Vow of Thieves (Dance of Thieves)

by Mary E. Pearson

  Montegue paused, his lip twisted at the memory. “No. He told him no. He said it was only for family. He told the ruling monarch of Eislandia no, without so much as an apology or blink.”

  He repeated the word no quietly, but I still heard all the anger it held. “And then you know what my father did?”

  I knew I didn’t need to reply. This was a story he had lived over and over again. The answer was ready on his tongue waiting to be spit out. “Nothing,” he finally said. “My father did absolutely nothing. He bought the seed and stock we had come for and we left, two cows trailing behind us. I burned with shame the whole way home, and I decided on that ride back that I would not be a farmer like my father. I would not blister my hands on a hoe or break my back behind a plow, and most of all, I would not suffer the disrespect of underlings.

  “By the time we got home, my shame bubbled over, and I screamed at him and called him a stupid farmer. And you know what he did?”

  I shook my head.

  “What he always did. Nothing.” He winced and swigged back the last of his liqueur, then grabbed the carafe and poured himself more. “I decided that day I wasn’t going to be the man my father was, the man who was the sniveling butt of all the kingdom’s jokes, the king no one listened to. Do you have any idea how hard it was to hear subjects say they had to check with the Patrei first when I gave them orders? My own magistrates in Hell’s Mouth deferred to Karsen Ballenger, and then to Jase. I will not be a nothing ruler.”

  “Farming is an honorable profession. The Ballengers have farms.”

  “The Ballengers had farms,” he corrected. “The Ballengers had everything, but now it’s mine, as it should have been all along. A mistake was made three generations ago. The border should have included the arena and Tor’s Watch. Then maybe my father would have been a proper king I could have been proud of. Now I will be that king. The greatest ruler the world has ever known. When I have a son, he will be proud of his father, and I will get respect the Montegues always deserved—from all the kingdoms.”

  My breath pooled in my chest. The way he said all, the way his jaw clenched, the way the haze from a night of drinking vanished and his eyes turned to hard glass—it reminded me of someone else.

  I recalled standing on the edge of Blackstone Square, hidden in the shadows listening to the Komizar speak as he rallied forces for his growing army. All of them, he had shouted. His voice was strong and seemed to reach to the mountains. All the kingdoms will bend a knee to Venda—or be slaughtered. I was ten and immune to swaggering talk by then—except from the Komizar. His words always contained a chilling promise in them, unlike anyone else’s. Some had thought he was a god. I had thought him a demon. I remembered slipping deeper into the shadows as if he might spot me from afar, as if he had some special power, and maybe even now I still wondered if he did.

  All. That’s what I heard in Montegue’s voice now.

  His hunger ran deep. Eleven years deep. So deep he was willing to use children as a shield and hang innocent people from trees to ensure obedience. Willing to pay labor hunters to steal away his own citizens. Willing to murder the rightful ruler of Hell’s Mouth and confiscate his holdings. How many things was he willing to do that I didn’t even know about yet?

  Imagine the possibilities.

  I was afraid to.

  His feet dropped from the table to the floor, and he rose abruptly. “It’s getting late,” he said. “You should turn in. We’ll be leaving early.”

  I was caught off guard by his sudden dismissal and was surprised by how deliberately he stood, no sway or stumble to his stance. He didn’t seem drunk at all. “Of course, Your Maj—”

  And then he took hold of my wrist and slowly pulled me close, firm and sure.

  “Do you want to kiss me? Compare a Patrei to a king? See if it could be more than passable?” he asked.

  I gaped at him, searching for an answer. I had thought his mind would be more consumed with the missing papers and my supposed premonition than on the small matter of a kiss, but after hearing how long he’d been planning this invasion, I guessed that maybe there was no such thing as a small matter when it came to the Ballengers, especially the Patrei. I weighed my answer carefully, knowing a no could send him into a sullen rage, but a too-eager yes could spike his suspicions and make him think I was using him the way I had used Jase. And he very much wanted me to judge him differently than I had Jase because he was a king and was different, better, smarter. He had to best the Patrei I had rejected, the Patrei who had wanted me. My pause made his fingers tighten on my wrist.

  I blinked, as if embarrassed. “I admit, I am curious.”

  “Of course you are.”

  His other hand slipped behind my back, and he pulled me closer, lowering his face to mine, but before our lips met, I twisted free and stepped back.

  “Curious,” I said firmly, “but cautious.” I wrung my hands and tripped over my words. “I will not deny there’s a strong attraction, but—” I shook my head. “I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say. But I’ve seen the women circling around you. I don’t want to be one of them. I don’t want—” I gasped and looked at him as if horrified. “It’s not that I—What I’m trying to say is I’m certain your kisses are more than passable, and I admit I’ve wondered about them, but I want more than—” I sucked in a long, shaky breath. “I need to stop. I’m afraid nothing is coming out quite the way I intended. May I sleep on this?”

  He regarded me for a long while, his black eyes fixed on mine. “You want something more than what you had with the Patrei. Something true.”

  I blinked, certain he could hear my heart pounding wildly. “Is that foolish of me?”

  Of course it wasn’t. Because he was more worthy. More beautiful. More of everything. My words made complete sense.

  A faint smile lit his eyes. “Go. Get a good night’s sleep. We’ll continue this conversation in the morning.”

  And with that, he dismissed me to return to my room. Without an escort.

  Because a soldier in his employ confessed her strong attraction to him. She wanted more than what she had with the Patrei, and with all her fumbling, he imagined that she even blushed when she said it. She was certainly someone trustworthy enough to walk to her room alone. She would be back. She wanted him, after all. As she should.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  JASE

  We huddled in a corner of the stable just outside Mije’s stall, keeping our voices low so the sleeping stable boy in the livery office wouldn’t waken. I couldn’t stay angry at Aleski, especially after the bone-crunching embrace I received from his older sister, Imara. She had all the brawn that Aleski did not. His lean physique served him well as a post messenger, and her tall, muscular stature served her equally well as a farrier.

  “You took a chance coming here,” I said.

  “Not me,” Imara answered, patting her bag of tools beside her. “No one thinks twice about seeing me walk into a livery.”

  Wren was busy admiring the gifts Imara had snuck in her bag—two dozen tiny but very sharp, well-weighted throwing knives that could be easily concealed.

  Aleski said they hadn’t arrived together but converged after first stopping at a local pub.

  “They still allow us to drink,” Lothar fumed. “They want us to spend money.”

  “I think the ruse of the festival is already working,” Aleski said. “More citizens were out tonight.” He thought that seeing the cheerful garlands and the citizens relaxing made the guards’ tight grip ease too. He saw two of them joking on a corner with the cooper, which they had never done before.

  “There was even a party going on tonight,” Imara added. “I hope the whole bloody lot drink themselves into oblivion.”

  My mind went back to the party. Was she there, or did they keep her locked up when they didn’t need her? What was Montegue’s hold on her? The questions ate away at me like buzzards picking my bones.

  For the first time, we heard the ful
l course of events that led to the takeover, not overheard pieces of the story shared by Caemus, or grudging bits shared by traitors.

  They told us it began with a two-week bombardment of raids on caravans and fires that besieged the town. Every day a new place was hit. Gunner was torn in every direction, and it kept every Ballenger employee scrambling. The town had ceased to sleep. Mason had added patrols in town and on incoming roads. Gunner and Titus had just as many watching the arena and caravans. Then for several days everything went calm. They thought it was over.

  “And then the king’s army rolled in with weapons,” Lothar said. “There was complete chaos. Building after building was reduced to rubble. No one knew what was happening.” Lothar said when the dust settled, Banques claimed they had confiscated the weapons from a Ballenger warehouse—an enormous stockpile the family had gained through illegal means. Banques also claimed that the Ballengers had been blackmailing businesses for more protection money to finance their unlawful activities instead of keeping the town safe from Rybart’s league—who he claimed had engineered the attacks.

  “We knew none of it was true, and not a single family or business backed up his wild claim, but what we believed didn’t matter. He had all the power and used it to quash any dissent. He—”

  “Who is this Banques?” I asked. “Where did he come from?”

  “He’s first in command after the king,” Imara answered. “He’s a general, and it seems he has the training to go with it. He’s commanding a formidable army, but a few who have been to Parsuss are certain he was the king’s local magistrate before all this happened.”

  The magistrate in Parsuss? The one who had written us saying he had never heard anything about “this Beaufort fellow” when my father had inquired about him? They’d been thick as thieves all along. It all started to fall into place. The king had used us to finance his weapons, working in lockstep with Beaufort. He used us in even a worse way than Beaufort had. And then he enlisted Paxton and Truko to keep the arena running—the sweetest deal ever proposed to them. Aleski spit when he mentioned Paxton’s name. Somehow his complicity was worse than Truko’s.

  “A day after he roared into town, the king announced that Rybart was killed during the takeover.” Lothar recounted. “Then he ordered his captured crew to be hanged. They all denied it with their last breaths. The next day in the forest, they caught Drake in one of their snares like he was nothing but an animal, and a few days later, they hanged him from—” Lothar shook his head, unable to continue.

  My temper had steadily risen with every word. “The king’s an invader and murderer. Why hasn’t someone just taken him down?” I hissed, trying to keep my voice low. “There’s plenty of skilled archers in town—those who crewed our skywalks! Surely someone’s had an opportunity for a shot at him. Doesn’t he ever walk the streets? Ride his horse?”

  Imara, Aleski, and Lothar all looked at me blankly.

  “You don’t know?” Imara finally asked, so quietly I thought she had lost her voice.

  A cold sweat sprang to my face. “Know what?”

  She looked at Aleski, and he answered. “He has Lydia and Nash. Everyone would love to see him dead, but they’re afraid to make a move. He claims he’s protecting them, but we know why he really has them. For his own protection. His implied threat is obvious.”

  I didn’t realize I had stood until I suddenly had five sets of hands digging into my arms and chest, holding me against the stable wall. He has my baby brother and sister? Using them for protection? That’s what is keeping Kazi there. That’s why she won’t leave.

  Wren’s hands pressed against my chest. “Don’t go getting crazy on us now, Patrei.”

  I shook my head, indicating it was safe to let me go. I had no intention of getting crazy. My only intention was getting revenge.

  We began formulating plans for our own army. Weapons. That was all I could think of now, and what I would do to get them.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  KAZI

  Clouds of swirling pink steam hovered above the spring in the pavilion. They were the breaths of the gods, according to legend, and the mineral-rich hot spring was their gift to mortals.

  Just beyond the rails of the pavilion, there were more breaths—those of the dead. I felt them stepping closer, their sighs whispering through the pines. Gods, ghosts, and maybe angels, they all watched. Waiting.

  On the ride here, my mind was consumed with every detail, including backup plans in case something changed, something as unpredictable as rain or snow, but the sun had at last peeked out from behind gray clouds, adding some cheer to the day. I took it as an omen. If the king could take his father’s untimely death as an omen from the gods, I could take the appearance of intermittent sunshine as a sure nod from them.

  I had awoken before dawn, my pulse skittering like a snared bird, but when I caught sight of the graveyard, a strange calm descended. It felt familiar. I remembered: The wild anxiety was always followed by calm. It didn’t matter if it was a square of cheese, or a starving tiger, or two small children. My mind shifted as we drew near, focusing not on everything that could go wrong but on everything I had to do right. Once step at a time. You can’t panic when you’re walking a tightrope over a pit of vipers.

  I stood at the pavilion rail, waiting for Montegue.

  Several yards away, I heard him dismissing Banques, Paxton, and Truko to go on to Tor’s Watch, saying we would catch up with them soon—it was only a short way up the hill from the graveyard. I had walked the distance with Jase on my first day here. Montegue’s tone was impatient. I was sure Banques was not happy being displaced by me, even temporarily, but he didn’t argue. Paxton had planted a bug in his ear too, one that made him eager to continue on to review more arena records. The king’s safety was never part of the discussion. He would be fine. Squads of soldiers still blocked each end of the road that was adjacent to the graveyard. No one could get in, and a small contingent within the graveyard was there to provide additional protection. One soldier—Broken Nose—was assigned to supervise the children, and three more who weren’t familiar to me were posted around the pavilion to protect the king.

  As Paxton rode away, I noted that he was particularly well-groomed today, the sides of his head freshly shaved and his russet ponytail gleaming in a neat line down his back. Maybe he at least wanted to look presentable hanging from a tembris if he was caught.

  When Montegue turned back toward the pavilion, he patted his vest as he approached. It was an unconscious habit of his. Anyone who carried treasure on them—whether it was keys, a gold signet ring, a purse of coin, or for Montegue, a tiny vial that contained the promise of unlimited power—checked their treasure often. Who wouldn’t? His hand returned to his side. His treasure was still there. Safe.

  I remembered how Griz had mocked him. How I had mocked him. But he was more cunning than all of us. That was what made me nervous, staying ahead of what smoldered inside of him—what he managed to keep so well hidden. He was only twenty-three, but he seemed like an old man too, filled with three lifetimes of ambition and cynicism. Someone like Phineas only comes along once every few generations.

  And maybe someone like Montegue too.

  Lydia and Nash were already off playing among the tombstones. Once within the safe protection of the graveyard, with its sheer mountain wall and forest cover on one side and heavily armed squads on the other, Montegue couldn’t be rid of the children fast enough, though they were on especially good behavior today. They’d been coached by Paxton and Oleez this morning. They were to cause their guard no reason to drag them back to the pavilion before the appointed time. Play quietly in the graveyard, recite the history of Fujiko twice, and then it would be time to return.

  Montegue’s pace was deliberate and eager. It seemed it didn’t matter if it was possessing the magic of the stars, controlling a continent, a kingdom, or a true kiss from a lowly thief that his adversary had desired, they were all balms that could heal the slivers f
estering beneath his skin and each had the power to finally make him whole, make the world fall into balance, make his story true.

  He walked up the steps and stopped in front of me. His need was visible. I saw it in his hooded eyelids as he imagined what could be. I listened. Pretended I heard his heartbeat. For these few seconds, he was fragile, human. Hungry. I couldn’t see him as a monster. I had to see him as a man. A man was beatable.

  “So now that you’ve slept on it, are you still wondering?” he asked.

  I had hoped it would take him longer to get to the subject that burned him.

  “Yes. I—”

  “You don’t have to wonder, you know?”

  A few more minutes. That’s all I needed until—

  He pulled me into his arms and kissed me.

  My pulse rushed and my mind raced, trying to take command of the situation again, trying to—

  But now I was immersed in it. I sensed that every move of his was planned, perfected, timed. He had wanted to catch me off guard. Surprise and show me. His kiss was gentle at first, his lips barely grazing mine. He whispered my name against them, Kazimyrah, but then his lips pressed harder and his tongue was in my mouth. His grip grew stronger, like iron, and I remembered his warning: I’m stronger and could overtake you easily. He pulled me closer as if proving it, every part of him pressed against me, his breaths growing heavier, and I feared this was no longer an orchestrated kiss, but one that was quickly veering out of control. Where were they? Why did we choose Fujiko? We should have chosen a shorter history. But I met his kisses with eagerness of my own. My hands slid upward along his sides until I was gently cupping his face, every move designed to convey I was entranced. Where were they?

  “Well?” he whispered against my lips.

  I answered by pressing my mouth to his. Yes, a king is a step up from a Patrei.