KADEN
I watched her saunter over.
It was something about her steps. Her arms crossed in front of her. Her timing. The deliberate casualness of it all.
The muscles in my neck tightened. I didn’t have a good feeling about it.
Then she smiled, and I knew.
Don’t do this, Lia.
But I really wasn’t sure just what she was doing. I only knew no good would come of it. I knew the language of Lia.
I tried to disengage myself from Governor Carzwil, who was intent on sharing every challenge of transporting turnips and bags of lime from his province to Venda. “Lia,” I called, but she ignored me. The governor spoke louder, determined to regain my attention, but I kept glancing away. “She’s fine,” the governor said. “Give her a little rope, boy! Look, she’s smiling.”
That was the problem. Her smile didn’t mean what he thought it did. I knew it meant trouble. I excused myself from Carzwil, but by the time I got to the table, she had already engaged two of the governors. Even though they were two who had warmed to her presence more than the others, I still hovered, sensing something about to spring.
“So, the point is to get six cards with numbers that match? That sounds easy enough,” Lia said, her voice light and inquisitive.
Malich spit on the floor next to him, then smiled. “Sure it’s easy.”
“There’s more to it than that,” Governor Faiwell said. “The colored symbols must be matched too—if you can, that is. And certain combinations are better than others.”
“Interesting. I think I might understand it,” Lia crooned. She repeated the basics back to them.
I recognized the tilt of her head, the cadence of her words, the purse of her lips. I knew what she was doing as sure as I still felt the knot on my shin. “Come away, Lia. Let them play their game.”
“Let her watch! She can sit on my lap.” Governor Umbrose laughed.
Lia looked over her shoulder at me. “Yes, Kaden, I’d like to try my hand at it,” she said, then turned back to the table. “May I join you?”
“You have no stake,” Malich grumbled, “and no one plays for free.”
Lia narrowed her eyes and walked around to his side of the table. “True, I have no coin, but surely I have something of worth to you. Maybe an hour alone with me?” She leaned forward on the table, and her voice turned hard. “I’m sure you’d love that, wouldn’t you, Malich?”
The other players hooted, saying that was good enough stake for all of them, and Malich smiled. “You’re in, Princess.”
“No,” I said. “You’re not. That’s enough. Come away—”
Lia whirled around, her mouth smiling but her eyes lit with fire. “Do I not even have the freedom to make the simplest of choices? Am I the lowliest of prisoners, Assassin?”
It was the first time she had ever called me that. Our gazes locked. Everyone waited. I shook my head; not a command but a plea. Don’t do this.
She turned away. “I’m in,” she said and sat down in a chair that was dragged over for her.
She was given a pile of wooden chits, and the game began. Malich smiling. Lia smiling. Everyone smiling but me.
And Rafe.
He stepped up to the outer perimeter with others who had gathered to watch. I turned around, looking for Calantha and Ulrix, who were supposed to be guarding him, but they had joined the crowd too. Rafe shot me a sharp glance, accusing, as if I had let her walk into a den of wolves.
Lia made stupid errors in the very first hand. And the next. She had already lost a third of her chits. Her brows pulled down in concentration. The next hand she lost fewer, but still more than she could afford. She shook her head, rearranging her cards again and again, loudly asking the governor next to her which was more valuable, a red claw or a black wing. Everyone at the table smiled and placed higher bets, determined to win an hour with Lia. She lost more chits, and her face grew dark. She bit the corner of her lip. Malich watched her expressions more than his own cards.
I looked at Rafe. A sheen of sweat lit his brow. Another hand. Lia held her cards close, closing her eyes for a moment as if she was trying to think them into an order that wasn’t there. The governors placed their bets. Lia placed hers. Malich topped them all and revealed two of his cards. Lia looked at her cards again and shook her head. She added more chits to the pile and revealed two of hers, the same losing two she had been revealing all night. The governors upped their ante—their final bid of the hand. So did Lia, shoving the last of her chits into the center of the table. Malich smiled, met the ante, and shoved his pile to the center as well. He laid his cards out. A fortress of lords.
The governors threw down their cards, unable to beat him.
Everyone waited, breathless, for Lia to lay her cards out. She frowned and shook her head. Then looked at me. Blinked. A slow blink as long as a thousand miles.
Then back at Malich.
A long sigh, contrite.
She laid out her cards.
Six black wings.
A perfect hand.
“I think this beats yours, doesn’t it, Malich?”
Malich’s mouth hung open. And then a roar of laughter filled the room. Lia leaned forward and gathered the chits in. The three governors nodded, impressed. Malich stared at her, still not believing what she had done. At last he looked around him, taking in the crowd and the laughter. He stood, his chair flying behind him, his face black with rage, and drew his dagger.
The shing of a dozen drawn daggers, including mine, echoed in return.
“Go drink it off, Malich. She beat you fairly,” Governor Faiwell said.
Malich’s chest heaved, and his glare landed on me, then my knife. He turned away roughly, tripping on the chair behind him, and stormed out of the hall, four Rahtan brothers following on his heels.
Daggers were sheathed. The laughter resumed.
Rafe reached up and wiped the sweat from his upper lip. He had made a swift move toward Lia when Malich drew his knife, as if he intended to block him. Weaponless. Not exactly the behavior of an uninterested court confectionary. Ulrix yanked Rafe away, remembering his duties at last.
I looked back at Lia. She was unruffled, her chin tucked as her eyes still gazed at the now-empty corridor where Malich had exited. Her stare was cold and satisfied.
“Gather your winnings,” I ordered.
I escorted her out of the hall and back to my room. When I had shut the door and locked it, I spun toward her.
She was already facing me defiantly, waiting.
“Have you lost your mind?” I yelled. “Did you have to humiliate him in front of his comrades? Isn’t it enough that he already hates you with the fire of a thousand suns?”
Her expression was grim. Unfeeling. She was in no hurry to answer, but when she did, her tone held no emotion. “Malich laughed the night he told me that he had killed Greta. He reveled in her death. He said it was easy. Her death cost him nothing. It will now. Every day that I breathe, I will make it cost him something. Every time I see that same smug grin on his face, I will make him pay for it.”
She dumped her winnings on the bed and looked back at me. “So the short answer to your question, Kaden, is no. It’s not enough. It will never be enough.”