Game of Towers and Treachery (The Shadow's Apprentice Book 2)

by Harper Alexander

  “In the meantime,” Isavor continued, “our resident sweet-tooth will be released into your custody.”

  “Thank you, your Majesty.”

  Isavor gave a curt nod, but there was a slight rigidity to his features, and Despiris couldn’t help but feel the favors were running out.

  Taking her leave from the throne room, she had little choice but to bend her mind immediately to her next big move against the Shadowmaster. How could she possibly top the stunt she had pulled in the sewers? Worse – Clevwrith was onto her now, knowing she would cross any line to get to him.

  Not any line, she reminded herself – if that were true, she’d be rallying Ophelious’ beasts herself.

  Feeling suddenly lightheaded from the spin of it all, she paused to catch her breath, slipping behind a pillar to hide her moment of weakness. She leaned back against the column, pressing the heels of her hands to her temples. A whisper of insanity tickled too close to the forefront, all the times she’d tamped it down to keep her cool catching up to her. Keep it together, Des, she commanded herself. There was too much at stake.

  Gradually, the pressure in her head receded. Resting her hands on her thighs, she exhaled heavily, expelling the weight from her being. And then she moved on, pushing herself away from the column and continuing down the hall.

  A moment was all she could afford herself. For if she didn’t expedite Clevwrith’s reckoning, her own was coming for her. It loomed on the horizon – a sunrise of hellfire, slowly burning the city down around her.

  *

  Her objective did not get easier with two young boys under her wing. Po was an amiable enough ward, but Radu’s mischievous spirit presented instant and ongoing challenges.

  He was a troublemaker through and through.

  It was a scant few days before he became too much for the palace nursemaids, returned to Despiris’s sole supervision with adamant renouncement.

  Unsurprisingly, the feeling was mutual, Radu grumbling about the incessant, drab abuse of being told to respect his elders and eat his vegetables. “As if either has much to revere beyond the unseemly attributes of gnarled, withered old potatoes.”

  And so Despiris did her best mothering the boys herself, but found little time to plan her next move against the Shadowmaster, much less the freedom to go out and execute said plan. She would have to work while the boys slept, she concluded – and while she was not averse to going out at night, she was exhausted by then. It only took one attempt to realize she was operating far below her normal prowess, and that she might as well pack up and go home before she’d even finished her warm-up across the rooftops. Slacking off halfway to the Cob, she rested against a chimney and watched the moon rise instead, then returned to the palace on dragging feet.

  This is never going to work.

  The next day, she explored a new tactic, enlisting a young soldier in the king’s guard who was willing to foster the boys for a few hours each day. They quickly found the stimulation and discipline they’d been lacking, learning skills in the training yard and helping with chores in the barracks.

  At breakfast, Lady Verrikose joined Despiris at the railing overlooking the gardens for her daily two-faced comment, breathing deeply of the spring air and remarking, “The skies are beautiful today.”

  Which meant to Des’s discerning ears that the noblewoman likely had a beast out in said skies, experiencing their beauty firsthand.

  This triggered the natural response. Dusting off her old prankster gloves, Despiris decided it was high time the beastress realized what happened when she neglected one pet in favor of another. Taking advantage of the woman’s trance-like focus while she was riding the wings of myth and legend through the sky, Despiris slipped past her on her balcony, sneaked into her chambers, and stole her beloved comfort-creature right out from under her nose.

  She stashed him in a tower with plenty of snacks, and left him to enjoy a quiet afternoon until his mistress discovered him missing and promptly pervaded his awareness to determine his whereabouts. He was retrieved straightaway, of course, extra eyes enlisted to stand guard against a repeat of the incident, but after a second disappearance and subsequent furious recovery, the desired effect took. The beastress was left with a tricky deliberation, forced to compromise her focus and presence elsewhere so she might keep her precious familiar under constant, rapt supervision. No longer trusting him under the care of other, inadequate caretakers, she had little choice but to withdraw habitation from her minions abroad in order to stay present and vigilante.

  Once again, power shifted, and Despiris didn’t waste time dilly-dallying.

  Preparing for another harrowing night of cat-and-mouse, she laced up her boots with a deft, almost savage sense of finality, hoping this was the last time she had to strap on her gear with the air of a hunter.

  In the background, sprawled across her floor, Po and Radu argued about how to play chess. Radu was making up his own rules, and Po was growing helplessly frustrated.

  “Pawns don’t defect to your side when you take them, Radu. You don’t get to add them to your army like that.”

  Radu shrugged. “That’s up to them. I offered them the choice of defecting or facing the noose, and they chose to defect. You don’t want to get ganged up on, then don’t lose your pawns to the other side to begin with.”

  Recognizing that the game was coming to an impending, tantrum-inducing end, Despiris tied off her laces and turned to the boys. “Alright, time’s up. Sevryn’s ready for you.”

  At the sound of the young soldier’s name, Radu squealed in delight and forgot all about the game. Jumping up, he ran battle-crying to the door, unmindfully dumping the chess board all over Po in his haste to seek out his favorite mentor. He was out the door and halfway down the hall before Despiris could run after him, but she let him go, knowing he was too excited about time with Sevryn to go anywhere else.

  With a sympathetic expression, she went to squat across from Po, helping him pick up the scattered chess pieces. “If he’s so determined to make up his own rules,” she said softly, “then there’s no reason you can’t do the same.”

  Sulkily, Po nudged a toppled pawn so that it rolled like a clock hand around the edge of its base. “But then it’s just a free-for-all, and what’s the point?”

  “The point is you don’t let him walk all over you. And eventually he’ll realize that if he wants to win, he has to do it the right way.”

  “He says he’s the Master of the Shadows,” Po groused. “And that rules don’t apply to him.”

  Despiris considered him, carefully measuring her response. Because the truth was, it wasn’t so long ago that her own mentor was saying to her, Welcome to the game. Rules are forbidden. “You never become a master of anything if all you do is cheat.”

  Sighing, Po tossed a rook onto the board.

  “I’ll finish up here,” Despiris said. “You can run along.”

  Unable to shake his glum mood, Po rose without a word and quietly took his leave.

  I’ve got an angel and a devil on my hands, Despiris thought to herself, wondering how in the gods’ names she was supposed to make sure she catered to both and that they each came out balanced, well-adjusted individuals. Whatever you do, you probably shouldn’t start by letting on that mommy’s fallen in love with the criminal she’s sworn to bring to justice.

  She would be lucky if the boys didn’t end up half as confused and hypocritical as the mess she’d made of herself.

  *

  She was halfway down the hall when Lady Verrikose appeared from the shadows, sliding her arm through Despiris’s and steering her toward the throne room.

  “Forgive me, Lady Despiris – I am sure you have much to occupy yourself with this evening, but his Majesty would like a word.” Instantly suspicious of the noblewoman’s airy tone, Despiris attempted to extract her arm, but the beastress pulled close and secured her hold. “No exceptions, I’m afraid. It simply cannot wait.” Towing Despiris down the hall, she nodded t
oo-cheerily at the guards haunting the throne room doors, and they admitted the two women straightaway.

  Isavor glanced up from scribbling his signature across a document, handing the scroll across his worktable to Lord Mosscrow. Halfway through a sentence, Crow cut his thoughts short, following the king’s gaze to their company.

  “Ladies,” Isavor greeted, eyeing the way their arms were linked with a small frown.

  Lady Verrikose swept a curtsy, and Despiris uttered a respectful, “Your Majesty.”

  “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Keeping her face neutral, Despiris fought the knowing feeling creeping up through her bones. She’d been right to be suspicious. “I understood you had an announcement.”

  Isavor’s brows rose, his blank expression confirming Lady Verrikose had ushered her here under false pretenses.

  “Forgive me, your Majesty,” the noblewoman said. “I took the liberty of being presumptuous. I can only assume you will have an announcement, once the report forces your hand.”

  “The report…” It came out flat, reluctantly prompting the woman to elaborate.

  With a haughty swish of skirts, Lady Verrikose turned to Despiris, releasing her arm now that she had her cornered. “Lady Despiris, if you would be so kind as to share with the court where you’re off to this evening…?”

  Warily, Despiris chose her words. “Off to chase shadows and apprehend a wanted man. Same as always.”

  “And what techniques will you be employing tonight, to apprehend this ‘wanted man’?”

  Again, she was slow to answer, sensing Lady Verrikose was herding her into a trap. “A…wide range of techniques, riddled with technical complexities and mundane details that would not only take all night to impart, but which consist of a specialized nature unrelatable to most, which I’m sure the court has little interest in translating.”

  Lady Verrikose made a gracious, dismissive gesture. “Of course. No need to rehash every facet of your plan. But is it fair to assume it might include such pastimes as…highly acrobatic maneuvers across unconventional spaces? High-speed chases through the streets?”

  “Fair enough to assume. Yes.”

  “What about seduction?”

  And there it was. Try as she might to keep her countenance passive, Despiris felt the blood drain from her face. “I beg your pardon?”

  Lady Verrikose gave a musical, patronizing little laugh. “Oh Despiris. Don’t be coy. You’re among those of a mature disposition.”

  Ill-prepared to address the scandalous implications behind Lady Verrikose’s words, Despiris stood in silence, realizing she might have just come to a point where there was no use skirting the truth.

  “Let me make it easy for you,” Lady Verrikose said. “There is no use hiding it anymore. Your little candy thief has a loud mouth. And he doesn’t mince words when it comes to his less-than-favorable dealings with the Shadowmaster. Dealings that involve witnessing the fiend’s filthy mouth all over his beloved mother-figure. Or his distaste for the fact that she didn’t seem to mind. Nay – that she encouraged it, in fact. We’ve heard all about what really happens when you corner the Master of the Shadows in an alley, Lady Despiris. And I dare say, if you have the power to make him go that weak at the knees, I do hope you have a ravishing explanation for why you are not employing that shameless passion to reel him in and bring him down for good.” Her monologue gained passion as it went, until it ended in a sneer of triumphant derision as she smeared Despiris straight through the mud.

  Despiris’s heart sank as the noblewoman’s tirade aired her most condemning secret. This is it, then.

  She was finished.

  Lady Verrikose, unsurprisingly, was not. “How easily you could leave him defenseless. How easily you could bring him in if you really wanted to. All this time, you’ve had the Master of the Shadows wrapped around your finger. You parade around like a weathered devotee working the case, searching high and low for his weakness. But you are his weakness, as I once speculated, and as you once denied.

  “Any day, you could rip his heart out and leave it on the street. And yet you do everything in your power to prolong the chase, to drag out the operation another day, that you might recline among royalty and take advantage of his Majesty’s hospitality, sucking the palace dry and bleeding your benefactors like the disgusting parasite you really are.”

  There was no part of her that was surprised at the bitter passion of the noblewoman’s outburst, and yet on some level her words stung as they were intended to. It was impossible to stand on the receiving end of such condemnation and not be moved by it, even if only a little. Refusing to wither, however, Despiris stared back unflinching at her accuser. You’ve been waiting a long time to humiliate me this way, haven’t you? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint.

  She would not give the beastress the satisfaction of seeing her hang her head in disgrace. She would wear her transgressions like badges of honor, straight to her ruin.

  As the truth came out, she didn’t deny it. She stood before those who would judge her as stoically as if she’d always known this day would come, and she had nothing to apologize for.

  For a long moment, there was no follow-up to Lady Verrikose’s shocking allegations. Eventually, of course, they had to be addressed. Grimly, reluctantly, the king composed himself. Formed a straightforward response.

  “Is there truth to these allegations?” he asked Despiris, a hard gleam of regret in his eyes willing her to deny them.

  But the damage had been done. She wasn’t going to stand there and lie to his face. Swallowing any trace of shame that might have been evoked by Lady Verrikose’s harsh account, she met his gaze. “There is,” she admitted.

  And that was it.

  The king struggled visibly with this response, his personal feelings and hopes for Despiris conflicting with his obligations and integrity as a fair and impartial leader.

  Also strangely speechless was Lord Mosscrow, whom Despiris would have assumed would sink his teeth into any chance to secure her demise.

  Isavor recovered his composure as was required of him. He couldn’t play favorites when it came down to a matter of blatant insubordination. “Then…” he wrestled with the decree, momentarily avoiding the verdict they all knew was coming. “…I have no choice but to declare you unfit to continue serving under the banner of the Shadowhunters. And to ask you…” His face hardened, disappointment and sorrow and resentment making it difficult to finish. “To ask you to vacate your privileged position here at my estates, that your abuse of my charity would end.”

  It was that that truly stung – the cold dismissal from a man she’d come to know as kind, a man she’d come to call a friend. But she deserved every bit of it – knew if anything that she’d gotten off easy. That he could have come down on her with a wrath that rattled the palace on its foundation, a wrath that threw her out on the streets like a dog and made her sorry she’d ever set foot in his halls.

  Seeing no reason to prolong the unpleasant business of her dismissal – or to wait around long enough for the king to change his mind and dole out a harsher sentence – Despiris gave a curt nod of acceptance. Then, just like that, she turned to make her departure.

  She couldn’t help but note Lady Verrikose’s speechless glance between her and the king, her vengeful witch hunt resulting in an obviously disappointing course of correction.

  Rather than rub it in her face as might have once been tempting, Despiris ignored her completely. Put the noblewoman from her mind, never to pester her thoughts again. She didn’t matter anymore.

  Wordlessly, the guards let her out of the throne room, and Hanzel kept pace behind her as faithfully and quietly as ever, his treatment of her unchanged even in the wake of her treachery and subsequent banishment. Clearly, she’d become a favorite among many, during her time here, earning a certain respect and familial privilege. No one thought to seize her like a criminal or escort her out under heavy guard, and that offered a margin of comfort amidst
her disgrace.

  Halfway down the hall, she realized the king had not stipulated what was to be done with her two wards. Were they welcome here, still, to be looked after by those at the palace? Was she expected to take the boys with her onto the streets, to once again find themselves homeless and destitute?

  She stopped midstride, suddenly uncertain how to proceed.

  “My lady?” Hanzel asked.

  Quickly weighing her options, she came to a hasty, difficult decision. “Send word to the barracks, please, Hanzel. Po is to return to my chambers.”

  “Of course, my lady.”

  They continued down the hall, and Hanzel snapped his fingers at the first runner they encountered, relaying the request. Distracted, Despiris was about to let herself into her room to pack her things when another runner appeared, approaching from the opposite end of the hall.

  “Lady Despiris!” he flagged her down, and she paused to look over her shoulder. Trotting up to her doorstep, he handed her a folded missive. “As requested.”

  Bemused, Despiris accepted the note card, flipping it open to read the contents. Recognition dawned on her as she scanned the note. She’d almost forgotten she’d asked for this.

  Hanzel eyed her quizzically, no doubt wondering if she was still authorized to partake in any such correspondence within palace walls, but he chose to purse his lips and remain neutral, pretending not to notice.

  “Thank you,” Despiris dismissed the runner, and folded the missive against prying eyes. Casually, she turned back to her door and let herself into her chambers, leaving Hanzel to stand guard outside. Then, as so many times before, she climbed discreetly out her window and down the palace façade, navigating to the east wing of the fortress free of escorts or tattletales.

  It would seem she had one final piece of business to attend to, and then she would be on her way.

  30

  Tragedy

  “I don’t believe in invincibility anymore,” Despiris had declared, willing a beloved daredevil to change his ways – and the daredevil should have listened. Then again, sometimes fate was just that. Fate.