I looked at Rafe. A sheen of sweat lit his brow. Another hand. Lia held her cards close, closing her eyes for a moment as if she was trying to think them into an order that wasn’t there. The governors placed their bets. Lia placed hers. Malich topped them all and revealed two of his cards. Lia looked at her cards again and shook her head. She added more chits to the pile and revealed two of hers, the same losing two she had been revealing all night. The governors upped their ante—their final bid of the hand. So did Lia, shoving the last of her chits into the center of the table. Malich smiled, met the ante, and shoved his pile to the center as well. He laid his cards out. A fortress of lords.

The governors threw down their cards, unable to beat him.

Everyone waited, breathless, for Lia to lay her cards out. She frowned and shook her head. Then looked at me. Blinked. A slow blink as long as a thousand miles.

Then back at Malich.

A long sigh, contrite.

She laid out her cards.

Six black wings.

A perfect hand.

“I think this beats yours, doesn’t it, Malich?”

Malich’s mouth hung open. And then a roar of laughter filled the room. Lia leaned forward and gathered the chits in. The three governors nodded, impressed. Malich stared at her, still not believing what she had done. At last he looked around him, taking in the crowd and the laughter. He stood, his chair flying behind him, his face black with rage, and drew his dagger.

The shing of a dozen drawn daggers, including mine, echoed in return.

“Go drink it off, Malich. She beat you fairly,” Governor Faiwell said.

Malich’s chest heaved, and his glare landed on me, then my knife. He turned away roughly, tripping on the chair behind him, and stormed out of the hall, four Rahtan brothers following on his heels.

Daggers were sheathed. The laughter resumed.

Rafe reached up and wiped the sweat from his upper lip. He had made a swift move toward Lia when Malich drew his knife, as if he intended to block him. Weaponless. Not exactly the behavior of an uninterested court confectionary. Ulrix yanked Rafe away, remembering his duties at last.

I looked back at Lia. She was unruffled, her chin tucked as her eyes still gazed at the now-empty corridor where Malich had exited. Her stare was cold and satisfied.

“Gather your winnings,” I ordered.

I escorted her out of the hall and back to my room. When I had shut the door and locked it, I spun toward her.

She was already facing me defiantly, waiting.

“Have you lost your mind?” I yelled. “Did you have to humiliate him in front of his comrades? Isn’t it enough that he already hates you with the fire of a thousand suns?”

Her expression was grim. Unfeeling. She was in no hurry to answer, but when she did, her tone held no emotion. “Malich laughed the night he told me that he had killed Greta. He reveled in her death. He said it was easy. Her death cost him nothing. It will now. Every day that I breathe, I will make it cost him something. Every time I see that same smug grin on his face, I will make him pay for it.”

She dumped her winnings on the bed and looked back at me. “So the short answer to your question, Kaden, is no. It’s not enough. It will never be enough.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

RAFE

Now I understood why Sven preferred soldiering to love. It was easier to understand and far less likely to get you killed.

I was perplexed when I first saw her walk over to the table where several of the barbarians were playing cards. Then I spotted Malich at the table, and it rushed back to me. I’ll take a game of cards to stitchery any day. My brothers are shrewd, bordering on thieves when it comes to their cards—the best kind of teachers to have.

Last night it had been all I could do to stand there and not wring her neck myself, but it was harder still to not have a sword in my hand to protect her from Malich.

Yes, Lia, you were and still are a challenge. But damned if I hadn’t felt a surge of admiration for her too, even as sweat ran down my neck and I silently cursed her. That was not what I would call sitting tight. Did she ever listen to anyone?

I threw my belt onto the chest. This room was getting on my nerves. The smell, the furnishings, the floral rug. It was suited for some pompous court fool. I opened a shutter to let in some of the brisk night air.

It was our seventh day here, and there was still no sign of Sven, Tavish, Orrin, or Jeb. Too long. I was beginning to fear the worst. What if I had led my friends to their deaths? I had made a promise to Lia that I would get us out of this. What if I couldn’t?

Don’t bring her down with you.… If the Komizar or Council gets the faintest whiff …

I had tried with every power within me not to look at her. The only time we had spoken in days was in clipped words in Sanctum Hall with too many ears listening to say anything remotely helpful to either of us. I knew she was becoming impatient with my persistent disregard of her, but it wasn’t just Kaden who kept a close watch. The Rahtan did too. I sensed that they wanted to catch one or both of us in a lie. Their distrust ran high. And then there was Calantha. I often saw her standing in the shadows in the hall before everyone sat down to eat, scrutinizing Lia, then turning to watch me. There were few women here in the Sanctum, and none seemed to have any position or power—except her. I wasn’t sure what the power was or how much she had, because she was always guarded with my inquiries, and no one else would share anything about her, no matter how casual I kept my questions.

That didn’t keep her from trying to dig information out of me, though she tried to make it look like idle banter. She asked me the prince’s age and then asked me my own age. The prince is nineteen, I had told her, sticking to the truth in case she had knowledge of it, and then I told her I was twenty-five, so it wouldn’t invite musings about us being the same age. In truth, I had no personal emissaries. I was a soldier and had no need of messengers or agents to negotiate for me, so all of my answers in regard to an emissary were drawn from a place of greed—a motive the Komizar would understand if Calantha carried our conversations back to him.