“I think I can take care of Mahkas a lot sooner than that. As for the rest of the city, the army is already on their way. Travin promises me they’ll be here by daybreak.”
Starros was impressed. He didn’t think Damin would think to do that.
Mind you,
he reminded himself,
I didn’t think he’d agree to the looting, either.
Damin didn’t seem amused Starros had forced such a concession from him. “You need to watch your back, Wrayan,” the prince warned. “I’m not the only one with a realm in danger of being taken away from him by a madman.”
Wrayan glanced at Starros and smiled. “I don’t think I have too much to worry about. Besides, I’m not quite as attached to my kingdom as you are to yours. If I lose it to someone younger and smarter, I can always find another.”
The comment surprised Starros a little, but before he could puzzle out what Wrayan meant, another group of thieves emerged from the tunnels, leading two Denikan women wearing unfamiliar leather clothing and a rather alarming array of weapons and following them, the largest man Starros had ever seen. The thieves automatically fell back as the big Denikan and his companions stepped out of the tunnel and into the circle of torches.
“So this is your city, Damin Wolfblade,” the Denikan remarked, looking around the warehouse and its motley occupants with open curiosity. “Not exactly the reception I was expecting.”
“Nor I,” Damin agreed, looking pointedly at Starros. “What are you doing here, Kraig? I thought I asked you to stay with Travin until I’d secured the city?”
“Your cousin has far too much to do to be hindered entertaining foreign dignitaries, your highness. We thought we would be more help here.”
“You and two girls are going to help us take a whole city?” a sceptical voice asked from behind Starros.
Damin glanced around at the thieves, who were all staring suspiciously at the newcomers. “This is Prince Lunar Shadow Kraig of the House of the Rising Moon, the ruling house of Denika,” he announced, “and his bodyguards Lady Lyrian and Lady Barlaina. Prince Kraig has already aided us a great deal in devising a strategy to defeat the Fardohnyans when we were outnumbered two to one.”
Starros studied the strangers curiously, wondering how Damin had come by such odd companions. “Well, if they’ve already helped you defeat thousands of marauding Fardohnyans, the few stragglers left in Krakandar shouldn’t even raise a sweat. Are you sure you and your new best friends here even
need
the help of the Thieves’ Guild?”
Damin stared at him and then inexplicably, he smiled. “I know what’s going on here. And you haven’t beaten me tonight, Starros. I’m letting you win because it suits me.”
The prince might have acquired an air of command, but some things never changed. He still couldn’t bear to lose. Not even on some vague point of honour. Starros shrugged, knowing his indifference to his friend’s score keeping would drive Damin crazy. “Whatever.”
“And if it takes me ten years,” Damin added, “I’ll find a way to get even with you for putting me in this position.”
Hearing Damin admit that was really all Starros wanted. He hadn’t got one up on Damin Wolfblade since that day twelve years ago, when they’d fought in the fens over Leila—the day Princess Marla had come home and found them fighting. It wasn’t exactly recompense for having his soul sold to a god without his permission, but it was something. He was content he’d proved his point.
“Are we going to take this city or stand around here talking about it all night?”
Damin hesitated, obviously debating whether or not to push the issue, and then seemed to thrust the problem aside as he nodded in agreement.
“You’re right, old friend,” he said. “Let’s go take my city back.”
M
ahkas Damaran had realised there was something seriously amiss when he couldn’t find Emilie after dinner. His great-niece had been a godsend these past few weeks, helping ease the pain of Leila’s dreadful death, even helping him forget The Bastard Fosterling for a time, the man responsible for her suicide.
At least,
he consoled himself,
The Bastard Fosterling is dead.
Xanda had assured him of it; so had every other man and woman in the palace that he’d questioned. They all agreed Starros was dead. And they all swore they had no idea where he was buried.
Not knowing the location of his body ate at Mahkas. He wanted to see The Bastard Fosterling’s rotting corpse for himself. He wanted to be sure the filthy pig was dead. He needed to see an unmoving chest, feel the lack of breath, assure himself there was no pulse. If The Bastard Fosterling was dead, Mahkas wanted to be absolutely certain of it.
And just as nobody could tell him where Starros was buried, so nobody seemed to be able to tell him where Emilie was this evening, either.
He’d promised to take her riding again, as soon as he was better. His arm still ached abominably, but the pain and high fever of the infection was a rapidly fading memory. He still remembered Emilie sitting on the bed, holding his hand to comfort him, while Darian Coe sliced into his infected flesh. She was a good girl, Emilie Taranger. So innocent. So full of hope. So full of promise.
So much like Leila when she was a child.
And that was going to be a problem, Mahkas feared. Emilie’s similarity to Leila was a tragedy waiting for a place to happen.
The weak and misguided ministrations of her foolish mother had allowed Leila to be seduced by The Bastard Fosterling. Mahkas had convinced himself of that. Now he intended to make certain the same didn’t happen to his beloved niece, Emilie. And it would, he was convinced, if he didn’t take precautions. Luciena Taranger wasn’t a fit mother; a blind man could see that. She was common-born, for one, just like Bylinda. The daughter of a sailor and a whore. Not a fit mother for the great-niece of the Warlord of Krakandar.
Although his wife had come from the wealthy merchant class, Mahkas realised now that money didn’t make up for breeding. You couldn’t buy class, any more than you could buy respectability. These commoners just didn’t understand what it meant to be highborn; they had no real grasp of the privilege or the duty that went with being one of the ruling elite.
He’d been planning to talk to Xanda about it for days now. Once he was well enough, Mahkas intended to take his nephew aside and point out to him how his daughter was being ruined by her mother. He intended to use his own tragedy with Leila as an example of the perils of ignoring the warning signs. Xanda would be grateful for his advice, naturally, and would—Mahkas was in no doubt—immediately take steps to remove Emilie from the dangerous influence of her mother.
Of course, none of his advice would be any use unless he found Emilie so he
could
save her, and despite sending for her at least three times this evening, there was still no sign of the child. Finally, he decided to look for her himself. If her mother suspected Mahkas was about to have her excluded from any further contact with her daughter, she might be trying to prevent it by hiding Emilie from him.
He couldn’t allow that, he determined, as he hurried along the broad hall to her room. Emilie was his niece, his own flesh and blood. Her mother had no right to her at all. Luciena was simply the common-born breeding cow Xanda had used to give his precious daughter life.
He reached Emilie’s room, full of righteous indignation about the way Luciena was spoiling his niece, muttering about her low birth in his rasping, whispery voice, the voice so cruelly destroyed by that ungrateful whelp, Damin Wolfblade.
Once he started thinking about Damin, Mahkas became so wrapped up in his own anger he didn’t notice there were no guards on Emilie’s room. He threw back the door and stalked through the darkened outer room and into the bedroom, only to discover her bed was still made and obviously hadn’t been slept in.
He stared at the empty bed, the unlit candles, puzzled by what they might mean, and then he hurried out into the hall and glanced up and down the corridor. There were no guards at all, he realised. Not on any of the bedrooms.
And it was quiet. Unnaturally quiet. There were no slaves going about their business. No Raiders standing guard over the sleeping members of their ruling family.
It was as if he was the only living soul still in the palace.
Mahkas grew increasingly concerned as he checked each of the bedrooms, only to find exactly what he’d found in Emilie’s room. The beds were made, nobody had slept in them. Even the young Lionsclaw boys were missing. He tried to call out, tried to summon Orleon to demand an explanation, by his voice couldn’t be heard ten feet away, let alone echo through the palace commanding attention.
Angrily, he kept searching the rooms until finally he had a stroke of luck. He found Luciena in Bylinda’s rooms. She was in the outer room by the settee, on her knees in front of his wife, begging her to go somewhere. The moment he saw Luciena, he knew his suspicions about a conspiracy were well founded. Everything about her—her words, her tone of voice, her anxious demeanour—all reeked of treachery.
The women didn’t notice him when he first opened the door so he stood there a moment, listening to all his fears solidify into hideous reality.
“ … you
must
come with me, Bylinda,” Luciena was urging. “This might be your only chance to get away from here.”
“I have to stay,” his wife replied in that damn irritatingly vague tone she’d adopted since his daughter died. “I have to stay near Leila.”
“But we’re not going very far,” Luciena promised, taking Bylinda’s hands in hers and squeezing them reassuringly. “Just as far as the Walsark Crossroads. Travin will be there. And the children. Damin will be there soon, too, I’m certain of it, and … Lord Damaran!” She jumped to her feet looking as guilty as a Karien sinner. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough,” he said in his rasping whisper.
She looked at him questioningly. “
Sorry
?”
Mahkas snarled with frustration when he realised she couldn’t hear what he was saying. He stepped into the room and repeated himself, but the effect was lost with the second telling.
“Oh! … Well … then you’ll probably want to come along, too,” Luciena suggested with forced cheerfulness. “I was just asking Aunt Bylinda if she wanted to go … on a picnic.” Luciena cringed a little as she spoke, knowing how foolish such a suggestion was, given it was after midnight.
“Liar!” he accused, his throat aching from the effort as he stalked across the rug to confront her. “I knew it! You’re in league with Damin Wolfblade!”
“Don’t be silly!” she said. “He’s not even here. He’s in Cabradell fighting the Fardohnyans.”
“You’re plotting against me!” he charged. “You’re trying to turn my wife against me!”
“I’m tying to burn your life against a
tree
?” Luciena repeated with a puzzled look.
Mahkas wanted to scream with frustration, certain she was deliberately misunderstanding him, but he had no more hope of doing that than he did of making himself clearly understood. “Don’t play games with me, woman!”
“Mahkas, I’m
trying
to understand you,” she assured him soothingly, “if you could just speak a little more … loudly …”
“You heard what I said!” he declared, his shredded voice making him sound ridiculous. “And I heard what
you
said! You want to take Bylinda to meet Damin. Is that where everyone else has gone? To join my enemies? I knew it! I knew all along this ruse about a war with Fardohnya was just an elaborate lie! That ungrateful whelp! Leila would never have killed herself if he’d had even a modicum of compassion. It wasn’t her fault! The Bastard Fosterling raped her.”
Luciena took a step back from him as he ranted. That made him feel better. It was good when people feared him.
“Mahkas, are you sure you should be out of bed, yet? You’ve been very ill …”
“I’m well enough to see what’s going on here!” he snarled, every harshly whispered word scouring his ravaged throat. “You’re both as bad as each other! Common-born whores, the both of you, out to ruin our daughters.”
“Daughters?”
Luciena asked, a little confused. “You had one daughter, Mahkas. Remember? The one you whipped like a dog and then drove to suicide?”
Mahkas’s right arm was still in a sling, but there was nothing wrong with his left arm. With all the strength he could muster, he backhanded Luciena without warning, throwing her back against the fireplace. Her head cracked against the polished granite with a sickening thud. She collapsed against it like a rag doll and lay there, unmoving.
Good, Mahkas thought with satisfaction.
That takes care of that problem.
Then he glanced at his wife. She had risen to her feet and was staring at him with an odd expression.
“Why are you looking at me like that? You’re the traitor here!”
“You didn’t keep your oath.”
“What oath?”
“You promised to protect us.”
“Us?
Who is
us?”
“Leila and me.”
“Protect
you? I
killed
to protect you!” he croaked painfully. “I killed to protect Leila! You have no idea of the things I’ve done to make this world a place fit for my daughter! Don’t you dare tell me I didn’t keep my oath!”
“But you failed, Mahkas. Leila is dead.”
“That’s Damin’s fault! Not mine.”
She smiled distantly. “A month ago it was Starros’s fault. Whose fault will it be next month? Mine?”
He stared at her, suddenly confronted with a stranger. “What are you babbling about?”
“You didn’t keep your oath.”
“For pity’s sake, woman,” he snapped, turning his back on her. “Shut up about that!” His throat was on fire. He needed to take something to ease it. Some honey, perhaps, in warm milk. That usually helped when he overdid things …
And he needed to raise his army. If he was under attack he intended to face it head on.
So Damin is at the Walsark Crossroads, is he? Well, we’ll see how that murderous little ingrate reacts when I launch a surprise attack on …
Mahkas cried out and fell to his knees as a sharp pain shot through his lower back. He grabbed at the site of the pain and discovered his hand sticky with blood when it came away. He barely had time to register that remarkable fact when the sharp sting struck again, a little higher, and he realised he was being stabbed a second time.
He turned to fight off his attacker, thinking,
This is what I get for not checking that Luciena was actually dead.
But when he turned he discovered Luciena still lay unmoving by the hearth.
“Bylinda?”
As pale as a wraith, she was standing behind him, dressed in her mourning white, a small and bloody table knife held before her. If he hadn’t seen the blood on her hands, he’d never have believed the blade dangerous enough to do any damage. Or that Bylinda would try to harm him.
His wife stared at him with eyes that seemed to be looking somewhere far away. “You didn’t keep your oath,” she said. Her voice was toneless, flat. Devoid of all emotion.
“For the gods’ sake, woman!” he gasped. “Put that blade down before you hurt someone!” The pain in his back where she’d stabbed him was intense, but given what he’d suffered lately, not enough to incapacitate him. He held out his left hand, expecting her to hand over the weapon. “Give it to me.”
“You didn’t keep your oath,” she repeated.
“I’ll give you an oath now, you stupid bitch,” he threatened hoarsely. “Give me that knife this minute or you’ll rue the day you ever met me!”
“I’m long past that day, Mahkas.” She glanced down at the blade, staring at it as if it was something she’d never seen before, as if the blood on it was some novel substance needing close investigation.
Wincing with the pain, Mahkas stepped closer, expecting to snatch the blade from her grasp. Instead, quick as a snake, she slashed the knife across his hand. He stared at the blood welling on his palm in shock, before fixing his furious gaze on his wife.
“Give it to me!”
“You didn’t keep your oath.”
“Stop saying that!”
“You didn’t keep your oath.”
“I swear by every god I can name, Bylinda, if you don’t shut your fool mouth and give me that blade this instant …”
“Take it, then,” she dared, thrusting it forward sharply.