Years ago, when I stole the tiger, it was necessary for me to employ a different tactic from my other thefts. I needed help and had to procure the favors of many. Of course, I made sure no one ever knew exactly what purpose their favor served—it was important that they weren’t implicated— but I knew that many guessed. That was how the whispers began. It was Ten. Ten stole the tiger. And then others would scoff at the notion. That scraggly strip of a girl wrestle a tiger? She’d be nothing but a nibble in the beast’s stomach by now. Besides, why would she? And still others would speculate about more malevolent culprits. They say a circle of devil’s dust was found in the storage shed. A demon ate the beast whole.
Bribing the tiger was the first order of business. It turned out that getting the tiger’s trust was the easiest part. By the fourth afternoon, his nose twitched when he saw me coming with a morsel of meat tucked in a ball of dough. But all the other steps—from decoy wagons, to distracting brawls, to heavy sleep elixirs, to black devil’s dust—those steps multiplied one after another. Trade this for that, and that for this, and then someone would decide it wasn’t enough and they needed more. Sometimes I had to trade with people I despised, smiling and jumping through their endless hoops. I got through it by always remembering the end goal, what it was all for—a chained beast with haunting amber eyes.
I ended up hiding the tiger right beneath the butcher’s nose in a storage shed behind his shop that he only went in once a week to sharpen his cleavers and knives. And then I went back and spirited the animal out in the middle of the night once the streets were deserted. A planned distraction drew the butcher’s attention away—along with most of the jehendra—for no more than half a minute. He had moved only steps away from his shop front, but that was all I needed. It was the escape route I spent the most time working on, finding the darkest, most assuredly deserted streets, the places
that gave me somewhere to duck if I had to, finally walking one route seven nights in a row to be sure it held no surprises, something that might startle a tiger and make him roar.
Today my eyes had never stopped scanning the streets, the trees, the shadows, but I only felt my spirits sink lower with every step. There weren’t enough bribes or enough favors in the world to evade the soldiers on every street and rooftop. Not to mention I had no favors to offer in the first place and, most important, no one to offer favors to. Except, perhaps, the person who had secretly passed me the medicine in my cell, but even they were too afraid to come forward.
As soon as we returned to the inn, my head was tended, and then I was escorted to the private dining room at the inn for the “celebratory” dinner the king had promised. Apparently he agreed with Banques that the delivery of the news had gone well. I guessed that a rock thrown at my head was of little consequence to them, nor the ringing pain between my ears, but maybe other addresses to the crowd had drawn a barrage of rocks. In comparison, my injury was trivial—or maybe the whole point was to shift anger to someone else—me. In that case, I guessed the day was a roaring success. The word murderer still ate away at me, and the things I had uttered about Jase remained foul in my mouth, but I’d had no choice. I would do it again, and no doubt, Banques had plans for more of these addresses from me until the last of the resistance was stamped out.
The same positive sentiments about the day were repeated by guests. Apparently none of them thought that corpses hanging from trees in the middle of the town plaza were anything to be bothered about. I didn’t recognize any of the attendees at this intimate dinner gathering, and I wondered if they had come from Parsuss—the king’s own loyal followers— or if they were Hell’s Mouth citizens who turned with the tide as easily as Garvin did.
Everyone seated at the long table fawned over the king and Banques, treating them like true saviors. The four women were elegantly dressed, as if we were attending a grand party, their faces painted with powders in a way I had never seen before, and their necks and wrists adorned with
glittering jewels. The room was a thief’s paradise—if only rules didn’t have to be obeyed.
Each guest laughed and smiled and hung on every word that spilled from Montegue’s mouth. Halfway through dinner, one of the women, who had already drunk too much, danced around the table and conveniently fell into his lap. The hair piled atop her head fell loose, and more fawning ensued. Your Majesty this, Your Majesty that, followed by a slurred feigned apology and a protracted kiss on his lips. He soaked it up like a dry sponge, his lips stuck to hers for a good half minute, his hands roaming over her hips, until Banques finally cleared his throat, reminding them we were all there watching.
Throughout dinner, Montegue had glanced at me numerous times, expecting what, I wasn’t sure. To join in the praise? I contemplated it. At some point I knew I had to backtrack and gain his confidence, pretend that I’d been won over and was ready to take “a place” in this new kingdom, as Banques put it. Pretend that I was one of Montegue’s admirers. I knew how to do it. This was my specialty. Even the wary were not impervious to flattery—because they deserved it, after all. It was all about making them believe. But the timing had to be right. It was a delicate matter that had to be carried out smoothly, like sliding a razor-sharp knife beneath the thin skin of a fish to separate it from the flesh. And I was not feeling delicate nor smooth right now. Instead I was a miserable jumble of hesitation and second-guessing.
Why was this so different? I remembered trembling with fear the first time I engaged a quarterlord, certain that my intended larceny blazed in my eyes. I’d had to lock my knees to keep them from shaking. The quarterlord was huge and powerful and intimidating, and I was none of those things, only a disgusting six-year-old bug to be crushed and forgotten. But I hadn’t let that stop me. Hunger had already honed a sharp edge within me. In spite of my fear and knocking knees, I’d found a way to disarm his suspicions and make off with two juicy figs. I glanced up at Banques and Montegue. Think of them as quarterlords, Kazi. Play them. Feed their egos. Earn their trust. Throw them crumbs, then hook them behind the gills like openmouthed fish.
And then cut their throats.
But this game had a different risk. Back then, I only had myself to lose. Maybe that was what had made me bold. Now I was playing for far more than one dirty street urchin’s life. I was playing for Lydia’s and Nash’s freedom—and their lives. I was playing for Jase, and the vows I made to him and, by default, his family. His blood vow was mine. And I had yet another vow—to the queen. Find the papers and destroy them. You can juggle all that now, can’t you, Kazi? Just don’t drop an orange. Not a single one, or you’re done.
Laughter erupted around the table. Something Montegue said was apparently quite entertaining, and I had missed it. I was failing miserably. Another glance from him. Expectation shimmered in his eyes. Was I shaming him with my silence? Grovel, Kazi. Smile. Juggle. Compliment the bastard. Make him believe. You can do it one more time.
I searched my mind, trying to think of one small thing to add to the conversation, the first seed to plant, but only hatred bubbled up.
Such a creative use of the tembris, Your Majesty. How did you get all those nooses up on those high branches?
Nice work of demolishing the temple.
So convenient that the corpses aren’t stinking yet. I guess the cold weather helps. The gods must be with you.
“The stew is quite good,” I commented. “My compliments to the chef.” The tinkling of crystal and laughter around the table came to a dead stop. They were the first words I had spoken. I made eye contact with Montegue. “And my compliments to His Majesty for choosing such a fine menu.” It was pathetic, I knew. It was not my smoothest moment. I had to do better.
The compliment seemed to eat away at his concentration. After a few minutes, he leaned back and set his napkin beside his plate, done with his meal.
When the foolishness around the dining table grew tedious, the king announced we were finished and leaving for the arena. A carriage was brought around because the evening was cold. “We” included Banques. Oleez and the children were called from their rooms to join us. Everywhere he went, they went.
“What do you think of it?” The sweet earthiness of wine was on his breath. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes, glassy.
It was just the two of us in the Ballenger apartment. He had dismissed Banques, Oleez, and the children to go check on some other quarters he had acquired. He sauntered around with a wineglass in one hand and running his other down marble pillars, or peering up at the high ceilings and chandeliers. His boots clicked heel to toe, deliberate on the polished floors like he was tapping out ownership. “Far more elegant and fitting for a king than the inn,” he mused. “And more secure too. I’m having the bedchambers refurbished and then we’ll move over.”
We. I didn’t know whom that meant.
When I didn’t answer, he paused from his inspection of a drape panel and faced me. “Are you still upset about the children? I promise you, I did ask them, but they continue to refuse to speak to you.”
“If you’d just let me—”
“I’ll ask again tomorrow. Maybe they’ll change their minds, but I’m afraid the Ballengers poisoned them against you. It may take a while. You need to give them the time they need. They’re only children.”
His concern appeared genuine, and yet he used them as leverage against me? I wondered if the threat to harm them was only a hollow one crafted by Banques to make me comply. “Would you really kill them if I stepped out of line?”
His brows rose with interest. “Do you plan to step out of line?” “No.”
“Then it’s a moot point, isn’t it?”
“Maybe so, but it’s a terrible pressure to live under minute by minute, afraid that I might do something inadvertently that could bring them harm.” He grinned as if amused, letting the brocade drape slip leisurely from his grasp, and turned to face me fully. “Rahtan are quite well trained, I understand, and you don’t strike me as the kind of person who does
anything inadvertently. I’m sure you needn’t worry.” “But I do.”
“You did threaten to kill me, remember?” “With a pickle fork.”
The grin that had twisted the corner of his mouth now lit his eyes. “One you claimed to be quite skilled with.”
“I won’t deny that,” I answered cheerily, to fuel his amusement.
He took a sip from his glass and shrugged. “My point is made.” He walked over to the window and stood beside me, setting his glass down on the deep marble ledge. “I’m sorry about your head today. It was one disturbed heckler. He’ll be found.”
“And hanged?”
“That will be up to Banques.”
“Do you take responsibility for anything? You are the king.”
He didn’t answer, but maybe that was answer enough. He leaned forward on his elbows, looking out at the arena, lit with flickering torches—more of his new domain.
“At the end of the week we’ll be going to Tor’s Watch,” he said. “I want you to speak to the Ballengers. Convince them to come out.”
“Speak through the door of the vault? They can’t hear anything through that.”
“But—”
“I’ve seen it. The door of the vault is three feet thick and made of solid steel, and it’s surrounded by solid rock. Not even a ghost can squeeze through it.”
“There has to be a way. How do they get fresh air?”
I didn’t know how much he already knew, but I did remember one of the rules, if you ever lie to the king. I avoided lies and chose my truths sparingly.
“There’s a ventilation system that was created by the Ancients. I wasn’t told how it works. I only had a brief tour.”
He turned and looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “A tour given by the Patrei?” There was resentment in his tone, as if Jase had usurped a personal right of his.
“Yes,” I answered.
For such a simple piece of information, he took a long time to absorb it. “What about another way out?” he finally asked. “Is there another door?”
“No, I didn’t—” Jase’s words tripped through my head unexpectedly. Every good stronghold has more than one way out. Otherwise you could be trapped. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Was it possible that Jase’s wisdom applied to a vault built by the Ancients? Maybe that was where he had learned it in the first place.
“I never saw another door,” I answered. Which was true, but how were they getting food? They’d been trapped in there for over a month. The hole in the roof of the cave Jase called the greenhouse was a hundred feet up. Things like Candok bears and snakes sometimes fell through, but nothing went back out. Were they foraging in there like the first Ballengers did, braving whatever animals had fallen in? And perhaps eating them?
He stepped away from the window, gulping back the last of his wine. An angry line pinched between his brows. “They can’t stay in there forever. They’ll have to come out eventually.”
He shifted awkwardly on his feet, setting his glass down, then turned suddenly, pressing his hands against the wall on either side of me, pinning me between his arms. He looked at me, and I wasn’t sure if he wanted to kiss or kill me. His eyes blazed with a fire that I couldn’t read. I could almost see a battle going on in his head. Stand your ground. Blink last, Kazi. My heart sped, but I returned his stare, waiting him out to see what he would do.
He leaned closer. “I’m still a little confused about you and the Patrei,” he said. “The last time I saw you at the arena, you punched him in the face, and you didn’t hold back. He had blood running from his mouth. That was no mere lovers’ quarrel. It looked like you wanted to kill him. And then, it’s my understanding that you arrested him in a very violent encounter. But your reaction on learning of his death seemed to indicate that you cared for him? Just what was your real relationship with the Patrei?”
Our real relationship? I worked to keep the panic from my face. If he knew the truth about Jase and me, who and what we really were to each other, he would throw me back in a cell and never let me out. My head
ached as I tried to block out thoughts of Jase, terrified it would all be plain in my eyes.
Montegue pressed forward so his thighs brushed mine. Heat radiated from his body. “Or maybe you’re undecided yourself?”
I tried to recall everything he might have seen, and also what others might have told him—especially Garvin and Paxton. “I bided my time with him out of necessity. It was my only way into Tor’s Watch.”
His face tilted slightly, pushing closer, his eyes dusky, swallowing me. “So, you were using him?”
“It was my job. I don’t regret it.”
“A loyal Rahtan. And that’s all it was?”
“He was an interesting pastime while I searched out Beaufort.”
“But then you valiantly tried to save him, even risking your own life.”
Someone had been reporting my every move to him. Since I couldn’t tell him why I risked everything to save Jase, I embraced the lie instead, letting it become part of me fully and completely, a vow written in blood. I let rage spark in my eyes.
“I was charged by a very angry queen to return the Patrei to his home,” I snapped. I brushed his arm aside, freeing myself. I strutted to the sideboard and poured myself the glass of wine I had refused earlier, then whirled to face him. “I was not happy about the journey back here,” I said, my tone thick with resentment. “The Patrei threw it in my face for every mile we traveled. He seemed to find it endlessly amusing that I had been chastised by my own queen and reminded me that I had overstepped my boundaries. Often. I was minutes from fulfilling my mission and being rid of him for good when we were attacked. Of course I valiantly fought for him! If I failed in my mission—” I looked down, drawing out the effect.
“If you failed, what?” he asked.
Every swallow, every flash of my eyes, was a morsel. Every word and inflection mattered. Spinning. His eyes were transfixed, forgetting the rest of the world. Take your time, Kazi. He is waiting. Watching. Swimming closer.
“If I failed, I might as well not return home. I would face severe …
consequences.” I cleared my throat as if the difficult memory were stuck
there like a bone. “I had already been on shaky ground with the queen,” I continued. “Unfortunately, we’d had several run-ins. She thought I was too … independent.” I chugged back a gulp of wine. “So yes, of course I was angry, and valiant, and desperate. Not to mention I was stabbed, starved, and jailed. When the Patrei’s hand fell from the bag, it was the final confirmation that my career as a soldier, the job I had brutally trained and worked for, for almost half of my life, had been yanked from my grasp. Gone. I would have no position in the Rahtan to return to. The queen had made that clear. So now that you know what was at stake for me, I imagine under similar circumstances you might be angry and fight for all you were worth too.”
Even he, in his limited knowledge of Venda, knew of the Rahtan and their elite status. He nodded as if he agreed but then added, “Except your queen was wrong. The Patrei was guilty. He knew he was hosting a fugitive, and he conspired with him.”
“I’m afraid the queen only deals in hard evidence, and I had none. Besides, she had what she really wanted anyway—Beaufort—the man who helped orchestrate her brothers’ deaths.”
His lips rolled tight over his teeth as if he were weighing whether it all added up. “Yet the Patrei still wanted you after your betrayal?”
His eyes were expectant. Garvin had told him something, maybe sharing a conversation he’d had with Jase about me. Maybe Jase had revealed to Garvin that he loved me.
“Yes, he did want me. Very much. I’m afraid my initial charade worked a little too well, or more likely, I was just another challenge for him. The Patrei, as you may know, had an ego the size of a mountain and was not one to accept defeat.”
He walked over and took my wineglass from my hand and set it on the sideboard behind us. His pupils had grown to onyx moons.
“And how do I compare to the Patrei?” he asked, his voice husky. My stomach jumped to my throat. “What do you mean?”
“Am I smarter? More desirable?” He stepped closer. “If he was only an assigned job for you, then you won’t mind if I kiss you. In fact, you’d probably be glad for it. A king is quite a step up from a Patrei, isn’t it?”
Kiss him, Kazi. Do it. It’s only a dry morsel of bread to draw him closer. Gain his confidence. But something tugged inside me. Was it the memory of Jase’s lips on mine? Do what you have to do, Kazi. But the tug pulled harder. A familiar whisper. Listen, Kazi. Hear the language that isn’t spoken. I felt like a quarterlord’s eyes were fixed on me from afar, watching, waiting for me to slip something in my pocket, and then pounce. Something was off. The king wasn’t swimming toward me, like a lured fish, but around me. He is the one with the hook in his hand, ready to catch me.
His face turned and dipped down, his mouth drawing close, but at the last second, I turned my head. His lips brushed my cheek instead, and a small chuckle rippled from his chest. “Well played, soldier,” he whispered, still pressing close. “I wouldn’t expect you to change your feelings toward me instantly—especially since I cost you your hard-earned job. I respect that even. I’d hate for you to use me the way you used him.” His tone was thick with insinuation. He stepped back, leaving me room to breathe again. “And in truth … we both know the stew was only mediocre tonight, don’t we? Never lie to me again. Not even about stew.” His stare pinned me in place. He was far from the clueless, bumbling king I had once thought him to be. But what else was he?
When we got back to the inn, just as we were parting, he asked, “Can Rahtan resign their positions?”
“Yes,” I answered uncertainly. “I suppose so.”
“Good. Then the problem of your position is solved. You work for me now. You can rest assured, you’ll have a far more illustrious career in the Montegue ranks. Your career isn’t over, it’s only just beginning.”
It was announced two days later—after Banques had reiterated the rules to me. He didn’t want me getting any “independent” ideas like the ones that had supposedly turned the queen against me. This time when I reached the platform in the plaza, Montegue didn’t stand apart from me. While Banques hovered over the children nearby, Montegue reached out and pulled me close to his side, his hand at first lightly pressed to my shoulder, but then it
slid to my waist. Was he trying to imply something to the crowd? Or testing me for absolute allegiance?
From the far side of the platform that looked over the plaza, the corpses that still hung from the tembris caught my eye. They watched me. Their heads turned. Their eyes were sharp, waiting expectantly. Was I foe or friend? I blinked, and their gazes were once again dull, dead, but I heard their hearts, the unified thump, hoping for something to happen.
Montegue told the gathered citizens that I would be staying on and lending aid to get the town back on its feet, that my assistance would be invaluable, though he didn’t say exactly what I would be doing. I wondered myself. He nudged me to back him up and repeat his words, which I did.
The announcement was met by the crowd with a low rolling murmur that I imagined to be the word murderer. I was lower than a scavenger in their eyes, lower than vermin, but Montegue was pleased with their reaction. He imagined it to be a different word. I saw relief in the momentary drop of his shoulders. He interpreted the murmurs as approval, and there were no rocks thrown, no shouts. He stood for a moment, still, gazing out at the crowd. His chin lifted, as if he was soaking the moment in, his chest growing with accomplishment.
“They’re forgetting the Patrei,” he whispered, almost to himself. “Moving forward. Soon they’ll only remember me, as it should have been all along.” But I sensed it was more than just progress he wanted. That while he hated Jase, some part of him wanted to be Jase. Power was only part of it. He wanted to be loved, the way Jase had been loved. The way Jase was still loved.
It is not natural, Greyson says.
It is a trick, Fujiko counters.
We stare at the circle of trees growing from piles of rubble. Even from high on the cliff that looks over the valley we see them change daily.
Magic, I say. It is some sort of magic.
—Miandre, 15
