25. A bright and smiling trouble
25
A brIGHT AND SMILING TROUBLE
The Silver Herald was more lavish than even most Crystalspire liners (which was quite the statement). Gwydinion’s room was splendor itself: large enough to house a full-size bed and just enough space to walk around it. The cabin also contained an en suite water closet and a smaller bedroom for a valet or personal assistant. The rest of Gwydinion’s “staff” (i.e., Claw, Kaibren, and Naeron) were assigned a nearby cabin.
Sicaryon gave the second bed a quick glance. He didn’t grin. He so purposefully didn’t grin that Anahrod could feel it like an itch at the back of her neck.
“The other cabin sleeps four,” she told Sicaryon as she dumped her knapsack on the bed. “There’s an extra bed for you.”
He gave her an unimpressed look. “And if there’s a problem? I’m supposed to magically foresee danger and run over?”
“Are you under the impression that you’re really here as a bodyguard?” She scowled as soon as the words left her mouth. She was being a massive bitch.
That she knew exactly why she was behaving so badly didn’t excuse it.
Sicaryon ignored the question. “What happened back there in the carriage?” He raised a finger. “Don’t tell me ‘nothing important.’ I don’t believe you.”
Anahrod ignored him in favor of studying the cabin. Several windows faced out from the main room, including a large glass door that opened out onto a small balcony. She closed the curtains over the windows and the door while averting her gaze, so she didn’t accidentally see over the side. She unshuttered the inscribed lamps to keep the room from falling into a sullen darkness.
Gwydinion just stared at her unhappily.
“What are you doing?” Sicaryon still looked perplexed, but a different sort of perplexed.
“Reducing the odds of an incident.” She knew it was no answer at all and she didn’t care.
“Is it working?”
Gwydinion glared at Sicaryon. “But seriously: Who are you?”
“Gwydinion, I’d like you to meet ‘His Royal Majesty,’ King Sicaryon.” Anah rod didn’t bother to hide her disdain. “Sicaryon, meet my little brother, Gwydinion.”
She almost laughed, watching their shock as they both realized each other’s identity. Gwydinion never imagined Sicaryon would leave the Deep, and Sicaryon knew Anahrod was an only child.
“You? You can’t be Sicaryon .”
“Let me guess, you were expecting purple skin.”
“No, but—but.” Gwydinion jabbed a finger in the man’s direction. “You set fire to that targrove swamp!”
“No. One of my soldiers did that and won’t be doing it ever again.”
“Okay, fine. But your people still tried to kidnap her! Anahrod, you expect me to believe—”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t point fingers when it comes to kidnapping Anahrod,” Sicaryon rebutted.
Gwydinion turned bright red and sputtered.
Anahrod sat down on the master bed and put her head in her hands. Gwydinion and Sicaryon both stopped yelling.
“One question, Gwydinion,” Anahrod finally said. “Did you know the whole time? That you were my half brother?”
When she raised her head, the boy swallowed, and then nodded at her, once.
Sicaryon studied Gwydinion, then said to Anahrod, “You told me you have two mothers.”
“It was true at the time,” Anahrod said. “Although it turns out that one of my parents was late-sprouting. Gwydinion and I share the same birth mother.”
Gwydinion looked uncomfortable. “I… well. That is to say—”
Anahrod gave him a questioning look. “How is that wrong? Belsaor’s not your mother?”
“No, she is,” Gwydinion reassured her. “She absolutely is. She’s just, uh—” He seemed at a loss for words.
“What don’t I understand?” Anahrod asked the boy.
“That I’m not your half brother.” Gwydinion pulled a small box from his coat, roughly the size of a pack of playing cards.
She turned the sentence over in her mind until the answer to the riddle slotted into place. “Aiden e’Doreyl was my donor father?”
“I’m pretty sure, yes,” Gwydinion said. “I mean, our mother wasn’t cheating on her first spouse or anything. It wasn’t like that.”
“I’m aware,” Anahrod said. The worst part about it was that she didn’t think her first mother—her father now—had even wanted children. He just wanted to be mayor, and voters always elected parents. Parents were “less likely to make rash decisions.”
She wondered if Mayor e’Doreyl had known who she really was when he’d tried to help her escape.
“Is that a baby cave wurm?” Sicaryon’s voice, harsh with incredulity, broke her out of her stupor.
Anahrod’s head snapped up. Gwydinion had placed that small box on the bed before unfolding it several times in exactly the way normal boxes didn’t. After unfolding it to the size of a trunk, Gwydinion opened the lid and removed a small glass tank.
Gwydinion was unwinding a small, pale green snake from his wrist when Sicaryon had made the observation.
“Your snake survived?” Anahrod had assumed it must’ve drowned during the trip down the river.
Gwydinion gave her a broad smile. “It did, yes!” Then he leveled a much less pleasant expression at Sicaryon. “What’s a cave wurm?”
“Incredibly dangerous.” Sicaryon looked appalled. “I know how dangerous that venom is, and if I was back in the Deep, I’d have an antidote, but maybe you haven’t noticed that we’re not in the Deep?”
“Believe me,” Anahrod said, “I’ve noticed.”
He snorted. “And that is not a snake. Cave wurms are warm-blooded.”
Anahrod nodded. “They’d have to be, wouldn’t they?” She began unpacking her knapsack. She didn’t have much, but the single object of value was extraordinarily so: Peralon’s dragonstone.
“Also, I don’t know how fast those creatures grow, but let’s hope it takes a long, long time, because I’ve heard of cave wurms so large they can swallow a man whole. Are you just going to let him—” Sicaryon stopped short. “Oh.”
Gwydinion also paused. “What does that mean?”
“You told me earlier, didn’t you?” Sicaryon said to Anahrod. “He can speak with animals the same way you can.”
Anahrod nodded, her throat tight.
“I’ve named him Legless.” Gwydinion metaphorically ran right over Sicaryon’s observation as he put the tank down on a side table, laying it on a thick matting of felted wool designed to cushion against air turbulence.
The announcement distracted Sicaryon. “Seriously?” He pointed a finger at the boy. “That does it. You’re not allowed to name things.”
“Feel free to roll your eyes at him like a proper teenager, Gwydinion. He doesn’t get to tell you what to do.”
“I already know that, ” the boy said, rolling his eyes at them both.
“Why did I ever think it was a good idea to leave the place where people treat me with respect?” Sicaryon asked the ceiling.
“I’ve wondered that myself,” Anahrod admitted. “Aren’t you supposed to be ruling something? I thought that job entailed more than just playing stud to your stable of forty spouses. You know, you should’ve stopped at thirty. That way, you could’ve had one for every day of the month. Fairer that way.”
He squinted at her. “Why does everyone keep saying—? I’m not married!”
“That’s not what I hear.”
Sicaryon scowled. “And I hear you sacrificed at least three children to Zavad and seduced several priests, so maybe you shouldn’t believe all the stories.”
She paused, dragonstone still in her lap. “Fine, you’re not married.” Anahrod eyed the folding box. It might be the only place in the cabin where she could hide the dragonstone.
“Thank you.”
“Oh, that’s weird.”
Anahrod turned her head. Gwydinion held aloft a piece of silver jewelry, examining it as though he’d never seen it before.
“Is it?” Sicaryon asked idly. He’d also started unpacking, much to Anahrod’s consternation, because damn it, he was not sleeping there.
The jewelry was a mantle brooch, although the color—opal set in a silver knot—wasn’t a Crystalspire style.
Gwydinion looked askance. “Yes? This was in my coat pocket—but it’s not mine.” All the playfulness vanished from his eyes. “That girl. She must have planted it on me.” His expression turned amazed. “I didn’t even see her do it.”
A loud series of bangs shuddered the cabin door as someone slammed their fist against it repeatedly. “Open up! This is the Silver Herald ’s security officer!”
All three of them looked down—first at the brooch in Gwydinion’s hand, and second at the dragonstone sitting in Anahrod’s lap.
Both items would get them into trouble, but only one would see them killed. She doubted “a dragon gave it to me” was an acceptable excuse.
Sicaryon grabbed the dragonstone and tossed it into the folding box.
“Give me that.” Anahrod gestured to the mantle brooch, and Gwydinion threw it to her.
“One minute!” The boy grabbed the edge of the folding box, swiftly reversing his earlier actions to fold it back down to card size. He tucked the deck back into his jacket.
Sicaryon made a “gimmie” motion with his hands to Anahrod, so she tossed him the mantle brooch.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Sicaryon open the balcony door and toss the brooch outside.
“Open up now!” The voice didn’t sound friendly.
“He said one minute!” Anahrod snapped as she opened the door.
These were not Seven Crests men. These people took orders from the dragons, from the school at best and Neveranimas at worst. They would neither respect nor care that Gwydinion was an important person who should be treated with ice-silk gloves.
They dressed like they meant business, too, each of them in dragon-embroidered uniforms and wearing the meaty, tough air of professional bullies. No swords, of course, because who wore swords anymore? But plenty of truncheons and daggers.
Perhaps they were the reason the dragonrider candidates traveled with their own bodyguards. They certainly hadn’t when Anahrod had attended.
“May we help you?” she asked coldly.
The head guard moved to come inside. Anahrod raised an eyebrow and didn’t budge. There was barely room for three people to stand, let alone visitors. She swung open the door enough for the guards to see that they were still unpacking.
“We’ve had reports of a robbery,” the woman said.
Silence followed.
“That’s terrible,” Sicaryon said from over by the balcony door. “We’ll let you know if we see anyone acting suspicious.”
A guard in the back snickered and looked away.
The lead guard wasn’t so amused. “What I mean is that one of the other passengers claimed your charge stole a piece of jewelry from her. We’re here to search your room.”
“Do you realize who this is?” Anahrod gave the other woman a frosty look.
It worked as well as she’d expected: not at all.
“I don’t care who he is,” the other woman snapped. “There are certain behaviors that aren’t tolerated.”
“That’s true,” Gwydinion agreed. “I heard about what happened to Dabra Hilras last year.”
Anahrod glanced back at him. “What happened?”
“They sent him to the Church,” Gwydinion said, “the moment they landed. Never set foot inside the school.” He raised guileless brown eyes to the guards. “But I didn’t take anything. A girl knocked me down when we were finding our suite, but if she dropped anything, I didn’t see it. Is she the one who claimed I stole something?”
“I’m not at liberty—”
“I wonder who she was? She dressed like she was from Grayshroud,” Gwydinion mused innocently.
Grayshroud had the worst reputation of all the Seven Crests cities. They were said to tolerate all the things that were illegal everywhere else. They put even the position of mayor up for auction every five years. Everyone knew Grayshroud was a city of criminals.
Not people who should be trusted.
Two of the guards glanced at each other uneasily. Unfortunately, the head guard never wavered.
“Where she might be from is unimportant,” the woman said. “We’re searching your room. And yourselves,” she added as an afterthought.
“Of course!” Gwydinion agreed. “We’re happy to help however we can.”
The security officer gave him a suspicious, narrow-eyed stare.
Anahrod retreated, taking Sicaryon’s place and “coincidentally” blocking the door leading out to the balcony. While the guards struggled to fit themselves into the space, Anahrod reached out to sense what living animals might be nearby.
Blood crows circled the flyer near the galley. Not unusual: blood crows trailed most flyers, quick to take advantage of discarded bones and skin and other delicious scraps.
She only needed one. Anahrod singled one out and directed it to pick up the brooch from where it had fallen. She sent the blood crow, with its shiny new prize, to some other balcony.
Now the guards would find the jewelry—just not in their cabin. That was one problem solved. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the biggest problem.
“Who wants to be searched first?” a guard asked.
Sicaryon held up his arms. “I’m willing.” He made it sound flirty without being an outright proposition. “As often as it takes.”
Sicaryon made the expected jokes about courtships and marriage offers as the guard patted him down. The guard stoically ignored it.
Or not so stoically. At least one guard might have taken Sicaryon up on his flirting if their boss hadn’t been watching.
They found nothing. Anahrod hadn’t known if Sicaryon had any contraband on his person. If so, he’d hidden it well. Then came Anahrod’s turn, with less flirting but a similar conclusion.
But they weren’t the ones carrying the folding box.
“Where’s your snake?” Anahrod asked Gwydinion.
“Snake?” A guard straightened. “What snake?”
“Oh, I—” Gwydinion glanced inside the tank and made a small, adorable gasp. “I’m so sorry. I forgot I was still wearing him.”
“Wild animals aren’t allowed—” The head security officer drew herself up in preparation for what would no doubt have been a thrilling recitation of whatever rules or laws governed behavior aboard a Yagra’hai cutter.
“It’s a pet,” Gwydinion, Anahrod, and Sicaryon all protested at the same time.
“Admittedly, a venomous pet,” Sicaryon added. “Might I suggest you let the boy put it back in its tank?”
The head officer glared, then gestured for one of the others to step forward. “Search the tank first. Then once he’s put the snake inside, search him.”
Gwydinion seemed happy to let the guard do exactly that, but then, Anahrod suspected the folding box was still in his coat.
“Do you mind if we stand out in the hallway?” Not pausing for an answer, Sicaryon and Gwydinion simultaneously acted—Sicaryon moved while Gwydinion untangled the “snake” from his arm. Anahrod followed Sicaryon’s lead, stepping in from behind.
The result as they moved around Gwydinion was predictable. Gwydinion tripped and Sicaryon reached out to save him. All eyes were on Legless, hanging from Gwydinion’s fingers and about to be dropped on the floor, never to be seen again.
“Don’t drop him!” someone called out.
While this was going on, Anahrod felt a brush against her coat. She didn’t stop to check, but she would bet money (and was betting her life) that someone had just planted the folding box on her.
To an outsider, though, she seemed like the person who’d hung back, never making contact with the others.
“I’ve got him!” Gwydinion reassured everyone as he dropped the “snake” into its tank and shut the lid.
“Good,” the head guard snapped. “Now, please step outside. And search that man again, in case the boy tried to slip him something.”
As the guards went to work, a guard ran up, panting.
“They found the missing brooch, sir!” he said. “Two floors down. On a Windsong candidate’s balcony.”
The woman pinched the bridge of her nose. “Fine. Let’s go talk to them.”
“Can’t do that,” the guard offered cheerfully. “We haven’t picked up the Windsong candidates yet.”
“May I go back to my room?” Gwydinion asked plaintively.
Anahrod kept a neutral expression.
“Fine.” The woman plastered an apologetic smile on her face. “Yes, you may. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“No problem at all,” Sicaryon told her.
Anahrod retreated to the suite as well. Sicaryon shut the door after Gwydinion was inside. The boy started to say something and Anahrod shushed him.
She waited at the door until she was certain she’d heard all the guards walk away.
Gwydinion beamed at them. “Did you see that? That was sunshine!” His smile faltered. “Except that was a setup, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was,” Sicaryon said.
Anahrod shrugged. “Don’t think the guards were part of it. Just told information at the right time by that girl. If they’d really been involved, they would’ve tried to plant something themselves.”
“Speaking of incriminating evidence, where did you get your hands on a dragonstone?” Sicaryon studied her carefully.
“Haven’t you listened to the stories? Zavad gave it to me.” Anahrod plucked the folding box from her coat and tossed it to Gwydinion.
“She’s really something,” Gwydinion mused. “The girl from Grayshroud, I mean. Kimat? I didn’t even notice her sneak that brooch into my pocket. That’s impressive!”
He didn’t sound upset. Just the opposite.
“Stay away from her,” Anahrod advised, although she suspected that advice would be ignored. “If you give her a chance, she’ll try something again.”
“Kimat.” Gwydinion tried out the shape of the name. “You don’t suppose they meant Kimat Kelnaor, do you? But Kimat Kelnaor is Magistrix Kelnaor’s son—” He paused. “Oh. She must be late-blooming.”
“Magistrix Kelnaor of Grayshroud, I assume?”
“Right. I met Kimat once when we were children, but her mother wasn’t magistrix yet. Just, you know, involved in stuff that made Mother frown a lot.”
Gwydinion threw up his arms, finally letting his frustration show. “Why do this? Why claim I hit her, then claim I stole something? Does she really think the dragons are going to kick me from the school?”
Anahrod sighed. “Perhaps she thinks it can’t hurt to try.” She paused. “The next few weeks will be dangerous for everyone. After that, most candidates should settle down and behave themselves, but from now until then…” She waved her hand back and forth. “Schemes and plots. People making the hilariously wrong assumption that the fewer candidates there are, the better their odds.
“The joke is that it doesn’t work that way. A dragon picks whoever they like, and if they don’t like someone, they don’t pick. Nothing else matters. Some years only a single dragonrider is chosen, or none at all.”
“Sunshine,” Gwydinion grumbled, but he immediately straightened and pointed to the other two. “So, are you two…?”
“No,” Anahrod said at the exact moment Sicaryon said, “Yes.”
“Yes and no,” Sicaryon amended. “We used to be, but no longer.” He regarded Anahrod fondly. “Although my door is always open.”
“Yes, to half the world.” She picked up his knapsack and threw it at him. “You are not sleeping here.”
“He’s not wrong, though,” Gwydinion said.
Anahrod narrowed her eyes.
“He’s not wrong,” Gwydinion repeated. “There’s at least two people on this liner—Kimat and Waja—who are actively trying to get me into trouble. I’d feel a lot safer if I had you both here.”
Anahrod jerked a thumb in Sicaryon’s direction. “Is he paying you?”
Across the room, Sicaryon started laughing.