The Thief Queen's Daughter

  * * *

  When he was shown into the place where King Vandemere kept his puzzles off the Throne Room, a grand meal had been laid out for them both. The king sat at his table, across from where Ven’s plate had been laid, buttering a poppy seed roll when Ven came into the room.

  “No need for that,” the king said as Ven attempted to bow, waving his butter knife at Ven. “Have a seat. Will you be joining us, Galliard?”

  The Vizier drew himself up haughtily.

  “No, thank you.”

  “So, Ven, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” the king said as Ven took his place.

  “Yes, Your Majesty?”

  The king chewed ungracefully, then swallowed.

  “Which of the girls in the inn is the prettiest?”

  Ven blinked. “Excuse me, Your Majesty?”

  “The prettiest—which one of the girls where you live is prettiest?” The king popped another piece of the roll into his mouth. “In your opinion, of course.”

  “Hmmm,” Ven said. “I’ve never really thought about it. I’m not much of a judge of human beauty, sire, being Nain and all.”

  “Well, who has the nicest hair? Surely you can make a judgment about that.”

  Ven’s face went hot. “Uhm, well, Ciara has very nice curls, I suppose,” he said awkwardly. Behind the king’s back he could see Galliard’s eyes roll. “But Bridgette has the most, er, unusual hair of all of them—it’s red—and long.” He lapsed into silence, feeling foolish.

  The king nodded, buttering another piece of the roll. “And the prettiest smile? Who has that? I don’t get to see many girls where I am, being king and all. It’s nice to hear about them at least if I can’t see them.”

  Ven swallowed. “I would say that Emma’s smile is probably the nicest. She’s very shy—Emma, I mean—and so when she smiles it’s, well, extra special.”

  The Vizier bowed sharply. “Excuse me. I have work to do.” He turned and left the room, closing the door abruptly.

  King Vandemere watched him leave, then turned to Ven.

  “Sorry about that,” he said quickly. “I haven’t gone suddenly insane, Ven—I just wanted to be certain Galliard believes that we are babbling about things that young men babble about. Otherwise he would insist on staying and hearing whatever you said. And I want to be able to do that alone.”

  Ven sighed, relieved. “Oh, good. I had thought for a moment that I had been observing the wrong things for you as your eyes out in the world, Your Majesty.”

  “Tell me about the Thieves’ Market,” the king said.

  * * *

  So I told him everything I could remember, from everything in the street festival of the Outer Market, to the Arms of Coates and the dogs, Madame Sharra, and the Raven’s Guild. And I told him about the Downworlders. He was especially interested in hearing the details of this lost group of souls who lived out of sight of the world, in tunnels below the streets of the Gated City.

  While I was talking he took out a box I had seen before, a box of many strangely shaped pieces of glass that he used to form a puzzle that would help him figure out the answer to something he didn’t understand. He had fit together a brightly colored ring when I told him of the sights of the Outer Market, forming an inner picture made of dark purples, blues, and blacks and we spoke of the Raven’s Guild, leaving a center of black with one missing middle piece as I told him about the Wonder.

  * * *

  “There’s something missing,” King Vandemere said, running his fingers over the puzzle he was constructing. “‘The brightest light in the darkest shadow is yours.’ I still don’t understand, even hearing the story.”

  A thought struck Ven. “The Rat King told us a story,” he said, “the story of how the Wonder came to be in the realm of the Downworlders. Would it help if I told you that?”

  “Absolutely,” said the king.

  “Even though you fired me as the Royal Reporter, I took notes so I could tell it to you as the hammered truth. Like my father always said, ‘Tell people the hammered truth, and it will ring like steel against an anvil.’”

  “Exactly what I want,” the king said, taking more pieces out of the box. “Tell it to me as much in the Rat King’s words, and voice, as you can.”

  So Ven did.

  23

  The Rat King’s Tale

  * * *

  I tried to get the rhythm of it, the way the Rat King’s voice went from being rough and coarse into being almost poetic. It was as if he were telling an ancient tale he had heard and repeated many times, like the chants my brothers and sister sing in the factory, even though they are Nain who have never even seen the mountains, let alone lived in them.

  * * *

  The Thief Who Stole a Piece of the Sun

  This here’s our sun.

  Don’t stare. You should never stare straight at the sun—you’ll burn yer eyes. Then you’ll never see nothin’ for the rest of yer life but something that looks like the sun. Just a red glow to remind you that some things are too great for a man’s eyes to behold for long.

  But that’s what this is. A piece of living fire, shaved right from the rim of your sun by a hero whose name was never spoken, so it is no longer known. But we honor him anyway.

  Let me tell it from the beginning.

  There was never a time, Nain, when we weren’t a people outside. Our beginnings were the same as now, we live inside the empty belly of the world, and always have. For us, life is one long day, not marked the way your many days are, by the rising and setting of the sun. In the very beginning we had a sort of red sun that glowed for us all around, but as time and we grew older, the light faded. Hungry then, we grew hungrier.

  And we lived in endless darkness. We knew nothing of the sun.

  There was a Thief. Though we are not thieves, he was one of our kind. During the warm, short nights he would go upworld for us, get our harvest, the food and drink we needed. He would take it from barns and fields, from castles, whatever he could find. It was never enough to drive away the hunger. But he tried.

  On one night that was too short, coming home he was late, and the sun rose before he was able to return to the Downworld. Then he saw the roof of your world, looked up and beheld the warmth, the light. He saw the sun for the very first time. And he wanted it. He didn’t return to our realm, but stayed, entranced, and watched as it moved across the blue roof you call the sky. He watched as the sun cast ropes of clouds to the sea in the evening, and wanted to climb those golden ropes, to see for himself the altar of the sun, maybe help himself to a bit of the buttery gold there.

  The Thief remained upworld for days. He stalked the sun, each time it rose in the east and traveled toward its home in the west. He followed it until he came to the great cliffs of the west at the top of the Great River. But he could not reach the sun. Weeping, he sat in the evening shadow of the great fortress of the old kings. And a king found him there.

  The king who found the Thief sang to him the sun’s song, gave the Thief a sharp hard sword, gave him a long dark cloak, gave to him the secret that the king could catch the sun and hold it. These were the greatest gifts anyone had ever given to one of our kind. This is why we return gifts to the king.

  The song of the king told of how to catch the sun, how to make it wait long enough in its journey from east to west to climb there. The Thief would need a road to the sun, not a road of bricks and cobblestones, but a road of song, light enough to float above the clouds to the roof of the world, strong enough to hold him.

  There was a Singer who worked for the king, just a boy, but gifted beyond his years, who could sing the road, keep the wide path from sea to sun so strong a cart could ride it. He sang the road and followed the Thief, all day, all the way to the high altar of the sun, but he was a boy. He was strong but not wise, and as he sang and followed, he looked. And his eyes were burned, as your eyes will be should you ever be brash enough to stare at the sun. He became blind, blinded by the road, by the altar, bl
inded so deep that even his children were blind. Oh, what glories he saw, but no more to see what everyone else sees, to have only memories of sight.

  But the Thief, he was a thief. He didn’t look at it, like he doesn’t look at you, he looked for it, for where the gold of it is, so that the full shine of it went around him, not into his eyes. He also had the gift of the long dark cloak, and that saved him as well.

  And when he arrived at the altar of the sun, such brightness, such richness, I do not even have words in my own tongue to tell. With the sharp hard sword he shaved some slivers of the sun, with the greatest of care, as if it were a precious gem, carefully, so that none might be missed. He wrapped the slivers in the long dark cloak. Stones and flowers from the sun’s garden, fruits and feathers from the sun’s orchards, grains from the sun’s fields, a great bundle he stole, all gifts from the sun to bring to us, his people.

  The road was strong as a rope of sun, strong as the song, and the boy was a boy. They ran. The Thief led the blind Singer down the wide road, but on the way the song failed. High still, they fell, from the sun into the sea.

  Deep in earth the Thief had been, and on it, but not in water. The king saw them fall. Came himself to bring the Thief and the boy to land. All the treasures in the bundle fell too, some lost in the sea. But one sliver came to us. Came here to warm and light our home.

  So that is why some Singers are blind—they are the children of the boy. And that is why the Wonder is here, burning in splendor, even though it is just the tiniest shard of the sun. And that is why we sent the most precious thing we had to your king’s father, as we do to each king—because that king long ago was the first Upworlder, and the last, to see us as brothers, as worthy of having the light of the sun shine upon us, too.

  And we remember that.

  24

  The Riddle Solved

  TELL ME AGAIN,” SAID THE KING, “WHAT MACEDON SAID ABOUT my father.”

  Ven thought hard. “He said, ‘Don’t forget to tell the king this—that what belonged to his father is by right his now.’ But when I told him I thought the riddle referred to the Wonder, he told me I was wrong.”

  King Vandemere smiled broadly. He took a golden puzzle piece out of the box and set it in the middle of the dark center, within the purple, black, and blue inner ring, which sat inside the multicolored outer ring.

  “I understand now,” he said, pleased. “‘The brightest light in the darkest shadow is yours.’ They’re not talking about the Wonder, Ven. They’re talking about themselves.” He smiled as Ven looked puzzled.

  “The Downworlders may be poor, wretched people who live in terrible conditions, in the midst of a city of thieves, but they are loyal to the king—that’s what they are saying. They are the brightest light inside the darkest shadow—a place of lawlessness and treachery where some of the most terrible deeds are done, the most evil plans hatched. They are letting me know that, unlike everyone else beyond those gates, they are loyal to me, as they were to my father. As they were to every king back to the one in the story. That’s why the stone glowed golden for my father and blue for me when he was alive—he was the king, and I wasn’t. But now that I am king, it glows golden for me. It’s a sign that I have their loyalty now.”

  Ven’s curiosity was running wild. “Of course. And there are others there, too, Your Majesty. Not everyone in that city took advantage of us, or tried to harm or rob us. Mr. Coates could not have been kinder to us, and if he hadn’t lent us Finlay and Munx, we would never have found Saeli. I hope he’s all right.”

  “I suspect he is,” the king said. “Weaponsmakers are hard to kill. I hope I get to meet him someday.”

  “I hope so, too. There was a Singer in there as well, though I don’t think he was blind, who helped us, too. And even the woman who pointed us to the Stolen Alleyway—she said that some of the people who lived there weren’t thieves, but were just the kin of thieves whose great-grandparents and before had been sent away to the penal colony. It’s hard to believe there can be good in a place that’s mostly evil.”

  “Why?” the king asked. “There is evil within places that are mostly good. That’s why I fired you, in case you didn’t know. I realized as soon as I made you the Royal Reporter that I had set you up as a target for people who might want to get to me—and by firing you in public, the word is now out, so that should not be the case anymore. So you should be safe—and I now know that there is a band of loyalists beneath the streets of the Gated City whom I can call on to stand with me when the time comes. You could not have brought me better news, Ven.”

  Ven’s blood suddenly ran cold.

  “This is the second time you’ve suggested you might be in danger,” he said nervously. “Do you think something is going to happen to you?”

  The king exhaled. “Not necessarily to me, but there is power in a castle. Those that seek to do evil seek power. I don’t know if there is something afoot, or if I am just being paranoid. But there is something in the pit of my stomach telling me that I have to be ready for the day when something bad does happen, something that will be my responsibility to defend against. You are helping me discover what might be coming by helping me find all the magic that is out in the world, hiding in plain sight. Just as I seek to preserve that magic, it is not surprising that it is a target for destruction as well. As I said, I suspect that out there in the world are forces that would like to see that happen. Who knows—perhaps they are even within the walls of my very own castle. It’s hard to say. I can’t read the heart or mind of every page, every servant who works here. There are very few people I can trust, especially since Graal, my chief Vizier, has been away for so long. He is the wisest of men, having served each high king of Serendair from the beginning of the time when there were high kings. I always trust his judgment, for as a Vizier, he can see inside many places that are invisible to others.”

  “What about Galliard?” Ven asked. “Isn’t he also a Vizier?”

  The king nodded. “Indeed, and he is a wise man as well. But Galliard is still training in the Vizieri arts, while Graal has been one for centuries. Graal is an Ancient Seren, a race older than any other on the face of the earth. He understands history, because he lived through it. And he understands the future, because he can see it. I miss his counsel. I hope he returns soon.”

  “I do, too,” said Ven. “I’m curious to see him.”

  King Vandemere smiled. “He will enjoy meeting you. He has a fondness for Nain.” He picked up the puzzle pieces and began to put them away.

  “Remember, Ven,” he said as he closed the box, “that riddle about the brightest light in the darkest shadow applies to more than just the Downworlders. I would say it also might one day be about your friend Ida.”

  “Ida?” Ven said incredulously. “No offense, Your Majesty, but Ida doesn’t seem the type to me to have allegiance to you, or anyone else. Ida’s loyalty is to Ida.”

  “Really?” the king said. “Then why did she go back into a city where her hated mother is in charge, knowing the chances were that she would be caught again?”

  Ven thought about the question. “Because Saeli was missing, and we needed her help.”

  “That sounds like the definition of loyalty to me,” said the king. “Don’t mistake friendliness with loyalty, Ven. Friendly and loyal are two different things. There are a lot of people who are one and not the other. From what you told me a few days ago, your own mother doesn’t sound like a very friendly person—but she is a good one, yes?”

  “Oh yes,” Ven agreed.

  “Then judge Ida by whether she is there for you in times of need, as she seems to be, not by whether she is pleasant to you. In the end, you can get many people to be pleasant to you pretty easily. A true friend, someone who will risk her life and her freedom for you, as your other friends would, is very hard to come by.”

  “Thank you,” Ven said. “I’ll remember that. So what do we do about Felonia?”

  The king rubbed his chin.
r />   “She will be trapped in the Market for a while, by her own actions. By releasing the Screaming Ravens, she shut the city down, even the secret exits, for a few days at least. That gives us time to destroy all the current Market Day tokens and replace them with new ones. I would shut down Market Day as well, but for the sake of the few people in the Outer Market who depend upon it for their living, I think I’ll keep it open. But Felonia’s chest of stolen tokens will bring her nothing now.”

  “Good thought,” said Ven. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his own token. “I was going to give you this as a memento of my adventure—Char and Clem lost theirs in the well, and Ida and Saeli had theirs taken away. So as far as I know, this is the only Market Day token to make it out of the Gated City through an exit other than the Main Gate.”

  The king laughed as he took the ribbon.

  “Excellent,” he said. “Thank you.” The expression on his face turned solemn. “To that end, I am thinking it might not be a bad idea to send you away for a while, Ven—and all your friends who were with you in the Gated City. By the time Felonia can reach beyond the walls again, if you’re gone from the inn, that would probably be a good thing for all involved—including the other people who live there.”

  “Where would you send me?” Ven asked, his skin itching like fire ants were biting him.

  The king smiled again.

  “Actually, I have a mission in mind past the Great River,” he said. “The good news is—being Nain is what is needed to deal with the situation. I would be sending you to the foothills of the High Reaches, where the Nain live in Serendair. You might even meet some.”