The Lyre Thief

by Jennifer Fallon

  Annoyed, Charisee reached for the slave dress. “You don’t mind if that happens to me, though, I notice.”

  Rakaia realized how that must sound and smiled winningly, all the while backing up to keep the slave dress out of reach. “You get to not be a slave, Chari. And you never know, Lord Branador might drop dead from the pox and Adrina might even find you another husband who’s halfway decent.”

  “She might find you another halfway decent husband. Not me. You’re her royal half-sister. I’m the court’esa’s bastard, remember? Adrina probably won’t even acknowledge we’re related.”

  “Which is why you don’t want to arrive in Hythria with everyone thinking you’re a slave. When we get to Greenharbour, you can be the princess and I’ll be your servant. Free servant, of course, not a slave. That way, I can leave whenever I want.”

  “To do what, Rakaia?”

  She shrugged. That part of the plan she wasn’t able to share with Charisee. It was so hard not to say something. Not to tell her the truth. She and her sister had never had secrets before. “I don’t know. Have an adventure. Have some fun. Not die of an unfortunate accident before I reach my majority because I’m one of Hablet’s wretched unwanted daughters.”

  Charisee shook her head. “If you’d ever been a slave, you’d know being one of Hablet’s daughters—even an unwanted one—isn’t such a bad thing.”

  “And that’s why it’s my gift to you, Charisee. You’re as much Hablet’s daughter as I am. Just because you were born on the wrong side of the blanket doesn’t mean you should have to suffer for it. You should be the princess. You’re prettier than me. You’re better mannered than me. You speak more languages than me. You’re not nearly as mean, or selfish or shallow . . .”

  Having left an opening for her half-sister, she waited expectantly, but Charisee did not apparently feel the need to fill the silence with a similar compliment or disagree about her sister’s less than desirable personality traits.

  But then, Charisee was nobody’s fool. She must know that however much Rakaia insisted otherwise, she might well be setting up her half-sister to die in her place.

  Charisee sighed in resignation and stopped trying to reach for the slave dress. “Look, I know we used to do this for fun, Rakaia, but nobody here is going to think it’s funny if I pass myself off as you. It might even be treason.”

  “Then we won’t tell them.”

  “What happens when you want to go back to being you?” Charisee asked. “You think it’s hilarious now, but what happens when you’re cold and hungry and homeless and decide it wasn’t so bad being a princess? You’ll be welcomed back into the fold and told off for being troublesome. I’ll be put to death for impersonating you.”

  Rakaia shook her head. “It won’t happen.”

  “You say that now . . .”

  “And I mean it,” Rakaia said, never more certain of anything in her life. Her smile faded. “I’ve seen what happens to Hablet’s daughters when he has no further use for them, Chari, and so have you. When Papa dies and our brother takes the throne, he’s going to kill every one of his legitimate sisters still left in the harem, and you know it.” She didn’t mention the other reason—the one about Hablet killing her and almost certainly her mother when he learned the truth about who had actually fathered her.

  Charisee remained silent. She knew nothing about Sophany’s infidelity, but she knew how the succession went. The first thing every new Fardohnyan king did was eliminate all potential challengers, brother and sister alike, who might threaten his claim or one day have children with a claim to his throne. Hablet had more than forty children between his legitimate daughters, his one legitimate son, and the score of bastards like Charisee he’d sired on numerous slaves and court’esa. Unless his other children managed to do something like his eldest daughter had done—make a marriage so powerful he could not risk touching her without causing a war—Rakaia was living on borrowed time. Hablet was not a well man, and her brother was nearly twelve now. Any day, Hablet’s life of excess might catch up with him.

  And four of Rakaia’s older legitimate sisters were already dead. They were accidental deaths, supposedly, but they were all sisters who might inherit the throne if her father died and something happened to Alaric.

  Charisee would have no trouble believing Rakaia had no intention of waiting around for an “accident” to happen to her.

  “If I follow your logic, Rakaia, and everybody believes I’m you, I’ll be the one killed when Alaric takes the throne. How is that supposed to win me over to this ridiculous plan of yours?”

  Rakaia had thought of that. “Simple. The fact that you’re base-born is what will save you. When Alaric takes the throne, all you need do is go straight to Adrina and confess who you really are. She will protect you.”

  Charisee rolled her eyes, unconvinced. “You haven’t seen Adrina since you were ten years old. You have no idea what she’ll do. For all you know, she’s just as likely to have me killed for deceiving her.”

  Rakaia shook her head. Sophany had thought this through. “She can’t, even if she wants to. By then, everybody will be so convinced you are Rakaia that Adrina will have to protect you to protect herself. She’s the High Princess of Hythria now. She can’t afford to be seen as part of a plot to pass off an imposter as her sister. She’ll have to keep quiet about the truth, just to save herself.”

  Still skeptical, Charisee shook her head again. She really was being quite annoyingly intransigent about this.

  “What if Adrina hates me?”

  “Nobody hates you, Chari,” Rakaia assured her, a little impatiently, putting her arm around her half-sister’s shoulder. “That’s what makes you a better princess than me. I’m a holy terror. You just ask Papa.”

  Truth be known, her father had been glad to see the end of both of them. Charisee was right about that much. This wasn’t the first time they’d pulled this switching identities prank, either. Perhaps just the most dangerous.

  Sophany had been preparing for her daughter’s escape ever since she bribed Naveen Raveve to put her forward as a bride for Frederak Branador. And the first and most important part of her plan was to ensure nobody realized Rakaia was missing, so she’d been adamant her daughter wouldn’t leave Talabar without her slave, best friend, and closest companion, Charisee.

  Poor Charisee didn’t know what Sophany was planning until they’d crossed the border into Hythria.

  It was only here, at Winternest—the border fort where Rakaia could dispense with her entourage and continue her journey with the escort her sister, Adrina, would send to meet her—that Rakaia had been ready to reveal Sophany’s plan for both her and her beloved base-born sister to escape the destinies their accidents of birth had laid out for them.

  She would wear Charisee down eventually. They still had a few days before their Hythrun escort arrived.

  By then Charisee would be Rakaia, and Rakaia would be an unnoticed nobody who could slip away to find a new life where she had some hope, even in a dangerous unknown world, of surviving the king of Fardohnya learning that his wife had cheated on him and his beloved Rakaia was just as much a whore’s bastard as Charisee.

  Chapter

  9

  WINTERNEST LOOMED MAJESTICALLY ahead of Kiam and his escort of Greenharbour Raiders, its massive walls rising out of the mountainside as if it had been grown from the very rock of the mountain rather than been constructed in the traditional way by men. It had been built by the Harshini more than a thousand years ago, its tall spires and elegant lines reminiscent of the magical race.

  The castle guarded the Hythrun end of the Widowmaker Pass, named for the number of widows created during the numerous battles that had taken place on the border between Fardohnya and Hythria before the treaty hammered out by the current High Prince. It was one of only two navigable passes across the Sunrise Mountains between the two countries. The other pass was much farther south, near Highcastle.

  Winternest was actually two c
astles in one, built on either side of the road leading through the pass into Fardohnya, joined by an arched and heavily fortified bridge high above the road, which linked the northern wing where most of the commerce of the border post was carried out, to the southern wing, which remained the private domain of the ruling Lionsclaw family when they were in residence. There was a similar fortress on the Fardohnyan side of the border at the other end of the pass, Kiam knew, about ten miles west of here. Kiam thought it not nearly so grand nor impressive as Winternest.

  The keep served as a garrison, customs house, inn, and fortress. It catered to the steady stream of traffic moving between the two countries. Commerce was the lifeblood of Fardohnya, hence the true reason he was here.

  The king of Fardohnya was horse trading again, although the filly in question this time was one of his own daughters, and undoubtedly one of the troublesome ones because they were the only daughters, according to his eldest child, Adrina, that he ever bothered to rid himself of.

  Adrina hadn’t been able to tell him much about Rakaia. She hadn’t seen her younger sister since she was a child, and even then Rakaia was just one face among many in a harem full of younger sisters. Adrina had been too busy planning her own escape, she told Kiam, to worry about the countless offspring of her father’s many junior wives. So Rakaia was a mystery. The only thing of which Kiam was certain was that she was going to be trouble.

  The gates were open when they arrived, although they had to wait as a caravan pulled out, loaded with bales of wool. The lead wagon was huge—a veritable house on wheels. Sitting on the front seat next to the driver was a plump woman with a baby at her breast and two more leaning out of the wagon, waving to the soldiers as they rode out of the keep.

  Kiam smiled and waved back while they waited. The trader was a successful one, Kiam guessed. There were more than ten fully loaded freight wagons in his caravan, along with the other wagons carrying their supplies. Between the trader, his family, the wagon drivers—and some of them had families too, by the look of them—and the guards protecting them all, the caravan was almost as large as Kiam’s military escort.

  As he waited for the road to clear, he spied a figure coming from the keep, cutting between the wagons to greet the newcomers. Broos sat patiently beside his horse, waiting for his master to give the command to move on. Whether the dog was just pathetically grateful to have been rescued, or whether Kiam had some heretofore undiscovered talent with animals, he’d never encountered a creature so anxious to be trained. He’d spent every evening on the road to Winternest sitting around the campfire teaching the dog to sit, lie down, fetch, and even hold his mare’s reins while he relieved himself. A few weeks on real meat and plenty of exercise running beside Kiam all day had transformed the skeletal beast into a sleek, handsome dog. Kiam didn’t know what breed he was, but his head was as high as Kiam’s hip and when he stood on his hind legs, he was taller than a grown man.

  “Easy, Broos,” Kiam commanded as he dismounted, not sure of the reception he would get, or what the dog would do if he thought this man was hostile. He wasn’t expecting trouble. Kiam was stepbrother to the High Prince. At least, he had been for the eight years his father was married to Princess Marla. Now that Galon was dead, his position was harder to define. Sometimes he was treated like he was still a member of Damin Wolfblade’s large extended family.

  Other times, strangers—never Damin or his family—treated him like a pariah because he was “the assassin.”

  He didn’t know Valorian Lionsclaw well enough to know into which camp the heir to Sunrise Province, and the commander of Winternest, fell.

  Valorian approached, hand on the hilt of his sword. He was a middle-aged man with a trim beard and the athletic body of one who lived by the sword. Kiam eyed him warily until he realized Valorian was simply holding the blade in place to stop it banging against his leg while he darted between the wagons, and wasn’t preparing for an attack. In fact, the commandant smiled as he approached and offered Kiam his hand without hesitation.

  “Welcome to Winternest,” he said. “I’m Valorian Lionsclaw.”

  “Kiam Miar,” he replied, accepting the handshake. Adrina had sent word by pigeon so Valorian knew in advance who was leading the escort to collect Princess Rakaia and her entourage. Valorian either had no problem with it or had had sufficient time to adjust to the idea. “You look fairly busy. Sorry to inflict another hundred hungry souls on you.”

  Valorian shrugged and glanced over at the noisy departing wagons. “We’re not as busy as we look. I got rid of a traveling carnival last night, two rather shady-looking ore merchants this morning, and once the Farman brothers and their caravan are through to the pass, we’ll have plenty of room.”

  Kiam was surprised. “Aren’t you full of Fardohnyans? Or isn’t Princess Rakaia here yet?”

  “She’s here,” the commander assured him. “But she sent her entourage home as soon as she arrived. Something about not wanting to take all those poor people so far from their families by making them travel to a foreign country.”

  Kiam stared at Valorian. “Are you serious?”

  The commander shrugged. “There’ll just be the princess and her handmaiden heading back to Greenharbour with you.”

  Kiam didn’t know what to say. All the way to Winternest he’d been mentally bracing himself for their return journey full of obnoxious Fardohnyan courtiers, and a bratty Fardohnyan princess.

  “Um . . . that’s good. I think. What’s she like?”

  “Haven’t seen her yet,” Valorian said. “I was out chasing bandits in the mountains when she arrived, and her Serene Highness hasn’t deigned to grace us with her royal presence since she let her entourage go. I’m hoping now that her escort has arrived she’ll come out of her room and be on her way.”

  “Has your wife met her?”

  “Bayla’s visiting her brother, Tav, in Dregian Province for the summer,” he said, not sounding terribly upset by the absence of his wife. “She misses the lad terribly and her mother has not been well of late. It’s probably a good thing she’s not here. My wife is not particularly fond of Fardohnyans.”

  Kiam nodded in understanding. “Are the children with her?” he asked, knowing he would be surprised to learn Valorian had allowed his two sons to travel that far from Sunrise Province. Although there were no rumors abroad about trouble in Valorian’s marriage, Bayla was an Eaglespike and her family had a long and bitter history with the Wolfblades, and the Lionsclaw family into which she had married.

  Sure enough, the Lord of Winternest shook his head. “Gods, no! They are in Cabradel, at present, being spoiled rotten by my mother. We’re all going to meet up in Greenharbour at the end of summer for the royal wedding.”

  Everyone who was anyone was going to be in Greenharbour at the end of summer for the royal wedding. It was shaping up as the social event of the decade.

  “How is Lady Lionsclaw?”

  He smiled. “She will outlive us all, I swear. I kind of wish she was here, actually. She’d know exactly what to do with a snotty Fardohnyan princess.”

  “She sounds like a right royal pain.” Kiam glanced over his shoulder at the Greenharbour Raiders he’d brought to escort Adrina’s sister back to the capital. Hardened, common-born warriors, every one of them. Adrina had sent him here with an honor guard, not an entourage. There wasn’t a serving girl, masseuse, or a court’esa among them. “Gods, she’s not expecting us to look after her all the way to Greenharbour, is she?”

  Valorian smiled as the last of the caravan wagons trundled past, two collared court’esa waving and calling out cheerful, if rather optimistic, offers to the Raiders waiting patiently to enter the fort. Their departure left the way open for Kiam’s troop to enter Winternest. The commander wasn’t trying to hide his delight at the knowledge that in a very short time, this unpredictable Fardohnyan guest wasn’t going to be his problem. “Cheer up, Master Miar. Aren’t you assassin types supposed to be trained to withstand pain and tortur
e?”

  Kiam decided, at that moment, that he really liked Valorian Lionsclaw. The Sunrise heir knew who and what Kiam was and he wasn’t trying to pretend otherwise. Kiam had met his mother, the Warlord, Tejay Lionsclaw, on a number of occasions when she was in Greenharbour for the annual Convocation of the Warlords. She was a no-nonsense woman with a very clear idea of what she wanted out of life and a great sense of humor to go with it. Valorian, it seemed, was very much his mother’s son.

  “There are limits to the amount of torture even a trained assassin can stand, you know,” Kiam agreed. “This has the potential to exceed that limit, very quickly.”

  Valorian slapped his shoulder and laughed. “I’m heading back into the Widowmaker tomorrow to hunt down some murdering bandits who robbed a caravan in the pass a few days ago, cut their victims’ throats, and left them to bleed to death. Care to join the hunt? It might be safer.”

  Kiam pretended to give the matter his serious consideration for a moment. “Murdering bandits, you say?”

  “I know . . . it’s a hard decision.”

  He sighed with regret. “Tempting, my lord, but I did promise the High Princess I’d deliver her little sister safely back to Greenharbour.”

  Valorian nodded and glanced over at the waiting Raiders. “Let’s get your men settled, then. They deserve at least one night of peace before you head back. Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can do to coax her Serene Highness out of her room so you can be on your way tomorrow.”

  Kiam nodded. Grabbing hold of Broos’s collar to stop him darting underfoot, he turned to wave the Raiders forward, thinking he’d felt less apprehension about this favor he was doing his former stepsister-in-law-by-marriage than the last time he’d been commissioned to carry out a hired kill and rid the world of Shilton Rik.

  HER SERENE HIGHNESS agreed to grace them with her august presence for dinner later that evening. She refused to mingle with peasants in the working part of the keep, so Valorian arranged their meal to be served in the hall of the southern wing where his family kept their residence and visitors of noble station were usually accommodated. Kiam stood in front of the fireplace warming his hands with his back to the fire while he waited for her to arrive. Broos was curled up on the rug at his feet, snoring contentedly. Valorian had suggested he be accommodated in the stables, but the dog would have none of it when one of the keep’s stable boys tried to lead him away. Rather than risk the poor lad being mauled by a dog so large Kiam was tempted to measure him in hands like a horse, he vouched for Broos’s good behavior indoors and the dog had followed him inside like he owned the place.