A Court of Lies Read online

  She wanted to see stars. She wanted to breathe wind. The air was too close and hot in the tunnels tonight. It was smothering her.

  The thief quarter had no formal entrance here, but there was a grate, and a few loose bricks that made for handholds when they were removed from the wall, and Briand scrambled up them as easily as she used to climb up the ramparts of her uncle’s castle. She removed the grate and slipped into an alley. She was at the edge of Gillspin, near the water. She could hear the lick of the waves on the shore to her right. To her left, buildings rose like shadowy mountains against the night. She picked one and scaled it, scrambling up a dead vine, using windowsills as footholds, until she reached the roof, flat and covered in moss and ferns that had seeded between the crumbling shingles long ago. She brushed off a spot where the moss was thickest and leaned back to look at the sky. The stars glittered above like diamonds spilled across a purple cloak.

  She exhaled, letting the pain and anger and sadness spill through her. Seeing him was exquisite torture. Underneath the rage, she felt only hurt. She felt small. She felt lost.

  Briand drew in a bracing breath. She was not alone. She was surrounded by friends. She had the thieves, and they needed her.

  And yet her heart throbbed. She felt lost in a desert with no light and no path to follow to find her way out.

  The softest sound caught her awareness. She rose, ready for another assassin, cursing herself for letting her guard down.

  A shadow loomed in the starlight. She moved to attack, and his voice stopped her.

  “Briand.”

  Kael.

  She hesitated, half of a mind to fight him anyway.

  He closed the distance between them. The light from the stars glinted along his nose and cheekbones, illuminating his face. His expression was vulnerable, open.

  “You scaled that wall like you’ve been doing it all your life,” he said, and smiled.

  Briand didn’t answer.

  “Catfoot,” he whispered.

  As she stood staring at him, Kael reached out and brushed his fingers down her cheek.

  Briand shivered. “Don’t,” she said.

  “Don’t what?” His hand dropped. His voice was hushed, laced with pain.

  “Don’t say what you’re going to say,” she whispered.

  His eyes were like dark pools. “And what am I going to say?” he murmured, taking a step toward her.

  She wanted to move away, but she was frozen.

  “That you are loyal to your prince,” she said. She couldn’t take her eyes from his.

  He took another step. He hesitated, then touched her hand. It was a question. She slid her fingers along his, the warmth of him like a burst of light across her consciousness. She wanted to yank him to her. She wanted to shake him. She wanted to pull her knife…

  No, she wanted to stand here and cling to him.

  “I am loyal to my prince,” Kael said softly.

  Her eyes slid closed. She wanted to run, but oh, she wanted to stay even more. She could hear his breathing, soft and ragged, in the dark as he stepped closer. His mouth was near her ear. His breath brushed her cheek.

  “I am not marrying Valora,” he said.

  Briand’s eyes snapped open. She searched Kael’s face and saw the truth written across it. “No?” she managed.

  “No,” he promised. One corner of his mouth lifted in a smile, but the rest of him was still, frightened, searching.

  His hand lifted, and hesitated inches from her cheek.

  She took it in hers and pressed a kiss to his palm. Her mind spun; her thoughts wheeled in circles. She was in a storm, and at the center was one thought.

  He was not marrying Valora.

  Kael made a soft sound as her lips touched his skin. He caught her by the waist and pulled her to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he melted into her, his mouth on her neck, her jaw, her earlobe. The brush of his lips against her made her catch fire. She sank her fingers into his hair, turning his face to hers, and he kissed her like a dying man seeking life.

  The world vanished. It was only them. She sank down to the roof, and he followed her, breaking away only to breathe.

  “I told Jehn—” he began.

  “Later,” Briand rasped, and pulled his head down to kiss him again.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BRIAND LAY WITH her head pillowed on Kael’s chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. She was bemused, wondering, heavy with thoughts. But she wasn’t thinking them. For now, she was merely taking in the moment. She was overwhelmed with contentment, and she focused on that.

  There would be enough time later to think of everything else.

  The stars still glittered above them, and the moon had risen high in the night sky. A soft, warm wind blew across their skin, and Kael brushed a tendril of hair from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear.

  “When I leave here, I’ll collect Tibus and Maera and bring them back with me to Nyr,” he said, his voice a rumble against her ear. He sounded sleepy and content. She was not used to that coming from Kael the ever-vigilant.

  She liked it.

  “You said you had a mission?” she murmured, tracing her fingers up and down the arm he had tucked around her. “Is that what you’re doing? Fetching Tibus and Maera?”

  Part of her longed to go with him. To travel on the road at his side, the wind in her hair and a horse beneath her, its long strides eating up the distances.

  Kael shifted so that her head nestled in the hollow beneath his chin. “Yes. I’m gathering those I consider most trustworthy to Jehn, those I have experience working with. I’m forming a king’s guard for the prince. He has named me captain.” Kael hesitated. “We could use a dragonsayer.”

  “I am not a Monarchist,” she reminded him reflexively.

  He kissed the top of her head in response. “I could also use a grumpy tutor who is an unexpectedly skilled swordsman.”

  Briand stilled. “Nath will have to make up his own mind,” she said finally. Inwardly, pain splintered through her.

  Not Nath.

  She muttered something under her breath about loyalties to princes and how they ruined everything. Kael pulled her tighter against his chest and buried his face in her hair. He ran his fingers up and down her arm, sending shivers across her nerves.

  He was quiet for a long time, and she savored the feel of him. Then he shifted as if ready to deliver less than pleasant news.

  “The city of Isglorn, long loyal to Jehn, is under siege,” he said quietly. “Cahan’s army has it surrounded. Several Monarchist-leaning nobles and their families are trapped inside, along with an entire city of citizens. Cahan seems determined to make an example of the city, since it was known to harbor sympathies for Jehn.”

  She frowned against him. “What does that mean for you?”

  “It means a mission, eventually. I may have to go back undercover as a traitor, as I’ll need Seeker access to get inside the city.”

  “Won’t they be suspicious this time, considering that you’ve been cleared of traitorous activity by Jehn himself? If they think you’re a spy, they’ll kill you first and ask questions later.”

  “There’s always a risk,” he said lightly. “But news travels slowly at times, and most Seekers are arrogantly dependent on their mind-reading, and I am trained to confuse their efforts. And I am a resourceful man.”

  She bit her lip until she tasted blood. She didn’t like that idea at all. “Is there any other way?”

  “Perhaps,” Kael said musingly. “It remains to be seen.”

  He sounded peaceful. Sleepy.

  They talked more as the moon moved across the sky, their voices growing quieter and slower, and finally, they both fell asleep.

  In the morning, when Briand woke, Kael was gone. A piece of paper lay in her hand, curled into a scroll. She unfurled it and read the neat words written across it.

  This is not goodbye, Catfoot.

  —K

  Briand closed
her hand tight around the words of his promise.

  ~

  Nath noticed at breakfast that the dragonsayer seemed in better spirits than he’d seen her in months. She ate as if she had been without food for days, and the corners of her lips twitched in the barest hint of a smile at everything, even the lad’s ridiculous and failed attempts at humor.

  Even Cait noticed. “You seem cheerful,” she commented to the dragonsayer in a low tone. “Is this because you bested Kael at sparring practice yesterday?”

  The dragonsayer’s mouth curled in a suggestion of a smile. “That is exactly it, Cait.”

  Kael was gone. He’d already left for lower Estria, and Nath missed his former leader already. Kael had offered him a position on the king’s guard, but when Nath had responded that his place was with the dragonsayer, Kael had nodded approvingly.

  “Good man,” he’d said, clapping Nath on the shoulder.

  After breakfast, Nath was catching up to the dragonsayer in one of the corridors when a thief dropped from the rafters onto her with a knife. She laughed—laughed!—at his weak attempt to attack her, and promptly disarmed him without so much as drawing a weapon. Pinning him to the floor, she sentenced him to language studies with Nath and geography studies with Crispin.

  “Hold up,” Nath protested. “Crispin is hardly the right choice for geography, as the lad has barely been anywhere but Tasglorn, and also, you’re still using me as punishment?”

  “Excuse me,” the thief said as Nath was tying his hands behind his back. “Can it be Fleurish? I already know Tyyrian. And you didn’t specify the language…”

  Briand leveled a suspicious glare at the thief, who wilted a little underneath her stare. “Did you know I would be sentencing you to learn Tyyrian?”

  “Well,” the thief muttered. “My friend Maggot gets to learn Tyyrian because he tried to kill you.”

  Briand had him pinned against the wall with a knife to his throat before he could blink. “Do you mean to say,” she snarled, “that you attacked me so you’d get language lessons?”

  The thief held very still. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. Without moving his head, he eyed the knife she held against his stubbly skin. “Er, no?” he tried, but the tips of his ears flushed red.

  “You did!” She was furious. She wanted to shake him. “What is your name?”

  “Needle,” the boy said. He gave her a crooked smile. “Because I’m quick and sharp.”

  “Not so sure about either of those,” Nath muttered.

  Needle gave the tutor a belligerent look. “Nobody’s at their best when they’re half-starved and always running for their life. I work hard at my begging too. That takes some wits, old man.”

  “Old man?” Nath growled, muttering more under his breath. “I’ll teach you Fleurish, you sniveling child. I’m going to make you conjugate the tenses until you want to throw yourself off a balcony.”

  Needle looked more intrigued than intimidated by this threat. “I hear the tenses are the hardest part, so that’s a good idea.”

  Nath frowned to see his threat ignored so soundly, but Briand interrupted what he was going to say.

  “Half starved? We feed you,” she said, her tone severe as she lowered her knife and slid it back into its sheath.

  “If you can call that swill we eat food,” Needle said with a sniff.

  “You have a very entitled perspective for a beggar,” Nath interjected.

  “And why are you running for your life? Has someone among the thieves threatened you?” Briand asked, angry now. If the thieves were trying to rob and kill each other, there would be hell to pay. She expected basic safety for those beneath her roof—the assassination attempts notwithstanding.

  “Ever since the new mayor took power, he’s been cracking down on any begging that isn’t under his management,” Needle explained. “His guards round up anyone they find and throw them in the lockup every day.”

  Briand’s brows drew together sharply, and she and Nath exchanged a glance. “New mayor?” she inquired coolly.

  Needle nodded. “It’s why there are so many Seekers in Gillspin now.”

  “Get this thief to the dungeon to think about what he’s done,” Briand said to Nath. “And then, I want a conference in the queen’s quarters. Bring Cait, Crispin, and Lark.”

  “Yes, Guttersnipe,” Nath said, and hustled the thief away, leaving Briand musing alone behind them.

  ~

  “He’s called Tarcus Melwith,” Lark explained later about the new mayor Needle had mentioned. “He was given the post here when he was banished from Tasglorn, or at least that’s what we’ve heard on the streets. He’s trying to get in good with Cahan and his Seekers, so he lets the graycloaks terrorize everyone and he sends food and aid to the army."

  “Do you think he’s going to be a problem?” Briand asked Nath.

  Nath frowned. “He’s already a problem, if he’s inviting Seekers to town and terrorizing our people.”

  “And he isn’t the only problem,” she replied with a sigh. “We need to educate the thieves,” she said to those gathered around. “Today I was attacked by a young boy who, it turns out, merely wants to learn to read Fleurish. He thought by trying to stab me, he might be sentenced to tutoring by Nath.”

  Cait shook her head. “Maybe he’s a masochist.”

  “Aren’t you just rewarding bad behavior?” Crispin protested. “If they think they can get something simply by trying an assassination, won’t that lead to more attempted murder?”

  “I think people are desperate,” Briand countered. “We want our thieves to be loyal. I do not believe in inspiring loyalty through coercion and fear. It never worked for me, anyway.” She thought of Jehn, and her lip curled. “We’ll help our thieves. Feed them, protect them, and educate them. Show them kindness and build camaraderie.”

  “If you say so,” Crispin muttered.

  Briand pinned him with a look. “That’s what changed me into who I am.”

  Crispin’s eyebrows raised. “You?”

  “When I met Nath,” she said, the corners of her mouth twitching, “I was a scrappy, gambling, spitting, knife-fighting orphan who got into constant trouble and who was hated by everyone.”

  “And not much has changed,” Nath joked, but his face quickly sobered after a look from Briand.

  “Nath despised me,” Briand continued.

  “I wouldn’t say despised,” he murmured.

  “You once threw a book at my head!”

  “You were being exceptionally difficult at the time, if I recall,” he shot back.

  They smiled at each other with genuine warmth mingled with their pretended irritation.

  Crispin stared. “I’m surprised Nath was so… so foolish as to throw a book at a dragonsayer.”

  “I think you meant brave,” Nath shot back. “And she wasn’t…” He fell silent.

  The means by which Briand had become a dragonsayer was still a secret to most, even their friends. That information, in the wrong hands, could prove dangerous. If the Seekers managed to make a dragonsayer, well. Best keep things unknown.

  Lark offered her thoughts. “Most of us can’t read in our mother tongue, let alone anything else. But we’d like to learn. Ignorance keeps us stuck.”

  Briand nodded thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said. “It keeps us all stuck.”

  ~

  In the evening, Briand sat on the throne of barrels and splinters and declared that any thief who wished it could learn to read and write from her right-hand advisor, who was calling himself—she paused, for Nath had not yet declared a name among the thieves.

  “Mosquito!” a voice shouted, and she saw Crispin with his knuckles stuffed in his mouth to stifle his giggles.

  She looked at Nath, who scowled and shrugged a shoulder as if he couldn’t care less.

  “Mosquito, then,” she said, with a flicker of a smile, and gestured at Nath.

  Additionally, she announced to the gathered thieves, lessons in geography
and language would also be available, primarily from… blast it, hadn’t Crispin take a name either?

  “Feverbeet,” Nath called.

  This time, Briand couldn’t contain her chuckle. Crispin turned a bright shade of red and muttered something in Nath’s direction.

  As the thieves paid their tribute, Briand twirled a knife between her fingers and thought of Kael.

  A young woman dressed in muted shades of blue, with a scarf woven around her hair and a thick woolen shawl wrapped around her shoulders, was next in line to approach the thief-queen throne. Briand had never seen her before.

  The woman dropped to her knees. “Thief-queen,” she said. Her eyes were wide with fear as she eyed the knife in Briand’s hand, but her voice came out clear and determined. “I have come to ask a boon of you.”

  “A boon?” Briand leaned forward, furrowing her brow in her best impression of Kael to hide her bafflement and nervousness. “But you are not one of my thieves.”

  “No, your, ah, your grace,” the woman said. Her hand, as she reached up to brush at her scarf, trembled, but she held her ground with a determined lift of her chin. “My name is Cora.”

  “And what do you want, Cora?” Briand asked, hoping it wasn’t something insane. She leaned back and resumed spinning the knife idly.

  “I’ve come to ask that your thieves spare my father’s wagons when they take from the travelers’ goods this week.”

  “Their usual cut? You must be mistaken,” Briand said. Did this girl not know that the mayor’s deputies took money from farmers and merchants coming to sell? That must be what she meant. The thieves and smugglers avoided tariffs and evaded taxes and sometimes robbed the corrupt deputies, but they didn’t steal from the common folk.

  But even as the words left her lips, she saw several of the thieves at the back of the room frowning, their stances tight and angry as they glared at the young woman. Her attention sharpened as a frown carved across her lips. She took note of the men who looked angry. There were three of them, all tall with beards and scraggly mustaches.