Kahn’s spoon suddenly clattered to the table, his jaw fell slack and he face-planted into his soup bowl unconscious.
I leapt to my feet in alarm, my heart pattering as the guards rushed forward.
“Dismissed,” Gothel's voice rang out.
She stepped onto the veranda and ushered the guards away. They hurried off before I could object and she faced her son with a wicked smile.
“Oh Kahn,” she sighed, moving toward him and yanking his collar so his head was pulled out of the bowl. His tongue lolled and his eyes had rolled back into his head. She dropped him again with a bang and rounded on me instead. “Not good enough for you, is he?”
“What? He needs a doctor!” I circled around her, unsure why the hell she wasn’t more concerned that Kahn looked worryingly dead.
“He’s fine,” she huffed, tossing a white lock of hair over her shoulder. “He’ll come around in a minute.”
“What do you mean?” I glared at her.
“The Sorcerer of Jahalus sent me a little gift for him that’s all. A simple potion. I wrote to him weeks ago with a tiny request.”
My eyes narrowed sharply. I didn’t like magic. Never had. And if Gothel was associated with it, that gave me even more reason to suspect her as a snake in my kingdom. “Magic?” I hissed.
“Oh do calm down, Rapunzel.” She pressed her fingers into her eyes as if I was giving her a headache. “It’s a gift for you too.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, a bead of trepidation rolling down my spine.
She floated toward me, brushing her hand over my shoulders and angling me to face Kahn “It means you will soon see past his teency weency flaws.”
I folded my arms. “We're incompatible, nothing’s going to change that.”
Kahn started jerking, his limbs twitching and the rolls on his fat neck weirdly smoothing out. His ears grew smaller, more normal until there was nothing odd about them at all. Hair sprouted from his head and long, flowing locks of auburn tumbled over his shoulders. His muscles bulged against his shirt, even more than they had before.
“What's happening?” I breathed, backing up, but Gothel's nails sliced into my shoulder to hold me in place.
Kahn jerked upright suddenly, wiping the soup from his jaw. His face! Holy shit his face. He was a vision with a straight, chiselled nose, eyes of deepest blue framed by dark lashes, his mouth was fuller, smoother and hooked up at the corner in a way I didn't recognise at all.
“He now has the beauty to capture your heart,” Gothel purred in my ear. “A perfect suitor for a perfect bride. A gift from me to you.”
I pulled away from her, horrified by what she was suggesting. That changing Kahn's looks would make me see him any differently. He was still a man who wanted to buy his way to owning me. Still the son of the step-mother I hated. Still as dumb as a rock.
Kahn turned his hands over, eyeing his deeply bronzed skin, as his scars faded away to leave nothing but gleaming smoothness. “Mother,” he gasped. “I think I'm having an episode.”
She hurried over, patting him on the arm as she gazed up at his chiselled features. “No, no darling. This isn't one of your black-outs.”
Black-outs?
“You're quite fine,” Gothel went on. “Your wife-to-be has offered you a great gift so that she can love you inside and out.”
“Gothel,” I snarled. “This is not my doing.”
Kahn beamed, staring at me with hope in his eyes. “Do you love me now?”
Rage erupted inside me. The angry creature in my chest had raised its head and was spitting venom. “Love you?! How can I love you? We have nothing in common. And handsome or ugly, I don't care. I wouldn't choose to marry you if you were the only man left on Earth and the future of the human race depended on it!”
Kahn turned pale, then red, then somewhere between purple and orange. Gothel stepped back in alarm.
“Now, now, baby. Take a breath,” she commanded.
He roared so loudly I backed up, fear racing through to my core. He turned towards the table, lifted it into his arms and threw the whole thing over the edge of the balcony.
The guards came charging back and Kahn jumped over the railing after the table, a distant thump sounding as he hit the ground below and sped away.
Gothel glared at me. “Now look what you've done!”
“Me?” I balked. “This is your fault!”
The guards circled me and she waved a hand through the air. “Take her back to her room and make sure she doesn't come out until she apologises for this catastrophe.”
“Hey!” I snapped as one of the guards took my arm. “Unhand me this instant.”
They ignored me, their eyes hard as they followed their queen’s orders over mine and I seethed, knowing my position was respected less than hers.
They shoved me into my quarters and I launched myself at the door as it shut in my face. A lock sounded and I yelled my anger, ripping the veil from my head and stamping on it as it fell to the floor.
I hated it. I hated this palace. But most of all I hated Gothel. And the next time I was let out of this room I was going straight to the Emperor. She'd gone too far this time. And I'd be damned if my father would let her get away with it.
As the rest of The Forty rounded on Cassian with scowls, I placed a hand on his shoulder and steered him through the mayhem towards the stairs. I didn’t release him until I’d made it to the next floor and passed the rooms which held the bunks. We kept going until we reached my quarters and I shoved him inside.
“Have you ever actually been in a brawl?” I asked angrily as I threw the door shut behind us. I didn’t often lose my temper but I was feeling pretty close to it now. I trod a fine line with Egos at the best of times but right now I should have been sitting happy in Tyros’s old quarters with a stomach full of food and yet everything kept seeming to go wrong.
“I’ve been trained to be the best warrior-”
“That bullshit isn’t real. If a man comes at me with a knife and he has the full intention of sticking it in me then I will absolutely kick him in the balls if I have to. And so should you. Honour will only get you killed on the streets.” I rubbed a hand over my face in exasperation and tried to shake off my irritation.
“It goes against everything I was ever trained to be,” Cassian growled.
“Well buckle up noble boy because now we really are in for it. Egos wants that treasure and if he doesn’t get it then don’t go thinking he’s bluffing. That man lives to kill. And I was doing pretty damn well at avoiding his wrath until you came along.”
Cassian sighed and dropped down to sit on my cot. I took a blade from beside the bed and handed it to him.
“What’s this for?” he asked as he weighed the blade in his palm like a pro. It was a decent weapon but not one of my best.
“I’m not too sure the gang like the idea of a royal guard being amongst us,” I pointed out just in case the ass kicking he’d just taken hadn’t been enough to clue him in. “That’s so you’ve got a chance to defend yourself if anyone comes to kill you while you sleep.”
“Aren’t you going to lock the door?” he asked, though he didn’t seem afraid of the prospect of a cutthroat appearing to stab him while he slept.
“Egos’s rules; no locks. Not much point in a place like this anyway as there isn’t a lock that someone here can’t pick but we live under a blanket of mutual trust. And if any of us steals from another it’s up to us to sort our own shit out by either stealing it back or making a challenge in the ring.”
“Cosy,” Cassian muttered dryly and I smirked.
“No one’s dared steal anything from me in over a year so you’re probably safe,” I added. “But you never know.”
I pulled my shirt off and rubbed at the blood which speckled my knuckles. I had more than enough coin stashed away to take a visit to the local bathhouse but I’d have to wait until the damn sand storm passed before I could.
“The way you were hitting tha
t man was unnecessary,” Cassian murmured. “You had him on the floor, you didn’t have to-”
“Argun is a mean bastard who would have happily caved my head in given half the chance. Once I had him down there was no way in hell I was going to let him back up. Besides, he hit me in the face.” I touched a hand to my jaw where the bastard had landed the blow, feeling the bruise there with a hint of irritation.
“You were literally pulverising his face, you can hardly be annoyed at him for striking you once?”
“Argun is ugly as sin. Hitting his face might actually improve it. Hitting mine should be a crime.” I smirked at Cassian as he snorted a laugh.
I dropped my pants and kicked them into a corner with the vague intention of paying someone to clean them for me at some point.
“Do you want privacy? I’m not sure what way you all...conduct yourselves,” he said with a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
“Am I making you blush or turning you on?” I teased as I kicked off my underwear too and headed in search of something clean to replace them.
“Hilarious. Has anyone ever mentioned how full of yourself you are, thief?” Cassian turned his eyes to the blade in his hand as I paraded about the room. Growing up on the streets had made sure I was precious about very few things in this life and showing my body certainly wasn’t one of them. When you were too poor to use the bathhouse you had to join the free for all in the river. And I’d seen naked flesh of every shape and size in each gender. It didn’t bother me one bit to show mine.
“It has been pointed out once or twice,” I replied as I pulled on fresh underwear and trousers which hung loose around my legs. I left my chest bare because it was still damn hot and with the storm raging outside we wouldn’t be opening any windows any time soon. “But not by anyone who could truthfully say I didn’t have reason to be.”
Cassian turned to look at me and his gaze slid over my face for a moment before he shrugged. “Well it’s obvious how much your looks mean to you anyway,” he said eventually, unable to deny the obvious appeal of my face though he didn’t seem to think it mattered much.
“Let me guess,” I said, dropping down onto my bed and laying back with my hands behind my head so that he was forced to turn and look at me. “Your mommy and daddy loved you?”
“Of course they did,” he replied with a faint frown.
“Fed you? Clothed you?”
Cassian nodded.
“Educated you?”
“Yes...” He clearly had no idea where I was going with this and I rolled my eyes.
“My mother was a whore and my father was a cutthroat,” I said bluntly.
“Is that so?” he asked.
“No. Well, maybe I guess. I have no idea. I was dumped at the orphanage when I was a few days old and I stayed there until I was six. At which point they deemed me old enough to fend for myself and turfed me out to make room for a new squalling brat. Now, as someone who knows nothing of hunger, you probably don’t realise quite how difficult food is to come by when you have no money and no way to earn any.”
“So you started stealing?” he guessed.
“No. Well, yes, obviously. But I also discovered the strangest thing. The other street kids would go begging from the kitchen maids at the big houses and get chased off. But one day, I’d had a wash in the river and I was nice and clean and I went begging on my own - purely by chance. And this woman opened the door and she said ‘well aren’t you the sweetest looking little thing?’ and she gave me half a loaf of bread and a huge hunk of cheese without a scrap of mold on either. And I said thank you, like a proper little noble boy and she gave me a goddamn cake too! I’d never had anything like it and I can tell you nothing has ever tasted so sweet since. And then she did the strangest thing; she cupped my cheek and said ‘a beautiful face like yours should never go hungry’.”
“So your looks helped you to survive?” Cassian asked, cottoning on to what I was saying.
“They didn’t just help me. They’re the reason I survived. So maybe I’m a full of myself piece of shit. But this face opens doors for me. If I lost my place among The Forty, I guarantee I could find a place in a noble household if I was willing to screw a lonely Countess for it. Looking like me has saved my life more times than I can count. So if some big bastard punches me in the face, he might as well be cutting off my legs because that’s how I survive in this screwed up kingdom. And the day I don’t look like this anymore will likely be the day I die. Unless Egos kills me now of course. Thanks to you.”
There was a beat of silence and I frowned at Cassian, hoping he wasn’t about to go all emotional on me. I wasn’t opening up to him out of any reason other than boredom. We were stuck here until the storm passed and we could head off after this mystical treasure.
“You may have just as much reason to hate Gothel as I do,” Cassian said eventually. “The Emperor was just about to fund more orphanages. He had a plan for schools for the underprivileged and food banks for those most in need. Then she came along.”
“What difference would that make to me?” I asked with a frown.
“Surely you’d want to see the kingdom made better? The Emperor had so many great plans before she arrived in Osaria. Surely you’d want to make sure no other orphans had to live through the poverty you endured?”
I barked a laugh. “Why should I give a shit what some mangy orphans have to endure?”
“Because you just told me that you-”
“That I found a way out of it. Weren’t you listening?” I pointed at my face and gave him a wide smile.
“I know that that worked for you but there are countless orphans who aren’t so lucky and wouldn’t you want them to have more of a chance than you did?” he asked, seeming angered by my indifference.
“Why?”
Cassian stared at me like I’d just spoken a foreign language.
“Rule number one now you live on the streets,” I said. “Look out for yourself and no one else. Friends are all well and good but they’ll get you dead if you put yourself at risk for them.”
“You can’t be serious?” Cassian growled and I could tell he was kinda horrified by what I was saying but I didn’t care. He didn’t come from here. He hadn’t grown up on the streets. He had no idea what life was going to be like for him now that he was out here and the sooner he faced up to it the better. But it wasn’t my problem. He’d figure it out for himself soon enough.
“Do me a favour, mate,” I said as I shuffled down the bed and closed my eyes. “Sell me this shit in a month when you’ve actually lived in the world you think you can change. I guarantee you’ll be a selfish bastard just like me by then. Or dead. Either way I doubt you’ll still be spouting idealist bullshit at me about the poor orphans down the street.”
Cassian remained quiet as I settled myself in to sleep. I guessed he’d just figured out that I wasn’t as nice as I seemed but that was fine by me. He didn’t have to like me. He just had to make me rich.
I was woken by a knock at the door and I sat bolt upright, snatching a knife from beneath my pillow as I blinked the sleep from my eyes. Cassian had taken a spot on the floor beside my cot but the knock had woken him too and he pushed himself upright with a frown as he raised the blade I’d given him. But a cutthroat wouldn’t knock if they were here to kill him.
“What?” I yelled.
“It’s me,” Pip called and I groaned as I dropped my knife and fell back onto my cot.
“This had better be good,” I muttered and he pushed the door open.
Pip’s eyes trailed over Cassian for a moment and the guard dropped his blade as if he thought it might scare the boy. Pip smirked before he turned to look at me.
“Egos said I should tell you that the storm is over and it’s time for you to leave,” he said, pulling a bread roll from his pocket and tossing it to me.
I snatched it out of the air and started eating it before I replied.
“And have I got any volunteers for the crew?” I asked
as I swallowed.
“You’ve got your pick of twenty six,” he replied. “Including me.”
“Nice try, Pip,” I said. “But Egos doesn’t like you hanging around with me so much so I think you’d better stay here for your own good. Besides, that nose of yours needs to heal.”
The kid opened his mouth to protest but he must have caught sight of my face and realised that my mind was made up on this one and he gave up with a dramatic sigh instead. He leaned forward, handing Cassian a second roll before he left and the former guard raised an eyebrow in surprise at the gesture.
“Thanks, kid!” he called as the door swung closed and I got to my feet. “He seems less shitty than the rest of you.”
“He’s the best damn pickpocket I’ve ever seen,” I replied. “And he’d sell his grandmother if he was given half a chance so don’t start getting too doey eyed on him.”
“Are you sure you aren’t just holding him up to your own standards?” Cassian asked doubtfully as he finished his roll.
“You tell me. Didn’t you have a blade a moment ago?”
Cassian looked around him with a frown. “It was right here...”
“And now Pip has it. Don’t underestimate him. Or any of us. You don’t get to be one of The Forty Thieves by chance.”
“Forty one,” he muttered. “And apparently I did.”
I snorted a laugh. “Forty isn’t an exact number, it’s just a name. This is dangerous work, gang members die all the time. Or end up in the dungeons. Sometimes there’s more than forty of us if enough people with talent are recruited around the same time. Only a few of us have survived long enough to become legends. The fact that you don’t know that just goes to show how ill equipped you are to be one of us. I bet you’ve never stolen a thing in your life.”
“Of course I haven’t.”
“Well then. Perhaps if you survive this job I’ll teach you how to. Balthazar probably isn’t up for seducing any more ugly Countesses for a while anyway so you could always take his place in that position.”
Forbidden Fairytales- The Complete Series Page 9