A Court of Lies Read online

  Kael’s face was unreadable. “Prince Jehn humbly asks for an alliance with the thief-queen and her thieves when it comes to the war with Cahan.”

  Cait opened her mouth as if to shout yes immediately, but Briand held up a hand to silence her. She could not fumble this. She had to establish herself as a presence to be reckoned with. She wasn’t a little girl to be coaxed into compliance, and she wasn’t a piece to be moved against her will.

  This was a chance to demonstrate that.

  “And what would he have us do?” she asked.

  “We need wagons and people to transport the refugees who have already escaped to the coast,” Kael said. “Can your thieves procure such wagons and help shuttle the people?”

  Briand studied him. “Perhaps. What is Prince Jehn going to pay us?”

  Maera quirked her eyebrows as if impressed.

  “Briand,” Cait said. “It’s Prince Jehn. And refugees.”

  Nath said nothing, but his face was tense. He understood what she was doing, she was sure of it.

  Briand lifted her chin. “I am thief-queen now, and my people are my first concern. How does this benefit my thieves?”

  Kael appeared unfazed by her question. “Prince Jehn is offering payment for your services, of course,” he said. “Five hundred dubois.”

  “Five hundred?” Briand repeated scornfully. “No. Five thousand.”

  Both Tibus and Bran looked at her sharply. Maera did not raise her eyes from her fingernails, but the edge of her mouth tugged in a hint of a smile.

  “He paid the queen of Nyr a king’s ransom for her alliance. He can dignify me with a little more than the money that spills from his pocket.”

  “The queen of Nyr,” Kael said evenly, “is the ruler of a nation.”

  “Oh?” Briand said. “And can she summon dragons with her mind? Has she infiltrated the Seekers’ Citadel and learned their secrets? Can she call down ragloks from the sky?”

  “Two thousand,” Kael said, giving her an indecipherable look as he said the words. She couldn’t tell if he were displeased or proud.

  Briand took her time responding. She wanted to hold a knife to Jehn’s throat and watch him turn pale and stutter for mercy. But the siege was killing people. Of course she would help them.

  She’d have done it without Jehn’s asking.

  But Jehn had to know that she was not at his beck and call anymore. That was the message she wanted to send.

  Briand’s gaze lingered on Kael’s face, which was impassive, fearless, strong. Her pulse thudded in her ears.

  She saw the calm in his eyes. Not angry with her. Not disappointed in her demand for money.

  He was himself as she knew him to be. And she was herself as he knew her to be. And that felt right, even as they were standing at opposite sides of a negotiation. She could respect who he was, as angry as she was. And she was confident that he felt the same.

  Briand knew one thing: she couldn’t control him. She couldn’t demand Kael be anything but what he was. And he was a loyal Monarchist willing to sacrifice everything for what he believed in.

  She could only choose what she would do and who she would be.

  And she would be a player in this game. A thief-queen. A protector of those she loved.

  The words, when she spoke them, felt like heavy rocks that she had been carrying too long. She was glad to speak them, but she was nervous too.

  “Cait,” she said. “Have Quill purchase some wagons immediately.”

  ~

  Later, after the thieves had woken and breakfast had been served—and the cook’s miserable attempts at sausages filling the halls with smoke—Briand sat in one corner of the dining hall, perched on a stack of crates with her back to the wall. Bran sat near her feet, arguing with Cait about a famous philosophy book they’d both read. Something about man’s reason for existence in a world of opulence and abundance. It sounded to Briand like precisely the kind of thing noble-born children would grapple with, and just thinking about it made her feel a little salty, and so she refrained from joining the conversation. Bran and Cait scarcely noticed. Apparently, both of their tutors had made them memorize long passages, and they took turns trying to impress each other with how much they could quote from the most boring bits.

  Across the room, Kael sat with Maera, Nath, and Tibus. His eyes found Briand’s, and she felt a dart of heat in her belly. His expression did not change except for one flick of his eyebrows, and a glance at the doorway.

  She stood just as Crispin arrived.

  “Hello,” Bran said affably, extending a hand. “I’m Bran Varryda.”

  “Crispin,” the lad said, shaking it. “Are you any relation to—?”

  “Cousin,” Bran said.

  Crispin muttered something. “And do you also possess terrifying and invisible powers?”

  “Only if you count my charming personality,” Bran replied with a wink at Cait, which made her snort.

  “We’re quoting Sociscos,” she said brightly. “I have more of An Ode to Temperance memorized than Bran—”

  “I have the entire first volume committed to memory,” Crispin said, and settled himself on one of the crates between them.

  Briand climbed down from the crates as Crispin began to rattle off a passage from memory.

  “Lad,” Bran said, holding up a hand. “We believe you.” He looked over Crispin’s head at Cait. “What was it the poet Vespers said? Your fountain of words has turned to a flood? ”

  “Actually, you’re wrong. That wasn’t Vespers,” Crispin said. “It was Coatsman, and the exact quote is: Your fountain of words has turned into a flood. ”

  Briand swallowed a smile at Bran’s expression, and Cait covered her mouth to hide her laughter.

  “You get used to him,” the young noblewoman promised Bran.

  Briand left them behind and strode toward the door without looking at Kael. She felt his attention, though.

  She walked into the darkness of the hall and continued down the corridor as the hum of voices faded behind her. She turned a corner toward a supply room where they kept extra food. It was dark inside, barely more than a trickle of light coming in through cracks in the slats of wood that formed a boardwalk ceiling above.

  Kael was a hard shape in the doorway. She waited with her shoulders against one of the barrels of salt as he stepped inside, no hesitation, as if he could see perfectly in the dark. He placed his hands on either side of her.

  “Hello, Catfoot,” he said. His breath brushed her lips.

  “Captain,” she responded with mock coolness. But genuine uncertainty fluttered in her chest. She had opposed him publicly. Had she angered him?

  She couldn’t see his face, so she reached out to feel his mouth. It curved under her fingers in a smile before he kissed her thumb.

  “You know,” Kael murmured against her hand. “I thought your riding look was my favorite, but—”

  “Riding look?”

  He laughed, the sound low and velvet-soft. “Perhaps not the best description, but the way you looked when we rode together in Estria. Your hair in the wind, your eyes bright, controlling your horse with the lightest touch of your hands… I thought I’d give myself away every time I looked at you. You were luminous. So much skill, so much passion and joy in every movement you made. But earlier this morning—”

  She caught his face in her hands. “Wait. Hold that thought a moment. I had no idea you thought I was …luminous?”

  “Magnificent. Dazzling. Breathtaking,” he said, punctuating each word with a kiss on her jaw. “Sometimes I could hardly think of anything else.”

  Briand was half-distracted by the kisses, but she stayed focused on his words. She wanted to know more. She was hungry to understand what he saw when he looked at her, delighted but bewildered, almost shy. “What else did you like specifically? Besides the hair and the eyes?” She asked it softly, hesitantly.

  “Mmm,” he said, nuzzling the corner of her jaw, just beneath her ear. “I ha
dn’t finished my thought. I thought that was my favorite look on you, but today, you challenged my assumption. I might like your queenly look even better.”

  “Queenly?” She drew back a little, feeling unexpectedly foolish. “Are you mocking me?”

  “I assure you,” Kael said, “I have never been more serious. You were resplendent when you demanded higher payment. Your words were fire and ash. Your eyes cut me to my knees. I wanted to sweep you into my arms right then and there.”

  His words lit a glow inside her. Briand relaxed against him again, pressing her ear to his chest.

  “I thought you might be angry,” she admitted. “Not that that’s ever stopped me.”

  “I’ve never been so proud,” he whispered. “You were every bit as fearsome as any queen, my dear Guttersnipe.”

  Briand felt so deeply vulnerable at his admiration that she felt tears spring to her eyes. She covered her bewilderment with a stab at humor. “Words of fire and ash?” she said lightly. “Eyes cut you to your knees? Are you the captain of the king’s guard, or a poet?”

  “Only with you,” Kael said in her ear, and she turned her head and kissed him.

  A shout sounded in the hall, and they pulled apart.

  Briand emerged first from the storage room to see thieves running down the passage, swords and clubs in their hands.

  “What’s happening?” she shouted, her knives already in hand.

  “A Seeker!” someone called back. “Here in the Thief Quarters!”

  The Seeker who wanted Kael dead—had he come back to finish the job himself? To try to force her?

  Briand joined the ones running toward the round room with the throne with Kael close on her heels. Her breath came fast and her heart pounded in her ears. She was ready to fight—she’d just have to lure the Seeker close enough to turn his power back on him, and then, she’d blast him unconscious, and they could finish him.

  Tibus, Maera, and Nath appeared from another corridor, joining her as she sprinted toward the threat.

  “Where is Bran?” she shouted to Nath.

  “He’s with the children—Cait and Crispin are helping him,” Nath panted back.

  The light from the throne room spilled into the hall as she rounded the last corner, and the doorway came into view. Through the arch, she saw the figure in a gray cloak, hood up to obscure the face, standing in the center of the light, hands folded across the front of the robe.

  Bare hands.

  The Seeker was ready.

  She skidded to a stop in a plume of dust, her knives at ready. The others fanned out behind her, encircling the edges of the room and surrounding the hooded Seeker.

  “Surrender!” Briand shouted. “Or we will have no choice but to make you!”

  The Seeker laughed. It was a low chuckle, but the sound reverberated through the room. “I am not here to make trouble. I merely want to talk to the thief-queen.”

  “I am the thief-queen,” Briand said. “Take off your hood.”

  The Seeker reached up and drew back the fabric. Light fell over his head, illuminating his face.

  Auberon.

  CHAPTER NINE

  BRIAND STARED, SPEECHLESS, as Auberon locked eyes with her across the room. The sunlight glowed on his silver-blond hair. His mouth lifted in a faint smirk.

  Behind her, Nath made a low sound of fury. “Permission to kill him, Guttersnipe?”

  Briand held up her hand. “Wait.”

  “Don’t be afraid,” Auberon said, his smirk sliding even wider as he took in the sight of their weapons. “I’m only here to talk, as I said.”

  “Then talk,” Briand commanded.

  Auberon’s smile turned brittle. “Privately.”

  She looked at Kael and Nath, and they stepped closer to confer with her.

  “We could put him in the dungeon,” Nath said. “It’s not so private since we have all of your attempted murderers in there, but it’s a place to hold him.”

  “What about the thief-queen’s quarters?” Kael murmured. “The dracules can keep him in line, and no one will overhear our conversations.”

  “Thief-queen quarters it is,” Briand said. She looked at Auberon and raised her voice. “Put on your gloves and allow us to tie your hands, and then I’ll agree to talk.”

  “And what is to stop one of your underlings from sticking a knife in my back as soon as I am incapacitated?” Auberon asked.

  “I give you my word that I’ll hear you out first,” she replied. “But you’d better hope that tongue of yours proves convincing.”

  Auberon made a show of rolling his eyes at her threat. He produced a pair of gleaming leather gloves and pulled them on one finger at a time, teasing his audience with his slow and methodical movements. When he’d wiggled the last finger into place, he held out his wrists obediently.

  Briand took the rope one of the thieves offered her and strode to meet the Seeker. She alone felt confident to approach him, given her abilities, and she didn’t want to risk one of her thieves or friends if Auberon was lying about wanting to talk.

  When she got close, his smirk was practically a gloat.

  “I found you,” he murmured as she set the ropes around his wrists and began to tie them. “This is quite a grubby hole you’ve chosen to hide in, dragon girl. Even a cell in my house would’ve been nicer.”

  “I am called Guttersnipe here,” she said, tightening the ropes with a jerk. “And I like grubby holes. They don’t stink of Seekers.”

  Auberon’s eyes locked on hers in a way that she found unsettling. As if he possessed a secret about her that she ought to know but didn’t. His cheeks dimpled when she struggled with one of the knots.

  “Having trouble?” he purred.

  “Hardly,” Briand snapped. “The rope is stiff.” She managed to pull it tight enough, but her cheeks burned.

  “Now,” she said. “Come with me.”

  “Anywhere, my queen of grubby hovels,” he said with a mocking nod.

  She led him through the crowd of thieves, flanked by Kael and his company as they passed through corridors with sunlight slanting down in stripes of blinding brightness from the grates, then tunnels that were dark and damp.

  When they reached the thief-queen quarters and stepped inside, the dracules rose in unison, snarls rumbling in their throats.

  Auberon paused. “Your beasts don’t seem to like me,” he observed mildly. “Perhaps we shouldn’t share the same space.”

  “Smart things, aren’t they?” Nath remarked darkly.

  Briand sent strict mental commands to the dracules, who reluctantly lay down on the opposite side of the room. Neither of them took their eyes off Auberon, who grimaced whenever he looked at them.

  Kael and his company gathered in the room along one wall. Briand locked the door.

  “All right,” she said to Auberon, crossing her arms. “What is it?”

  But Auberon was not in such a hurry to answer her question. He gazed around the room, his eyes lighting on the chairs, the bed, his gaze almost possessive.

  “So, this is where you sleep,” he mused. He looked at her, his eyes dark. The unspoken hung thick in the air between them.

  So, this is where you dream, he meant. This is where you and I are reunited night by night.

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  Auberon raised his bound hands and tapped his nose. “I sniffed you out like a bloodhound.”

  Briand was not going to play his games. “Was it a rypter that led you to me? How did you know I was here in Gillspin?”

  Had the Vision Seeker called Marl told him? Had they spoken?

  “Ah,” Auberon said. “I intercepted a spy for the queen of Nyr. He gave up the secrets I sought easily enough, though he tried to fight.”

  Kael straightened at this revelation. “The queen of Nyr?”

  “Yes, traitor,” Auberon hissed at him. “The Nyrian monarch is keeping tabs on the dragonsayer. But her spy was careless. Disappointing… I’d always heard the Nyr
ians were master spies.” He paused. “I have heard that your true prince will marry her within the month. Does she not trust him, that she keeps spies watching his allies?”

  He meant to sow discord, Briand thought. She shook her head at Kael to show that she was not going to let herself be drawn in by Auberon’s net.

  “Any queen worth her crown is going to seek information that might benefit her,” Briand said.

  “And you?” Auberon asked with a quirk of his perfectly manicured eyebrows. “Are you interested in information that might benefit you?”

  “What information?” Briand demanded. She was growing tired of his games. “Tell me why you’ve sought me out, if it is not to try to kill me or capture me.”

  “Kill you? Capture you? No, dragon girl. I want your help.”

  “Like you wanted my help before?” she said. “When you kidnapped me?”

  “No—and might I remind you, that kidnapping was all part of your plan,” Auberon said with annoyance.

  “My cleverness hardly negates your actions.”

  “But no,” Auberon said. “This… this is different.” He actually looked pained as he spoke the words. His eyes turned haunted, and his throat bobbed with emotion as he swallowed. “My sister is in trouble.”

  “Jade?” Briand remembered having one dream about the dark-haired Seeker woman. A dream in which Jade had accused her of destroying something, although she didn’t finish her sentence before Briand woke. “You said she was at the front lines, healing the wounded.”

  “That,” Auberon admitted, “was an, ah, embellishment of the truth.”

  “So, you lied,” Briand said flatly.

  “One cannot storm into the Citadel and blast a Seeker leader into a wall without becoming wanted for questioning, dragon girl. Jade and I fled, and I am a fugitive.” He spread his hands. “See, I am putting myself at your mercy just being here, telling you this. That alone should convince you of my sincerity.”

  “It does not,” Briand said. “If anything, I am more skeptical. I find it hard to believe you would ever make yourself so vulnerable to anyone.”

  Auberon’s eyes locked onto hers. “Haven’t you ever cast yourself upon the mercies of your friends?”