21. A new deal
21
A NEW DEAL
[Are you injured?] Peralon’s mental voice was thick with concern.
“You might’ve asked before you destroyed a building,” Anahrod retorted. “I’m fine. I’m unharmed. But—”
[Cover your eyes.]
She shuddered as a gold claw grabbed her. Anahrod heard a scream—Sicaryon’s.
“Don’t you dare hurt him!”
The dragon laughed, like sunlight glinting off water flowing down a babbling brook. [I would sooner sit on a church than harm someone important to you. At least Ris would forgive me for destroying a church.]
Anahrod might’ve responded if all her attention hadn’t been on covering her eyes and pretending what was happening was not, in fact, happening.
The wind whipped past her as she hid behind her hands like a child, somehow convinced that if she couldn’t see the monsters, they couldn’t see her either.
Some eternity later—a few seconds, perhaps—Peralon set her down. She fell, rolled, hit something, then stopped for long enough to push herself to her feet. They were back in Tiendremos’s lair.
She’d hit a weather vane.
Peralon had also set Sicaryon on the ground, but directly in front of Claw, who now held a dagger to his throat. Ris and Kaibren both readied ranged weapons, hers a hovering sword and his a crossbow.
Sicaryon was unlikely to understand the threat Naeron represented, but he was there, too.
They might as well have been invisible for all that Sicaryon paid attention to them. His eyes only saw the dragon.
Given Sicaryon’s claim of attending university in Duskcloud, he was guaranteed to have seen dragons before, but likely only from afar. Gauging a dragon’s size was so hard when they were framed by nothing but the open sky. It was only when viewed up close that the terror had a real chance to grab on with claw and tooth.
Peralon kept his distance, although the dragon’s threat loomed. Claw wasn’t being so circumspect, and worse, the woman was three seconds from grabbing Sicaryon by the hair.
If she was right about him wearing a wig, then Claw accidentally removing it would be hilarious and embarrassing for both parties.
They’d never forgive each other.
So Anahrod intervened. She would’ve put her sword between them, but she hadn’t been wearing it when Sicaryon had kidnapped her. Who wears a sword to dinner? She put her hand on Claw’s arm, and hoped the woman remembered that Anahrod was an indispensable part of “the plan.”
“Don’t hurt him,” Anahrod ordered. “That’s Sicaryon. We need him, remember?”
Ris gave her a surprised look. Anahrod ignored it in favor of the more imminent threat to peace: Claw and her eager knives.
“Sheath your claws, Claw.” Ris studied the man. “Funny. I expected you to be—”
“More covered in mud.” Claw pulled the knife away from Sicaryon’s throat and backed away. “What’s this world coming to when you can’t even count on the monsters to look the part?”
Sicaryon put a hand to his collar and stretched his neck to the side. His gaze never left Peralon. “I’m not the monster in the room.”
Her sword-brother dusted himself off. He straightened and pulled an invisible cloak of dignity back around his shoulders, as though he was the one who’d summoned them. He reverted to ruler, wearing no crown but the one that mattered: attitude.
Kaibren looked impressed, but the man was a huge fan of the stage.
Ris smiled her most charming smile. “I find myself more than a little curious what a Deeper king is doing above the cloud sea, let alone in Seven Crests.”
Sicaryon turned to Ris for the first time then; his gaze turned appraising.
Anahrod could tell exactly what he was thinking, because it wasn’t so far off from her own reaction upon first meeting Ris and realizing what she was: too bad she’s a dragonrider.
Sicaryon turned back to Anahrod. “These are the people who ‘rescued’ you the last time? The ones who killed my men?”
“Shit,” Claw muttered under her breath.
“Yes,” Anahrod said. It was the truth, after all.
“We were rescuing her this time, too,” Ris cut in, clearly unhappy about being dismissed from the conversation as inconsequential. “Because apparently your idea of helping your sword-sister looks a lot like kidnapping to anyone else.”
The only sign Sicaryon gave that he’d heard Ris was a flaring of his nostrils. “Have I misunderstood the situation, Anah? You’re happy in the lair of a dragon ?” He glared at Peralon.
“I’m not sure I’d describe it as happy,” Anahrod admitted, “but I’m convinced that it’s necessary.”
“Why?” Sicaryon demanded.
Ris started to say something; Anahrod answered first. “Because of Neveranimas.”
Sicaryon’s expression turned judgmental. “So, you’re interested in revenge then, after all.”
She sucked in a breath.
The conversation always came back to this.
“No,” she said. “That’s not it.”
“It’s about money,” Claw chimed in. “Huge, giant heaps of money.” She gleefully ignored the “stop it” motions Ris was making.
Sicaryon glanced at Claw. “No, it’s not.”
Claw’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse you, troll boy? I just told you what our motive is.”
“You told me what your motive is, yes,” he agreed, “but Anahrod’s not that shallow.”
Claw put her hand to a knife hilt. “Ris, are you sure I can’t kill him?”
Nobody else said a word. They all waited on Ris.
“Do you trust me?” Anahrod asked Sicaryon. It was an unfair question. She knew it was an unfair question. Once, the answer would’ve been obvious, but they’d been apart for too long.
Except the bastard didn’t hesitate, not for one second. “Of course I do.”
“Then please trust that I will explain everything to you later,” Anahrod said. “I’m not in any danger. You know where I’m staying—clearly—so give us a way to contact you and we’ll set up another meeting. Later. When everyone’s calmer.”
He narrowed his eyes. “No.”
“You just said you trusted me—”
“I trust you,” Sicaryon clarified. “Not them.” He gave Ris a dark look. “Which means they don’t have my cooperation until they cut me in.”
“In men, greed oft surpasses valor’s grace,” Kaibren commented. He didn’t seem upset, though. He mostly looked amused.
“No fucking kidding,” Claw spat. “Wait. Cut you into what? What do you think is going on here?”
Sicaryon cast a contemptuous look at the young woman. “It involves Neveranimas, her right hand Tiendremos is involved somehow, and it’s an opportunity to get rich. You’ve told me everything I need to know.” He raised an eyebrow at Anahrod. “Are we robbing Neveranimas’s hoard, or someone else’s?”
Everyone tensed. Not in an embarrassed way, but as a prelude to violence.
“We need him,” Anahrod reminded the group.
They didn’t know Sicaryon the way she did. He wouldn’t go down without a fight. Anahrod glanced at Naeron.
Under normal circumstances, Sicaryon wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Ris had that look in her eyes again, the one that said she was a woman who let nothing come between her and her plans. Her fingers tapped an impatient drumbeat against her thigh.
“Not important,” Ris answered the man’s question.
“I disagree,” he told her.
Ris locked gazes with Sicaryon. “I don’t care. It’s cute that Anahrod’s trying to save your life by making you seem important, but you’re of vast insignificance. Count yourself grateful that I want to keep Anahrod’s favor too much to just kill you out of hand.”
Anahrod couldn’t tell if Ris was serious or if this was a bargaining tactic.
She did know it was out of character for Ris to act like this—unless someone was jeopardizing her plans. Or she was frightened.
Maybe this was both.
In response, Sicaryon grinned rakishly at Anahrod. “I get it now,” he told her.
Anahrod sighed.
Ris’s green eyes turned cold. She motioned to the group. “Everyone, go back to what you were doing. We’ll set up a meeting later. You—” She pointed a finger at Sicaryon. “We’re talking in private. Now.”
Anahrod tensed. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Oh no,” Sicaryon disagreed, “this is a fantastic idea. Ris and I need to get to know one another. We have so many things to discuss.”
Ris was practically baring her teeth. “I agree.”
Claw grabbed Anahrod’s arm. “Come on. I want to stay and watch the show as much as you do, but we should give these lovebirds their privacy.”
Anahrod scowled. “They’re going to kill each other.”
“That’s why I want to stay and watch.” Claw tugged harder on her arm. She must have noticed that Anahrod didn’t have a weapon. “Now come on. There’s this fantastic puppet show they do over at the Southern Court Fountain. Want to join Kaibren and me? They’re about to do Daughter of Darkness .”
“No thank you, I—” Anahrod noticed Kaibren put his head in his hand, as though Claw had just said something embarrassing or rude.
Anahrod turned to Naeron. “What’s Daughter of Darkness about?”
“You,” he replied.
Of course it was.
Claw rolled her eyes. “Why do you have to spoil everything, Naeron? The look on her face would’ve been so worth it.”
Anahrod just glared. “Go on ahead—”
“No,” Naeron said. “We all leave.” He wore a stubborn, unhappy expression.
Anahrod gave one last glance at Sicaryon and Ris. They were locked in an actual, honest-to-Eannis staring contest.
The swords would come out—literally as well as figuratively—the moment they were alone. Which was a problem, since Sicaryon wasn’t armed.
[I won’t allow it to come to violence,] Peralon told Anahrod. [Don’t worry about your friend.]
In theory, she shouldn’t have taken Peralon’s word for that, either. He was biased.
She still felt reassured, and then annoyed at herself for feeling reassured.
“Fine,” Anahrod said. “I’ll find you both later.”
Anahrod only left physically.
She had to at least pretend to leave, since Naeron, Kaibren, and Claw were escorting her back like she was under arrest, but she cast her awareness out at the first opportunity, looking for something small and easy to miss.
She found a scrabber, because scrabbers were everywhere.
Maneuvering the little rat proved the hardest part, but once it lurked in the right part of Tiendremos’s cave, her eavesdropping opportunities were secured.
She knew it was rude, but there was no way she was allowing this conversation to happen out of her earshot.
Ris and Sicaryon had barely moved from the position where she’d seen them last, still glaring at each other. The staring contest had transformed into a battle of wills to see who would break the silence first.
“Fine,” Ris eventually growled. “What’s your price?”
Sicaryon’s brows rose. “Price?”
“Yes. What do I have to pay you to make sure that you give me what I need and then we never see your pretty face again? Money? Inscriptions? What is your price? ”
Sicaryon smiled wryly. “You really are jealous, aren’t you?”
Ris’s stare turned lethal. “Don’t pretend that you’re here for any reason other than indulging a puerile obsession. She means nothing to you, assuming she ever did.”
Anahrod flinched and almost lost her hold on the scrabber.
Sicaryon stopped smiling. “You don’t know that.”
“I don’t?” Ris tilted her head. “How many spouses do you have? Wasn’t it something like forty? Not exactly a sign of true love, is it?”
He blinked. “What?”
“Don’t pretend you didn’t understand me. You speak Haudan just fine.” She ran her finger along the edge of a rusted weather vane shaped like a castle, sending it spinning.
Sicaryon stepped toward her, then stopped as Peralon shifted his weight as a not-too-subtle reminder that there was a dragon still in the cave. Sicaryon gave the dragon a wary look before focusing once more on Ris. “I understood the words. That doesn’t mean I have any idea what the hell you’re talking about. I’m not married. I’ve never been married. Every time I go home, someone gives me grief about it.”
Ris stared at the man. “You expect me to believe—”
“I don’t care what you believe,” Sicaryon told her. “I care what you drag Anahrod into. She’s been through enough.” He narrowed his eyes. “Oh. I see the problem. You think I don’t know who you are.”
Ris inhaled softly, took a step back. “I’m sure she mentioned my name.”
He shook his head. “No. Not who Anahrod thinks you are. Who you really are . Not so many redheads who can make swords dance and ride a gold dragon in the world.” He pointed a finger. “I grew up on stories about you.”
Anahrod felt a jolt of shock, not just at Sicaryon’s words, but at Ris’s response.
Ris regrouped, stepped forward again—unquestionably a threat. “Then you know what happens to people who cross me.”
“I do,” he agreed, “which is also why I know this isn’t about wealth, no matter what that girl with the knives said. You don’t need money”—he glanced up at Peralon—“or power. And you don’t want fame.”
She crossed her arms. “Then what do I want?”
He pursed his lips, looked her over speculatively. “It’s like you said: I know what happens to people who cross you. There are no more Valekings, are there?” He raised his hands. “Don’t misunderstand. I’m a huge fan of your work. Positively inspirational.”
Her nostrils flared with anger, and then Ris seemed to visibly shove all those emotions down into a deep pit. She smiled, more sarcastic than genuine, but still an effort. “Don’t you have a kingdom to run?”
Sicaryon raised an eyebrow as if to say: I see and accept your surrender. “No, and I’ve worked very hard to keep it that way.”
“Lucky you,” she replied dryly.
“Like I said: you’re an inspiration.”
“And just what will it take to keep you from saying anything—”
“Hey! Wake up!”
Anahrod frowned as her attention jerked back to her own body, and her eyes focused on Claw. “Did you just slap me?” Anahrod prodded the side of her face.
Tender.
“Given how good you are with a sword,” Claw replied, “absolutely not.” She gestured to a now familiar common area with its tables and sitting area by the fireplace. “But we’re back at the guesthouse, so maybe you ran into a door?”
There was no use being mad, she told herself. Several times.
Naeron sat down by the fire and pulled out a thick ivory needle and yarn. He gave Anahrod an arch look. “Spying is rude.”
Anahrod didn’t bother trying to defend herself. She just gave him a nod and then hurried to her room, hoping she could reestablish the link in time to hear more of the conversation.
Ris and Sicaryon had already finished talking, leaving her with far more questions than answers.
At least Peralon hadn’t let them kill each other.