The Heart of Betrayal

by Mary E. Pearson

  On Kaden’s orders, Eben was allowed to take me out of my room, but not outside of the Sanctum, not to this wing or that tower, only to a narrowly prescribed area. “For your own safety,” Kaden said when I shot him a questioning glare. In truth, I knew he was trying to keep me out of Malich’s path and that of certain Council members. By the end of the meal last night, it was apparent that hostility still ran high, more so among a few because of my welcome, but the ever-united Council seemed divided now into two camps, the curious and the haters.

  Eben took me on a circuitous route to the paddocks behind the Council Wing. A new foal had been born while he was away. We watched the stick-legged foal frolic in a small corral, jumping for the sheer pleasure of trying out new legs. Eben balanced on the paddock rail trying to restrain a smile.

  “What will you name him?” I asked.

  “He’s not mine. Don’t want him anyway. Too much trouble to train.” His eyes flashed with every pain he still carried, and his tender years made his denial wooden.

  I sighed. “I don’t blame you. It’s hard to commit to something after—” I let the thought dangle in the air. “Still, he is beautiful, and someone has to teach him. But there are probably trainers who are better at it than you.”

  “I’m just as good as any old wrangler. Spirit knew what to do with just a twitch from my knee. He—” His chin jutted out and then, in a quiet voice, he added, “He was given to me by my father.”

  And now I knew the true depth of Eben’s grief. Spirit wasn’t just any horse.

  Eben had never made any mention of his parents. If Kaden hadn’t told me that Eben had witnessed their butchering, I’d have thought he was spawned by some impish beast and dropped to earth fully dressed and armed as a small Vendan soldier.

  I understood the hole that Eben felt, the wicked depth of it, that no matter how much you wanted to pretend it wasn’t there, its black mouth opened up to swallow you again and again.

  He shook off the mention of his father in a practiced way, flicking his hair from his eyes, and jumping down from the rail. “We should go back,” he said.

  I wanted to say something wise, something comforting that would lessen his pain, but I was still feeling that hole myself. The only words that came were, “Thank you for my boots, Eben. They mean more to me than you can know.”

  He nodded. “I cleaned them too.”

  I wondered if, like Griz, this was a kindness to wipe out a debt.

  “You owed me nothing, Eben. I took care of your horse for me as much as for you.”

  “I already knew that,” he said, and hurried ahead of me.

  We walked back through yet another tunnel, but I was getting good at memorizing them now, and I was beginning to understand a pattern to the chaotic layout of architecture. Small avenues, tunnels, and buildings emanated from larger ones. It was as if many large structures within this ancient city had slowly woven together, a graceless animal that grew extra arms, legs, and eyes without regard to aesthetics—only immediate need. The Sanctum was the heart of the beast, and the hidden caverns below, the bowels. No one ever mentioned what stirred beneath the Sanctum, and I never saw the robed figures at meals. They stayed to themselves.

  As we walked the last hall to Kaden’s room, I asked, “Eben, what are those caverns down below? Aster mentioned them to me.”

  “You mean the catacombs? Ghoul Caves, Finch calls them. Don’t go down there. Only thing in them is stale air, old books, and dark spirits.”

  I suppressed a smile. It was almost the same description I used for the archives in Civica, only there the dark spirits were Civica scholars.

  * * *

  The next few days passed as the previous, but each one was shorter than the day before. I learned that time plays tricks when you want more of it. With each day that passed with no sign of Rafe’s soldiers, I knew that Vendan riders could be that much closer with news that the Dalbreck king was hale and hearty—a death sentence for Rafe. At least the Komizar would be gone for two more weeks. That would buy us more time for Rafe’s soldiers to appear. I tried to hold on to that hope for Rafe’s sake, but it was looking more certain that finding an escape was left only to us now.

  The weather grew colder, and another icy rain drenched the city. In spite of the cold, each day I climbed out the window and sat on the wall and said my remembrances, searching through them like shuffled papers, trying to find answers, holding on to those that held a glimmer of truth. Each day a larger group gathered to listen, a dozen, two dozen, and more. Many were children. One day Aster was among them, and she called up for a story. I began with the tale of Morrighan, the girl led by the gods to a land of plenty, then told the story of the birth of two of the Lesser Kingdoms, Gastineux and Cortenai. All the histories and texts I had studied for years were now tales that mesmerized them. They were as hungry for stories as Eben and Natiya had been when we sat around the campfire—stories of other people, other places, other times.

  These moments at least gave me something to look forward to, because there was no opportunity to talk to Rafe privately. Even when Kaden left me locked alone in his room and I snuck out, I discovered there were now guards posted below Rafe’s window too, almost as if they knew he couldn’t slip out through the narrow windows but someone smaller might slip in. The evening meal afforded me no greater opportunity for a private moment, and my frustration grew. Here in the Sanctum, we might as well have been separated by a vast continent. I attributed my restless dreams to my aggravation. I’d had another one of Rafe leaving, but it had more detail than before. He was dressed in garb I had never seen, Rafe, a warrior of frightening stature. His expression was hot and fierce, and he wore swords at both sides.

  * * *

  Evenings in Sanctum Hall were long and tiresome, not unlike court in Morrighan, but their ways were decidedly louder, cruder, and always seemed on the brink of chaos. The acknowledgment of sacrifice provided a curious quiet moment in stark contrast to their raucous activities. I learned the names of all the Council—the governors, the chievdars, and the Rahtan, even though so many of their names sounded alike. Gorthan. Gurtan, Gunthur. Mekel, Malich, Alick. Kaden’s name alone seemed to have no close soundalike. The chievdar I had met in the valley, Stavik, was sour beyond measure but turned out to be the most civil of the five army commanders.

  The governors were the easiest to converse with. Most were glad to be at the Sanctum instead of the desolate homelands they came from, which perhaps lightened their dispositions. Three of the Rahtan were still gone, but the four who were present besides Kaden, Griz, and Malich were, by far, the most hostile of the Council. Jorik and Darius were the ones who had stood by Malich with their knives drawn when they saw my clan dress, and the other two, Theron and Gurtan, seemed to wear sneers like permanent battle paint. I imagined them as the men the Komizar would have sent to finish the job that Kaden had failed to do—and there was no doubt in my mind, they would have finished it without hesitation. They were the very definition of Rahtan. Never fail. It was hard for me to reconcile that in some twisted way Kaden had saved my life by bringing me here.

  Every evening after the meal, the Council was drawn into games of stones or cards, or they simply drank the night away. The precious Morrighese vintages were swilled like cheap ale. The games of stones were foreign to me, but the card games I recognized. I remembered Walther’s first piece of advice to me: Sometimes winning is not only a matter of knowing the rules, but of making your opponent think he knows them better. I watched from afar, parsing out the nuances and similarities to the games I had played with my brothers and their friends. Tonight the stakes for one particular game grew, with the largest stack piling up in front of Malich. I watched smugness strut across his face like a barnyard rooster, the same cocky grin he had when he told me that killing Greta was easy.

  I stood and walked over to the players. I decided I was in need of some entertainment too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  KADEN

  I wa
tched her saunter over.

  It was something about her steps. Her arms crossed in front of her. Her timing. The deliberate casualness of it all.

  The muscles in my neck tightened. I didn’t have a good feeling about it.

  Then she smiled, and I knew.

  Don’t do this, Lia.

  But I really wasn’t sure just what she was doing. I only knew no good would come of it. I knew the language of Lia.

  I tried to disengage myself from Governor Carzwil, who was intent on sharing every challenge of transporting turnips and bags of lime from his province to Venda. “Lia,” I called, but she ignored me. The governor spoke louder, determined to regain my attention, but I kept glancing away. “She’s fine,” the governor said. “Give her a little rope, boy! Look, she’s smiling.”

  That was the problem. Her smile didn’t mean what he thought it did. I knew it meant trouble. I excused myself from Carzwil, but by the time I got to the table, she had already engaged two of the governors. Even though they were two who had warmed to her presence more than the others, I still hovered, sensing something about to spring.

  “So, the point is to get six cards with numbers that match? That sounds easy enough,” Lia said, her voice light and inquisitive.

  Malich spit on the floor next to him, then smiled. “Sure it’s easy.”

  “There’s more to it than that,” Governor Faiwell said. “The colored symbols must be matched too—if you can, that is. And certain combinations are better than others.”

  “Interesting. I think I might understand it,” Lia crooned. She repeated the basics back to them.

  I recognized the tilt of her head, the cadence of her words, the purse of her lips. I knew what she was doing as sure as I still felt the knot on my shin. “Come away, Lia. Let them play their game.”

  “Let her watch! She can sit on my lap.” Governor Umbrose laughed.

  Lia looked over her shoulder at me. “Yes, Kaden, I’d like to try my hand at it,” she said, then turned back to the table. “May I join you?”

  “You have no stake,” Malich grumbled, “and no one plays for free.”

  Lia narrowed her eyes and walked around to his side of the table. “True, I have no coin, but surely I have something of worth to you. Maybe an hour alone with me?” She leaned forward on the table, and her voice turned hard. “I’m sure you’d love that, wouldn’t you, Malich?”

  The other players hooted, saying that was good enough stake for all of them, and Malich smiled. “You’re in, Princess.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re not. That’s enough. Come away—”

  Lia whirled around, her mouth smiling but her eyes lit with fire. “Do I not even have the freedom to make the simplest of choices? Am I the lowliest of prisoners, Assassin?”

  It was the first time she had ever called me that. Our gazes locked. Everyone waited. I shook my head; not a command but a plea. Don’t do this.

  She turned away. “I’m in,” she said and sat down in a chair that was dragged over for her.

  She was given a pile of wooden chits, and the game began. Malich smiling. Lia smiling. Everyone smiling but me.

  And Rafe.

  He stepped up to the outer perimeter with others who had gathered to watch. I turned around, looking for Calantha and Ulrix, who were supposed to be guarding him, but they had joined the crowd too. Rafe shot me a sharp glance, accusing, as if I had let her walk into a den of wolves.

  Lia made stupid errors in the very first hand. And the next. She had already lost a third of her chits. Her brows pulled down in concentration. The next hand she lost fewer, but still more than she could afford. She shook her head, rearranging her cards again and again, loudly asking the governor next to her which was more valuable, a red claw or a black wing. Everyone at the table smiled and placed higher bets, determined to win an hour with Lia. She lost more chits, and her face grew dark. She bit the corner of her lip. Malich watched her expressions more than his own cards.

  I looked at Rafe. A sheen of sweat lit his brow. Another hand. Lia held her cards close, closing her eyes for a moment as if she was trying to think them into an order that wasn’t there. The governors placed their bets. Lia placed hers. Malich topped them all and revealed two of his cards. Lia looked at her cards again and shook her head. She added more chits to the pile and revealed two of hers, the same losing two she had been revealing all night. The governors upped their ante—their final bid of the hand. So did Lia, shoving the last of her chits into the center of the table. Malich smiled, met the ante, and shoved his pile to the center as well. He laid his cards out. A fortress of lords.

  The governors threw down their cards, unable to beat him.

  Everyone waited, breathless, for Lia to lay her cards out. She frowned and shook her head. Then looked at me. Blinked. A slow blink as long as a thousand miles.

  Then back at Malich.

  A long sigh, contrite.

  She laid out her cards.

  Six black wings.

  A perfect hand.

  “I think this beats yours, doesn’t it, Malich?”

  Malich’s mouth hung open. And then a roar of laughter filled the room. Lia leaned forward and gathered the chits in. The three governors nodded, impressed. Malich stared at her, still not believing what she had done. At last he looked around him, taking in the crowd and the laughter. He stood, his chair flying behind him, his face black with rage, and drew his dagger.

  The shing of a dozen drawn daggers, including mine, echoed in return.

  “Go drink it off, Malich. She beat you fairly,” Governor Faiwell said.

  Malich’s chest heaved, and his glare landed on me, then my knife. He turned away roughly, tripping on the chair behind him, and stormed out of the hall, four Rahtan brothers following on his heels.

  Daggers were sheathed. The laughter resumed.

  Rafe reached up and wiped the sweat from his upper lip. He had made a swift move toward Lia when Malich drew his knife, as if he intended to block him. Weaponless. Not exactly the behavior of an uninterested court confectionary. Ulrix yanked Rafe away, remembering his duties at last.

  I looked back at Lia. She was unruffled, her chin tucked as her eyes still gazed at the now-empty corridor where Malich had exited. Her stare was cold and satisfied.

  “Gather your winnings,” I ordered.

  I escorted her out of the hall and back to my room. When I had shut the door and locked it, I spun toward her.

  She was already facing me defiantly, waiting.

  “Have you lost your mind?” I yelled. “Did you have to humiliate him in front of his comrades? Isn’t it enough that he already hates you with the fire of a thousand suns?”

  Her expression was grim. Unfeeling. She was in no hurry to answer, but when she did, her tone held no emotion. “Malich laughed the night he told me that he had killed Greta. He reveled in her death. He said it was easy. Her death cost him nothing. It will now. Every day that I breathe, I will make it cost him something. Every time I see that same smug grin on his face, I will make him pay for it.”

  She dumped her winnings on the bed and looked back at me. “So the short answer to your question, Kaden, is no. It’s not enough. It will never be enough.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  RAFE

  Now I understood why Sven preferred soldiering to love. It was easier to understand and far less likely to get you killed.

  I was perplexed when I first saw her walk over to the table where several of the barbarians were playing cards. Then I spotted Malich at the table, and it rushed back to me. I’ll take a game of cards to stitchery any day. My brothers are shrewd, bordering on thieves when it comes to their cards—the best kind of teachers to have.

  Last night it had been all I could do to stand there and not wring her neck myself, but it was harder still to not have a sword in my hand to protect her from Malich.

  Yes, Lia, you were and still are a challenge. But damned if I hadn’t felt a surge of admiration for her too, even
as sweat ran down my neck and I silently cursed her. That was not what I would call sitting tight. Did she ever listen to anyone?

  I threw my belt onto the chest. This room was getting on my nerves. The smell, the furnishings, the floral rug. It was suited for some pompous court fool. I opened a shutter to let in some of the brisk night air.

  It was our seventh day here, and there was still no sign of Sven, Tavish, Orrin, or Jeb. Too long. I was beginning to fear the worst. What if I had led my friends to their deaths? I had made a promise to Lia that I would get us out of this. What if I couldn’t?

  Don’t bring her down with you.… If the Komizar or Council gets the faintest whiff …

  I had tried with every power within me not to look at her. The only time we had spoken in days was in clipped words in Sanctum Hall with too many ears listening to say anything remotely helpful to either of us. I knew she was becoming impatient with my persistent disregard of her, but it wasn’t just Kaden who kept a close watch. The Rahtan did too. I sensed that they wanted to catch one or both of us in a lie. Their distrust ran high. And then there was Calantha. I often saw her standing in the shadows in the hall before everyone sat down to eat, scrutinizing Lia, then turning to watch me. There were few women here in the Sanctum, and none seemed to have any position or power—except her. I wasn’t sure what the power was or how much she had, because she was always guarded with my inquiries, and no one else would share anything about her, no matter how casual I kept my questions.

  That didn’t keep her from trying to dig information out of me, though she tried to make it look like idle banter. She asked me the prince’s age and then asked me my own age. The prince is nineteen, I had told her, sticking to the truth in case she had knowledge of it, and then I told her I was twenty-five, so it wouldn’t invite musings about us being the same age. In truth, I had no personal emissaries. I was a soldier and had no need of messengers or agents to negotiate for me, so all of my answers in regard to an emissary were drawn from a place of greed—a motive the Komizar would understand if Calantha carried our conversations back to him.