Daughters of Ruin (16 page)

Iren knew if she had the time to write to Queen Malin, this would be her next assignment.

Number 58.

Iren turned to Cadis. “Do you need anything from your chamber?”

“Clothes, better shoes.”

“I mean family items, personal things.”

Cadis shook her head no. Good. The chambers would be ransacked. If they had not been already. Tonight Declan meant to murder them all.

“I have a stash in the kitchens.”

The two ran down the discreet set of stairs meant only for the servants. Two flights down.

Past the larder.

Past the triple hearth.

Coals glowing.

No one present.

Cooky must have been upstairs.

Poor old chef. He always relished a personal appearance. A bow to the guests. His theatrics probably killed him.

Into the dry-goods storage.

Iren pulled down a gunnysack of barley from a waist-high stack.

Cadis caught on and helped.

Behind the grain sacks, a loose stone in the wall.

Behind the stone, a hidey-hole.

A cache of spare travel clothes, riding pants, black cloaks.

Three travel packs of food, canteens, and bedrolls.

A red velvet purse full of Meridan coin.

Two others, a green with Findish doubloons and a yellow with Tasanese paper marks.

“Why isn't there a purse for Corent?” asked Cadis.

“I don't need money in Corent,” said Iren.

Cadis looked on in disbelief.

Iren shoved a set of clothes into her arms.

“Dress. Now.”

Iren checked each of the packs. The motions had been practiced a hundred times in her mind.

As Cadis changed out of her bloody dress, Iren reached deep into the hidden compartment and pulled out weapons.

To Cadis's pack, Iren slung a bow and quiver.

The grips were taped exactly as Cadis did it.

“Remember that time you wanted to read my letters?”

Cadis blinked, then understood.

It was her favorite practice bow. She'd given it as one of the favors she owed Iren.

Iren stuffed two Findish filleting knives into the straps of the pack and another into a hidden strap in a pair of boots.

She handed the boots to Cadis.

Iren's pack had another thief's kit and another armband.

She began to dress and was finished before Cadis.

She wrapped a scarf tightly around her swollen knee for support.

From her bag she dug out a ring of keys.

It had taken four years to assemble. She had lifted each one from the belt of a guard or the apron of a maid. She'd pressed it into hot wax, then returned the original. From the wax molds, she'd made duplicates. It was not very different from the metalwork frames she made for her stained glass. As far as Declan knew, the extra candles were only for late-night reading and the metal for her glasswork.

They were both dressed, armed, and packed for a long journey.

Cadis stared at the mouth of the secret cubby and asked, “Why do you have extra?”

In the compartment sat another pack, riding boots, another set of clothes, and two long swords.

“Those were for Suki.”

Cadis was naive, but she was smart enough not to ask about Rhea.

Iren walked out.

Cadis pushed the loose stone to cover the secret cache.

“Leave it,” said Iren.

When Cadis caught up, Iren handed her a thin bamboo vial, stoppered with heavy layers of wax.

“What's this?”

“Venom of the corkspider.”

Cadis jolted, as if the vial had bitten her.

Iren led them through the back of the kitchens, to the greengrocer's loading gate.

“Iren, why do you have all this?”

Cadis had a commander's tone, which Iren admired.

“Aren't you glad I do?” said Iren.

“I'm serious.”

“Good.”

Iren opened the loading gate with a key from her ring. Cadis stopped. Iren checked the alley. No one there. Guards must have sounded the alarm. Everyone would be rushing to the ballroom.

“Come on.”

“No.”

Iren sighed. “I have the stash for lots of reasons.”

“Name them,” said Cadis, firm.

“If Suki went mad and stabbed Rhea. If you, eager sister, beat Rhea again and the people of Meridan demanded our heads. If Declan wished for royal concubines. If the missing heir of Kendrick returned to claim his throne. If a tree fell in the woods and crushed Declan's skull on one of his rides. If Queen Rhea hated her dearest sisters.”

Iren continued.

“If Findish rebels attacked us at the ball. If there needed to be an assassination.”

“Assassination of whom?” said Cadis.

Iren shrugged. “Declan. Rhea. Whomever.”

“By whom?”

“Don't be silly. By me. Who else?”

“I would believe almost anyone else but you.”

Iren laughed. She put up the cowl of her cloak and signaled Cadis to do the same. “Then you believe too much. Let's go,” she said.

They stepped into the high-walled alley, careful not to turn their ankles in the grooves of the wagonway.

Shouting and tumult came from the front entrance.

They hugged the dark patches and moved toward the outer gate of Meridan Keep.

They could buy horses in Walltown. Or steal them from stables of the hillside farms.

Cadis's braided shells made more noise than a peddler's cart.

They avoided the main thoroughfare.

One of Iren's first assignments had been to map the route. When she ventured a look over her shoulder, she saw Cadis watching her as if she were a mermaid. She still held her vial.

“Put that away,” said Iren.

“Was it meant for the king?”

Iren scoffed to herself. She still called him king. Still scandalized by the thought of putting the rabid dog down.

“No,” said Iren.

If Iren were going to assassinate him, she would have done it in his sleep with a pickax. But that information wasn't necessary. Cadis still looked aghast.

She had killed for the first time tonight. She might have realized the lie they had been living. And she had discovered at least some of Iren's secrets.

Maybe she needed assurance of some kind.

Iren paused in a dark alcove before an open crossroad, below the guard tower at the outer wall. She waited for Cadis's skittering eyes to look into her own.

Now would be the time to tell her that at least for the time being, they were together. They would protect each other until they were home safe.

This would be difficult. Cadis would have had no trouble with it. She'd just speak. A gift Iren didn't have. She'd speak and say, “I'm with you, sister.” Perhaps she'd add, “I love you.” And Iren did feel thus. But it was difficult to say, because the evidence was new that Iren had been hiding quite a lot from her dear sister. It would be difficult to explain the two together. That Iren cared more for Cadis than she ever imagined possible. That they were friends. Bosom friends, Cadis would say. But her assignments remained. Her obligation to Corent remained. Iren would have liked to explain this, the possibility for both to exist—sisterly love and sisterly lying—but they didn't have the time, and she didn't have the words.

Iren took her hand, the one that held the vial. She guided it to a hidden pocket inside the collar of her cloak, where the vial could be easily reached.

Cadis looked into her sister's eyes, waiting for whatever instruction she might have.

Before Iren turned and dashed across the torchlit crossway, to the final gate, she said, “Drink it if we get caught.”

I
t had never occurred to Rhea, even after years of training in the grimwaltz, that if she was ever caught up in an attack of some kind and she had to defend herself, it would be unlike stabbing dummies in three specific ways—the sound, the mess, and the fact that her knives would not be returned.

It was a small detail to dwell on. Maybe everyone's vision narrowed when the wider world became as horrific as the ballroom had become.

Meridan guards had rushed in and either killed the last of the Findish rebels or chased them as they ran off. Some even jumped back through the smoldering gap in the wall and grabbed the ropes they had used to climb in, to rush back out.

They left behind them a ruined battlefield. Banquet tables turned over. Broken chairs. Burning tapestry churning black smoke. Bodies. So many bodies. So many men and women—their own visions slowly narrowing into permanent darkness. They were afraid. They shouted for help, for their mothers, for anyone. Anyone living, please come and hold their hands. Be alive around them.

It surprised Rhea that so many didn't even bother to shout for magisters. They were beyond healing.

Rhea sat in the corner, pressing a patch of her dress onto Suki's shoulder. Suki remained unconscious. Rhea had removed the sword. The blood had poured out. A guard had run up some time ago—she had no idea how long—and said, “Highness, are you hurt?”

“Get Hiram. Go.”

She expected the magister any moment now. Wherever he was, hopefully he was uninjured. He would come and help. He would know what to do and how to wake Suki.

In the meantime Rhea sat with Suki's head on her lap, pressing the cloth down and doing her best to ignore all the sounds. The mess she could not ignore, because she sat in the middle of it. A mess of gore, and sweat, and cinder.

Had I made so much of it?

Rhea could not close her eyes or she would see them. The rebels. The one she stuck in the chest with three of the radial stakes from her necklace. He had looked down in surprise, then back up at her, directly, as if wondering why she would ever do such a thing. Then he fell. Those stakes were still missing from the left side of her necklace.

It sat asymmetrically on her chest, making its presence known.

She would see the woman who killed one of her guards. A lithe, masked killer. Rhea had turned around in time to see the assassin unsheathe her blade from her guard's rib cage.

Rhea had punched her dragon ring into the woman's cheek. The corkspider venom had ripped through her. She lay now in front of the south gate, every limb crooked and her spine twisted.

Rhea kept her eyes open and hummed to keep the noises out.

Her hair hung down in odd places where she had pulled out her pins and thrown them. She would rather lose them forever than walk around the room dislodging them, plucking them like mushroom caps from a moldy tree trunk.

Maybe Endrit will collect them for me if I ask?

No one knew the secrets of the crown jewels of House Meridan but Rhea. A maid tasked with cleaning might just as easily prick herself on a hidden blade or touch a poison needle with bare skin. It never occurred to Rhea that they would need cleaning.
Why did so much never occur to me?

Marta had once said, “Grimwaltz is a dance for one.” Rhea thought she was warning her about lusting for Endrit—a veiled warning in the form of an aphorism that he was too much a gadfly to dance with her alone, or a reminder that he was below her in station. She realized now how silly it was to assume the veteran of two wars had decided to school her on puppy love.

It never occurred to Rhea.

She prayed, though she never prayed, to Anant, god of bounty, god of Meridan, that Endrit was not lying somewhere in the ballroom under the rubble.

Where is that guard with Hiram?

Where is my father?

The king was probably shut inside his chamber with his dragoons. They would never let him out with so many bandits unaccounted for. He would be screaming at them, demanding that they go and find his daughter.

But what if?

He wouldn't be dead. Impossible. If the Findish thought they would improve their situation, they would be as fool-headed as their carnival plays. She would call all her banner houses and conduct the coronation in a war tent at the vanguard of her infantry on the road to Findain. She would sink every last vessel in the Findain harbor if they killed him.

And what of my sisters?
Rhea had not seen Iren since the pledging ceremony.
Has she gone to bed? Is she hiding in her room?

Underneath her reserved and brusque exterior, Iren was a frightful and timid girl. Rhea had seen her cry when she read letters from home—and once, almost, when Cadis called her siren, a silly jest on her silent nature. She would be curled under her bed, no doubt, writing to her mother.

As for Cadis, Rhea preferred not to think of her. Finally, after all the years of suspicion, Cadis had proven herself the treacherous
bestiola
that she was. She was probably riding back to Findain at the head of a gang, whatever remained of the raiding party, laughing at King Declan's naive trust in her. Rhea had known it all along. On a level deeper than bone and marrow, she felt the irregular vibration of a heart bent toward evil and chaos.

In Meridan, the soldiers would say, “A Fin's heart sings for gold of any color.” It meant they were selfish and inconstant—pursuing random business opportunities. There was no principle, no oath, no sisterhood they would not betray. And now she'd finally done it. She had destroyed the Protectorate, killed innocents, killed Suki perhaps, pulled them all into war. And if she wanted war, then Rhea would . . .

“Rhea?”

It was Endrit. His voice came from across the ballroom. “Rhea!”

Blessed Anant, he is alive
.

He ran across the room. Rhea cried out with relief, “It's you!”

An odd thing to shout. Her mind was too much alight with a thousand different thoughts. But suddenly only one. He was alive. His mouth and chin were bloody, but he smiled.

When he arrived, she noticed his formal clothes were wet. His upper arm had bled through the bandage and stained the outer jerkin. “Where were you?” said Rhea.