He put his hands on her shoulders as if he meant to push her away, but then slid them down onto her shoulder blades and lifted her up and into him. His lips seemed to sizzle against hers, sending a current all the way to her toes.
Once he got started, he couldn’t seem to stop. He kissed her lips, the corner of her mouth, the space beneath her chin and behind her ear, leaving heat behind wherever his lips touched her skin.
He was breathing hard, and she could feel his heart hammering under the silk.
“Sweet Hanalea,” she murmured, gripping his lapels, her own heart thudding painfully. “I have missed you so much.”
“Look,” he growled, swallowing hard. “This is not a good idea. I just…I’d better go before we…”
“Don’t go.” Desire sluiced through her, washing away all good intentions. She slid her hands to the back of his neck, drawing his head down again, stoppering his mouth with hers and crushing her body against his.
He scooped her up, carried her to the couch, and deposited her on it. Squeezing in next to her, he pulled her close. Raisa pulled his linen shirt free of his breeches, sliding her hands underneath. They lay together in a muddle of velvet and silk. Raisa’s fingers brushed Han’s muscled shoulders and back, down to the curve at the base of his spine, mapping the evidence of old hurts.
Han’s lips grazed her skin, giving her the flaming shivers, his caresses wilting what remained of her resistance.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed, kissing a sensitive place behind her ear. “I didn’t mean to do this. It’s just…really hard to resist when you—”
A knock came at the door, and they jerked apart. It was the door to the corridor this time. Han rolled to his feet in a heartbeat, straightening his clothing and combing his fingers through his tousled hair.
Raisa sat up reluctantly. She couldn’t help thinking Han was used to quick getaways from interrupted trysts.
The tapping was repeated. “Your Highness?” a woman called. “May I bring your supper in?”
It took Raisa a moment to get her voice going. “Just leave it outside,” she said, her speech thick and strange.
After a moment’s hesitation, the woman said, “I can’t leave your supper in the corridor, Your Highness. You know it isn’t safe.”
“I’m not hungry,” Raisa murmured to Han, raising both hands to stay him when he turned toward the door to his quarters.
Han shook his head. “I’ll go,” he whispered, leaning so close that his warm breath tickled her skin. “I was right to start with. This isn’t a good idea, and it won’t happen again.” He moved silently to the connecting door. “Good night, Your Highness,” he mouthed. He stepped through and closed it behind him with a soft click.
Bones, Raisa thought, frustration like a stone in her middle. Nobody was acting like they were supposed to.
She stood, rearranged her gown, and waited for the blood to stop lurching through her veins. Outside the glow of the firelight, shadows shifted in the gloom, light reflecting off golden eyes and white teeth.
Of course, she said to herself miserably. A danger to the line. Everything I do or want is a danger to the line.
She stepped to the door, unlatched it, and took several paces back. “All right,” she called to the servants outside, her voice nearly normal. “You can bring it in.”
The door swung open, revealing a tall, broad woman in an ill-fitting blue uniform, carrying a tray covered in a napkin. Someone she didn’t know, Raisa realized. The soldier’s eyes swept the room quickly, then she stepped forward and to the side, revealing two men behind her, armed with swords.
They rushed toward Raisa as the woman dropped the tray onto the table with a clatter. She turned and bolted the door behind her, then scooped a brace of knives from under the napkin, one in each hand.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion, like a dream in which Raisa’s feet were fastened to the floor, her cries stuck in her throat. The two swordsmen came at her from either side, smiling because they knew that with the door bolted they’d have time to finish their work even if she called for help.
They would be on her before she could wrench open the door to Han’s suite, assuming it wasn’t locked. Raisa fled screaming into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her. She struggled to slide the bolt across, leaping back as blades splintered the wood of the door.
Dimitri’s staff stood propped in the corner of her room, and Raisa snatched it up, holding it horizontally across her body as the latch gave.
She smashed the end of her staff into the face of the first man through the door. It hit with a satisfying wet crunch, and he dropped his sword and went down like a rock, clutching at his face with both hands. Before Raisa could bring her staff back into position, the other two were inside.
The woman with the blades dropped her knives and picked up her fallen comrade’s sword. Again, they came at Raisa from two sides. Even given the length of the staff and her hard-earned skill with it, she couldn’t defend against both at once.
Raisa continued to shout for help, thrusting at first one assassin and then the other in order to stay out of the reach of their blades. Where was her guard? Talia and Trey should be right outside. Why weren’t they responding?
Then, beyond the assassins, Han materialized in the doorway, rimed with light, one hand on his amulet, the other extended, looking like the Demon King himself. He spoke a charm in a cold deadly voice.
The sound startled her attackers, and they started to turn.
Flame boiled through the doorway, engulfing the soldier in the lead. The man screamed and jittered in a macabre dance, batting at his burning skin.
The remaining assassin half turned, distracted by what had happened to her comrade, and Raisa took this opportunity to smash her staff into her throat, a killing blow Amon had taught her. The assassin crumpled in place, her head at an odd angle.
The terrible stench of burning flesh stung Raisa’s throat, penetrated her nose, and brought tears to her eyes. She shrank back against the wall, coughing violently. Her stomach threatened to evict its contents.
The flaming assassin lurched across her room to the window. Raisa didn’t know if he was thinking of escape or only hoping to quench the flames in the river below.
Han charged across the room after him. The traitorous guardsman crouched on the broad stone sill for a long moment, then launched himself through the open window and fell like a flaming star from her sight.
Raisa flattened herself against the wall, the tip of her staff drooping to the floor and banging against it as she shook uncontrollably. Han crossed the room to her, taking hold of her arms to keep her from toppling over. “Are you all right?” he asked, looking fiercely into her eyes. “Did they stick you? Even a minor scratch?”
She knew he was thinking of poison, and she shook her head mutely.
Han released her and stalked across the room. He bent over the two assassins on the floor of her bedchamber, pressing his fingers against their necks, looking for a pulse. He looked up, shaking his head. “Next time, try and leave somebody alive to question, all right?” he said.
“You should talk,” she retorted, a bit of her usual starch returning. “Setting people on fire like that, you…” She stopped abruptly, thinking of his mother and sister.
“Th—thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you for saving my life yet again.”
“No,” he said suddenly, unfolding to his full height. “It was you. It was all you, understand? I was never here.”
Raisa stared at him, momentarily forgetting about throwing up. “What are you talking about?”
“It won’t help our plan if your enemies think I saved your life again,” Han said. “Stands to reason you’d be grateful, right?”
“Our plan?” Raisa stammered, unclear that they had one.
Han chewed his lower lip, thinking, the fingers of his right hand beating an uneven rhythm on his thigh. Then he picked up a lamp from the table, blew out the flame, and smashed it on the
floor. Oil splattered everywhere.
“What are you doing?” Raisa cried, leaping back to avoid being cut by flying glass.
She heard shouts outside in the corridor, followed by bodies slamming against the locked door. “Your Highness!” someone shouted outside the door, his voice ragged with fear and desperation. Bam! He hit the door again. “Raisa!”
It was Amon.
Han rested his hands on her shoulders again, looking down into her eyes. “Here’s what happened. You set one man aflame with the lamp and he leaped from the window. You clubbed the other two to death with your staff.”
Raisa planted her feet stubbornly, shaking her head. “No. Absolutely not. I’m not going to—”
“Please,” he said. “Please, please do this. It’s almost the truth, and, believe me, it’s safer this way.”
It’s almost the truth?
The door into the hallway splintered, making them both jump.
“Better let Captain Byrne in before he injures himself,” Han said. He gazed at her a moment longer. “You’re a rum smasher with a staff,” he said. “Good thing. But I’m not going to let this happen again.”
He ghosted through the doorway to his rooms, closing and locking the door behind him.
Raisa ran into the outer chamber as the door gave way and four guards shouldered into the room, swords drawn. One of them was Amon.
They immediately surrounded Raisa, putting her to the inside of a circle bristling with steel. Other bluejacketed guards poured in behind him, fanning out through her suite of rooms.
“It’s over,” Raisa said wearily, swiping a splatter of blood from her face with the back of her hand. “There were three of them. One went through the window. The other two are in the bedroom. Dead.”
“Blood of the demon,” Amon swore, looking around the room, not relaxing his ready stance until he’d verified that there was no one available to kill.
Mick Bricker emerged from Raisa’s bedroom, an awestruck look on his face. “There’s two in there, just like Rebec—like Her Highness says. Both dead.”
Amon cocked his head, looking at Raisa. “You killed three assassins all by yourself?”
Raisa shrugged, avoiding the question. “Do you recognize them?”
Mick shook his head. “Never saw ’em before, but I don’t know everyone that’s in the Guard. There’s too many that are new.”
Raisa slumped quite suddenly into a chair. She couldn’t seem to stop shivering, and Amon took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. It smelled like him, which soothed her.
“What happened to Talia and Trey?” she asked. “They were just outside as I came in.”
“They weren’t there,” Amon said. “I was going to ask if you knew what they…” His eyes widened, and he swung around and began barking orders, sending Mick out to look for the missing guards, two others to the guardhouse for reinforcements.
Then he sat down in a chair opposite Raisa. Leaning forward, he began, gently but relentlessly, to question her.
“How did they get in?” he asked. “Tell me everything.”
“I had ordered supper in my room. Someone knocked on the door and said she’d brought it up. When I opened the door, three of them rushed me.”
“Who did you talk to about supper? Who knew you were expecting someone?”
“I told Trey,” Raisa said. “I don’t know who he might have told. Obviously, the kitchen staff. One of them would have gone down and watched Mistress Barkleigh put the tray together. They could have waylaid him on the way back. His duty assignment’s no secret. It wouldn’t have been hard to figure out who the tray was for.”
Amon’s eyes strayed to the tray next to the door.
“There was no food,” Raisa said. “Only knives.”
Mick burst through the door, only to find himself faced with a prickling hedge of blades. When the Gray Wolves saw it was Mick, they dropped the tips of their swords.
Mick raised both hands to ward them off, his face haggard and grim. “Sir. We found them stuffed into a linen closet off one of the side corridors. Trey is dead, and Talia—she’s bad hurt,” he said. “Their throats were cut. Jarat went after the healers, and Magret—the maiden Gray—she’s looking after Talia.”
Raisa pushed to her feet, numb with dread. “Where is Talia?” she demanded, taking a step toward the door. “I want to see her.”
“Your Highness, you’ll do more harm than good out there, while the healers are seeing to her,” Amon said. “And I can’t allow you to go anywhere until we’re sure the corridor is clear.” Gently, he pushed her back down into her chair.
Tears scalded Raisa’s eyes. Trey Archer was new to the Gray Wolves, and supporting a family of five. And Talia—was it only a half hour ago Raisa had been bantering with her in the corridor?
“Send someone after Pearlie,” Raisa said woodenly.
“It’s already done,” Mick said.
Raisa sat forward, gripping the arms of the chair, seized by a mixture of grief and smoldering anger.
“I’m going to find out who’s responsible for this, and that person will pay,” she swore. “This will not go unrevenged. People need to know that an attack on my guard is an attack on me.”
When she looked up, her entire bluejacketed guard was kneeling in a circle around her, tears streaking down some faces.
“This day and every day, Your Highness,” Mick said, very formally, “I think I speak for everyone here when I say that it is an honor to fight shoulder to shoulder with our Warrior Queen.”
C H A P T E R T H I R T Y
ALLIES
Han had been away from Ragmarket for less than a year, but it looked different to his eyes—smaller, somehow, the streets narrower, meaner, and more crooked, the houses shabbier.
It was likely the same as before. He was the one who had changed.
People in Ragmarket lived vagabond lives, so it wasn’t surprising that some of the vendors at the market were different. The tenants along Cobble Street had turned over during his absence. There was a vacant lot where the stable had stood, though the blacksmith forge where he’d buried the Waterlow amulet still crouched in the yard, painted over with streetlord symbols.
It was easier to move about than before. He kept a glamour wrapped around him so people naturally stayed out of his way without really noticing him. There was less jostling from slide-handers and canting crews, fewer come-ons from the fancies and second-story aunties. He was just one more shadow in a shadowy part of the city.
Evidence of the Briar Rose Ministry was everywhere—in the banners proclaiming free meals, and temple criers promising free books and healers for the sick. The speakers drew them in with food and medicine and safe shelter. They kept them there with classes for lytlings and grown-ups in trades and the arts, in religion and reading and mathematics.
Despite the warming weather, the river seemed to stink less than before. During one of those interminable palace meetings, Raisa had launched a project to move the flatland refugees away from the river’s edge into tent camps to the east of the city. Under the direction of the army, adults had been put to work digging pit toilets and building permanent houses, in exchange for medical care and a reliable food supply.
Some put their backs into it, tired of idleness and starvation, and recognizing the benefit of what they were doing. Others elected to return home, to take their chances in the flatlands, where the work was easier and food more plentiful, even in wartime.
Either way, they weren’t dumping their scummer into the river anymore.
Han threaded his way confidently through the tangled streets, heading for his old crib. Along the way, he detoured up over roofs and through taverns crowded with evening trade. He slid into doorways, waiting and watching to see if he’d shaken the tails that had followed him from the palace. Next time, he’d have a chat with them, but now he had other priorities.
By the time he reached Pilfer Alley, he was clear of them. The entry was marked with his
flash-and-staff gang sign—a warning to stay away.
Han went in through the warehouse, dropping through a trapdoor in the roof onto a catwalk. Using his first month’s stipend from the queen, Han had quietly bought title to the building under an assumed name. Property in Ragmarket was cheap, and he didn’t need a landlord snooping into his business.
Looking three stories down, he saw Dancer, his head bent over his long worktable, wearing the peaked pallor he took on whenever he was in the city. He’d set up a metalworking furnace on the first floor, built of clay tiles and vented all the way to the roof.
Three other people waited for Han on the ground level of the warehouse. Cat, whom he’d expected. And Sarie and Flinn, whom he’d never expected to see again.
Han froze momentarily, torn between relief, delight, and alarm that Cat had brought them here without his approval.
When she heard him overhead, Cat came to her feet, a knife in each hand. Seeing it was Han, she returned her blades to their hiding places and stood waiting, hands on hips, chin up like she was ready to do battle with him.
Han embraced the two former Raggers, tears unexpectedly stinging his eyes. “You’re supposed to be dead,” he said, clearing his throat. “Cat said the demons killed you.”
“They should be dead,” Cat said. “But they got away, and decided it was best to disappear for a while. They took ship with a pirate and crossed the Indio and back.”
“Those pirates cut your tongues out?” Han said, raising an eyebrow. “Good you got Cat to speak for you.”
“Pirating didn’t agree with me,” Flinn said, shifting from one foot to the other. “Money was good, and I got to see Carthis, but turns out I get seasick something awful.”
He looked good—though still small, he was taller than before, bronzed from the sun and muscular from hauling sails around.
So much better than dead.
Sarie Dobbs had acquired an impressive tattoo of a dragon during her overseas adventure. It stretched from her wrist to her shoulder, curling around her arm. “I wanted to bring a real dragon back, but my captain wouldn’t go for it,” she explained, extending her arm. “She was afraid it’d set the ship on fire.”
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