“Only the ones robbing me.” She smiled, lips closed and eyes narrowed. “You’re not one of those who’ve been kidnapping, are you?”
“No, they’re vicious as cottonmouths and running the southern roads. Stay clear of there.” I gestured at her, waiting for Rath’s answering whistle. “But tell them I was mean. For my warrant.”
Those fools kidnapping nobles would steer clear of our roads if they thought we were meaner than them.
“Terrifying,” she said with a mock gasp. “A giant, monstrous beast with knives and a mask as hideous as their manners. It’ll save my guards their egos.”
I opened my mouth to make her take back the manners jab when the carriage door flew open. Rath ripped the top hinge clear off.
“More guards,” he hollered, shaking his head and flinging blood across the carriage.
Fast as he’d appeared, he’d vanished into the trees. Outside the carriage, soldiers and thieves flailed in the darkness, a tangle of limbs and blades. I glanced at the lady.
“You want that warrant, then you have to escape.” She shoved me out the door. “Go.”
I leapt out of the coach and into the night, her image scorched into my mind.
Two
“Road patrols swapped routes.” Rath tore through the underbrush, stolen spears slung across his shoulder and bouncing on his back. “I nicked their reins, but they might follow. Most loyal guards I’ve ever seen.”
“You get much off them?” I stopped and turned an ear to the forest behind us. Nothing coming.
Even if the guards chased us, they’d pass out from heat sickness. I could barely stand the humid air in trousers and a shirt. Armor was sweaty torture.
“Not enough.” He skidded through mud at the edge of a lake and jumped onto a rock, leaving a track straight into the water. He leapt from stone to stone along the water’s edge. “Think having only eight fingers is acceptable?”
Grell da Sousa—our gang leader who ran every street fight, robbery, and gambling house in the district of Kursk—took Rath’s little finger when we were nine. Rath had only skimmed enough for room and board, but that day, we’d dropped below quota. We hadn’t missed quota since.
“Who needs fingers?” I ripped off my mask, timing each breath with my strides. Breathing through linen was like gasping underwater. “I lifted some pearls and gems. Should be enough to cover us. Let’s go.”
Rath veered right back onto the bank.
I followed. I had to. Grell had sucked me into this profession when I was eight. He gave me the option of either paying him a tribute or losing a finger for every coin I stole in his district. Eight-year-old me liked my fingers. Rath and I worked together, saving wisely and rigging bets liberally, but I’d no sooner trust him to guard my back as Grell. Least Grell was upfront about clipping fingers.
Grell had lost his own finger in a fight, learned from it, and saw no wrong in teaching us how to live by breaking us down piece by piece.
I slipped my hand into the lady’s purse and pulled out her small silver ring. The band scraped over my busted knuckles, but it was prettier than anything I’d ever owned.
“You’re dawdling.” Rath turned to me, now running backward. A tree loomed over his shoulders. “Losing focus in your old age?”
“Sharper and younger than you still.” I studied the crest on the ring. Running and robbery went hand in hand, and I could outrun Rath with my eyes closed. “Mind yourself.”
“Always do.”
He smacked into the tree.
Rath was a terrible thief. He wanted a real licensed shop with customers and as little fencing as possible, but he’d never make enough to buy his way into the merchant class running under Grell. He’d never make enough without me either, and he couldn’t double-cross me because of it. Grell let us keep enough to get by and took enough to keep us crawling back to him. I’d set my sights on cheaper dreams.
Buying my way into the military.
I hefted the purse from my belt, tugged Rath out of his tangle with the tree, and slowed our pace. Rath peered over my shoulder into the purse.
Igna’s shiny new silver coins and Erlend’s useless old gold clinked around next to a piece of paper. After Our Queen Ignasi ended the civil war between Erlend and Alona, she combined the two nations into Igna and created a new set of currencies. It was meant to unite us or some such nonsense, but I kept finding Erlend gold in Erlend pockets. They couldn’t let go of the past.
“Skimming?” Rath elbowed me. “Not like you.”
“I’m not reckless.” I held up the piece of paper, hiding my fingers behind it as I lifted the ring and squeezed it over an old broken knuckle. “And I like my fingers intact.”
“Excuse you.” Rath touched the last three fingers of his uninjured hand to his lips, thumb and forefinger curled against his palm. “I’m recklessly ambitious, and who needs fingers?”
“An ambitious ass.” I unfolded the paper and grinned. “Praying to the Triad won’t grow that finger back.”
Rath scowled and made the motion again, exaggerating the move. “What’s that?”
“Poster.” Emblazoned across the top were branches of lightning striking the green tree of Erlend over the blue waves of Alona. The Alonian words beneath were repeated in Erlenian, and both were useless to me. “What’s it say?”
I could read a handful of words—names and numbers mostly—but Grell preferred to have us totally at his mercy.
“Auditions.” Rath traced the Alonian and squinted. He was from the southern coast of Alona, and it showed in the bronze hues of his dark skin and the gray flecks in his black eyes—salted eyes, he called them. “Our Queen of the Eastern Spires and Lady of Lightning requires a new Opal for her Left Hand. Auditions are open to those who receive an invitation or individuals displaying appropriate skill and determination.”
Opal was dead then. I picked up our pace. Our Queen’s Left Hand was her collection of assassins and personal guards named for the rings she wore—Ruby, Emerald, Opal, and Amethyst.
They belonged to her and did as she pleased, killing those who threatened her rule. Like the Erlend holdouts, the ones holed away up north who’d started the civil war with Alona. They’d used their territory, Nacea, as a distraction to save themselves when the war went rotten. Now Nacea—my country and my people—was dead and gone. It would take me years to get into the military so I could hunt down the Erlend lords responsible, but if I auditioned, I’d have a way into the palace. They’d be mine now.
They’d no right to live while Nacea stood razed and empty. Rodolfo da Abreu, the mage who’d done what we’d all dreamed of and murdered the Erlends who’d created the shadows, had the right idea: kill them and make sure they couldn’t stir up trouble again.
Of course, he’d ended up dead but so had the Erlend mages fueling the war. I could finish what he’d started and avenge Nacea in one fell swoop.
Six days till the audition. I smacked Rath’s shoulder. “Read it to me again—the invitation part.”