by Gwynn White
Her cheeks burned. “Thanks,” she grumbled. “I’m going to miss it. Standing on the sidelines while everyone else fights was never my first choice.” She took a step closer to the Sword and scratched her head. “Sword, are you going to shoot holes in me if I touch you?” she asked, as stupid as it must have sounded.
“The nasty Reaper expects me to answer that when she has been so mean to me.”
It had a point.
She huffed a breath as she knelt and brushed her hand along the razor-sharp steel blade. It was unnaturally cold. Even without picking it up, the weight of it pressed into her bones.
A soft blue light curled around her hand and caressed her wrist like a lover would.
Dominik, standing next to her, rolled his shoulders. His whole stance relaxed.
What did he have to be tense about?
You fickle thing, she said to the Sword. You turned on your last mistress and killed her, and now you’re happy to see me.
The Sword snorted. “I told you, I didn’t kill Bright Reaper. The thief with our Bone did.”
She trailed her fingers up to the hilt. Clearly ceremonial, it was honed from yellowed bone also torn from that long-dead monarch, while the pommel formed a simple cross made of the finest steel. And yet you don’t know who the thief is or anything about him.
“Oh, I know plenty. I know all about their jealousy and their rage. Their hate. And their love, too.”
She jerked her hand back. Them? Why didn’t you say that when the king asked?
“I don’t care for that Fae male.” The Sword gave a sharp whistle.
She flinched, both at the shock in her head and at its treasonous words.
“Treason, treason,” the Sword sang. “Everyone’s a traitor when the cards turn over.” The soft blue light tickled her neck and snaked up her face.
Her hand rose to swat it away, but she stopped. Like it or not, she and the Sword were tied together in a bond only death could break—hers. It was better to get along with it than to fight it. In that spirit, she asked, “Will you kill me if I pick you up?”
The Sword paused in his song. “You’ll have to pick me up and see. Oh, how exciting, a game of chance!”
Not caring what Dominik thought, she let rip a line of expletives.
Dominik chuckled. “Your new toy not playing nicely?”
“Something like that.” Regardless of how capricious the blade was, it was time to get acquainted. She grabbed the hilt and hoisted the Sword. Who are you?
“They call me Soul-Forged.” The Sword laughed; a happy sound, it was totally different from anything else it had done tonight. “But perhaps, out of all my mistresses, you’ll come to know what I call myself.”
Do I really want to know?
A sly cackle. “Only time will tell, Nasty Reaper. Only time will tell.”
Her lips tightened. It was no wonder so many Soul-Reapers were said to have gone mad with this creature in their head.
The blue light flickered happily and then went to sleep.
Pity she would get no sleep tonight as she pondered how to find and return the Bone. And then how to get out of ever Feeding it again.
8
With Soul-Forged strapped to her hip, Caeda gnawed the inside of her mouth as she and Dominik strode to the Soul-Reaper’s tower—now her tower.
Should she tell him that Soul-Forged had implied that the thieves were a they? The king had said Dominik was to guard her, but did that mean she should share the burden of the investigation with him? It didn’t help that she had questions about Dominik Dakar’s movements today.
He canted his head and looked at her. “Something worrying you?” His breath hung in the icy night air.
“You can’t be serious with that question. Or has your head been up your ass all night?”
He laughed.
She frowned, annoyed that she liked the low, gravelly sound. “I pulled it out for long enough to notice that you like to chew your cheek when life gets really stressful.”
He’d seen her habit? She swallowed, hating that he was as observant as she was.
“So, what’s happening?” he asked. “Something Soul-Forged said?”
“You know the name it goes by?”
His face darkened. “Ayda and I were friends.”
“Okay, Dominik, settle a question for me. What were you doing in her tower today?”
He stopped walking. “You think I’m involved in this?”
She stared at him with hard eyes.
He shrugged. “Well, I guess it doesn’t harm to be suspicious. If you must know, I was coming back from Taliesin’s apartment. There’s a shortcut through your tower.”
She folded her arms. “I have guarded Taliesin for ten years. I’ve never seen an entrance from there to here.” She gestured first at the princess’s tower and then at the Soul-Reaper’s tower abutting it.
“Did you guard her inside her bedchamber?” Dominik’s voice was as icy as the wind moaning around the courtyard.
She shifted. “Not inside it, no. But I stood guard outside it.” Often enough to know that despite their obvious differences, he and Taliesin did on occasion sleep together.
He started walking. “Then you are unlikely to know that there’s a rat route out of her bedchamber.” His green eyes glittered like the sun on the sea. “Guards have been known to attack their charges.”
True. Before Caeda had been born, Taliesin’s aunt had been murdered in her bed by a disgruntled guard.
She kept pace with him. “But you said you were hiding from her.”
“She summoned me. When I got to her apartment, she wasn’t there. I left via the secret passage.”
They reached the Soul-Reaper’s tower. It crawled with guards—all familiar faces of friends and comrades who now wouldn’t catch her eye. She looked for Dain, but didn’t see him. Perhaps he had gotten off duty and was starting his liaison with Izanna, another Fae on whom her spotlight of suspicion now fell. But maybe Izanna would eschew his kisses in favor of spending time with her now that she—apparently—held the answer to the Sword.
Dominik let her take the stairs first. “I’ll walk you to your chambers. Sleep. And tomorrow we can go through the Bone room and try and figure out how the thief broke the wards.”
“Thieves.” She looked over her shoulder at him.
His boot angled on the stair. He put it down and stopped walking. A small head nod was his only other reaction to her shared confidence.
It wasn’t that she trusted him, but she had to share some of the stuff in her head before her headache pounded her skull to bits.
“Soul-Forged said something about their anger. And jealousy.” She stopped before mentioning the thieves’ love.
It was possible that Dominik and Taliesin’s overt disdain covered a passion she didn’t know about, one that took place behind the princess’s closed bedchamber door. Maybe the two of them were conspiring to rid Yatres of King Kaist. If so, the king had sent the fox to guard the chicken coop—as her mother would have put it. It would serve her to watch her back.
Pity she had to climb the stairs ahead of him.
Dominik was silent as he plodded behind her.
How she wished she knew his thoughts.
They reached the Bone room.
Ryo and Lane had been moved, along with the blood and glass. She paused at the open iron door. Just standing next to it made her head throb all the harder. But as nauseous and exhausted as she was, she should have been in the Bone room piecing together clues, not crawling off to bed. Yet what would she, without real magic, see that King Kaist, Dominik, and the other mages had missed?
“It will keep until morning.” Dominik brushed her back with a gentle hand. “You’ve had a rough day. Sleep will help.”
She moved away from him. “Things,” she said vaguely, “could be compromised overnight.”
“Fine. You know the guards best. Pick the soldiers you want on this door.”
Dain. She winced as soon
as his name flitted into her head. It wasn’t fair calling him.
“The blond guard with a penchant for beautiful Fae?” Dominik asked, as if he had read her mind. “Although it never seemed to include you.” His voice was bland, but his sharp eyes cut her to the quick.
His knowledge of her friendship with Dain was so surprising that a slap across her cheek would have been less unexpected. How much else did Dominik Dakar know about her? And why had he bothered finding out? If he was the thief, had he studied her to find her weaknesses?
She rubbed her arms, suddenly icy. “Dain is my friend, and I’m definitely not one of his conquests. But he’s otherwise engaged tonight. With Izanna. That Fae from Trikarlock.”
“My brother, Elion’s, friend?” His eyebrows rose. “Interesting.”
What, exactly, did he find interesting? “I trust Garrik to assign the best guards.”
“The cranky old bastard won’t fail you.” The affection in his voice combined with the softening of his naturally hard face suggested more than a passing acquaintance.
Soul-Forged gagged. It sounded like a cat coughing up a hairball.
She ignored him. “You trained with Garrik?” she asked Dominik.
“My father insisted. I was just a youngling, but Garrik rammed everything he knew about sword fighting into me. If he hadn’t, we’d probably both have been slaughtered.” Perhaps Dominik’s relationship with his father was as rocky as hers was with her own. “When you get the chance, talk to Garrik,” he continued. “He helped Ayda when the Sword chose her.”
“No, he didn’t,” Soul-Forged insisted. “It was me and my charm and my wit and my songs. That’s what won her over.”
She rolled her eyes. “I will speak to Garrik. He always brings sanity. Show me that secret passageway.”
“Of course.”
She followed him back to the stairs. Another curl up the spiral, and they reached the top.
Ayda’s apartment.
It, too, was guarded.
Face a blank mask, Dominik opened the door for her into a sitting area twice the size of the home she’d been born in, and that included her father’s shop on the ground floor of the old building.
While she stood like a spare part, wishing she wasn’t so uncomfortable in this new skin, he strode past the gracious sofas and occasional tables to a wall tapestry. A flick of his wrist, and he parted it to reveal a small wooden door. Instead of a keyhole, a strange clockwork contraption clung to the wood.
He smiled sadly at her. “I had Ayda’s permission to use this. Do I have yours?”
“Where exactly does it lead?”
“Taliesin’s sunroom.” She knew the princess often entertained in that alcove off her bedchamber. He touched the clockwork. “But only I have the combination to open it. I’d show you how, but she’s probably in there.”
“I’ve never seen a lock like that. How does it work?”
“Simple. I took it out of a broken clock and shoved some magic into it.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “Element-Fabricator. Remember?”
She nodded. “So magic opens it?”
“Not on its own. Magic can be compromised. This is also manual. A few turns of the cogs in the right order, and it opens. I’ll come by here tomorrow morning to fetch you for breakfast. Then you can see how it works.”
That meant he was sleeping with Taliesin. Why did that make her head pound even harder? She frowned at herself. She was a warrior, not a simpering twit of a noble who had nothing better to worry about than who was shagging who.
Still, she wanted him gone. “I suppose I should give you permission to use the door, then. At least until we get this blasted Bone back.”
A half-smile twitched. “And after that?”
She sighed. “I might invite you to use it to attend the Bone’s burial.” A laugh—it sounded hollow—and she glanced at the fire glowing in the hearth. “Or maybe a cremation would be better.”
“You’d burn it!” His mouth dropped, and his eyes widened. “Shit. What kind of Soul-Reaper are you?”
She’d said too much. She faked a yawn. “A tired one. I can find my way around the rest of this place. Good night.” She marched to another closed door, threw it open, stepped inside, and snapped it closed. She leaned against the wood and listened to him leave.
Dominik Dakar was as bad as Soul-Forged. Like the Sword, he’d also gotten under her skin.
And that wasn’t a good thing.
Only when the click of his boots on the hardwood floor faded did she look around the room.
Ayda’s bedchamber.
It was ten times the size of her room in the barracks. A four-poster bed, draped with white gossamer and decked with dozens of oddly shaped pillows, commanded the middle of it. A large, red woolen rug lay before the hearth, where a fire crackled merrily.
The firelight gleamed on a familiar key lying on a fancy table. Ayda had used it to open the Bone room. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands. It was hers now. Until the Bone was found, it was a useless piece of steel. She left it where it lay.
Careful not to rouse Soul-Forged, she unbuckled her belt and pulled him off her hip while she walked to a wooden armoire in a dressing alcove. The armoire had already been cleared of Ayda’s clothes. A white nightgown she didn’t recognize hung in the vast space. The only other clothing was a brand-new set of fighting leathers and a black cloak. She placed the Sword at her feet and undressed. The nightgown, cold and uninviting, slipped over her body. Too tired to worry about ablutions, she sized up Ayda’s bed.
She grimaced. Sleeping there didn’t sit well with her. The least she could do was wait a night before intruding. Soul-Forged in one hand, she grabbed a single pillow and the thick quilt. She dragged them to the plush couch pressed against the foot of the bed. She lay back with Soul-Forged clasped between her knees and pulled the quilt around her ears. The last thing she wanted was to wake up in the morning to find the Sword gone.
Within minutes, she was asleep. She dreamed of a lock clicking and a small door opening.
9
Caeda jerked awake to laughter. Hysterical, cackling laughter.
Beyond her window, the sky grayed with the oncoming dawn. Her quilt had slid off her while she’d slept, and all that remained of the fire was a couple of glowing embers. Still, sweat coated her skin.
She blamed the flaring blue light coming from the sheathed Sword still clenched between her knees. She groaned and whispered into the darkness, “What do you want?”
The laughter subsided to a giggle, and the light dulled to a flicker. “Just a chat.”
She pinched her eyes shut. “Why the laughing? And the flaming light?”
Soul-Forged simpered. “Because the thief who stole our Bone is angry. Very, very angry.”
Her eyes flew open. “Can you see the thief? Do you know where the Bone is?”
“No, no. He wears a mask and a cloak. The Bone, too. It’s hidden. Even from us. He’s a smart thief, but I can feel him.”
“It’s a him?” Perhaps Dominik would have some idea who this he was. Her stomach rolled—what if it was Dominik?
“He or she, all Fae are all the same to me.”
She shifted Soul-Forged and jumped off the sofa. “Why is the thief angry?”
He hummed. “Our thief wants something far away. Not enough for the display, not enough.”
She was about to stride across the room to the armoire to find some clothing, but she stopped. “What does that mean?”
“Mistress needs to learn to understand riddles.”
“Perhaps Soul-Forged needs to learn to speak clearly.”
The light flickered, but Soul-Forged didn’t stop his low muttering, “Nasty, that’s what she is. Just nasty.”
She rolled her eyes. “Capricious blade.”
Somewhere in this Soul-Reaper’s palace, there had to be a shower. A door in the dressing alcove caught her eye. She pulled the fighting leathers off the hanger, scooped up the Sword, and carried
him and her clothes over to investigate.
A grand bathroom with a sunken bath, a shower, and a privy gleamed before her. Maybe her new title carried some real benefits. She ignored the bath and flicked on the tap in the green marble shower. Steaming water gushed. She propped Soul-Forged on the wall just beyond the spray, where she could grab him if necessary, and quickly washed.
Despite the luxury, she limited herself to her usual military regulation wet, wash, and rinse ritual. Another couple of minutes, and her long, dark hair was braided and she was dressed in her new fighting leathers.
She glared at Soul-Forged, now tossed on Ayda’s—her—bed. “You’re the only weapon I’m allowed to carry.”
“But none other will be as loyal as I, Mistress.”
“Give me time to quote you before you cut me down.”
She buckled his sheath to her belt.
A knock on the door made her jump. Ignoring Soul-Forged’s protests, she stomped across the room and threw it open.
Dominik Dakar stood between her two guards. His fist was raised to knock a second time. Black fighting leathers showed off his rippling muscles. A sword hung at his side with another strapped across his back. He shoved his hands lazily into his pockets. “Breakfast calls.”
She made a point of looking out the window. The sun had claimed the sky. Just. “Breakfast now? Are we going on a route march? Even in the barracks we don’t eat this early.”
“Slacking. I’ll have to speak to Garrik about that.” His smile faded. “We need some time to go over the Bone room together.”
“Ah. Of course. I’m not sure what I’ll find.” She grabbed her cloak and pulled the bedchamber door closed so he wouldn’t see that she hadn’t slept in her new bed.
“Finding traces of magic is my job.” He walked next to her across her sitting room.
As she tossed the cloak around her shoulders, her eye fell on the tapestry hiding the low door. It showed no sign of being tampered with.
He followed her glance. “As it happened, I didn’t use that entrance this morning. I came here directly from my own apartment.”