Vow of Thieves (Dance of Thieves 2)

Her brow squiggled for a moment, uncertain what I had said, but I was sure that the unsettling familiarity of at least one word confounded her. She put the piece of paper on the table along with a small vial of tincture and left. I watched her walk out the door unaware that her bag of remedies was one small item lighter.

When the door banged shut, I looked at the scalpel in my hand, not sure why, at this point, I even took it from her bag. A habit of survival? On the streets of Venda, I had never passed by an easy steal. It all added up to something that could help me survive for one more day. Even if it was something I didn’t want, it could be used for trade later. I couldn’t trade this scapel for anything, and a thousand slit throats wouldn’t give me back Jase.

An ache gnawed beneath my ribs, like an animal trying to escape. I remembered my last frantic seconds with Jase, but they only amounted to disconnected glimpses that I couldn’t put together. What had been my last words to him? Stop? Run? Those minutes had been stricken with fear and anger. Rewind it, Kazi. Make it all different. One more chance. But the moment was gone. Someone had stolen the last words I wanted Jase to hear from me. I love you. I will always love you. I had tried to save him. I had fought for all I was worth, but it hadn’t been enough.

I turned the scalpel over in my hand. It gleamed sharp and deadly. It was meant to slice flesh so cleanly you barely felt it. I nicked my fingertip, and a bright red bead bloomed against my skin.

A blood vow. And the Patrei’s vow is his family’s vow.

The bead grew larger, like a glistening red ruby, and I lifted my finger to my lips, rubbing the warm blood across them, tasting it with my tongue. The saltiness, the centuries of vows, the promises. And Jase.

You are my family now, Kazi.

I wiped the blood from the scalpel and slipped it beneath the chair cushion for safekeeping. This weapon would not be taken from me.

The Patrei’s blood vow was my vow. Protect at all costs.

And I had nothing left to lose.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KAZI

Instead of returning to see me himself as he’d promised, the king had me brought to him. But not before I was given another change of clothes, curiously complete with leather vest, high boots, and a weapon belt—minus the weapons. I looked almost like a real soldier again. My escort was unarmed. The king had a very different regard for my talents than Banques and his goons. As I padded forward, a fog ebbed in and out around me. It wasn’t hunger, but memories and words I couldn’t flush from my head. I squeezed my eyes, trying to make horrific images vanish. Animals got him. I made myself focus on a distant point down the hall. The faraway point was all that mattered. It kept the world from turning upside down.

The guard stopped at a door, and I was led into what appeared to be the king’s private dining room, the drapes drawn against the bright of day. Tall candles glowed atop golden candlesticks on a table set for two.

The king turned as I entered the room, his hand absently pressed to his side, and I wondered if there was a pocket inside his vest that held treasure—or were his ribs simply aching? These are hard times. Had he been injured? His eyes swept over me, and he smiled. “I see they brought you proper clothes this time. Good. You deserve to look like the premier soldier you are.”

“You mean the premier soldier who was stabbed, starved, and held in a dark cell for countless days?”

He grimaced. “Fair enough, but if I could explain.” He pulled a chair out for me to sit.

I shook my head, refusing his offer.

“It was a mistake,” he said. “They didn’t know who you were.”

“I screamed it through the door every day.”

He looked down and sighed as if dismayed. “Prisoners scream a lot of things, I’m afraid.”

“Why do you have prisoners? Why are you here?”

He stepped from behind the chair, walking closer to me, taller than I remembered. “I mean no disrespect,” he said, “but if you don’t mind, that’s a question I would like to ask. Why are you here? At the arena I saw you slug the Patrei in the jaw, and then shortly after that, you arrested him at knifepoint and hauled him back to Venda to face trial for harboring fugitives.”

“At knifepoint? How would you know that last part?”

“Oleez, a servant who was there, told General Banques about the confrontation.”

Had Oleez been there that night? I didn’t remember seeing her, but she could have been hanging back in the shadows. It would explain her sharp look in my direction.

I studied the king. He was an enigma. Different. He was still the tall, broad-shouldered king I had met at the arena, though more well-groomed now, and with an air and presence about him I hadn’t seen before. It wasn’t his clothes or how he carried himself—it was his demeanor that had changed. The king before me was brooding, almost meditative, his words calm and even. Thoughtful. Where was the clueless buffoon who shrugged and grinned and tapped his fingers together like a child? Was it the hard times he had mentioned that made that king disappear?

“I’m here because I had orders from the Queen of Venda to escort the Patrei back to his home,” I answered, still uncertain how much truth was safe to share. “She said I had overstepped my bounds by arresting him. There was no evidence he knew who the fugitives were that he harbored. Some of them didn’t even have warrants.”

“So hunting down fugitives is what you were really here for all along? Not treaty violations?”

I nodded.