Dance of Thieves

  The other vultures who came circling, hoping to take over our territory, were what I needed to crush first, Paxton foremost among them. It didn’t matter that he was my cousin—he was still the misbegotten progeny of my long-ago uncle who had betrayed his own family. Paxton controlled the smaller territory of Ráj Nivad in the south, but it wasn’t enough for him. Like the rest of his bloodline, he was consumed by jealousies and greed. Still, he was blood and would come to pay honor to my father—and to calculate our strength. Ráj Nivad was a four-day ride from here. He hadn’t heard anything yet, and if he had, it would take him just as long to get here. I had time to prepare.

  Our straza shouted to the tower, and they in turned called down to the gate guards, clearing our passage. The heavy metal gates creaked open, and we rode through. I felt the eyes on me, on my hand. Patrei.

  Hell’s Mouth sat in the valley just below Tor’s Watch, only parts of it visible through the canopy of tembris trees that circled it like a crown. I had told my father once that I was going to climb to the top of every one. I was eight years old and didn’t realize how far they reached into the heavens, even after my father told me the top of the tembris was the realm of the gods, not men. I didn’t make it far, certainly not to the top. No one ever had. And as high as the trees stretched, the roots reached to the foundations of the earth. They were the only thing more rooted in this land than the Ballengers.

  Once we were at the base of the hill, Gunner shouted and took off ahead of the pack. The rest of us followed, the trampling of hooves pounding in our bones. We liked to make our arrivals into town well announced.

  * * *

  The bell chimed softly, as delicate as crystal goblets meeting in a toast. The ring echoed up through the stone arches of the temple unchallenged. As disorderly and loudly as we pounded into town, the family respected the sanctity of the temple even if cards, red-eye, and barrels of ale swam in our visions. Five more bells and we would be done. Gunner, Priya, and Titus knelt on one side of me, Jalaine, Samuel, Aram, and Mason on the other. We took up the whole front row. Our straza—Drake, Tiago, and Charus—knelt behind us. The priest spoke in the old tongue, stirring the ashes with calf’s blood, then placed a wet, ashy fingertip on each of our foreheads. Our offerings were taken by the sober-faced alms bearers into the coffers, deemed acceptable by the gods. More than acceptable, I would guess. It was enough to fund another healer for the infirmary. Three more bells. Two.

  One. We stood, accepting the priest’s blessing, and walked solemnly in a single file out of the dark hall. Chiseled saints stood on lofty pillars looking down upon us, and the cantillating benediction of the priestess floated after us like a protective ghost.

  Outside, Titus waited until he was at the bottom of the steps before he pealed out a shrill whistle—the call to the tavern. Drinks were on the new Patrei. Decorum in the face of death brought emotion too near the surface for Titus. Maybe for all of us.

  I felt a tug on my coat. The seer was huddled in the shadow of a pillar, her hood covering her face. I dropped some coins in her basket.

  “What news have you?” I asked.

  She pulled on my coat until I knelt to eye level with her. Her eyes were tight azure stones, and appeared to float, disembodied, in the black shadow of her hood. Her gaze latched on to mine, her head tipping to the side like she was slipping deep behind my eyes. “Patrei,” she whispered.

  “You heard.”

  She shook her head. “Not from without. Within. Your soul tells me. From without … I hear other things.”

  “Such as?”

  She leaned close, her voice hushed as if she feared someone else would hear. “The wind whispers they are coming, Patrei. They are coming for you.”

  She took my hand in her gnarled fingers and kissed my ring. “Gods watch over you.”

  I gently pulled loose and stood, still looking down at her. “And over you.”

  Her news wasn’t exactly news, but I didn’t begrudge the coins I had tossed her way. Everyone knew we would face challenges.

  I hadn’t gotten to the bottom step when Lothar and Rancell, two of our overseers, dragged someone over and threw him to his knees in front of me. I recognized him, Hagur from the livestock auction.

  “Skimming,” Lothar said. “Just as you suspected.”

  I stared at him. There was no denial in his eyes, only fear. I drew my knife.

  “Not in front of the temple,” he pleaded, tears flowing down his cheeks. “I beg you, Patrei. Don’t shame me before the gods.”

  He grabbed my legs, bowing his head and sobbing.

  “You’re already shamed. Did you think we wouldn’t find out?”

  He didn’t answer, only cried for mercy, hiding his face in my boots. I shoved him away, and his gaze froze onto mine.

  “No one cheats the family.”

  He nodded furiously.

  “But the gods showed mercy to us,” I said. “Once. And that’s the Ballenger way. We do the same.” I sheathed my knife. “Stand, brother. If you live in Hell’s Mouth, you are part of our family.” I held out my hand. He looked at me as if it were a trick, too afraid to move. I stepped forward, pulled him to his feet, and embraced him. “Once,” I whispered into his ear. “Remember that. For the next year, you will pay double the tithe.”

  He pulled away, nodding, thanking me, stumbling over his steps as he backed up, until he finally turned and ran. He would not cheat us again. He would remember he was family, and one did not betray one’s own.

  At least, that was the way it was supposed to work.

  I thought about Paxton and the seer’s words again. They are coming for you.

  Paxton was a nuisance, a bloodsucking leech who had developed a taste for wine. We would handle him, just like we handled everything else.

  The scavengers have fled, our supplies now theirs.

  Gone? he asks.

  I nod.

  He lies dying in my arms, already dust and ash and a ghost of greatness.

  He presses the map into my hand.

  This is the true treasure. Get them there. It’s up to you now. Protect them.

  He promises there is food. Safety. He has promised this since the first stars fell. I do not know what safety is anymore. It is from a time before I was born. He squeezes my hand with the last of his strength.

  Hold on to it, no matter what you have to do. Never give it up. Not this time.

  Yes, I answer because I want him to believe in his last moments that all his effort and sacrifice are not wasted. His quest will save us.

  Take my finger, he says. It’s your only way in.

  He pulls a razor from his vest and holds it out to me. I shake my head. I can’t do this to my own grandfather.

  Now, he orders. You will have to do worse things to survive. Sometimes you must kill. This, he says, looking at his hand, this is nothing.

  How can I disobey? He is the chief commander of everything. I look at those surrounding us, sunken eyes, faces streaked with dirt and fear. I barely know most of them.

  He shoves the razor into my hand.

  Out of many, you are one now. You are family. The Ballenger Family. Shield one another. Survive. You are the surviving remnant that Tor’s Watch was built for.

  I am only fourteen and all the rest are younger. How can we be strong enough to withstand the scavengers, the winds, the hunger? How can we do this alone?

  Now, he says again.

  And I do as he orders.

  He makes no sound.

  Only smiles as he closes his eyes and takes his last breath.

  And I take my first breath as leader of a remnant, charged by my grandfather and commander to hold on to hope.

  I am not sure I can.

  —Greyson Ballenger, 14

  CHAPTER FOUR

  KAZI

  Livestock pens were broken and scattered like tinder, and the stink of scorched grass burned our lungs. Rage blazed beneath my skin as I took in the destruction. Wren and Synové rumbled with f
ury. Our task suddenly fractured and multiplied like an image in a shattered mirror. In the end, the anger would serve us. We all knew it. Our sham excuse for coming here—investigating treaty violations—had suddenly grown, full-bodied, sharp, all teeth, claws, and venom.

  The settlement consisted of four homes, a longhouse, a barn, and multiple sheds. They had all suffered damage. The barn was completely destroyed. We spotted a stooped man, furiously hoeing a garden, seemingly oblivious to the carnage around him. When he saw us coming, he raised his hoe as a weapon, then lowered it when he recognized Wren’s cloak made with the patched fabrics of the Meurasi clan. My leather waistcoat was embossed with the revered thannis found on the Vendan shield, and Synové’s horse had the tasseled nose band of the clans who lived in the eastern fens. All distinctly Vendan if you knew what you were looking for.

  “Who did this?” I asked when we reached him, though I already knew.

  He straightened, pushing on his bowed back. His face was lined with years in the sun, his cheekbones tired hills in a sagging landscape. Partial faces peeked around doors and between cracked shutters in the dwellings behind him, more settlers too afraid to come out. His name was Caemus, and he explained that the marauders had come in the middle of the night. It was dark and they couldn’t see their faces, but he knew it was the Ballengers. They had come just a week earlier with a warning to the settlers to keep their shorthorns off their land. They took one as payment.

  Wren looked around. “Their land? Out here? In the middle of the Cam Lanteux?”

  “It’s all theirs,” he answered. “As far as they can see, according to them. Every blade of grass belongs to them.”

  Synové’s knuckles whitened with rage.

  “Where’s your livestock?” I asked.

  “Gone. They took the rest. I guess as payment for the air we breathe.”

  I noticed there were no horses either. “And the Ravians that Morrighan gifted you?”

  “Everything’s gone except for one old dray horse for our wagon. A few of the others went into town to buy more supplies. They won’t be able to get much. Vendans pay a premium.”

  His jaw was set hard, his fingers tight around the hoe. Vendans didn’t scare off easily, but he said he was afraid some might be too fearful to return to the settlement.

  “You won’t be paying a premium to anyone, nor payment for the air you breathe,” I said. I took a last look at the damage. “It may take a while, but reparations will be made to you.”

  “We don’t want more trouble from—”

  “The other settlers will return, and it is you who will receive payment.”

  He looked at me, doubtful. “You don’t know the Ballengers.”

  “True,” I answered. “But neither do they know us.”

  And they were about to.

  * * *

  Hell’s Mouth was twenty miles away. It was a remote, mysterious city, far from the seat of Eislandia, that few knew anything about, other than it was a growing trading center. Until a few months ago, I had never heard its name. But it was supposedly a large enough town that it offered the opportunity for buying and trading for the settlement. I was tired and irritable as we rode. I hadn’t slept well last night, even in my tent. This miserable flat wilderness pecked at me like a relentless sour bird, and it seemed impossible that any sizable town existed way out here. It felt like I hadn’t taken a deep breath in days. Synové chattered nonstop, and I snapped at her like a shrill crow when she brought up the racaa again.

  “I’m sorry,” I said after a long silence. “I shouldn’t have jumped on you.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve run out of fresh subjects,” Synové answered.

  I was truly wretched. And she was right—she knew. I didn’t like the silence, and she was only trying to fill it for me. I was used to the noise of the city, the constant hum, the bang, the wail, the sound of people and animals, the tinny patter of rain on roofs and the slosh of wagons in muddy puddles, the chant of street peddlers trying to entice someone to buy a pigeon, an amulet, or cup of steaming thannis. I longed to hear the roar of the river, the jingle of soldiers as they marched down a lane, the heave of a hundred men pulling the great bridge into place, the sounds of remembrance bones clacking as they swung from a thousand belts, all of it teeming together like something alive and whole on its own.

  All those things helped me to hide. They were my armor. The windswept silence left me naked. “Please,” I said, “tell me about how they give birth again.”

  “Eggs, Kazi,” Wren interrupted. “You weren’t listening.”

  Synové cleared her throat, her signal for us to be quiet. “I’ll tell you a story instead.”

  Wren and I both raised our brows, dubious, but still, I was grateful.

  It was one she had told many times before, but she often added an unexpected twist to make us laugh. She told the story of the devastation, the way the Fenlanders told it. She reverted to her thick, easy drawl. The angel Aster played large in this version. The gods had become lazy, not tending to the world as they should, and the Ancients had elevated themselves to godly positions, soaring among the heavens, ravenous in power but weak in wisdom, crushing all in their path, and so Aster, who was guardian of the heavens, swept her hand through the galaxy, gathered a fistful of stars, and threw them to earth to destroy the wickedness that dwelled there. But there was a Remnant on the earth she found to be pure of heart, and to them she showed mercy, leading them away from the devastation to a place of safety behind the gates of Venda. “And to the Fenlanders, of course, supreme over all, she gave a fat roasted pig with a glittering star in its mouth.” Every time she told the story, Aster always bestowed the Fenlanders with a different gift—usually a fat, juicy one—depending on how hungry Synové was at the moment.

  Wren took a turn too, telling the story with the details from her own clan. There were no roasted pigs in her version, but plenty of sharp blades. I had no version of my own, no clan that I belonged to—even among Vendans I was anchorless—but one thing was constant in all the versions I heard, the gods and angels destroyed the world when men aspired to be gods and mercy had fled their hearts.

  No one was spared except for a small Remnant who found favor, and that was how all the kingdoms began, but as the queen often warned, The work is never over. Time circles. Repeats. We must ever be watchful.

  Now it seemed, we needed to be watching the Ballengers.

  Wren had the eyes of a hawk and called out first. “There it is!”

  Hills rippled the plain in the distance, and scattered ruins finally appeared, flecking the landscape with rich, lush shadows, but far beyond them, tucked at the foot of a misty lavender mountain, a dark blotch grew larger. It took form and color as we got closer and sprawled like a giant beast lying at the feet of its brooding master. What kind of beast was Hell’s Mouth, or, maybe more important, who was its master? An oval of deep green appeared to hover over it all like a foreboding spiked tiara. Trees? Strange, unearthly trees. Nothing like I had ever seen before.

  Synové sucked in a breath. “That is Hell’s Mouth?”

  My pulse quickened, and I stepped up in my stirrups. Mije snorted, ready to break into a gallop. Not yet, boy. Not yet.

  Glimpses of ancient streets began to appear, like the backs of subterranean snakes surfacing as if they traveled just below us.

  “By the gods,” Wren said. “It’s as big as Sanctum City.”

  I took a deep relaxed breath and sat back in my saddle. This was going to be easy.

  * * *

  The city was just inside the border of Eislandia, a Lesser Kingdom shaped like a large falling tear, and Hell’s Mouth was at its apex, distant and remote from the rest of the kingdom. Just outside the border, the Ballenger stronghold overlooked it all, but their fortress was impenetrable according to a report the queen had received. We would see.

  Unlike the Sanctum in Venda, there were no walls around this city, no Great River to hold it prisoner. It ambled with the bold
ness of a warlord, nothing daring to hold it back. Its homes and hamlets reached out with strong crooked fingers, and the whole city seemed to be hemmed in only by the circle of trees that towered over it like a mystical wreath. There were multiple points of entry, and far off we could see many other travelers making their way into the city too. While still a good distance away, Wren picked out a suitable abandoned ruin as we passed, and she and Synové stowed some packs there before we continued on.

  Though many travelers entered the city, when we rode in we drew stares. It could be they saw the Vendan crest on our tack, or maybe they saw something in our faces. We weren’t there to buy or sell goods. We weren’t there for any reason they perceived as good. They were right.

  Wren hissed. Shook her head. Grumbled. “I don’t like it.” She pulled out her ziethe, spun it, and shoved it back in its scabbard, the hilt snapping against the leather.

  Synové and I exchanged a glance. We knew this was coming. It was Wren’s ritual, as she recalculated every risk in the minutes before we actually took the risks. “You sure? They’re a powerful family. If they lock you up—”

  “Yes,” I answered before she could propose something else. It was the only way this was going to work. “Like I told Griz,” I said, our gazes meeting, “I’ve got this. So do you.”

  She nodded. “Blink last.”

  “Always,” I confirmed.

  There were all kinds of unwritten laws that we lived by on the streets. Wren knew that was one of mine. Blinking last wasn’t just an occupational tip to reel in a target, it was a survival aspiration.

  We proceeded forward, gawking at the strange city, taking turns pointing out oddities, like the web of rambling structures looming overhead where the thick, muscled arms of tree branches held them securely aloft, rope suspension bridges connecting them to more structures—homes, shops, even a large, sprawling inn that ascended into the trees—shadows upon shadows and endless paths to follow. The architecture of the city was a mix of old and new, ruins repurposed into homes and shops. The pitted ancient stones of another time were joined and fitted with newly polished marble. In some places, the giant trees were a staunch troop of sentries huddled close together, their trunks as wide as two wagons, and only dappled light danced through their soaring canopies. In the center of town, the sentries took a step back, leaving an opening for the sun to shine unobstructed into Hell’s Mouth. It shone now on a white marble building ahead, giving it an ethereal glow.