“True.” A sly smile widened across Xavier’s face. “In that case, I suggest spying on the spymaster. The king may not be available to us, but his spymaster is a man with faults. An insecure man, if rumors are to be believed.”
“Where could I find him?”
“He has a mistress he visits often, according to rumors I’ve picked up while associating with other gentlemen.”
Gentlemen. Rosalia snorted. She’d targeted many mistresses in the past, finding they always had the best jewels, their gifts often superior to the ones received by wives.
“If he keeps a mistress, then he’s no gentlemen.”
“Do you think his wife minds?”
“I would.”
“Yes, I suppose you would.” When she shot him a dirty look, he continued, “Which is yet another trait that sets you miles above the women of this city. You understand your worth.”
“I’m not noble-born. If I was raised in their society, I’d probably be as clueless as they are. Regardless, what do you know about his mistress?”
“Her name is Francesca Sonacello, and she’s the wealthiest art dealer in the city.”
Instead of infiltrating Sonacello’s art gallery by night, Rosalia walked inside during plain daylight, veiled by elegant silk and dripping with fine jewelry she’d borrowed from Xavier’s hoard. The costume was one she’d never attempted before, though it required one critical accessory to add a layer of authenticity to her role as a concubine: a sovereign’s ring.
And she’d nicked hers off the young nephew of the city’s governor the previous night, filching a spare from a drawer in his bedroom while he slept mere inches away, blissfully ignorant. He had about a dozen at any given time, the spoiled lad hiring beauties into his service as frequently as noblewomen bought new dresses.
As concubines were exceptionally well-trained pleasure servants contracted to service a single owner, members of Saudonian society viewed them as symbols of wealth. More concubines meant more prestige, and the most famous concubines were coveted by all and desired for more than one contract term.
For the duration of their year-long contract, the concubine belonged to their special sponsor. And during that time, they weren’t allowed sexual relations with anyone else, under penalty of unmasking, steep fines by the house matron, and being stricken from her roster, never to be accepted into the House of Silk Lilies again.
Regardless of gender, concubines remained masked to conceal their identity while enjoying the benefits of the job—but the house matron always knew. Rumors claimed she kept a book with the true name of every man or woman who had ever worked for the establishment going back for hundreds of years since the founding of the House of Silk Lilies.
It would probably go for more on the dark market than Xavier’s original copy of The Scholar’s Truth. Rosalia had heard the protections in the brothel house were outrageous though, containing an unbeatable combination of magical enchantments, mechanical artifices, and incorruptible beasts prowling the grounds where many concubines lived year-round to undergo their training.
Rosalia snorted. No one could pay her enough to endure classes in etiquette and sexual performance.
“What?” Xavier asked, warm snout touching her earlobe. Smuggling him inside had been easy, the tiny dragon’s shape concealed beneath the layers of her silk scarf and veil.
“Nothing,” she whispered back, refusing to tell him how ridiculous she felt in her costume when she’d been the one to make the plan.
They walked for quite a while, viewing portraits from talented modern-day painters, sculptures chiseled by artists across the sea, and centuries-old works of art in shadowed alcoves.
In the next gallery, she approached glass-encased jewels from an ancient dynasty predating Saudonia’s existence. All things within the gallery were gorgeous, and any of them, even one trinket, could have purchased her way to a better life.
A low, almost imperceptible buzz filled Rosalia’s right ear. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Disabling a ward. Better to neutralize them sooner than later.”
“Won’t they notice that?”
He shook his head, warm snout brushing against her. “No. There isn’t a single guard here with magical talent. As far as they know, they’re all activated. They hire in enchanters from the Mages Guild to lay the initial wards, and then someone visits once a month as necessary for routine maintenance.”
“Ah.” There were some benefits to traveling with her own familiar, though she snickered and wondered when she’d begun to think of him as belonging to her.
Two hours later, Rosalia and Xavier were both tucked away in a frigid cooling duct above a room housing several priceless robes from Nairubia. It hadn’t been difficult to gain access to the vent once Xavier ran a diversion for her in the adjacent gallery by crawling up a noblewoman’s skirts. She’d screamed and danced, but in all the panic, the guards lost sight of him.
They’d dismissed the gallery’s strange little visitor as nothing more than a desert basilisk taking a break from the unbearable heat.
Rosalia shimmied on her stomach over chilly metal, grateful for Xavier’s presence. Not only had his clever distraction saved her a heap of trouble, but his draconic body heat offset the unbearable cold. The system was a marvel of sorcery and gearcrafting ingenuity with magically powered fans blowing a refreshing breeze from the enchanted frost gem located in its core. Most members of the wealthy elite had a similar system in their homes.
They navigated the mazelike tunnels to a vent carved into the ceiling of Francesca’s private office. The woman herself sat behind a tall desk, sipping tea and writing on stationery decorated with pressed rose petals. Letter after letter detailed recent acquisitions, deals she’d made abroad, and upcoming shipments.
For a while, all was quiet, and Rosalia was quite certain they’d wasted both time and effort. Then the dragon crawled out from her hood and peered down below, head cocked.
Francesca’s door opened, and the sound of heavy footfalls followed, though the angle denied Rosalia a glimpse of the woman’s visitor.
“It’s him,” Xavier hissed in Rosalia’s ear.
“What have you found?” a man’s voice demanded, though it was sharp and nasally, not at all as intimidating as she’d expected.
“Is this the way our visits are to begin now?”
“Fran—”
“It’s been three days, Caius.” She tossed her writing quill onto the stationery and ran both hands through her sleek mane of titian hair. “I told you the last time you came to me that this is a delicate matter requiring ample time.”
“I don’t have time.”
“You’ll have to make some. I’ve sent a dozen treasure hunters out into Saudonia. I’ve even tapped a few contacts in Nairubia, but these gemstones—Caius, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able procure them legally if they’re in private hands.”
“When I said the method of acquisition doesn’t matter, I meant it.”
“Ah, yes.” She removed her glasses and set them aside, hand raising again to knead her left temple. “They are treasure hunters and honest men. Not thieves. If you want a thief to do thief’s work, you should have left the bloody guild intact. Now our king has you scrambling like a madman.”
“I never anticipated the bitch would pry the fucking jewels from the mirror.”
The breath caught in Rosalia’s throat.
“Well, she did. And they’ve got a twenty-four-year head start out into the world. You had an excellent idea hiring the Thieves Guild, but if you were truly at your best, you would have confirmed the mirror was intact before you ordered their deaths.”
The spymaster grunted.
“Furthermore, I don’t know if I want my hirelings involved in this mad scheme. How do I know you won’t do the same to them? Or to me for knowing too much? You might even do it now.”
“Fran, my love, you know me better than that. I would never insult you—”
“So
you say now, dearest, but when King Gregarus breathes down your neck, you’re a different man. I’ve decided to recall my employees—”
“You can’t!”
“I’m sorry. I love you dearly, but I won’t have my livelihood entangled in this mess. For my safety and theirs, I’m calling off this ridiculous jewel hunt.”
“Fran, you don’t understand.”
“But I do. I understand Gregarus isn’t to be trusted and that you have the spine of a jelly-eel when he issues a command.”
Silence fell between them, the sound of breathing the only noise to reach Rosalia through the vent. A long moment passed before the spymaster replied with venom-laced, hard words that sent a chill down her spine. “I will remember this.”
Through the narrow slats of the vents, Rosalia watched Francesca shift in her seat. In a quieter voice, the woman said, “What are you going to do, Caius? Have me slain in the middle of the night too?”
Francesca Sonacello’s balls must have been cast iron. Of all the people to gain Rosalia’s immediate and prompt respect, she never thought one would be an art dealer in a posh gallery.
“Don’t be foolish,” he spit back at her. “If you can’t help me find the Legacy of the Divine Order, what can you tell me?”
“Nothing more than I’ve already said, because it’s all I know. Dahlia was a thief with many connections throughout the city. You’ll want to make contact with anyone who may have received those jewels. I’ve already named the chief collectors in the city, but nothing guarantees they’re here. She wasn’t an idiot. She’ll have scattered them across the continents.”
“Blast.”
Francesca dipped her head to him. “I’m sorry. I have to protect myself and my business.”
“Fine.” He growled it and came across to the other side of the desk.
At last Rosalia saw her hated enemy, a small man no larger than her in size, with the slim build of a scholarly mage and narrow shoulders clothed in a fine leather doublet. Jewels winked on his skinny fingers, an assortment of mundane and magical trinkets. His face was too narrow, his pointed chin sporting a goatee that grew to a tapered end.
He reminded Rosalia of a rat, a bootlicking rat responsible for the murder of her fellow thieves. Her mother. Her father.
And he was mere inches away from her. The coward had no royal guards to save him. Her mind raced with the delicious idea of kicking through the vent and wedging her dagger between his ribs.
Xavier’s cheek pressed to her face suddenly. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she whispered.
“Your hand is on your dagger. It isn’t worth it. You’ll blow your cover and mine if I transform to save you after Sonacello summons her guards. My magic in this form is limited.” His breaths were warm, a soothing caress against her cold cheeks. “Don’t do it, Rosa.”
Frederico deserved justice. She’d promised the man justice, because if Hadrian and Lacherra were her parents, then surely the master of the theater was a warm, affectionate, and grandfatherly figure always eager to spoil her.
Her grip on the dagger tightened.
“If you do this now, you may succeed at murdering him, but Gregarus will be on guard. You’ll never touch him. The king is who we want, Rosalia. The king. The time will come, but now is not that time.”
Gods, he was right. It wasn’t the time, no matter how much her pounding heart called for the spymaster’s blood. And because Xavier had asked, because she respected him, because she thought sometimes she might even feel more for him than friendship, she crawled away and left the office vent behind.
There was no more conversation to hear anyway.
6
More than a Job
24 Years Ago
The role required complete immersion, assuming an identity and living a life in direct contrast to the many decades Dahlia had enjoyed living in Ilyria. But for Morwen, she’d do it.
Dahlia danced. She sang. She entertained. The lie became a life that opened the gateway to achieving her goals; as a member of King Gregarus’s royal harem, she made herself more valuable than any jewel, a priceless commodity.
His choosing her a year ago had nothing to do with her beauty and everything to do with her luck. One moment, she’d stood alongside two hundred young maidens desperate to leave behind a life of squalor and become one of his concubines. In the next, she willed him to see her and only her. Dahlia’s fortune demanded it, and the gift she’d inherited from her maker, as one of his divine daughters, would allow nothing else.
He saw her. He coveted, and before the night ended, she became one of three new concubines in his small but growing harem. That year, he’d been unable to choose a single woman and had brought them all into the palace for a trial run. During this run, Dahlia refused to allow the king to bed her, knowing it was risky to place such restrictions on royalty, but too stubborn to relinquish her morals.
What she’d never expected in those weeks was to fall for his charms and want to bed him by the end. She’d felt like such a foolish girl then, but as he spent more time alongside her and less with the others, she’d felt something spark between them.
“Tell me a story, Dahlia,” Gregarus murmured as he reclined on a seat overlooking the palace gardens, with her at his side on the accompanying chaise. He liked to stroke her hair and occasionally lift a few strands to breathe her in. Djinni magic imprinted her soul with the smell of night jasmine and the scent of wildfire.
“I’ve told you all the stories I know.” She shifted, propping her chin on one palm to gaze at him.
“Then create another, my sweet. Every tale you’ve shared with me can’t be a repetition.” He gazed at her, cocking one of his dark silver brows.
“It depends on the mood. Storytelling is an art, and like any art, one has to feel it. The mood comes and goes like the tide, washing over me when my mind is fresh, and receding when I require inspiration, when my imagination needs rest.”
“Ah, you tease me. Then perhaps you’ll repeat one of my favorites.”
“Which?”
Gregarus leaned forward to pluck a grape from the bowl between them. He touched it to her lips in an act juxtaposed to their roles as ruler and concubine. “The Girl With the Glass Slipper.”
“Your favorite.”
“I enjoy the tale of the young servant who becomes a princess.” The way Gregarus gazed at her when he spoke the words, with nothing but love and affectionate warmth in his eyes, tightened Dahlia’s chest and sent warmth blossoming through her belly.
It was only a job.
And then it suddenly wasn’t. It should never have become anything more, but the nature of their relationship had transcended her intentions. She enjoyed his company, loved the husky warmth of his breath against her skin, and craved the way he held her closer than all other women of his harem. In a word, her mission was a failure, as she had yet to obtain the only object keeping her in the palace. Sometimes, Dahlia wondered if she was truly trying her best to gain access to the Royal Vault at all.
Yes, I am, she thought, bitterly determined. For Ilyria, and for her friend, she had no choice but to acquire the most dangerous relic extant in the eleven kingdoms. She hadn’t divined the opportunity yet, lacking the ideal moment to break into the vault lest she push her luck and risk discovery. As an agent of an enemy kingdom, she risked execution if they uncovered the truth—assuming she wasn’t flat out sold into slavery.
“What will you give me if I tell you that story again?” she teased. Her lips parted around the grape, tongue making a suggestive glide over his fingertips before she brought the juicy morsel into her mouth. With her eyes, and with her mouth, she made a promise meant to drive him mad with lust.
It worked. Flicking her gaze down to the man’s lap showed her his interest. For an older human male, the man had wondrous stamina.
“Anything you ask, my spitfire,” Gregarus murmured. He leaned across the short distance to claim her lips. He tasted of tobacco and spices, the r
ich and heady smoke of his clove cigars clinging to the rich brocade covering his chest. He stroked the silk covering her upper thighs and then beneath it, caressing bare skin. “Have I ever denied you anything?”
“Never.” Her breath hitched when his finger slid inside her. One of the requirements of joining his harem was donning the scandalously translucent garb assigned to all of his concubines. It was both beautiful and impractical for wearing anywhere but in private with him. Not that he forced any of his girls to wear the demeaning outfit in the recent months. It was nothing more than tradition, a holdover from a generation following the founding of the kingdom.
“One of these days, you must put your tales to pen and paper for me, Dahlia. Gods, what an author you would be.”
She chuckled. “Some stories are best told…orally.”
His eyes lit with interest. “Indeed. It is the performance that makes them. I love your voices. You bring each character to life, making them seem a different person.” He bid her closer, beckoning with a curved finger. She went to him and straddled his lap, as was customary between them.
“Become my wife, Dahlia.” The words knocked the wind from her with the force of a sledgehammer. She stared at him, waiting for the punchline, and when the older man gave her a shy smile, found she couldn’t respond. Found she had no breath in her lungs to respond.
“I...”
“Of course, it has never been done,” he continued in that silky voice, “A king taking a concubine as his wife, but my dear Jessa has been dead for many years now. I am free to wed as I see fit.” He touched her chin. “And I see you.”
“Traditions—”
“Fuck traditions,” he rasped.
The breath shook in her uncooperative lungs. “You have a harem. I...if I was a wife, I would expect absolute loyalty to me, Your Majesty, I would—”
“I would send each girl home with her weight in gold. What do you find fair as a dowry? I will release them from the harem, with enough riches to have their pick of the finest husbands in Enimura. Or to live in happiness for the rest of their lives with no man at all should that be their desire.”
Fool's Gold: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 2) Page 5
