* * *
The narrow ridge finally opened up onto a forest-filled plateau, and I told Kazi, “Hold on, Ambassador. We’re going to fly again. We’re almost there.”
And we almost were.
We rode through a clearing, the falls only minutes away, and I thanked the gods for our clear passage, but I thanked them too soon.
“Behind us!” Gunner yelled. I glanced over my shoulder. Out of nowhere, a patrol appeared, galloping on horses and gaining ground fast, with archers leading the way. Soon we’d be in range.
Wren and Gunner came up on either side of me. “Nine of them,” Gunner called.
“Ten,” Wren corrected. I couldn’t do any fighting with Kazi in my arms, and there was no way the remaining four could take on ten.
Paxton fell back with us. “Ride ahead,” he yelled to me. “We’ll be your cover. With us behind you, they won’t see you veer into the woods. Priya and I will go one direction, and Wren and Gunner the other to lead them away. We’ll keep them on our tail.”
I couldn’t argue. I was of no use to them, and time was running out for Kazi, but I knew they were risking everything.
“Go!” Priya ordered. “Now!”
I rode ahead, holding Kazi tight in my arm, and yelled to Mije, “Baricha!” to push him faster, a command that had saved me once. I prayed it would save Kazi now.
We disappeared into the cover of the forest in one direction, while my family disappeared in the other.
* * *
I rode Mije into the cave as far as I could, and now I ran.
“Stay with me, Kazi!” It was no longer a plea, but a command. “Stay with me! Do you hear me, dammit? Don’t leave me!”
There were no more spasms. No more groans. The last time I’d felt for her pulse, I couldn’t find it.
My lungs burned. My arms ached. The torch in my hand shook wildly, scraping walls, sparks showering.
I threw the torch to the ground, then laid Kazi near the door. I grabbed a rock from the cave floor and banged on the wall, forgetting the code.
I gathered Kazi back into my arms.
“Open it!” I screamed, kicking the door. “Open the door! Now!”
It was an eternity before I heard the low growl of a wheel and the door finally opened.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
JASE
I burst in, Kazi limp in my arms, and I called for the healer, rushing through one room to the next. Everyone pointed in different directions, uncertain where she was.
“That way.”
“She’s in the sickroom.”
“Over there?”
“Maybe in the kitchen.”
“Let me carry her for you.”
“No!” I stumbled into the kitchen. Everyone had stood by now, already hearing the commotion as I ran through the vault, and when they spotted Kazi in my arms, the center table was swept clean. I laid Kazi across it, and my mother and the healer rushed over.
“She’s been bitten by ashti! She needs the antidote! Do you have it?”
“Someone get my bag from the sickroom!” Rhea ordered, then pushed me away to examine Kazi. She shook her head as she looked at the wounds and discoloring on Kazi’s arms, legs, and chest, then felt her wrist for a pulse. “Her heart is racing like a rabbit’s. How long ago did this happen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe days ago.”
She looked at my mother. I recognized that look. It was the same one she had given my mother when my father was on his deathbed.
“No!” I said. “She’ll make it!”
“No one said she wouldn’t,” Rhea replied. “We’ll do what we can. Now let me work.”
The antidote had to be coaxed down Kazi’s throat, drop by drop. Some spilled out from the corner of her mouth and had to be spooned back in. Long minutes passed just trying to get the three thimblefuls of medicine into her. Rhea gently rubbed Kazi’s throat, trying to encourage her muscles to swallow. She was dehydrated too, and water was given in the same manner, one slow drop at a time.
“Give us a little privacy now,” Rhea said to everyone in the room. “I need to clean the wounds.”
Everyone left but me and my mother. My mother brought warm water from the hearth, and she and Rhea began carefully washing and searching Kazi’s whole body for bites, even the bottoms of her feet. But the one thing we noticed right away were the bruises everywhere. Her whole left side was a dozen shades of blue and purple. Paxton had told me she’d fallen down a rocky canyon wall and then had been on the run for days before she was recaptured. After cleaning the wounds on her arm and thigh, Rhea said, “They’re deep, but they won’t need stitching. And this one here…” She pressed on the one-inch scar on Kazi’s abdomen. “This is from something else. A knife, I suspect.” She shook her head as she covered her back up. “What this girl has been through.”
“Let’s move her to my pallet. It’s more private there. She can rest,” my mother suggested, then looked at me. I saw the terror in her eyes, the questions she had just had time to consider. I had come back alone.
“I don’t know where the others are,” I said. “We had to split up. They’ll be here, though.” It was all I could give her for now. I scooped Kazi into my arms and carried her to the small room off the kitchen.
We’ll do what we can. How long ago did this happen?
I lay on the pallet beside her. Holding her. Keeping her warm. Talking to her. Doing everything I could to keep her in this world.
I stared at her face. Her lashes. Ran my thumb over a bruise on her cheek.
I kissed her lips. “Wake up, Ambassador Brightmist. We still have work to do.”
She didn’t stir.
* * *
Four hours. Six hours. Eight hours passed. The vault was stifling with the tension of waiting. Waiting for Kazi to wake. Waiting for the others to return. There was no word from anyone. What had become of Priya, Paxton, Wren, and Gunner? Four against ten. For all the time Priya spent alone in an office with numbers, she could be fierce, but I wasn’t sure how adept Paxton was at anything, though long ago he had flipped me into a well without much effort. I never thought I would find that comforting.
Finally, just after dark, there was banging on the cave wall. We all ran to the door. It was Wren and Gunner. They were both covered with blood.
“Not ours,” Wren said as she marched in. “Where’s Kazi?”
Gunner was right behind her, holding his arm. “Mostly not ours,” he added. He had a gash on his upper arm.
I took Wren to see Kazi and explained what the healer had said. Wren knelt beside her and rested her head on Kazi’s chest. “Tantay mior, ra mézhan,” she said softly.
I knew one of the words.
Kazi had taught me the Vendan words for wife and husband. Shana and tazerem.
She taught me the other words for family too.
Ra mézhan. My sister.
* * *
Gunner and Wren had washed up and changed at Judith’s urging. The blood frightened the children and probably everyone else too. Wren’s hair dripped, and her face was nearly scrubbed clean of the Kbaaki stain, but some of the blue dye still circled her eye. Jurga had said the dye wouldn’t last more than a couple of weeks, especially if we washed. They sat at the kitchen table now, eating soup and telling the rest of us seated around them what had happened, while Rhea demanded that Gunner hold still so she could properly clean and stitch his arm.
“We split up as planned,” Gunner said. Five had come after them, and they assumed the other five went after Priya and Paxton. They managed to stay ahead of the soldiers for a few miles. Gunner knew the forest better than they did and finally reached a rock formation he had been heading for.
“We circled around and ambushed them from behind,” Wren said.
Gunner winced as Rhea scrubbed his wound. “She took down four. I took one.”
“Four?” Tiago asked.
“Imara gave us some fine throwing knives,” Wren explained. “And I put them to good
use.”
My mother came back from checking on Kazi. “But no sign of Priya or Paxton?”
“Priya knows the forest as well as I do,” Gunner answered. “They’ll be fine.” But his reply was too fast, like the worry was forefront in his mind too.
We all knew it was about more than just knowing the forest. It was the odds too—and who was fighting them. Gunner had Wren on his side. Priya had Paxton.
I went back to check on Kazi and get a few more drops of water into her. I talked to her, told her the riddle she had asked me to repeat so often, and then told her Wren was here, “In case you didn’t hear her come in.” I brushed the hair from her face. “Hamir, ra shana. Please.”
As I laid her back on her pallet, there was loud banging on the cave wall. In code.
My mother and I got to the door first. I spun the wheel and threw it open.
It was Paxton, and he was alone.
My mother sucked in a broken breath.
“Where’s Priya?” I asked.
“She’s coming. Unsaddling the horses. She lost the bet.”
“Bet?” I said.
“Who would take down the first soldier.”
“You had time for bets?” my mother snapped.
He walked past us and into the kitchen, collapsing into a chair. His face was streaked with dirt, and his whole left side was soaked with blood. “Just a flesh wound,” he said. “I think.”
“He was showing off,” Priya interjected, coming in just behind him. “Tried to take on two at the same time.”
We all stared at her. Her hair was wild and tangled around her shoulders, her face as grimy and blood-spattered as Paxton’s. She shrugged. “Okay, so he’s lousy at knots, but he knows his way around a sword. Up on the table, genius. You’re going to need sewing up. Where’s Rhea?”
Rhea appeared in the doorway. First she sighed and then she cursed. She was weary of patching people back together.
* * *
Late in the night, the next crew rolled in. I thought it would be the last, but it was only Titus, Samuel, Aram, and Hawthorne—along with some unexpected extras—Aleski, Imara, and their mother, Beata. Aleski had been spotted by soldiers grabbing a launcher so they all had to run. Mason and Synové were notably absent from the group. Titus said they had never shown up at the ruin. He suggested that maybe they had a hard time getting out of town. Or they’ve been caught. He didn’t say it but I knew we all thought it. My mother held her swollen belly. In one day, how many sons and daughters would she have to fear for?
I led her to a chair. “Sit,” I said. “Please. You can hear everything from there.”
They dumped their haul onto the table, and we looked it over. As Priya, Titus, and Wren had been shooting soldiers from roofs, the rest had been waiting below to gather up the launchers that had fallen with them. They had managed to hide eight launchers beneath their cloaks. But five of them had no ammo.
“Jackasses,” Hawthorne hissed.
My small bag of ammo would be stretched thin.
But at least Rhea didn’t have anyone to stitch this time. At least not until Mason and Synové showed up. If they showed up.
And finally, late the next morning, they did.
Like everyone else, as soon as they came in, they asked about Kazi. Synové dropped a bag she was carrying and ran to her. Mason dropped his launcher and followed.
Gunner walked over to the bag Synové dropped and looked inside. His brows shot up. “Ammo,” he said. “A lot of it. It looks like at least twenty loads.”
When Mason and Synové returned, the questions started.
“Where have you been?” Priya demanded first.
Mason glanced at Synové, then back at Priya. “We had to lie low for a while.”
“We found a ruin to hunker down in. There were soldiers everywhere, you know? Luckily it was nice and cozy while we waited them out.”
Nice and cozy? I eyed Mason. “What about the loads? Where’d you get them?”
Mason rubbed his head. “She had this crazy idea that we could get some out of the icehouse before we blew it up. She wouldn’t let up.”
Synové’s brows pulled down defensively. “When opportunity knocks, you don’t go punching it in the face.”
They told us that they had been hiding in position for hours waiting for the hanging to begin. They could hear the crowds gathering a few streets away, but everything where they were was quiet as a graveyard. The soldier guarding the icehouse from the roof with a launcher ambled over to the other side, they guessed so he could catch a glimpse of the hanging.
“And those soldiers on the ground around the icehouse?” Synové said. “Pffft! All they had were a few measly swords and halberds.”
Mason’s mouth pulled in a smirk. “Turns out her aim with knives is as good as it is with arrows.”
Wren’s hands slapped the table. “Imara’s knives!”
“Yes!” Synové answered, and the two began excitedly chattering about their qualities, forgetting about the rest of us. They drew Imara into their conversation.
Mason looked at me, bits of straw stuck in the thick ropes of his hair—maybe from lying low in the ruin. “I know it wasn’t in the plan, but—”
“When opportunity knocks, you get nice and cozy with it, right?”
Mason grimaced. “It’s not what you think—”
“Come on, brother,” I said and put my hand on his shoulder. “Sit down. What you did was smart. Well, I assume most if it was, anyway. We need every—”
“Patrei?” It was Judith. She stood in the doorway. “It’s Kazi. She’s stirring. Talking in her sleep. I think she’s coming to.”
It didn’t matter that Judith had only come for me. Everyone followed me through the door.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
KAZI
I could feel my fingers again. My toes. And they didn’t burn. Was I dead, or had they given me more medicine for the pain? What did Montegue want to know now? I opened my eyes. I was in a tiny dark room I didn’t recognize. There were no windows. Had I been thrown into another cell? My head still swam, ached, but I felt my strength returning, my muscles becoming my own again. Dear gods, no. Did I confess something? Did they give me the antidote because I gave them information? I blinked, trying to flush the haze from my eyes. And then I heard footsteps. A rush of them. They were coming back. I closed my eyes, trying to think what to do.
One of them stepped closer and hovered over me. I felt his warmth as he leaned close.
“Kazi, can you hear me? It’s Jase. I’m here. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Montegue’s face loomed behind my eyes. His tricks. His manipulations.
You’re going to be all right, but I need your help. Lydia and Nash are dead.
Hope and terror knifed through me. My fingers curled around something cold and hard at my side. But the voice. It was—
I opened my eyes, and a frightening face loomed close to mine. The blurred glitter of a jewel was shining in his brow, and a menacing tattoo swirled over his face.
My knee jutted upward. If I was going to die, I was going to die fighting with whatever strength I had left. I heard a groan, an oomph as I pushed him to the floor and held the spoon in my hand to his throat. He writhed in pain beneath me.
“Kazi.”
I blinked again.
The eyes. Brown, the color of warm earth.
His voice.
“Kazi, it’s Jase,” he said again, the pained grimace finally fading from his face.
“You going to kill the Patrei with a spoon?” I turned my head. It was Wren, her hands planted on her hips. “Not that I don’t think you could.”
The room was crowded with people. Synové, Vairlyn, Titus, Priya, and more. Staring at me.
I looked back at the man beneath me.
Jase.
Stay with me, Kazi.
It hadn’t been a dream.
The spoon tumbled from my hand, and I fell down onto his chest, holding him, m
y face pressed into his neck. His arms circled around me, holding me as tight as I held him.
I heard sobs. But they weren’t mine or Jase’s.
It felt like I said his name a hundred times.
“Enough already,” Synové sniffled after a minute had passed. “We want some of that too.”
I got to my feet, and Wren and Synové swooped in, giving me long, smothering hugs. I looked at the stain on Synové’s face that matched Jase’s. “I’ll explain later,” she promised.
The weight that had hung inside of me for days lightened when I spotted Paxton. He made it. He stepped forward, his face puckered, and threw an arm around me, his other arm in a sling. “They’re safe,” he whispered in my ear, his voice breaking, and quickly stepped away. And then I faced Jase’s family, crowded in the doorway. I froze. I wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t see Gunner among them, but the last time I had seen Priya and Mason, they were throwing me into a snare and leaving me behind to be captured.
Jase must have seen something in my eyes. He asked everyone to leave. “Give us a few minutes,” he said. Maybe he knew how I had ended up in the king’s custody. Maybe the way I’d attacked him just now had given him a small glimpse of what I’d been through. Thank the gods it was only a spoon in my hand.
The door shut on the room that was little more than a closet. It was dark except for a small candle burning in the corner. I was still unsteady on my feet, and Jase helped me sit back on the pallet.
“We’re in the vault?” I asked.
He nodded.
I reached up and touched his stained face and the ring in his brow.
“A disguise,” he explained, then told me what had happened to him since the ambush, from his days recovering in the root cellar, to searching the town for news of me, to swooping down from the tembris to steal me away. Death’s angel, it was him.
I shared details of the past weeks with him too, from my first days as a prisoner in a dark cell. But mostly I concentrated on how brave Lydia and Nash had been, and how much they believed in him.
Vow of Thieves (Dance of Thieves) Page 31