Vow of Thieves Read online

  “What king? Which kingdom?”

  His face screwed into a question mark. “The King of Eislandia, you fool! Montegue!”

  The words couldn’t quite sink in.

  “Montegue invaded the town? You’re trying to tell me that bumbling fool is running everything here?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. It’s within his rights. His kingdom, his town. His Vendan soldier to take into custody for attacking a squad and killing four of them.” He paused, a grin lighting his eyes, and added, “His Vendan soldier to do with however he pleases.”

  I jerked forward, ready to twist his head off, but Wren held me back. “Don’t bite, Patrei. He’s just baiting you.” I knew that. He wanted me to jump him. Did he think he’d wrestle away one of my weapons in the scuffle?

  “What about Zane?” I asked.

  “What about him?”

  Blessed gods, I prayed Gunner had killed Zane before all this went down. That he wasn’t loose and—

  “Is he alive?” I asked.

  Sheridan smiled. “He’s had a promotion since he worked for you. He’s a lieutenant in the king’s army now. Probably in charge of that Vendan soldier you’re so concerned about.”

  Wren’s grip on my arm tightened.

  Sheridan used that moment to lunge, not for me, but to the side, aiming for the candle on the runner only a few feet away. He dove, his hand knocking it over, and then the light was gone. Complete blackness engulfed us. There was shuffling, then the sound of pounding footsteps and, over it all, shouts. Ours.

  The candle!

  Find it!

  Where is he?

  None of us dared swing our weapons because we couldn’t see one another. Synové’s flint box sparked again and again, until she was finally able to catch the corner of her fur cloak and a small flame glowed bright enough from it for us to locate the candle and relight it.

  I heard more scuffling, grunts, and panting from somewhere deep within the cavern, far beyond our circle of light. Carriages wheezed and collapsed as he stumbled into them in the dark.

  “Come out, Sheridan!” I yelled. “There’s nowhere to go.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Wren cursed. “We’ll never find him in there.”

  I stared into the dusty blackness. “We don’t have to,” I answered.

  We left, wedging every door shut behind us, though between the smothering darkness and the maze of crumbling carriages, he would never find the doors anyway. Sheridan had sealed his own fate. In a matter of days, if not hours, his horror-stricken face would join the army of those already down here.

  Errdwor is their leader. He tells me his name and pounds his chest. He shakes with rage. He is older than me. Bigger than me. Stronger than me. He says I must obey. That I must open our gate. But he is not angrier than me. He was one of those who killed my grandfather.

  —Greyson Ballenger, 15

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  KAZI

  Tomorrow. I just had to make it through one more day. Once Lydia and Nash were safe, there would be no holding back. No biding my time. Munitions would be found and destroyed. Kings and generals would die. The papers the queen ordered me to find would be confiscated from Gunner, who certainly had them stashed somewhere. And I would be with Jase again. I would take care of him. Nurse him back to health in the root cellar until he could manage to ride again, no matter how long it took. Whatever it took. And then we would rebuild Tor’s Watch together. A dream that I thought was stolen began to bloom in me again, unfurling like spring in the middle of winter.

  I finished lacing my dress, taking a good long look at myself in the mirror, and frowned. It wasn’t a dress for a quiet dinner or an interrogation. It was more of a party dress for a grand occasion and it was far too revealing, but whatever was in store for tonight, I had to play along. Distract and deflect. It was another kind of juggling, and for one night I could do it. I had to secure the king’s trust in a greater way so he would drop his guard. Feed his fantasies. Let his ego be your accomplice. He’s only a mark, like any other, I told myself.

  But he wasn’t like any other. I knew that. Even bloated merchants had rules they had to follow, people they had to answer to. The king answered to no one, and the only rules he followed were the ones he had made and could change on a whim.

  I pulled on my bodice, trying to stretch it upward. I felt like Wren trying to make sense of an impractical piece of clothing. It was—

  Stay. Don’t move.

  I spun. The room was quiet, unnaturally still, yet the air prickled. I felt the ghosts hovering, watching. Their cold feet paced, nervous. One of them slid a cool fingertip along my jaw. Shhh, Kazi, don’t—

  A firm knock on my door had me turning again. The chill vanished. Had Paxton forgotten something? Or maybe my escort had arrived early. The fact that I still required an escort at all showed I hadn’t earned their trust yet, even if I was officially now in the king’s employ. I had to chisel away their remaining doubts by tomorrow. If Paxton could do his job, I could do mine.

  “Coming,” I called.

  I turned the bedside lantern to low and grabbed my cloak, eager to get this evening behind me, eager for tomorrow to begin. But when I opened the door, the face that greeted me made no sense. Shadows swam in my vision. For a moment I was nowhere in time, floating, lost. My blood drained and my breath disappeared. I couldn’t move, every muscle suddenly useless. Liquid. Then terror shot through me, and on its heels, a hot rush of awareness returned. I slammed the door shut, but before I could latch it, he burst in, a fit of strength and rage, the door flying open, striking me and sending me stumbling back.

  He pounced, pinning me against the wall, one hand a vise on my wrists, the other on my throat, not leaving any space between us for leverage, as if he had practiced this move for months. His skin burned against mine. “Surprise,” he whispered.

  My throat closed, air struggling to find a way in. “I’m your escort for tonight,” he said. “A lieutenant in the king’s army now. How’s that for sweet justice?”

  His voice was a thousand spiders crawling over my skin. My shoulders trembled against my will. It was only the two of us, and there was nowhere to go. You’re not powerless anymore, Kazi. Fight back. Instinct and reason battled inside me. Natiya’s constant words in training knocked inside my head. Know your weaknesses, but play to your strengths.

  He was taller, stronger, heavier, a terrible weight pressing against me, but the greatest weakness I had were the king’s rules. If you ever so much as bruise …

  “I almost lost a finger because of you,” he hissed. “Maybe I should take one of yours now as payment. Or maybe I should take something else?” He pushed harder, his full weight crushing me against the wall. “Your dead lover nearly killed me. I wish he could see this now.”

  Zane wasn’t as afraid of me as I thought he would be. He was loose, hungry, emboldened, because now he had the strength of the king behind him. Because I was trapped, just like my mother had been.

  Almost trapped.

  As Natiya had ordered, I knew my strengths.

  I had practiced too. In my mind.

  A hundred times. A thousand times. All the ways.

  Spit.

  A twist of a wrist.

  The jerk of an elbow jamming into a nose.

  A knee in a groin.

  Knuckles in the throat.

  A strong kick to the kneecap.

  A house of cards fluttering to the ground.

  I didn’t need a knife. Or a scalpel.

  I knew all the ways.

  And then as he lay writhing on the floor, a final crushing heel to the temple.

  It was amazing how vulnerable the human body was.

  He would be disabled, if not dead.

  And very bruised.

  If I killed him now, it would jeopardize everything. The king was expecting Zane to deliver me to his side, not to find him dead on the floor of my room. Besides breaking the rules, it would m
ake all trust vanish. Killing him would unravel our plan and make this chance of saving Lydia and Nash disappear. It might even mean their deaths. Paxton was already busy setting our plan in motion. We were too close now. Tomorrow was too close.

  “The king is expecting me,” I said.

  “Don’t worry. I’m taking you to him—but I’m early. You didn’t notice? There’s a lot that can happen in twenty minutes. Don’t you want to know what happened to your mother? Go ahead. Ask me.” The faint lantern light glowed in his dark eyes, his taunt bringing him pleasure. Where is the brat? The room whirled. My skin burned. Think, Kazi. Steady. Find your escape.

  “Banques,” I choked out.

  “What?”

  I forced in a ragged breath. I had something more deadly than a fist to his throat. Something that would both frighten and finish him. He was already a dead man. He just didn’t know it yet.

  “You won’t be doing anything once I tell Banques about you.”

  “Tell him what?”

  “That you betrayed him. That you caved under questioning and gave up his name to Jase. Devereux. You told Jase he was the one who gave you the money for the labor hunters. How do you think that will sit with the general? Think you’ll still be his lieutenant? No, you’ll be swinging from a rope faster than you can wet your pants.”

  Instant panic shone in his eyes. He knew the general was fond of hanging, and his confession giving Banques over to Jase was easily a hanging offense.

  “I only gave up his first name,” he reasoned. “Not the rest. Your lover was about to cut me into pieces.”

  “You think that will matter to Banques?”

  “I could just kill you now,” he said, his hand tightening on my throat.

  “And how would you explain that to the king who has added me to his payroll? I’m an employee now, just like you—and one he is far more fond of, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  His chest heaved and his eyes shrunk to tiny glass beads as he searched for a way out of this conundrum. His words tripped out ahead of his thoughts. “If you—if I’m dead, you’ll never find your mother.”

  I flinched, feeling like I had been struck, my skin stinging. “My mother is dead,” I replied.

  “No, she isn’t. And I know where she is. It’s not far from here.”

  “You’re lying. I know—”

  “She’s alive. I’ll take you to her as soon as I can. But you keep your mouth shut about me to Banques. Understand? Or you’ll never find out where she is.”

  His words were flat, dull, dead inside me. He was only searching for a way out of this. A way to keep me quiet. She wasn’t alive. But what if—

  Only this morning, I had thought Jase was dead too.

  What if.

  I didn’t believe it, but I agreed to his terms. Having something deadly to hold over Zane’s head could be useful if events spun out of control—an unwilling ally at best. I made a bargain with this devil, the very man who had ripped out my soul and now bribed me with the false hope of returning it.

  I agreed because right now tomorrow mattered more than eleven years of wanting. But after tomorrow, I would still know where to find him. After tomorrow, everything would change. But he didn’t know that. Yet.

  Walking down a hallway with a monster I had feared for more than half of my life was the longest walk I had ever taken. It was endless and I was an empty shell by the time we reached the dining room. My resolve floated somewhere outside of me, like a ghost I couldn’t see.

  Head up, Kazi.

  You can do this.

  Feet forward. We’re almost there.

  Almost.

  Jase.

  He was alive.

  That was all I needed to remember.

  And that tomorrow was almost here.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  JASE

  If I’d thought the arena was bad, the town was worse. Maybe it was desperation that made me think things would go in my favor just for once. Or that the gods would intercede. Surely all my vows and prayers had to count for something.

  But not today.

  Hell’s Mouth was always gray in winter. The frost on the tembris dulled their leaves, as it did the skies, but this gray reached deeper, like a leech had sucked away the town’s lifeblood. It was cold in a way I had never seen before, even the faces that passed me. None had life in them. Though the air was frigid, my temples blazed. I wanted to run, hunt down the king and kill him. Why hadn’t someone already done it? Where were my magistrates? Wren jerked me closer to her side, sensing a madness overtaking me.

  “Careful, husband,” Synové warned. “We knew it would be bad.” But I heard the catch in her voice. It was overwhelming her too. The brokenness wasn’t just in the buildings or the cobbled streets—it permeated the air—and soldiers posted at every avenue and every rooftop kept hopelessness pinned in place.

  Kazi was alive. Here. Somewhere. Some part of me had thought we would walk down the main street and I would spot her coming from the other direction and I’d sweep her into one of the many hidden passages I knew here.

  Wren sucked in a breath. She saw the temple before I did. Even from the far end of the street and our small sliver of view, I saw the piles of rubble.

  Caemus had told me, but telling didn’t prepare me. The shining façade that had once greeted visitors was gone. The altar was still oddly erect, frozen out in the open, like a deer caught unaware in a blind, too afraid to move. Every vow I had ever made began in the temple—

  Except for one. One vow began in the wilderness with Kazi.

  I swallowed.

  Montegue was responsible for all this? I still didn’t believe it. He had no army and no money for one. He barely had an interest in ruling.

  What about his tax money you keep? Could he be angry about that?

  Kazi’s doubts circled in my head. When we sent the tax money, we always gave him a full accounting of where the one percent we kept was spent. Montegue had never responded or objected. I’d assumed that was because our accounting showed that the one percent didn’t begin to cover the costs of magistrates, repairs, cisterns, schools, the two infirmaries, and more. The list went on and on.

  What if he deliberately chose a site that was in clear view of your memorial to aggravate you?

  Montegue baiting us? I had thought that was impossible too because the king knew nothing about us or the memorial—but Zane did. And now I knew that Zane worked for the king. Anyone who lived in Hell’s Mouth for any length of time knew of our yearly family pilgrimage to the site to repair the simple memorial and offer prayers of thanks for Aaron Ballenger and his sacrifice. If the settlement location was deliberately chosen to rouse our anger, that would mean our recent trouble wasn’t a power struggle spurred on by my father’s death, as we had believed, but a plan that had been in the making for a very long time—before my father died.

  I spotted Aleski, our post messenger, walking toward us, his white-blond hair wild and loose beneath his hat, his lips chapped and cracked from the cold. He pushed a barrow of supplies. He had family in town, but he was rarely here, usually on the trail. Aleski had worked for us for years. He and Titus had once been very close, but even after they parted ways, they remained friends. I had a split second to decide—let him pass, or question him. He would not betray Titus or the rest of the family. I was certain.

  “Meester,” I called, lifting my hand in a stopping motion. We ambled toward him, and he lowered the barrow handles. When we were close, I whispered his name. His eyes widened and then filled with tears. “Patrei?” He swayed slightly, like he was ready to collapse.

  “Pull it together, Aleski. We’re Kbaaki. You’re giving us directions. Point toward the mercantile.”

  He nodded and lifted his hand, pointing, but tears spilled down his cheeks. “They watch everything.”

  “I know. They’re watching us now,” I answered. Soldiers on the opposite corner had turned their attention toward us.

  He wiped his nos
e. “We thought you were dead. That soldier who took you away said you’d been hanged. She said—”

  “That soldier? You mean Kazi? Where is she?”

  “She works for the king now, for the whole rotten bunch of them.”

  “No, she doesn’t, Aleski. Trust me, she’s his prisoner. If she said anything—”

  “Hurry it along, boys,” Wren whispered. “They’re watching and coming this way any second.”

  “Is it true?” I asked. “Montegue is behind all this?”

  He nodded. “Him and that general. We’ve tried to fight them.” His voice was strained and full of apology.

  “Aleski, I know. Their weapons are too powerful—”

  “They’re strolling this way,” Synové warned in a singsong tone.

  “Tonight, once it’s dark, come to the south livery,” I said. “We’ll talk more there.”

  But Aleski continued on. His words ran together, desperate and crackling with hatred. “They hang loyalists from the tembris as a lesson.” He rattled off names, Drake, Chelline the dressmaker, and more. I knew them all, and it took every bit of strength I had to keep the smile on my face as he spoke. “They confiscated my horse,” he went on. “They’re taking them from anyone who once worked for the Ballengers that they think might be a loyalist. I have family here in town, my mother and sister—I can’t—”

  Every time Aleski’s voice cracked, my frozen smile did too, but my father’s words seeped between Aleski’s desperate ones. When you have no strength left, you have to choice but to reach deep and find more, and then share it. It is the Patrei’s job to lead.

  I grabbed his shoulders. “What is the rule, Aleski?” I whispered. “Catch them off guard. You know that. Take them by surprise. And that’s what we’re going to do. Why isn’t the town decorated for Winter Festival? It’s less than two weeks away. Do it. Today. Tell everyone to do it. Plan a celebration. Make these bastards think they’ve won and you’re going about your business. Don’t tell anyone I’m alive—not just yet—but tell them to be ready. The Ballengers are taking this town back.”