A Court of Lies Read online

  Relief flowed through Auberon, thick and overwhelming, but he didn’t show it. He kept the sneer plastered across his face. He had always been excellent at sneering, and he exaggerated it now. He lifted his chin. “Well?”

  “You will let me see into your mind first, to verify your claims. You will travel in chains, with leather gloves that we devise worn on your hands at all times to prevent you from killing one of us,” the dragonsayer said. Her voice was cool and commanding. Queen-like. She had never looked more powerful. It made him feel on fire.

  “At all times?” Auberon said, lifting an eyebrow.

  The dragonsayer refused to be derailed by his insinuations. “All times. You will even sleep bound, with a guard. You will submit to these things willingly if you want our help.”

  “Your help,” he clarified with a thin smile. “I don’t want the others. They are insisting upon coming.”

  “I need them,” she said, meeting his eyes fiercely. “And you do too. We can’t do it alone.”

  He wished she wasn’t right. He wished it could be as he imagined it—her and him alone, crossing the ice to Ikarad together. She would be safe with him. He would never hurt her. In his mind’s eye, he saw it. The sun shining on the ice, which stretched around them like a gleaming floor of silver. The cold, aching sound of the frozen water shifting and creaking below and all around. Her cloak, dancing in the wind. Her eyes, squinting against the brilliance as she looked at him. Her smile, sharp as a dagger.

  He drew back as the dragonsayer stepped forward and reached out a hand. His heart began to beat fast.

  “Show us the information you promised,” the dragonsayer said. “We want military codes. Specifically, the codes that will summon an army to another location immediately. And,” she added, “I want to know everything you know about the location of the other guardians.”

  “I cannot give this information to you now,” the Seeker replied coolly, speaking as if she were insane. “Then what reason would you have to come to Ikarad? No, you will get your information when we’ve rescued my sister.”

  Briand looked back at the traitor. As if she needed any input from him, Auberon thought bitterly.

  The air felt electric. He waited, pulse still pounding.

  “Give me something now,” she said as she turned back. “Show me your memory of Jade’s capture.”

  “Fine,” he said. He would show her the truth, so she would believe that, at least.

  The dragonsayer’s fingers were cool against his forehead. He reached out with his power through her skin, trying to draw thoughts from her head, forging the bond that would allow her to see his. Cold fire burned between them.

  The dragonsayer closed her eyes. Her lips parted slightly.

  Auberon fought to keep his mind on the matter at hand.

  Her eyes flew open, and she nodded. She looked back at the others.

  “I saw what he told us,” she said. “It was as he said—the Seekers took his sister. He was in Estria when he heard the news, hiding in a house by the river. He received word from her a week later. She managed to repair and send a mechbird to him.”

  “Jade is very clever,” Auberon said. “I am in awe of her talent.”

  The dragonsayer turned back to him. Those eyes… They raked over his face as if she knew he was holding things back. As if she’d sensed them as she drew thoughts from his mind. She frowned.

  Auberon gave her his most scornful smile, even as he imagined again what it would be if they were rescuing Jade alone. She would call dragons, and he would help her. She would trust him…

  “I have one more condition,” the dragonsayer said, interrupting his reverie.

  “And what is that?” Auberon drawled.

  The dragonsayer’s mouth twitched in an almost-smile. “We need a new cook.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  GREFF, AS LUCK would have it, was only two days’ journey away. Briand sent word to him with Auberon’s direction the same day that she bade farewell to Bran and Cait, who were leaving with the wagons and a few of the most loyal thieves to transport the refugees of Isglorn to the coast of Estria. Briand hugged Bran and Cait in turn, feeling fiercely proud of and worried for them both.

  “Come back safe, both of you,” she said gravely.

  She stood and watched them leave, the wagons rumbling over the rough Gillspin roads.

  ~

  Greff arrived the day before the company was planning to leave, and Briand was relieved not to have missed him. She wanted at least one decent meal before heading north into the frozen unknown. Two thieves who were posted on look-out duty ushered him into the throne room, where Briand sat on her throne of barrels and crates, one elbow propped on her knee, spinning a knife absent-mindedly between her fingers. She spent a mind-numbing three hours every day dealing with requests and problems, and she hated every moment. But the sight of the cook put her into a cheerful mood. Finally, they would eat like a proper court.

  The cook’s eyes darted around nervously as if he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d found himself in this dark, grim underground. One of the thieves motioned for him to approach the throne, and he did so reluctantly, turning his hat over and over in his hands. The thieves eyed him out of the corners of their eyes, expressions amused.

  “My… friend… told me I could find work here?” Greff said, licking his lips. He had two sacks, and as he set them at his feet, one clanged as if filled with metal. The thieves looked interested at that. “As a chef,” he added hastily.

  “Greff,” Briand said, throwing the knife at a target she’d erected on the wall next to her throne without looking. It hit dead center. “Welcome.”

  Greff peered at her, and his eyes widened with shock. “It’s you,” he sputtered. “How did you…?” He looked around, taking in the thieves lounging against the wall and in the archways. He paused. “I didn’t realize last time… Ah, but I suppose that makes sense, since you were being escorted personally by—”

  “You will be safe here, and well compensated,” Briand said quickly, cutting him off before he could name Auberon. She didn’t want her thieves to know about the Seeker’s connection to her. “I am called Guttersnipe, the thief-queen.”

  “Guttersnipe,” he repeated. He still looked as though he were in shock.

  One of the thieves poked his finger into the top of the bag that clinked. He looked disappointed to find pans instead of gold. Greff turned, hearing him, and the thief gave the chef a terrifying smile.

  “You need a name if you’re going to work here,” the thief said. “We all have one. Choose.”

  “A name?” Greff gathered up the bag and tied a knot in the top. “I’m called Greff…”

  “Not that name,” the thief said, and spat.

  Greff pressed a hand to his throat, looking a little alarmed. He turned to Briand as if searching for guidance.

  “A thief name,” Briand said. She pointed a few thieves out. “That’s Weasel, over there we have Crag. This is Pebble.”

  “I, uh, call me Spoon,” Greff said. “Is Spoon taken?”

  “No one is named Spoon,” Briand replied gravely, swallowing a smile. “A fitting name. Welcome, Spoon. And if anyone takes your things, tell me personally.” She frowned at the nosy thief, who scratched the back of his neck and had the good sense to look properly shamed.

  “Certainly,” Greff said, looking uncertain.

  “Come,” she said, standing. She was too bored to keep sitting on this throne. “Let me show you where you’ll be working.”

  Any excuse to stretch her legs.

  When she showed him the kitchen, Greff’s consternation turned to delight. “I thought you might have me cooking over an open fire,” he said as he opened his sack and began to stack pots and pans onto the empty shelves. “Which, make no mistake, I can do—I can make a darn fine omelet with nothing but a hot rock and a pair of wild hen’s eggs. But this is good. There isn’t much here, but so much room! And I can add—” He hesitated and turned to Brian
d hopefully. “Do I have funds to add things?”

  “You shall have funds,” she said in a serious tone.

  Greff rubbed his hands together gleefully. “I promise you—we will all feast like kings.”

  It was the best thing Briand had heard in weeks.

  ~

  Tantalizing smells wafted through the corridors of the thief quarters as Briand and her friends huddled in the queen’s chambers, hashing out plans and arguing over details. Auberon sat in the corner again. They’d allowed him to bathe and relieve himself, and Cait had provided nondescript black clothing for him to wear instead of his Seeker finery—a tunic, trousers, and a thick woolen shirt. A cloak of fur sat folded on the ground by his feet, and he wore dirty leather boots that Briand had paid one of the thieves a few coins for.

  He no longer looked like a Seeker, but he didn’t look like a commoner either. The haughty look on his face and the pristine condition of his skin and hair gave him away.

  “The plan,” Kael said, “is to travel under the guise of traders until we reach the Wild Lands. Briand, can you procure horses for us?”

  She smiled. “I think I know of a place.”

  Crispin’s brow wrinkled. “Is anyone going to believe the Seeker is a trader?” he asked with a laugh. “Look at him.”

  The others studied Auberon thoughtfully. The Seeker scowled back at them as if he were plotting their deaths in his mind.

  “He looks like a stuck-up noble who decided to run away from home and didn’t have the slightest idea what he was getting himself into,” Tibus said with a snort.

  “Perhaps if we rub mud in his hair?” Maera suggested. “Dirty him up a bit, hide that noble breeding and aristocratic cheekbones with some slop.”

  “No one,” Auberon said crisply, “is putting mud in my hair. Or—” He gave a delicate shudder. “—slop. Whatever that might be.”

  “I’m still against traveling with this snake in our midst at all,” Nath muttered. “We might as well stick a knife in our backs and be done with it.”

  “Don’t worry,” Briand said, locking eyes with Auberon. “He’ll be properly muzzled.”

  “Show us what you’ve devised, Maera,” Kael said.

  “He’ll wear these,” she said, setting down a pair of thick leather gloves that she’d made additions to earlier. The edges of the gloves had been fitted with narrow chains, three on each arm, that would run up Auberon’s arms to a metal collar around the Seeker’s neck and attach there so he couldn’t use his teeth to peel the gloves off and get his skin free to attack them. “I once saw them used by a Seeker for more… salacious… reasons while I was on a mission in Tasglorn.”

  “He’ll be in these gloves the entire mission,” Kael said. “No mind reading. No Seeker powers.”

  “You think it’ll be enough to contain him?” Tibus asked. “He’s a clever one.”

  “Not any cleverer than us,” Briand said.

  Auberon’s eyebrows drew together in irritation.

  “He will never be left unguarded,” Kael said. “One of us will watch him at all times. And if he does manage to get loose, well, we have Briand.”

  Auberon scowled at them all. “I’m not going to try to kill you. I won’t jeopardize the life of my sister, you fools. Trust me on that.”

  “We’d be fools to trust you,” Nath shot back.

  “On that subject, we’ll need a map of the prison now so we can study it,” Kael said, his voice low and filled with steel. “I won’t send my people into this blind on nothing but your promises of loyalty, Auberon. Tell us what you know.”

  Auberon’s lips thinned. “I can’t very well draw with my hands bound,” he said, his tone surly.

  Nath laughed under his breath. “But it’ll be fun to watch you try.”

  Tibus similarly looked delighted at this prospect.

  Auberon scowled. His shoulders tightened, and his jaw flexed as he tipped his head back to stare at them. “Careful,” he said softly. “No need to antagonize me. One day, you might need me to save your life.”

  “I’ll draw it,” Briand said, her voice cutting through the brewing tension in the room. She pushed herself in front of Nath and Tibus, giving them a glance that meant stand down, boys, and turned back to the Seeker. “You can tell me what to draw.”

  Everyone looked at Kael, whose eyes were in shadow. He nodded once. “Do it,” he agreed.

  Auberon’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, his expression wary. What was he hiding? Betrayal? Or something else?

  Nath found a sheet of parchment in the heavy oak desk and spread it on the ground before the Seeker. He handed Briand a pen, and she shook it to get the ink flowing before raising her eyes to Auberon’s.

  The Seeker breathed in and out, as if rallying himself for something arduous. As if he were afraid.

  “Just do it,” he snarled when she hesitated.

  Briand pressed her fingers to his forehead with one hand and picked up the pen with the other. His skin was cool to the touch, and a spark passed between them with the shiver of magic flowing cold through her hand. The thoughts were indistinct, chaotic. She drew back.

  “It’s hard to see,” she said.

  “Yes, this would be easier if I had the use of my hands,” Auberon said.

  “Not happening,” Nath snapped. “Continue this way, or not at all.”

  Briand again put her hand against Auberon’s head, this time pressing her fingers to the curve of his jaw, near his ear. His eyes caught hers, and his were dark and deep with things she couldn’t decipher. He trembled under her touch.

  The thought Auberon wanted her to see pushed to the forefront, other feelings and memories crowding around it like clamoring voices in the middle of a courtyard, all shouting for her to listen. She hung on to his visualization of the prison, and she began to sketch. The others watched as a map began to take shape. A long, rectangular shape surrounded by rings.

  “What are these?” Maera asked, tapping one of the rings with her index finger.

  “Walls,” Auberon said.

  Briand kept drawing as a nightmare bloomed beneath her pen. A maze of corridors, half of them scribbled over with DOESN’T KNOW or CAN’T REMEMBER WAY OUT. Vast, empty spaces that Auberon remembered as black pits full of groans she shaded dark. Spirals of stairs leading to torture towers hanging with rusted tools and battered bodies. Walls—so many walls, some of them carved with curses, some whispering with ghosts—surrounded by moats, surrounded by tunnels and caves, all surrounded by ice.

  A memory broke into her mind, a memory in which she saw herself, standing at the prow of a ship, hair glowing in the break of dawn, eyes promising dismemberment from across the ship. It was, she remembered, right after she’d kissed Kael and pushed him into the Jessu River so Auberon and his men would not discover the Monarchist leader. She saw the memory in Auberon’s mind, and as it washed over her, she felt loneliness, regret, anger… and admiration.

  Attraction.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BRIAND JERKED HER eyes to Auberon’s in shock at what she’d seen in his memories. He stared back, his cheeks going ashen. He wanted to ask her what she’d seen. She knew he must be aching to demand that she tell him.

  But he didn’t.

  The memory slipped away like silk in a brisk wind, and she found her way back to his thoughts of the prison map of horrors and drew grimly.

  When she’d finished, they all stared at the map in silence.

  “So,” Nath said grimly. “You want us to go into this death trap willingly? Are you mad?”

  “Your group successfully pulled a heist on Aron Kul, did you not?” Auberon said coolly.

  Nath snorted. “Of course we did.”

  “You even managed to best me,” Auberon added with a twitch of his eyebrows.

  Tibus grinned. “That we did, Seeker. That we did.”

  Auberon continued, “The plan is sound, and we’ll have the dragonsayer. This will be successful. Everyone will get what they want.”
>
  Nath muttered something unintelligible. The others looked at each other warily. Kael, his expression unreadable, merely nodded.

  “We shall see,” he said.

  Briand sat back, gazing at Auberon as if she might read some of what he really thought from the expressions on his face. The memory she’d accidentally uncovered in his mind remained in hers. The emotions he’d felt… She was startled. Unsettled. Surprised.

  Auberon felt her gaze and turned his head. His expression was flat, his eyes like silver coins.

  She saw nothing in them that would lead her to believe he felt the things she’d seen in the memory.

  It was an old memory. He’d felt that way in that moment.

  Surely those feelings were long gone now.

  She realized she was staring and turned away, busying herself by checking the knives at her wrists and ankles.

  “You will give us the information we require before we enter the prison,” Kael was saying to Auberon.

  “Half before,” Auberon said. “Half after we leave.”

  Kael gazed at him for a long time, as if searching for any signs of betrayal. “Agreed,” he said curtly.

  A bell rang somewhere in the bowels of the thief quarters. Nath put a hand on his sword. Tibus and Kael tensed.

  “What is that?” Maera asked.

  Briand smiled. “I believe it means dinner is served.”

  ~

  Greff had prepared a feast for a king. Roasted pheasant sat on a platter, surrounded by buttered vegetables and bathed in gravy. Pies spread across the tables—meat pies, fruit pies, custards. Honey-glazed fruit was piled high on plates at the ends of the tables, making columns of glistening color.

  The thieves had gathered, eyes round.

  Greff stood off to the side of the spread, his face and hair dusted with flour, looking apologetic.

  “I did the best I could,” he said. “If I had more resources… and an assistant, perhaps… I fear I have failed you. I am so sorry.”

  Briand surveyed the food, hands on her hips. Her mouth watered, and she wanted to laugh with joy, but she kept her expression composed and her voice calm as she said, “I believe you are a magician.”