We stared at each other and I saw the inevitable in his eyes. What we both already knew in our hearts. No, I answered.
Our lips met, and he whispered words between them: Show me, Kazi. Show me what to do. I want you to be my wife.
With Mije and Tigone looking on as our witnesses, I took his hand and wrapped the ribbon around his wrist and he did the same with mine. We tied it off together. And now vows should be spoken, I told him.
What kind of vows?
Whatever is in your heart, Jase. That is all that matters. Tell me what is in your heart.
He took my free hand, held it to his lips, then nodded.
Kazi of Brightmist—
His voice caught, his emotion as near to the surface as mine. Then he began again, but he took his time, as if searching for the perfect words.
Kazi of Brightmist … you are the love I didn’t know I needed.
I could still hear the soft flapping of the ribbon in the wind as we lifted our hands to the sky. Bound by earth, bound by the heavens, I said once we finished our vows, and Jase repeated the words.
There was no moon. Our witnesses were horses. We didn’t follow the rules, but we never had. It didn’t make our vows any less true, or make us any less married.
We had stared at each other for a long while afterward, almost in disbelief. We were wife and husband. I broke off a piece of the feastcake and placed it in his mouth, and he did the same for me. It is done, I told him, then added, almost. He skimmed his thumb along my lower lip, wiping away a crumb, and then we walked together into the ruin, the ribbon fluttering behind us.
Bound by earth. Bound by the heavens.
Wife and husband.
Montegue could never take that away.
His footsteps grew louder then stopped just outside the door.
He was here.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
JASE
Samuel told part of the story. Titus weighed in. Mason added a few words. Gunner remained silent.
With me gone, Gunner had put Jalaine back on at the arena office. They all thought it the wise thing to do. She ran the office better than anyone. That day she had run an errand, and Samuel guessed that when she returned to the office she found him and the men who guarded the door on the floor, blood running from their heads. Samuel had drifted in and out of consciousness. He saw strange men rummaging through drawers and closets, trying to find the day’s revenues. He figured that Jalaine had walked in, spotted the intruders, and then saw him lifeless on the floor, and had run.
“By then the whole arena had been overrun,” Titus said. He and Gunner were trapped in the apartment when it happened, with unknown attackers banging on the barred door to get in. They had both looked out the apartment window trying to figure out who the attack was coming from. They saw Jalaine run to the tower above the office where the Valsprey lofts were kept. She disappeared inside and then she was at the terrace wall releasing one of the birds, but arrows began flying through the air. One of them brought the Valsprey down.
Was this the bird that had somehow managed to reach Kazi and me? Why else would Jalaine release the bird unless she was sending a message?
“The next thing we saw was—” Titus paused. His lips rolled over his teeth. “We saw Jalaine fall from the top of the tower. They threw her over the side.” His hands pulled into fists on the table, but his eyes were empty, like every bit of emotion had already been drained from him. He said the banging on the door stopped, and he and Gunner managed to make it to the office to get Samuel, but they couldn’t recover Jalaine’s body from the arena floor. They lived and hid in the forest for a week before they were able to reach the vault. They didn’t even know who the attack came from for another week after that.
Mason leaned forward, his head in his hands. “We still don’t know how Rybart was able to launch such a large assault. For weeks he was everywhere.”
“And the weapons?” Titus added. “The king says we were stockpiling them, but we know that’s not true. All we can figure is that when Zane was making deliveries, he stole the plans and cut a deal with Rybart.”
“It wasn’t Rybart attacking the town,” I said. “It was the king. Beaufort was working with him from the very beginning. He’s the one behind all this, he and his magistrate, who is now his general. Zane was the go-between.”
“What?”
“From the beginning?”
“The king?”
Disbelieving mumbles circled the table.
Paxton nodded to confirm what I said. “Rybart and his crew were victims in this too.”
The mumbles quieted and glares were aimed at Paxton, his first words met with hatred. They still weren’t ready to believe anything he said, even the truth, and I wondered if some of them might fly across the table and throttle him. They had seen him standing with the king, and I realized Kazi held the same reviled place in their hearts.
I came here for help and found the opposite. I discovered a vault full of disheartened survivors. I discovered my sister was dead. Discovered that Kazi had been thrown to the wolves by my own family. That my wife was going to be hanged. I promise you, Kazi. They will listen. They will love you. The kitchen was suddenly suffocating. I couldn’t breathe. More broken promises surfaced. You’ll be fine in the morning, Sylvey. I promise. Close your eyes and sleep. I stood abruptly, the chair flying backward, and I turned and walked out. Back through the storeroom, the study, the catacomb of rooms. A rumble of footsteps followed after me. Where are you going, Jase? What are you doing? Talk to us.
I reached the main entrance tunnel and crossed to the greenhouse door, spun the wheel, and opened it. I needed to make sure it was still there, like my last hope hadn’t disappeared too.
“Jase!” Priya called. I glanced over my shoulder. They were all following me, maybe afraid I would do something crazy. I had just learned my sister was murdered and my wife had been turned over to a fiend. Doing something crazy seemed like the sane thing to do.
I passed mounds of fresh dirt. This was where they were burying the dead. Spades were still stuck in the soil, ready, like they were waiting for more.
A goat skipped away. Where it had come from, I had no idea, but it hadn’t fallen in. I looked up at the hole high in the cave roof. Foliage surrounded it like a lush green collar, and water dripped from the vines. Usually it had a calming effect, but with fresh graves dug below, there wasn’t too much that was calming about the greenhouse now.
I crossed the cave, no, I stomped like my steps would bend the world to my will, that it would somehow stop the madness. I climbed the uneven side of the cave, finding footholds in the rock, then reached behind a stony ridge, yanking the bag of ammunition out first and then the launcher.
I turned and held it up. “Did she tell you about this too?”
Priya’s face pinched with shame. She nodded. “I heard her as we ran away. She said you had hidden a weapon in the greenhouse. I looked for it when we came back but couldn’t find it. I thought it was only more lies.”
“Even after—” My throat felt like it was swelling shut. “Even after you betrayed her, she tried to help you. And she would have told you exactly where it was, if you had given her the chance.”
“We didn’t know, Jase,” Mason said.
I looked at the launcher in my hand. This. This was all I had to try to save her—one launcher against their hundreds. I dropped it to the ground and stepped closer to the huddle staring at me.
“She laid her life on the line to save me!” I said, pounding my chest. “She laid her life on the line to save Lydia and Nash! She never showed any fear, but you know what she was afraid of? You! All of you! Do you have any idea how much courage it took for her to return here with me? She heard all those things you said to her. What you were going to do to her. I told her that you would understand. You would listen. That you would love her again. Because that’s what families do.” I felt myself cracking into a thousand pieces. “I guess that makes me a liar, doesn�
�t it?”
Priya shook her head, her eyes glistening, and she reached out and pulled me to her, held me, and I broke down in her arms. A big hulking Kbaaki, sobbing on her shoulder. They all gathered round, holding me, holding one another, Samuel, Aram, Titus, Mason, and Priya. Everyone but Gunner.
He turned and walked out the greenhouse door.
* * *
We untangled ourselves. Wren, Synové, and Paxton stood off to the side, their eyes wide, as if afraid to be drawn into a circle of fury and tears that made no sense, not even to me. Was it possible to love and hate someone at the same time? It was habit for me, habit to turn to family, but maybe it was time to break that habit.
And then another voice: “Jase.”
We all turned toward it.
Samuel stepped forward. “Mother, you’re supposed to be lying down,” he scolded.
“It’s true,” she said, staring at me. “You’re alive.”
I stared back, not sure what to think.
She put her hand on her swollen belly. “Your father’s last gift to me.” She shook her head. “I know, it’s not a good time for another baby.”
A baby? No, it wasn’t a good time. It was a very bad time. “But you said that about all of us, didn’t you?” I answered. “We came at the worst possible time? It all worked out, though.”
She nodded. “And it will work out again.”
I went to her, and this time she was the one crying on my shoulder, my mother who never shed tears. And then she made me repeat that Lydia and Nash were safe. “Yes, they’re safe. Paxton’s straza took them to the Vendan settlement.” I told her they’d be well cared for but would have to stay there until this was all over. “It’s the safest place for them to be.” I explained that they would be hidden in the root cellar just as I was, and that it was Paxton who had taken me there after I was injured in an attack.
She looked at Paxton and then, without hesitation, she went and embraced him, murmuring her thanks. He awkwardly returned her hug, looking over her shoulder at me uncertainly.
I nodded.
He patted her back.
She turned to face me again, wiping her eyes. “Even in the hardest of times, our family grows in unexpected ways,” she said. “Now, what’s this about you being married?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
KAZI
The door creaked open. Slow. Everything was slow, as if he was savoring the moment, watching me at his mercy now. My back was to the door, and I couldn’t turn, but every deliberate step shivered through me. Heel to toe. Owning the room. And me. Then silence, bone-numbing silence as he paused. I felt his eyes on my head, my neck, my back. Would I feel a blade there next?
“Hello, soldier.”
My cheeks swelled with nausea.
He walked to the hearth, his back to me, and knelt, throwing kindling on the fire, and then another log. The flames blazed upward and brightened the room. “Cold?” he asked.
The room was suddenly stifling. Hot. But not from the fire. Sweat trickled down my back.
“Nothing to say?” he whispered. “And you had so much to say just the other day.”
He stood and turned, staring at me, and I saw his face for the first time.
His beautiful face he had loved so much.
A jagged, stitched gash ran from his chin all the way up to the corner of his eye.
It was still puffed and red and angry.
“What do you think?” he asked. “There’s more of your handiwork beneath my shirt. Would you like to see it?”
I shook my head.
His eyes were blacker than I had ever seen them. They sank into mine like claws. “You could have had everything,” he whispered. “You could have sat at my side and shared all the riches of victory.” He bent over, his hands pressing my wrists harder into the arm of the chair, his face close to mine. “Now you are going to die with nothing. You’ll be nothing … but maybe I could still forgive you?”
“Really, Montegue? Are we going to play this game?”
His breath was fire against my face, a dragon sniffing his prey. “But you play the game so well.”
He knelt in front of me, and his hand slid around my ankle and slowly traveled up the inside of my leg.
I bit my lip to keep it from trembling. “I don’t have it,” I gasped when he reached my thigh.
It didn’t stop him. He smiled, and the scar pulled at the corner of his mouth. “And I should believe you?”
“Why didn’t you have Banques search me?”
“And deprive myself of this pleasure?”
“It’s because you don’t trust him.”
“Look at what temptation did to you.” His hand continued to roam.
“I tossed it away!”
He laughed. “I’m not a fool, Kazimyrah, and neither are you. A thief would never throw away such a valuable treasure. Where is it?”
“It’s gone, Montegue. You’ll never get it.”
He stood, his composure cracking.
“So you hid it. Where?”
I remained silent. He paced the room, tightening and flexing his fingers, then stopped in front of me again.
“They found you up on the mountain. Where were you going? Meeting up with more loyalists?”
I replied again with silence.
“Where are the children?” he asked, perhaps hoping to frighten me more. He knew I cared about them more than his precious dust. When I didn’t respond, he added, “We’re searching, and we will find them. It would be best to tell me now so something unfortunate doesn’t happen. They did love me, you know.”
Revulsion rose in the back of my throat. “They hated you. I hate you. You’re nothing but a ruthless, ambitious monster.”
He grabbed my face. His fingers dug in, his eyes wide and fierce. “You wanted me!”
“The only thing I wanted from you was for you to die. That gash on your face? That was only due to my bad aim. That slash was meant for your throat.”
He yanked the chain around my neck upward, the metal digging into my skin. His gaze was frozen, his hand trembling, and I was sure he was about to kill me. He wanted me to be afraid, and I was, but I also wanted to crush his fantasy first, the way he had crushed mine. There were things I still wanted to say, things that would make him suffer far more than the scar across his face.
“I planned to kill you from the moment I learned that it was you who ambushed my husband.”
His hold on the chain loosened. “Your what?”
“The Patrei was my husband. We were married.”
His mouth hung open. “I don’t believe you.”
“You live in a fantasy world, Montegue. You can believe whatever you want. But I loved Jase, and he loved me. That’s why I desperately fought for his life.” I leaned forward and smiled. “And his kisses? They made yours laughable.”
He let go of the chain and stumbled away like he had been stabbed.
“You will never be loved the way he is loved,” I continued. “Not by me or anyone. Jase is more of a man and leader than you could ever hope to be.”
He whipped around to face me, his jaw rigid. “Yet he is dead, and I am here ruling everything. In the end, I am the leader of it all, and that proves who is the greater man.” His hand swiped through the air. “I am done with you. I have other ways to make you talk. Banques!”
The door opened almost immediately, his lackey always at attention. He instructed Banques to take care of me and procure the information he needed. “But don’t damage her face. It wouldn’t look good for a public hanging. We’re a civilized reign, after all. Let’s keep this dignified and quick. The town is busy decorating for the festival, because I am a great leader. I wouldn’t want to put an unnecessary damper on their spirits.”
He started to walk toward the door.
“You’re a coward, Montegue!” I yelled, catching his gaze. “A weak-kneed coward! A nothing king, and that’s all you’ll ever be! A nothing king who never gets his own hands dirty!”
He stopped, his chest expanding with a deep breath. The shing of his sword sliced the air as he drew it. It shook in his tight grip as he stared at me. This was it. This was the moment, and maybe I wanted it to be. I would rather die than be made to talk. But then he slowly slid his sword back into his scabbard as if he had thought of something.
“Don’t touch her,” he said to Banques. “I’ll be back.”
His gaze returned to me. “And, soldier, trust me, my hands will be dirty on this one.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
JASE
We sat on a long bench at one of the tables in the empty kitchen. Dinner was past, and we ate what was left of a big pot of venison soup. My mother insisted. Wren, Synové, Paxton, and I agreed we would make our plans as we ate, but then Mason came and sat down opposite me, then Titus and Samuel, until the whole family, even Gunner, was crowded around the table. Aram brought over a chair cushioned with pillows made from empty grain sacks stuffed with leaves for my mother. He whispered to me that her pregnancy hadn’t been easy. There had been bleeding, and Rhea had ordered her to stay off her feet. It was too soon for the baby to come.
There was awkward silence as we ate. The clink of spoons against metal bowls was the only sound.
“How many archers do we have?” I finally asked. Left. That was what I meant. How many had survived the attack.
“One,” Priya answered. “You may have seen him in the sickroom.”
One? We’d had sixteen archers stationed at Tor’s Watch. At any one time, we had as many as eight posted.
Priya told us about the pandemonium that struck the day the army blasted down the center tower of the main house and then the fortress wall. The posted archers had fought valiantly, and more came to fight beside them, but they had no chance against the powerful launchers. Their fight did buy time for those inside the gates, though. Mother had been in the garden, and had run to each of the houses, ordering everyone into the vault. Aunt Dolise had been in the kitchen and swept pantry staples and medicines into a bag. She and Uncle Cazwin were the last ones running for the vault when they were hit by rubble from another blast. Aram, Priya, and Drake dragged them and the supplies the rest of the way into the tunnel and then the door was sealed. They didn’t know where Trey and Bradach were. Our cousins had been in town visiting friends when the attack began. There had been no sign of them since, and Priya assumed they were being hidden. At least she hoped that was what had become of them.
Vow of Thieves (Dance of Thieves) Page 27