by M. L. Greye
At the other table, an elderly woman sat alone shuffling cards. She wore a very daringly low-cut gown of lavender – so daring that her voluminous curves looked as though they might burst out at any moment. Emry had to stop herself from staring.
She hesitated at the threshold of the room. She didn’t want to interrupt Warks’s game but also had no desire to join the old lady – not wanting to witness any impending wardrobe malfunctions. Warks stopped her from having to decide.
Without turning or looking up, he said to Emry, “Ah, dearest princess, please come join me.” To those at his table, he said, “Make room for the princess.”
As one, all three players dropped their cards onto the table and stood. Then, as one, they turned and bowed or curtsied to Emry before stepping to the table with the old woman.
Warks rose to his feet then. He pulled out the chair to his left for her and bowed. “An honor to see you again, dearest princess. Might I say, your beauty surpasses all this evening?”
A bit rude of him to say as much in front of the very pretty blondes. Greens both of them. Emry merely gave him a frown and lowered into the offered seat. “You sure do enjoy ordering people about.”
“I only did so to ensure your comfort,” he replied, returning to his seat. Unlike the dances or banquets, Emry was not presented at gaming nights. Instead, she’d be bowed and curtsied to all night. “Also, I believe we require the privacy.”
The other table was maybe five feet away. “And this is privacy?” She asked incredulously.
“The twins and Jonis work for me,” he told her. “As does Mrs. Pevell.”
Twins. Emry believed that. Obviously not identical – fraternal them. But these four worked for Warks? They seemed an odd mix. She eyed them from across her table. “What sort of pub owner brings his staff across a region to simply play cards?”
“The sort who don’t only own a restaurant,” he mused, sitting back in his seat. “You can speak freely with them. They are my most trusted employees.”
Emry blinked. “What sort of work are you in?”
“Smuggling.”
Emry loosed a startled laugh. “What? Really?”
“How else do the crews of the Pirate Wars gain their weapons?” He asked simply, shuffling the cards he’d collected from the table.
“A weapons smuggler? In Pragge?” She raised her eyebrows.
“Why else would such a small town have so many blacksmiths?”
Emry stared at him. She had thought it strange. “Wouldn’t a position along the coast be a more efficient location?”
“As Enlennd is without a navy, we have no one to stop us from shipping our goods out of the small port we built for ourselves, due east of Pragge.” He splayed the deck on the table in front of him before collecting them once more with the sweep of one hand. “As our port is unmarked on any map, the king has no knowledge of us.”
“Again with the navy,” she muttered, nearly rolling her eyes.
The things he admitted to her, though … Warks was something of a crime lord. Was he telling her because he trusted her? Or because he wanted her to trust him? Or was it that he didn’t see her as a threat with him surrounded by his employees – whatever that was code for? If it was because he saw her as helpless, she’d dare him to try to harm her.
Her eyes narrowed. “I was under the impression the Pirate Wars had ended.”
“With Perth, yes. Between the Ship Lords, no.” He shook his head once and began dealing out cards for her and himself.
She watched him for a moment. He was a criminal in gentleman’s attire. He exuded class, wealth, and charm. He was shrewd and cunning. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. No one would ever assume him to be a simpleton. Yet, there was definitely more to him than met the eye.
“You’re hired,” she said at last.
He slowly raised his gaze from the cards in his hands. “I didn’t realize this was a job interview.”
“It isn’t.”
She tilted her head to the side and flashed him a smile. She no longer thought of it as Sabine’s smile. She’d crafted it into something more fitting for herself. Now, it was the smile of The Mistress – wicked and taunting and cunning.
“The interview has been this past week, as you were well aware. Otherwise, I don’t think you would have tried nearly as hard as you did.”
Warks sat back in his chair an amused smile tugging the corners of his mouth upward. “Well, then. Gretta and I are at your service. Jonis and the twins, however, I fear will be in need of some convincing.”
Emry tossed a glance at the other table. Gretta – the busty woman – inclined her gray head with a wink, while Jonis and the twins didn’t glance up from their cards. She sighed as one might do with a disobedient child. “What sort of convincing?”
“A display of power would suffice,” Warks replied, gesturing toward Emry with one hand. “They don’t believe that someone so small could have bested the Kruths.”
“I am in no mood to fight anyone tonight. I’m quite fond of this dress,” she drawled. She was. It was a dress made from the fabric she’d found in Wexric. “What if I doused the entire house in darkness? Would that be sufficient?”
“Only one way to find out,” he mused.
This time Emry did roll her eyes, except no one saw her do it. Because one second the room was there, and the next it was not. Emry had loosed some of her shadows in a single blast. She’d had to dive into her store of power to drudge up enough to block out the light in the whole estate, but not nearly as much as she’d expected. She really had no idea how deep her collected store of power went.
Startled shouts of alarm rang out through the house, not from their room, though. They didn’t want to draw attention to the source. Emry kept their room in shadows for no more than a moment before pulling them back into her, leaving the rest of the manor in darkness. She used the shadows to fill every other room – shadows so dark that no Orange could penetrate them. Only a Gold’s light would break through, but from the sounds beyond their room, there was clearly no Gold in attendance.
One of the twins snarled, and the other swore loudly. Jonis leapt to his feet as his jacket and shirt slipped off his body to dangle from his wrists. The twins had grabbed the ends of each other’s hair – hair that now only fell to their shoulders. Warks twisted in his seat to see what was the matter.
Jonis whirled to Emry. “You!” He spat out.
Emry tapped the tip of one of her shadow blades to her lips, smirking darkly. The moment she’d loosed her shadows, she’d adjusted her eyes, grabbed the hilt from its sheath around her calf, and jumped up – sliding the blade through both sisters’ hair and then down Jonis’s back without touching any of their bodies. It’d taken her maybe five seconds. They’d been too distracted with the shadows to notice.
“Never doubt my abilities again,” she said quietly. To Warks she said, “I look forward to our ventures together, spymaster.”
With that, she rose from her seat, turning her back on them. Shadow blade still in hand, she walked into the wall of darkness just beyond the room’s threshold. She kept going, sheathing her blade as she moved and avoiding the stumbling scared guests – her eyes still in her night-vision.
She exited through the front doors and out to the confused coachmen. There was no sign of her guards. They’d probably gone inside in search of her. She didn’t feel like waiting for them. When she found her coach, she told her driver it wasn’t safe and she needed to leave immediately.
Once the coach had turned out of the Countess’s long drive and onto the road, Emry glanced back at the house and loosed her hold on the shadows. Without her containing them in one place, they’d slip out into the darkened corners, returning the house to its lit state.
Emry sat back against the cushioned bench of her carriage and grinned. That had gone fairly well.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Declan stared down at the now unconscious Heloise, his chest heaving. It wasn’t because he was win
ded. It was from what Kearns had ordered him to do. He’d made Heloise – a base black with blue veins – beg on Kearns’s instruction. But let Kearns think he’d exerted himself – rather than the truth that he was using every fiber of his being to hold himself back from lashing out at her. He knew she wouldn’t have been able to stop him from smashing in her face any more than she’d been able to stop him with Naria.
At least Heloise was done for now. Declan had knocked her out on purpose. He’d made her bleed just enough to leave her covered in it.
“Why’d you stop?” Kearns called out to him.
He whirled and jerked his chin at Heloise. “She blacked out.”
“Did I say ‘enough?’” Kearns hissed through her teeth.
“She’s unconscious.” Declan stared at the Back Rube and repeated himself from earlier, “She’s done.”
Kearns’s eyes flashed, and Declan discovered a moment too late that she still had some control over him. His nose crunched inside his head in a hot stab of pain – blood pouring from it. Declan cried out and bent over, his hands covering his face. Kearns only laughed. “Hit her again or see what I break next.”
His absolute loathing overwhelmed him. Declan straightened, ignoring the rush of dizziness from the movement, and spat out the blood that had seeped into his mouth. His rage turned icy in his veins as he glared at Kearns.
It’d be easy – so, so easy – to kill her. She had been the bane of his existence for so long. He would have no regrets killing her. None.
“What’s going on here?” Simon appeared alongside Kearns, followed by Rand.
The apprehension in Rand’s eyes caught Declan’s attention. Apprehension for him, Declan realized. He grimaced, but then shifted his face into a sneer and pointed at Heloise. “Kearns wants me to kill another one.”
Kearns’s nostrils flared at his accusation. Simon merely turned to her and warned, “Don’t get carried away and spiteful.”
“Spite has nothing to do with it,” she said, seething. “The Teal was being belligerent. Let me teach him a lesson.”
Simon frowned. “You’re not his Main anymore.”
“Perhaps I should teach her a lesson, instead,” Declan retorted, his voice low.
Rand’s eyes widened as Kearns whipped her head around. But Simon cocked his head to the side, understanding what Declan was asking. “You think you’re ready to fight one of us?”
Declan grinned darkly. “I think I’m ready for a new sort of incentive.”
His Main was silent for a moment, eyeing Declan. Then, “So do I, but not with Kearns. You’ll face Torrek tomorrow on the meadow.”
“Why not Kearns?” Declan demanded, despising Kearns’s smirk of triumph in seeing him not get what he wanted.
“She has no battle experience. Torrek does,” Simon replied. “Now, go get cleaned up.”
Declan made his way to the nearest Ruby for his nose as another one rushed onto the round for Heloise. It hurt worse for the man to set it than when Kearns broke it. Yet, once that was done, he hardly felt anything. He’d had his nose broken several times in this camp, but all the Rubys had managed to keep it still straight. Tricky to do, so he’d heard. These Rubys, though, had had lots of practice on a daily basis.
When he was deemed healed, Declan turned to head back to his A-frame. He was surprised to find Rand there, waiting in his path. “Simon wants us to spar with blades,” he told Declan.
“Of course he does,” Declan muttered. To the Back Rube, seeing to a Ruby was often assumed to be enough of a break.
Rand retrieved his blades from his back – straight, serrated steel that Declan couldn’t help but feel a little envious over. Declan had to go find blades from the table alongside one of the rounds. All of the blades here were worthless – excluding the ones the permanents earned.
They began on the only empty round – the one furthest from the mess hall and closest to the A-frames. Rand instant tore into him, putting Declan on the offense. He attacked harder and rougher than usual. It didn’t feel so much like sparring, but more like an actual duel. Faster and faster. Spin. Twist. The clanging of metal on metal ringing through the air. Rand had never come at him like this before.
Declan avoided him, but barely. Since this match was sanctioned by Simon, Declan couldn’t touch his speed. Round and round they went until Declan began to sweat, and Rand was panting. But still Rand threw himself at Declan with a fury. Declan wanted to ask what had him all riled up but couldn’t because Simon was somewhere nearby keeping an eye on them. Not that Declan would have been able to get a word out. He was struggling to stay focused on blocking every blow and flinging out a few of his own. Rand wasn’t leaving him too much of an opening.
“Declan, to your left,” Fiona’s voice said calmly from the sidelines.
Was she giving him a tip? Declan swiveled his head in surprise. And agony ripped through his right side.
Declan screamed as the pain tore through him, around him. From front to back. Declan fell to his knees, clutching his side as his blood gushed through his fingertips in a sad attempt to cover the wound. The wound Rand had given him.
He stared up at his friend in shock. The edges of his vision blurred. He saw the blood coating one of Rand’s blades. His blood.
Rand didn’t look remorseful. He didn’t even look surprised. Finally, it dawned on Declan. At the start of this match, Rand had intended to injure Declan this badly.
“It’s for your own good, qippo,” Rand told him softly.
Startled shouts drifted to Declan as if on a haze. A frantic Ruby appeared beside him just as Simon barged onto the round, demanding to know what was going on. That didn’t make sense. Simon had ordered them to fight. Another Ruby arrived. Declan was lowered onto the clay as a third appeared. He watched Rand as they worked. Declan was trembling now – his body sweaty and cold at once. How deep had Rand sliced him?
“We were sparring,” Rand told Simon.
“Sparring doesn’t lead to that!” Simon shouted, pointing to Declan.
Rand merely shrugged, a smug smile plastered on his face. The sort he knew would infuriate Simon. The Back Rube’s face grew a shade of scarlet. “For that, you’ll take his place tomorrow with Torrek.”
The Gray shrugged again, before walking off the round. His retreating back was the last thing Declan saw before he slipped under, giving into the pain.
:::::
Emry glared out the window of her family’s carriage – the big black one with Enlennd’s crest on its sides. She was on her way back to the palace from North Harbor – the location Vardin, her father’s Captain of the Guard, had designated for Citrine’s First Trial. The Trial Emry had been eagerly anticipating. The Trial that ended up being one huge disappointment.
The Anexian Challenger had come in dead last. By a large margin. He hadn’t even been permitted to finish.
The Trial had been to dive into a cove in search of large clam shells – each Challenger had been appointed a certain colored shell. When they found their shell, they were to bring up the weighted metal orb within it.
The Anexian had floundered in the water. It was clear water and only twenty feet at its deepest. Most of it was around fifteen feet deep. Emry knew because she’d asked Vardin the depth after watching the Anexian struggle.
And just like that it was over for Emry’s plot. The Anexian was out. Anexia was one of two regions who appointed their Challengers from some selection board. Anexia and Enn. All the others held a sort of mini-trials where one of the top three could be chosen. Anexia was the only region that Emry as The Mistress had a realistic influence in. The Anexian deciding board had settled on the fellow who had nearly drowned today. According to Levric, the chap was a good enough choice as any, and that he would carry out her plans should he win The Trials. Clearly no one had ever asked the man if he could swim.
Emry was irritated and frustrated. This was a serious setback to her plotting. She needed to get in contact with one of Warks’s people he left i
n Breccan for her use. She and Levric needed to talk.
“Why are you glaring, Emerald?” Onyx’s voice brought Emry’s gaze away from the window. “What’s wrong?”
“Were you disappointed in the Challengers?” Cit asked, a little too innocently, causing Emry to frown. “Perhaps, you were expecting to see someone else?”
“Who would I have been expecting?” Emry blinked.
Cit’s grin was sly. “That boy who saved you – Declan?”
Emry gawked at her sister. She sincerely hoped she wasn’t blushing. “Where would you have come up with that idea? Declan is most likely married with at least one child by now. I hadn’t thought to expect him.”
But she had wanted him to come. She’d even gained enough courage to suggest his name to her little Committee. Levric had replied that Declan was unavailable to enter The Trials, meaning he must really be married. Knights had to be single men. Emry had been hoping that maybe she misunderstood Llydia. If only Emry’s subconscious self would stop dreaming of him.
“Did you have a favorite?” Onyx turned to Cit.
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, it’s far too early to say. Yet, I did like the Glav and Kruth Challengers…”
Emry let their voices fade out as she turned back to her window. She tried to go back to regrouping her thoughts for Warks’s messenger, but all she could think of now was Declan’s smile and his glorious eyes.
:::::
Fiona somehow managed to visit Declan in the infirmary. Twice. Both times at night. The first time, though, hadn’t actually been the first for her. He’d been in and out of consciousness for over twenty-four hours. Apparently, Rand had even been in with him – after facing off with Torrek. But Rand had only stayed a few hours, permitted to return to his own A-frame. Declan had still been at risk of infection and unconscious, so they’d kept him there.