The Traitor's Game (The Traitor's Game 1)

After he'd left, Trina tossed the blue dress at me. I thrust it back at her. "You're my lady-in-waiting. You dress me."

She threw it at me again. "I'm not your maid. Dress yourself."

"If you want anyone to believe you're a maid, you'd better know how to do it."

"Maybe you're the one who doesn't know!" Trina's smile became smug. "That's the truth, isn't it? You don't know how to dress yourself."

I knew how to do it, obviously. I'd just never had to do it. But it was irrelevant. I didn't see how the ability to dress oneself mattered. If Trina was my superior, then how had she failed to notice the leaves in the back of her hair from where she'd slept?

I tossed the dress onto another bush and started walking away. "When we arrive at Woodcourt, I'm going to blame you for my appearance. I assume you know what happens to lazy servants of the Dallisors."

Trina muttered a string of curse words, all of them aimed at me, and then grabbed the blue dress. This one was more complicated to put on than most, with crossed ribbons on the front that needed to be laced at the back. A row of buttons also ran up the spine, tiny enough to frustrate even the most patient servant. I wouldn't be surprised if Trina quit before she finished dressing me. Celia had threatened to do just that the last time I'd chosen to wear this dress.

Celia. I wondered what was happening to her right now. Her screams still haunted me.

"Before we leave, we should talk about your first task once you're home," Trina said. "Somewhere inside your father's home is a diary that I need to read."

"Whose diary?"

"I can only say what it looks like."

I rolled my eyes. "By chance will it look like a book?" If this was a sample of what it would be like to work with Trina, I would soon die from prolonged exposure to idiocy.

Trina's impatience took the form of an extra-hard pull on the ribbons of my dress. "It will be covered in pink satin with flowers hand-sewn into the fabric."

"A woman's diary, then," I mused. "Risha Halderian's?"

"Perhaps. Or Anaya's, her servant, who went into the dungeons with her. Anaya was Endrean, just like Endrick. Maybe her magic allowed her to hide the diary."

"Her magic could save a diary, but not her mistress's life?" I chuckled, communicating how ridiculous I thought this entire notion was. "If you're right and Risha brought a diary into the Woodcourt dungeons, what do you suppose happened to it? Do you think she was given an ink and quill, and perhaps a comfortable sofa where she could recline as she wrote out her plan to kill Lord Endrick?"

She said, "Just find that book. It will lead us to the Olden Blade."

Trina tugged at another ribbon, cursing me for owning such a complicated gown, as if I'd care that she was irritated. If anything, I was disappointed in myself for not having been awful enough to make her abandon this plan, just to get away from me. It wasn't for lack of trying.

She added, "The diary might have belonged to someone else too. All I can tell you is that it's vital to our plan. We find it, and we find the Olden Blade."

I sighed again, louder this time. "Let's pretend you're right--because there has to be a first time for everything--and there's some special diary at Woodcourt containing the secret to all the mysteries of life. If it's just there to be read, then it's been studied a thousand times, searched for any clues about the location of the Olden Blade. But you, who probably can't read your own name, think you will find something new in those pages?"

"I will." Trina was a

ll business, just as she was all heart. By then, Trina was working on my hair, pulling at it so roughly that I fully expected to be bald before she finished. When she had formed it into a clumsy sort of plait, she said, "Beauty hides your ugly heart."

I swerved on her. "Is this about those forty people my father executed? Because if so--"

"If I listed all the reasons I hate you, we'd be here until sundown. Let's go find Simon."

At least that meant we were leaving. I'd choose a torture rack over spending another minute alone with Trina.

Simon was saddling the horses as we arrived. I assumed our travel would take place as it had last night, with Trina on one horse, and Simon and I on the other. That way he could keep control of me. Or believe that he was.

"I have questions," I began. "Are the Banished still in the area? Do they know you're after the Blade?"

"It's more important to focus on what happens when we get to Highwyn." He barely looked at me as he spoke. "Your story will be that thieves attempted a robbery of the inn. Darrow was killed but I rescued you and your handmaiden here. Don't say anything more specific than that."

I huffed. "I was being entirely honest before, Simon. This plan, to get the dagger, will fail. We can't just walk into the dungeons and ask to search them, and even if we do, we won't find it because it's not there. Please go back to Tenger and release my servants. It might be the only chance any of us has to survive."

"Get on the horse or we'll drag you behind it," Simon said. "We're not giving up."