’m killing,” Nath shot back, and she fell silent.

  “But you’re outnumbered,” Crispin protested weakly, swallowing hard at the sight of the guards’ wicked blades.

  “I could help,” Auberon called. “If I had a weapon!”

  “Nobody is that stupid,” Nath shouted back.

  “Surrender,” one of the guards said to them, “and we’ll kill you quickly.”

  “Liar,” Nath spat. “If we surrender, you’ll torture us until we scratch off our own skin.” He raised his sword, the point gleaming in the dim light. “Come and try to take me. It’s been a while since I wet my blade with magic blood.”

  “Does the rat-faced man speak for all of you?” the guard asked.

  “He does,” Briand said. “And I’m going to make you regret calling him that.”

  The guard sneered at her. “What do you think you can do, bitch? You’re nothing but a—”

  A knife flew through the air and hit the guard in the shoulder. He staggered back with a howl of surprise and displeasure.

  Briand and the others whirled to look at Crispin.

  “Crispin!” Nath bellowed. “We told you to stay back.”

  The lad shrugged sheepishly. “He called our Guttersnipe a bitch.”

  The guard shrugged off his cloak, revealing armor underneath. He yanked the knife from where it was buried harmlessly in his breastplate.

  “Kill them,” he ordered.

  The other guards lowered their weapons and started forward. Kael swung his sword, the blade colliding with the weapon of the first Seeker to reach him. Nath rushed to meet the Seekers with a cry of rage, and Tibus waded in, chopping right and left. Briand landed a blade in the seam between the armor of the Seeker fighting Kael, giving the Monarchist commander time to land a blow that knocked the Seeker to his knees.

  They were still outnumbered. Kael turned to counter the attack of another guard, and the swing from the Seeker knocked him against the wall. The guard raised his battle axe, and Briand’s knife caught him in the throat. She leaped forward, yanking the blade from his body as she turned on another guard.


  The Seeker guard raised his spear, but then chains tangled around the shaft, and Auberon threw the guard to the floor. Nath finished him, and they shared a look across the enemy’s crumpled form.

  “Couldn’t stay away, huh?” Nath grunted.

  “I need you imbeciles if I want to get my sister out alive,” Auberon countered.

  The three other guards drew back down the hall, calling for reinforcements; the fight was over. Nath and Tibus were bleeding from cuts to their arms. Kael had a bruise swelling on the side of his jaw.

  They stood panting for a moment.

  “More of them are coming, sir,” Tibus said. “They’ll be back. We have to go now.”

  “Which way will it be, traitor?” Auberon asked. “Your way, or mine?”

  “I guess the decision is made, isn’t it?” Kael said, for the way they’d come was blocked by the approaching Seeker guards. He sheathed his sword with a snap.

  “Follow me,” the Seeker said.

  They heard the sound of guards approaching again, and so they ran.

  ~

  Briand and the rest of the company fled through a maze of dark corridors, following Auberon blindly until he came to a stop in a great and dusty domed room, with four corridors branching away from it into icy shadows. The light from the blue-burning torch reflected across the frost on the walls and floor and made the whole scene shimmer like the wet teeth of a monster opening its mouth.

  In the distance, Briand could hear shouts, the guards calling to each other as they searched, and the relentless thud of boots against stone.

  “Why are you stopping?” Nath cried.

  Auberon’s forehead wrinkled. He whirled in a circle, his head turning back and forth.

  “He’s lost,” Tibus announced with a rumble of anger.

  “Or he brought us here only to trap us. Maybe it was a ruse all along,” Nath hissed. He drew his sword with a squeal of steel.

  The sounds of pursuit intensified. The guards were close.

  Kael drew his sword and paced to the mouth of the tunnel they’d just exited. He cocked his head and listened. “We have perhaps a minute before they’re here.”