Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves 1)

—Greyson Ballenger, 14

CHAPTER TEN

KAZI

I should be with my family.

He’d been silent for an hour now.

His father’s death had come as a surprise to me, and now I guessed it had been unexpected for him too. Even if Karsen Ballenger was the ruthless outlaw who harbored a stable of ruffians as the King of Eislandia had reported, he was still Jase’s father and he’d only been dead for two days.

I doubted that Jase cared whether I liked him or that I called him a thief—but he did care about his family and he was not there with them to bury his father, or whatever it was they did with the dead in Hell’s Mouth.

In the last months of the Komizar’s reign, I had watched Wren when she grieved her parents’ deaths. I saw her fall on their bloody bodies, slaughtered in the town square, screaming for them to get up, hitting their lifeless chests and begging for them to open their eyes. I had seen Synové days after her parents’ deaths, her eyes wide, unseeing, numb and beyond tears.

It had been odd to envy their grief, but I had. I envied the explosion and finality of it—their sobs and tears. At that point, my mother had been gone for five years and I had never grieved her death, never cried, because I never saw her die. Her passing came slowly, over months and years, in the dull bits, pieces, and mundane hours that I worked to stay alive. Day-by-day she faded, as every stall I searched turned up nothing, and another piece of her drifted away. Every hovel and home I snuck into held no part of her, no amulet, no scent, no sound of her voice. The memories of her became disconnected blurred images, warm hands cupping my cheeks, a tuneless hum as she worked, words that floated in the air, her finger pressed to my lips. Shhh, Kazi, don’t say a word.

I wondered if Jase had missed his chance to grieve too. A one night drunk was hardly a good-bye.

“I’m sorry about your father,” I said.

His steps faltered, but he kept walking, his only reply a nod.

“How did he die?”

His jaw clenched and his reply was quick and clipped, “He was a man, not a monster, as you imagine. He died the way all men die, one breath at a time.”

He was still angry. He still grieved. His pace quickened, and I knew the topic was closed.

* * *

Another hour passed. My legs ached trying to keep pace with him, and my ankle was raw from the shackle. The thin fabric of my trousers was little protection against the heavy metal. I kept my eyes open for some bay fern or wish stalks to make a balm, but this forest seemed to have only trees and nothing else.

“You’re limping,” he said, suddenly breaking the silence. Those weren’t the first words I expected from him, but everything about him was unexpected. It made me wary.

“It’s only the uneven terrain,” I answered, but I noticed his pace slowed.

“How’s your head?” he asked.

My head? I reached up, gently pressing the knot and wincing. “I’ll live.”

“I watched you in the wagon. Your chest. For a while, I didn’t see it move at all. I thought you were dead.”

I didn’t quite know how to respond. “You were watching my chest?”

He stopped and looked at me, suddenly looking awkward and young and not like a ruthless killer at all. “I mean—” He began walking again. “What I meant was, I was watching to make sure you were still breathing. You were out cold.”

I smiled—somewhere deep inside so he wouldn’t see. It was refreshing to see him flustered for a change.

“And why would you care if I was breathing?”

“I was chained to you.”

The hard reality. “Oh, right,” I answered, feeling slightly deflated. “No fun being attached to a corpse. Dead weight and all.”

“I also knew you might be useful. I’d seen your quick—”

He paused as if he regretted the admission, so I finished his thought for him. “Takedown? When I nailed you against the wall back in Hell’s Mouth?”