“And what about all those people in Ilor and Alskad, Swinton? The rest of the diminished who’ve been used and poisoned by the Suzerain? What about them?” I could feel anger cutting through my voice, but I was too tired to stop it. Too tired to care. “Even if we do as you say, and wait for Vi to come and save us, what then? We still need Noriava. We still need her help to find a cure. I’ll not go home empty-handed. Not with so many vulnerable lives on the line.” I curled my fists in my lap, not sure if I wanted to scream or kiss Swinton or both. “So if we can’t trust her, how, exactly, are we supposed to get her help?”
Swinton grinned at me, his smile brighter than the sunlight streaming in through the curtains. “We trick her, of course. But you’re going to have to trust me, little lord, because I can guarantee that you’re not going to like my plan.”
I grimaced, but lifted the coverlet and patted the bed beside me. “If you’re going to insist on our doing something horrible, I must insist that you kiss me while you tell me about it.”
Hair loose and wild about his shoulders, Swinton pulled me into his arms, laying kisses along my neck and shoulders as his hands strayed across my body and he told me about his plan.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Vi
“I sometimes forget that there are times when it is better to have a friend by your side than an entire army. I spent so much of my life with only one or two people I could call a friend, and now it is as though the sheer bounty of people I call my friends threatens to break me into pieces from time to time.”
—from Vi to Bo
Curlin settled into the alcove bed across from where I sat and watched as I tried to unsnarl my tangled curls and cursed under my breath. It was hard to do anything with the stitches across my back. Every time I moved in the wrong direction, they pulled and sent spikes of pain right into the center of my chest.
“So.”
I looked up at her. “So?”
“How’re you holding up? With everything?”
“What do you mean, ‘everything’?”
She looked uncomfortable for a moment. “Well, with Bo’s death—”
“Bo’s not dead.”
Curlin sighed. “Vi...”
“Leave it,” I snapped, then changed the subject. “How many did we lose in the battle with the Shriven?”
“Of our thirty that went in? Ten. The brats are all safe at our camp with everyone else. Biz and Neve’s group lost more, but they went in with more. Our numbers right now are just over a hundred. Once we take control of the governor’s seat, we’ll start filtering them into town. It’ll be harder for the Shriven to challenge us outright with Aphra in the governor’s mansion, especially now that she has access to her money. We’ll start using guerrilla tactics to pick them off a few at a time. It’s not efficient, but we need their numbers down and their morale low before we try to face them head-on again.”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to give Aphra that much power?” I swallowed, looking for a delicate way to say what needed to be said. “I know you two seem to have agreed to a truce, but she’s got a fair uncommon sense of what’s right and what’s wrong.”
Curlin snorted. “The woman doesn’t have anything close to a conscience, and you know it. She’s not evil, not by a long stretch, and there’s something in her that I’ve grown awfully fond of, but she’s certainly not perfect. She murdered her husband in cold blood, after all. Now, that’s not to say she’ll go slaughtering the innocent or enslaving anyone. She’s well fixed on being a savior to the people of Ilor, and she’ll do anything it takes to put herself in that position.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” I muttered.
Curlin nodded knowingly. “So, no, I don’t think it’s a good idea to hand everything over to her on a platter. She needs someone around to check her, and remind her not to use her magic too much or too often. To help her remember where the lines between right and wrong rest, and where she can cross them. That’s where Hepsy will come in handy. She’s not fully committed to the cause yet, but she’s coming to see just how awful the temple can be, and Aphra respects her. It helps that Hepsy’s not afraid of Aphra in the slightest, too.”
“Do we know anyone who remembers the difference between right and wrong?” I asked. “Because I’m not sure that I do.”
“You’re far too hard on yourself. Everyone feels like they’ve crossed a line after a battle.”
I bit the inside of my lip and pointed to a zigzag tattooed on the inside of Curlin’s wrist.
“What’s that one?”
We’d started playing this game when Curlin and I’d been hidden away in the Whipplestons’ house while our injuries healed. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. Each of the Shriven’s tattoos had a different meaning, and the black lines that trailed over every inch of her skin told the story of her training and service to the order. I’d always thought that the Shriven’s tattoos had just made them look doubly vicious, obscuring the lines of their faces and highlighting the scars that crisscrossed their skin. But as Curlin had explained the stories behind her tattoos, I’d come to see the beauty in the practice.
Curlin gave a short, humorless chuckle, and ran her finger along the tattoo. “Sawny gave me that one.”
I took a sip from my mug, trying to cover the pang of grief that hit me every time I heard his name, and waited for her to tell me the rest of the story.
“You must remember. You were there.”
“I’m fair certain I’d remember Sawny giving you a tattoo.”
“No, knot-brain. He broke my wrist. I’ve a line like this tattooed over every bone I’ve ever broken.”
My eyes flashed to the ring finger on my left hand. One of the temple’s foundling brats had caught me unawares in a hallway and snapped it like a twig when I was eleven.
Curlin sighed. “Remember? Sawny bet me that he could steal more sweets from the queen’s birthday to-do than I could.”
I smiled. “And you, featherhead that you were, stuffed cakes down your shirt in full view of the guards, tripped over a step on the way out of the park and fell ass over elbows in front of the queen’s carriage. I do remember, though how you count that as Sawny’s fault, I’ll never understand.”
Curlin didn’t bother to hide her grin. “It was his terrible idea in the first place.” She paused, sobering. “I miss him, too, Vi. You know that, right?”
“Of course,” I said, then looked down at my hands, thinking. “Do you know how to do it?”
“Do what?”
“Tattoo.”
Sitting up in bed, Curlin cocked her head at me. “Why?”
“I want one. A few. I don’t see any reason why the Shriven should be the only people who can tell their stories on their skin.”
“It hurts. A lot.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Can you do it or not?”
Curlin looked me up and down, considering. “Sure. Let me see if I can find the things I need.”
* * *
An hour later, I was flat on my stomach, trying not to writhe around as Curlin drove ink into my skin with a tattooing stick she’d cobbled together. In an effort to distract myself from the searing pain, I tugged on the thread of our earlier conversation.
“If someone needs to stay with Aphra, to tame her, shouldn’t you be the one to do it?”
“That’s never the point of a friendship, at least not one I’d want any part of,” Curlin said. “Besides, you need me right now. Every one of the Shriven in Ilor is looking for you. You need someone to watch your back. I’ve been Shriven, and I know how they think.” She paused for a moment, then added, “What about Mal? Think he could help keep Aphra in line?”
“Only if she had something to lose by not paying attention to them,” I said, gritting my teeth as Curlin went to work on a line that looped around the back of my arm an
d down close to my armpit.
“Breathe, Vi. It’s just pain. It’s temporary.”
An idea struck me. “What about the governor? We need the governor to either step down or put a plan in place that will enforce the rights of the contracted laborers, right? In addition to stopping the production of the philomena tincture, of course.”
Curlin, bent awkwardly over my arm, grunted in assent.
“And we need someone to keep Aphra on task. So why not combine the two? Rather than just deposing the governor, we can show her how powerful Aphra is instead—Aphra can use her magic to make the governor sign the new labor laws. Then we can promise that she’ll have the chance to run out her term as governor under Bo’s rule, but only if she agrees to Aphra being her cogovernor. If they don’t come to a unanimous decision, no action can be taken. That way if one of them is killed or steps down, the other loses their authority. The governor will understand how Aphra’s magic works and check her, and Aphra can play the role of savior and leader.”
I let the silence hang between us for a few minutes as Curlin continued to work on my arm.
“I won’t manipulate anyone, Vi. Not when they’re on our side.”
“I didn’t—”
“I know,” Curlin interrupted, “and you might have a good idea here. Aphra needs a check, and we need a figure of authority on our side. But we need to tell her from the first what we’re about. And we need to suss out this governor’s priorities. Won’t be worth a damn if she’s only in service for her own gain.”
I nodded, and Curlin smacked the back of my head lightly.
“Don’t move.”
Hours later, in the deep, quiet part of the night, Curlin pronounced me finished and brought me a mirror. She’d tattooed lines and symbols up my arm and across my shoulders, just above my healing wound. It was a gorgeously intentional convergence of looping, swirling beauty and stark geometric design. I moved my arm, examining each line, each symbol.
“You’ll have to tell me what it all means,” I breathed.
Curlin smoothed ointment over the tender skin. “These symbols only show the parts of your life I know. I’ll do more as we see how the rest of your story unfolds.”
She tapped a pair of overlapping circles she’d tattooed on the back of my arm, just above my elbow. “This, though, is for us. It means I’ll always be next to you, guarding your weaker side.”
“Thank you,” I said, fumbling for the words to tell her how much her gesture meant to me. Even after the whole world had done its best to tear us apart, we had found our way back to each other. Back to our friendship. To being family for each other.
* * *
The governor of Ilor was, as Aphra put it, “disinclined to grant us an audience.” Irritated, Curlin strapped on her most terrifying collection of weapons and paid the governor a visit in the middle of the night that quickly changed her mind. The next day, Curlin, Aphra, Quill and I strode over to the governor’s mansion, dressed in the most ferociously elegant clothes we’d been able to come up with on short notice.
The Ilorian temple had recently entrusted the Whipplestons with transporting some goods back to the main temple in Alskad, unaware of their connection to the resistance. We’d plundered the temple’s shipment and come up with all sorts of gems and jewels to outfit ourselves, and a bit of coin besides. Mal and Hepsy made a great show of disapproving of the theft, but they didn’t do anything to stop us, and so we’d gleefully walked away from the warehouse with heavy pockets.
Tattoos still healing, I’d adapted an old black Ilorian gown to fasten over just one of my shoulders. The dark silk set off the black ink of my new tattoos, and I’d used borrowed makeup to line my eyes in black, as well. With a thick belt of woven gold taken from the temple’s hoard, I’d fastened a set of wickedly sharp ceremonial knives to my waist. I left my hair curling loose and wild around my shoulders.
The result was more than a little fierce. The finishing touch was a golden cuff, much like the one Bo wore about his wrist, the symbol of his place in the Trousillion line of the singleborn. When I came across it in the temple’s trunks of finery and jewels, I’d stared at it for a moment, wondering where it’d come from, then slid it onto my wrist and locked it into place. It was the only piece of jewelry I wore.
Aphra and Curlin had outfitted themselves in loose trousers and sleeveless silk tunics that no doubt hid myriad weapons. They dripped with so many gemstones that calling them gaudy would have stopped woefully short of the reality, yet somehow, they managed to appear the height of elegance.
Quill, in deference to his brother, had refused to kit himself out in stolen wealth. He’d simply taken a pile of cash and bought himself a new set of boots and a shirt that hadn’t been soaked in mud, blood and smoke. But when Curlin, Aphra and I’d appeared in the Whipplestons’ sitting room, he’d looked me up and down slowly, a grin spreading over his face. When he started to whistle, I threw a pillow at him.
When we entered the governor’s office, we found her sitting behind an enormous gilded wood desk, hands clasped in her lap and jaw clenched. Aphra went to stand behind her and picked up a folder, flipping it open. Quill threw himself into a chair and settled his new boots on the desk. I grinned, realizing now why he’d paid no mind to the muck we’d walked through on our way to the mansion.
“What do you want?” the governor, Ysanne, snapped. “I’m a busy woman, and I haven’t time to waste with a bunch of rabble-rousers.”
I flicked my eyes over the woman, assessing. “This position. Is it appointed or inherited?”
Ysanne narrowed her eyes. “Appointed.”
“Then if I were you, I would listen very, very carefully to what my friend Aphra has to say. Otherwise, you’ll be out of a job, a home and any sort of power you now enjoy before the year is out.”
Ysanne started to speak, but Aphra laid a finger on the governor’s lips and said, “You’ll put in place a plan that will enforce the rights of the contracted laborers. You’ll also announce today that any person who has been serving as a contract laborer will be entitled to back wages for the term of their contract they have already served. Should they wish to remain with their employer, their new contract will include a fair wage and an at-will termination of the contract at any point in time, with severance, should the employer be responsible for the termination. Further, new labor laws and a minimum wage meant to ensure the rights of the workers will go into effect immediately.” Aphra turned to me. “What did we say, Vi? A hundred gold ovstri a year, plus room and board?”
I studied the lavishly decorated office. “Two hundred and fifty, at least. If Governor Ysanne’s office is any indication of what they can afford.”
“Absolutely out of the ques—”
“Aphra, care to explain yourself to the governor?”
“Happily,” Aphra said with a grin. “You see, Ysanne, I’m an amalgam.” The governor paled. “For a long time, I didn’t think that really meant anything. Recently, though, I’ve learned that if I say five little words, all put together neatly in a row, you’ll be compelled to do exactly as I tell you. Would you like a demonstration?”
The governor shook her head, clearly terrified.
“Best show her anyway,” Curlin said, handing Aphra the sheaf of papers we’d drawn up.
“Listen to me. Hear me, Ysanne,” Aphra said, and the faint glow of golden light shimmered around her body like waves of heat coming off a fire. “You will sign these papers, and you will uphold the law you make by doing so. Do you understand? In addition, you will put a stop to the production of the philomena tincture and cancel all the temple contracts in Ilor.”
Ysanne picked up the pen lying on her desk, dipped it into the ink and began to sign, tears running down her cheeks.
“Don’t be sad,” I said. “Think of it this way. You’re finally getting to do some good in the world. That should thrill you.”<
br />
“I’m not crying because I am sad,” Ysanne hissed. “I’m crying because I’m furious.”
“Oh, well,” Curlin said. “So much for making her a better person. Should we execute her and put someone else in her place?”
“I imagine that wouldn’t go over well with my brother,” I replied. “He does hate to see members of his government put out of work.”
“Your brother?” Ysanne asked.
“Oh, yes,” I said smugly. “You wouldn’t know. My brother, Ambrose Oswin Trousillion Gyllen. King of the Alskad Empire, the Colonies of Ilor, the Great Northern Waste, blah, blah, blah. You’ve heard all the titles a million times.”
Ysanne’s eyes narrowed. “Prince Ambrose is an only child. And he’s dead.”
“Wrong on both counts, my friend.” I perched on the edge of her desk and studied the gold cuff I’d locked on to my wrist. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Before the year is out, you’ll be swearing your allegiance to King Ambrose, and you’ll do it knowing he has a twin. A twin who broke the Shriven force in Ilor, sat on your desk and forced you to make history by doing the right thing for once in your godsforsaken life.”
“Where’s your proof?”
I drew a folded piece of paper out of my pocket. Along with his first letter to me, Bo had sent a document, signed and sealed by himself, Gerlene and a witness, which stated in clear terms what his relationship was to me—and his wish that should anything happen to his person, I should take the throne of Alskad in his stead. Quill and Mal had kept the document in their safe until I’d asked them to retrieve it this morning.
I slid the paper across the table. Ysanne studied it carefully, taking a moment to look at the seals under a magnifying glass. When she handed it back to me, her mouth had gone tight and her deep brown eyes were calculating behind her spectacles.
“The Shriven cannot be broken, and you’re stupid to think they can. The moment they catch wind of your plans, they’ll do what they came here to do and ensure the profit and safety of the Ilorian people.”
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