“This morning was not exactly palace life as usual, Rae. But it’s been a long time coming. I understand the princess has a number of scars. You must have seen them while attending her.”
“Yes,” I say, the word short and hard.
Filadon nods. “Those were by and large inflicted by her brother. What you witnessed was both necessary and long overdue.”
“I’m not saying what Alyrra did wasn’t necessary. But that wasn’t some private family dispute. A crown changed hands.”
“I know,” Filadon says.
“And now you’re saying you’re going to put my sister’s life in Kestrin’s hands, because you don’t know what else to do.” The thought terrifies me.
“Rae—”
“The answer is no. You may tell Kestrin you have one hold on me, and if you give it to him I will not only despise you the rest of your days, but I will hate him, and I will not rest until I have made sure that he cannot use that hold against Niya. Or, or, he can accept that I am deeply loyal to the princess and the royal family as a whole, that I respect him and value your counsel, and I have pledged to keep his secret. It’s his choice, and yours. He can send me home tomorrow and never allow me near the king’s city again, and I won’t care. But he can’t have Niya.”
Filadon makes to speak, but I cut him off.
“So help me, Filadon, if you betray Niya to him, I will get all my family away, and I will make sure Melly knows exactly why we had to flee our own home.”
Filadon’s jaw tenses. Melly is the one thing he could truly lose through betraying Niya, and he knows it as well as I.
“I was wrong, Rae. You have learned to politick.”
“No. I’ve always known how to protect Niya. It’s what I’ve grown up doing. I may not be able to manage any of the rest of this, but Niya I will keep safe. And I will do the same for the prince.” I meet Filadon’s eyes, knowing he needs this from me. “His secret is the same; he will be equally destroyed if he is found out. I would no more do that to him than I would to Niya. I will keep his secret, Filadon. All you have to do is convince him of it without risking Niya. You know politics. Surely you can find a way.”
Filadon looks away, his gaze absently moving over the furniture: a maroon-and-gold sofa set, maroon-and-black carpets underfoot highlighted with cream. I’ve almost gotten used to the absurd wealth on display in every room of the palace.
“I will try,” he says finally. “Perhaps just the knowledge that there is a hold that can be had on you, one that you would fight so desperately to protect, will be enough for him. He doesn’t want your enmity, Rae. If I’m not mistaken, he’s grateful indeed that Alyrra has taken to you. We’ll see if just the promise of a hold, and the already proven fact of your loyalty, will be enough.”
If it isn’t, I’d rather Kestrin destroy me than ever learn about Niya.
I dip Filadon a curtsy. My foot gives a twinge, but it’s worth it, for it brings Filadon up short. “Verayn,” I say. “I put my trust in you.”
He doesn’t speak as I let myself out. Nor does he follow me.
This time, I make it back to the guard room successfully. Matsin waits, fingers drumming impatiently on the center table where he sits. He looks up at the sound of my step, and is rising from his seat before I pass through the door.
“There’s a carriage waiting below, kelari,” he says. “Let’s go.”
Chapter
47
The sun has just cleared the palace walls when I finally clamber into the waiting carriage. Matsin swings up to sit beside the driver, the quad he has brought with him mounted and ready to escort us. We pull out of the palace gates, turning to rumble east toward the river. We cross over the soaring bridge that passes Speakers’ Hall, and continue into the merchants’ quarter, eventually leaving the main road for smaller streets.
The carriage draws to a stop before the wide steps to a carved and painted door. The home within will be well-appointed but not rich, just as the door is—it lacks the bronze inlay that characterizes wealthy homes, but is a step above most of what I’ve seen in the city.
As I alight, a figure detaches itself from the wall farther down and saunters over to meet us. Matsin swings down from his seat, glancing from me to—
“Bren?”
His eyes laugh at me. “Rae, glad to see you’ve brought a guard with you this time.”
I’ve never seen him so well dressed: his clothes are pristine, the muted green of his tunic and sand brown of his pants lending him an almost somber air. He’s forgone tying back his hair, as many of the nobility do, and I have a momentary flashback of him sitting on the edge of my bed, my hand in his hair.
Oh no. That won’t do at all. “Captain Matsin,” I say sharply. “Allow me to introduce a friend of mine, Bren. Bren, Captain Matsin of the royal guard.”
Matsin dips his head. “Matsin en Korto,” he says, naming his lineage. It’s a formal introduction that demands a response in kind.
Bren grins and bows with a flourish, that of a bow to one’s peer. “Bren,” he says, and lifts his brow in challenge.
“Do you have some information?” I ask abruptly. Bren was right: I am prickly as a burr. But Kirrana’s in danger, and there’s no time to waste on games.
“Not yet. I wanted to hear what I could from the family. That may help my men in their search.”
“You have men searching?” Matsin asks.
Bren spreads his hands, the picture of innocence. “Of course. Don’t you?”
I turn my back on them both and knock on the door.
“Kelari, you know and trust this fellow?” Matsin says as footsteps approach from the other side.
“Yes,” I say, which is mostly true. “It was his man following us to the docks, to make sure we were safe.”
“Ah, good, then the soldier was trustworthy?” Bren asks.
“The soldier was me,” Matsin says.
“That’s a yes?”
The door swings open, saving both Matsin and me from replying. We are welcomed in by Kirrana’s mother. Kelari Siyela takes my hands, pressing them firmly in hers. Her skin is dry and cool. Her face is pale beneath its natural brown, her eyes so shadowed they look bruised.
“I am so sorry,” I whisper. Until this moment, Kirrana having gone missing was real but not. Faced with her mother’s fear and grief, the reality slaps me in the face as hard as the foreign prince’s palm. Kirrana is gone, and it is almost certainly my fault.
“There is nothing to apologize for,” she says, because she does not know. “Please, come in. Have you any news of Kirrana?”
“I’m afraid not,” Matsin says as we file into the entry hall. “We’ve launched an investigation within the palace complex. Her friends and roommate are being questioned, as are her colleagues and superior at the tax office. If there’s a clue there, we’ll find it. What I need to know now is what you can tell me. Or your husband, if he can speak to us.”
“He’s resting upstairs,” Siyela says, pausing at the door to the sitting room. “Do you wish to speak with him?”
“With your permission, that would be very helpful,” Bren says without a glance at Matsin. So we follow her up the stairs, past a room where two young women sit on cushions, sewing baskets untouched on the carpet beside them. They turn to watch us pass, their expressions tight with worry. Kirrana’s elder sisters. I had forgotten about them. In their eyes, I catch a glimpse of Ani’s grief, dark and terrified.
I follow behind the two men to linger in the doorway of the bedchamber where Kirrana’s father lies, the blankets resting over his slim figure. He turns his head toward us, and my lungs stutter. His face is a mass of bruises, dark and shiny and puffed up, his lips split and his eyes barely visible. Whoever did this meant to punish him, not just knock him out. And those men now have Kirrana.
I clutch the doorframe unsteadily.
He speaks in a low, rough voice, the words clumsy behind puffy lips. “There were five of them,” he tells us at Matsin’s urg
ing. “We weren’t far, only two or three blocks from here. We were passing an alley, and they came up on the other side of us. They were armed—told us to walk into the alley or they’d kill us where we stood. We should have—” His voice breaks on a sob. He shakes his head.
“They would have killed you if you’d shouted or tried to run,” Bren says. “You did the right thing, doing as they said. Then what happened?”
“I offered them my purse, my boots, whatever they wanted. They laughed and took it all. I thought—but then they said they wanted her too. My daughter. My Kirrana!”
“Did they hurt her?” Bren asks. “Or just you?”
The man shakes his head, tears leaking down his swollen cheeks. “They—they leapt on me, beat me—I couldn’t fight them off. One of them grabbed her, got his arm around her neck. They just dragged her away, laughing. She couldn’t even get breath to scream.”
I sag against the doorframe, my hands shaking. I know how easy it is to be taken hostage, to be forced to walk where you don’t want to go. To be dragged by the throat to a hopeless fate. Kirrana might be more able to run, but she had as little chance as I when the Scholar’s men caught me.
“I am sorry,” Bren says. “It’s a good sign, at least, that they didn’t assault her in the alley, or cut her.”
Siyela gives a soft, muffled sob, turning her face away.
“Have you attempted to trace her?” Matsin asks. “Using the services of a mage, I mean. They might be able to locate her. We’ve sent what we found in her room to the Circle, but I haven’t had word back yet.”
Siyela shakes her head, makes herself look back at us. “We tried. He said she’s warded. That’s all we know about her now.”
“Kel,” Bren says, turning back to Kirrana’s father. “How well could you see the men in the dark? Did you notice anything unusual about them? Any inkings, perhaps? Unusual scars?”
“The—the one who spoke, he had an inking on his neck. Near the start of his tunic. It looked—I couldn’t tell. Like a boat, perhaps.”
Bren frowns. “And the others? Perhaps a weapon that stood out? Or a bit of jewelry?”
“The leader wore a silver ring. The other men—I didn’t see them well. They all had their hoods up.”
Bren slides a look to Matsin, who shakes his head. But I have the distinct feeling the look was an act—it was too smooth, too open. Although if these descriptions meant something to Bren, surely he would say something? Unless he’s waiting until we leave Kirrana’s family.
Matsin asks another question. I stare down at the floor, then look up again as Kirrana’s father finishes speaking. “Kel,” I say hesitantly. “Did Kirrana have anything with her?”
“Just an old set of wax tablets in her bag, nothing important.”
I nod woodenly. Would the snatchers have known she had it with her? Would they have even known it existed? It seems impossible, and yet her disappearance shouldn’t have happened at all. The real question is how they could have known.
I’ve made a mistake somewhere, I just don’t know where. And Kirrana is paying the price of it.
Chapter
48
We depart less than an hour later, our questions largely unanswered, and with even less to give in return. I take my leave of Siyela with a gentle embrace, and clamber up into the carriage. A moment later, Bren climbs up behind me, settling on the opposite bench with a smirk—not for me, but for Matsin, who steps in behind him with a fearsome glower. Because of course it’s inappropriate for a young man to ride alone with a woman, never mind that I’ve been alone quite a bit with Bren.
While Matsin certainly doesn’t qualify as chaperone material, he can’t leave me alone with Bren either. He seats himself on the opposite bench as well, the seat long enough to allow some space between them. Judging from Matsin’s black look, that’s a good thing.
“Did that description mean anything to you?” I ask Bren as the carriage starts forward. “The man with the inking?”
“You’d be surprised how many men have inkings on their necks,” Bren says dryly. His expression is easy, but there’s a warning in his eyes. He doesn’t want me to ask, which means the description does mean something to him. Whatever his secrets, I want Kirrana safe.
“Does the silver ring help narrow it?” I push.
“That’s what I intend to find out.” He turns to Matsin. “Do you have any leads? I’ve already had my men comb the area of the attack. We haven’t located any witnesses.”
“You expect me to tell you if we did?” Matsin says, raising a brow. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re not with any guard. You’re a street boy, and with all your talk of having men, you’re part of one of the thieving rings. What makes you think I’ll even let you off this carriage?”
“Captain—” I begin, equal parts infuriated and worried. He can’t arrest Bren.
“You don’t trust me?” Bren interrupts, amused. “Come now, if the princess herself approves of me—”
“Why would I believe that?”
“Because I am the one our dear Rae has been working with these past couple of weeks. If you want to keep her safe now, you had better share what you know. Or has it not occurred to you that she may be next?”
Our dear Rae? Was that calculated to infuriate Matsin, or is Bren not thinking clearly?
Matsin says, “Kelari Amraeya will be safe enough in the palace.”
“I have my doubts regarding that. However, assuming you can keep her safe, that doesn’t help the girl who’s already been taken. Let’s say my men turn up some evidence I think you could use. How shall I let you know?”
“Afraid to walk into the palace?”
Bren grins, all sharp teeth. “Not at all. Are you sure you want me walking in?”
Gah! These—these children. “You can route your information through me,” I tell Bren sharply. “And you”—I glare at Matsin—“can stop baiting the man who is helping us. Whoever he is, he is trustworthy in this, and I expect you to treat him as your ally.”
“Do you.”
“As the princess does,” I grate. “You can worry about his vocation once we’ve recovered Kirrana.”
“Excellent advice,” Bren chirps.
“And you can be quiet,” I snap.
Matsin’s lips twitch. He glances sideways at Bren, who shakes his head slightly. Are they commiserating over me?
“Better to leave than to accept silence,” Bren says with an air of beleaguered heroism. He rises, feet spread to take his weight as the carriage rattles along.
Matsin glances out the window. We are just past the river. “I don’t believe we’ll be stopping until we reach the palace.”
“No need to stop,” Bren says, as if this were the most foolish thing he’s heard in a while. He turns and smiles at me. “I doubt we’ll meet again, Rae. Safe travels.”
“Prosperous arrivals,” I respond automatically, before I even realize he is moving, the door flying open as the horses trot along. He bounds away—not out, but sideways, catching an outer railing on the side of the carriage perilously close to the wheel before disappearing from view altogether, the door swinging back.
Swearing a black stream, Matsin shoves his head out the door, but wherever Bren is, he’s no longer hanging off the carriage. One of the soldiers riding at the rear shouts a question, turning his horse, but Matsin calls back, “No, let him go,” and then swears again.
After a long moment he returns to the bench, sitting down heavily. “Which ring is he associated with? I’m aware the princess had contact with thieves on the west side. Is this—”
“Did you know I had tea with the Black Scholar the night I went missing?” I ask cheerfully.
He stares. “That’s who’s looking for you?”
“And visited Bardok Three-Fingers,” I muse, pleased my distraction technique has worked. “But you’re right, it’s the Scholar who wants me.”
Matsin’s eyes narrow. “How would you have met those two?”
/> This is the man who has taught the princess and the rest of us self-defense—or at least, begun our lessons. If I’m going to distract him, I might as well get something useful out of it.
I smile tightly and say, “Taken prisoner by one, nearly bartered to the other. Do you know what else? I attempted to escape by climbing out a window. But a man came up behind me as I reached the street and put his arm across my throat, and dragged me back to the house. Same as what those other men did to Kirrana.”
“Did you pass out?”
“No, but I couldn’t get my feet under me, and if he’d pressed any harder I might have.”
“Probably a chokehold.”
Sounds about right. “What, precisely, does one do to break such a hold?”
Matsin studies me and then nods. He knows exactly what I’m doing in changing the conversation. We spend the rest of the ride going over how to reach back to one’s attacker’s hands, catch hold of a finger, and pull it until it breaks. Although Matsin does not attempt to make me practice in the carriage.
“The pain will usually cause an attacker to release their hold, even if only momentarily,” he tells me.
“And then?”
“Then turn around, put your thumbs in their eyes, and dig them in and across,” Matsin says, holding up his hands toward an imaginary attacker’s face and demonstrating. Brutal but doubtlessly effective.
“And then run,” Matsin finishes.
“Always run,” I agree, because in the end, I can’t argue with escape. At whatever pace one is able to manage.
We alight in the palace courtyard. Matsin moves aside to speak with his quad. I glance around as I start toward the doors, and jerk to a stop. There is one other carriage pulled up in the courtyard. It is heavily guarded, and there, coming through a side door with a fully armed escort, strides the foreign prince, his features pale and skin pulled tight, like a living skull, his straw-colored hair falling unkempt over his forehead.
I back up until I am all but covered from sight by the bulk of the carriage beside me. But the foreign prince doesn’t notice. He barely looks about the courtyard. They reach the second carriage and his lips shape a snarl as he says something hard and sharp to the soldiers around him. I creep forward, keeping in the shadow of the carriage, to watch as he waits and then realizes he will have to open the door for himself. He does so, his eyes bright with fury, and climbs into the dim confines of a carriage that would be beneath the lowest of our nobles.
The Theft of Sunlight Page 35