Chapter One The Thief #2
He dropped to one knee to keep from going over the side on the turn, and she didn’t hesitate.
His final words, whatever they were, broke off into a gurgle as she drove her sword through the gap between his helmet and shoulder.
Tightening her grip, Reya pressed a leather boot against his chest and kicked.
When the blade came free, she jerked away from the blood spray, clamping her mouth and eyes shut and rocking back on her heels as his body tumbled off the roof.
Reya smeared the splatter from her face with an elbow.
Then she caught her reflection in the sword.
The thief staring back at her rippled around the words inscribed down the fuller in the runic script of the First Language: Never run.
Never bow. Never die. Sacred, ancient words.
Her father’s words. Reya swallowed hard.
How many times had she soaked them in blood?
Every thief had an endgame. When Reya pictured hers, she often found herself standing inside a forge thick with ash and heat, a cast iron sign of her own making above the door.
A place to create rather than take. To forge.
A different life; the life her parents had always wanted for her.
With her debt to Lennox paid in full, she could finally leave this city.
Sail to a distant shore and put the blue cloak to the flames. Master an actual trade.
Her father’s trade.
Gavin faced her, one foot resting casually on the back of his opponent—either dead or unconscious—on the hood of the next carriage.
“I thought you were going down for a second there, Red,” he said and shoved the body off the roof.
Beneath his hood and mask, Reya knew his head of dark curls was knotted tightly at the nape of his neck.
Gavin was broad-shouldered and lean-muscled with warm brown skin, a stubbled jaw, and a crooked smile that made even steel-hearted women swoon.
Reya knew exactly what that stubble felt like scraping against her thighs.
She could almost still feel him beneath her, hands bruising her hips as she moved atop him, encouraging her to take what she needed.
Running a job was practically their idea of foreplay.
The devious gleam in his multicolored eyes—a rare fusion of palest green, blue, and descending hazel—told her he was afflicted by the same memories.
Every time, she swore it would be the last, until the next time when it wasn’t. Reya didn’t do relationships. This thing between them, whatever the hell it was, needed to end—and it would.
Tomorrow.
Reya wiped the blade on her pants before sheathing it, the merciless wind drying the spatter on her cheeks. “You always leave me the burly ones.”
“We all have to earn our coin,” Gavin said, a grin in his voice. “Not that you need it. You’re richer than all of us, and yet for some reason you still live in that closet of a flat in the West End.”
Reya huffed. “Best view in the city.”
Gavin leapt over to her carriage, invading her space. “I think you just like having an excuse to sleep at my place.”
Arrogant bastard. She loved it. “Since when do we sleep at your place?”
He hummed a laugh, reaching up to smear a drop of blood on her cheek. “I would have taken the big guy, but I hate to rob you of your fun. Or has the famous Crimson Dagger gone soft?”
The overlarge ruby set in the pommel of her dagger sparkled in the moonslight, as if preening under the attention. Reya had more than earned the cold sweat that name elicited in even the most dangerous circles of Rhiterra’s criminal underbelly.
“You wouldn’t know fun if it grabbed you by your worthless balls.”
He winked a green-blue eye. “Happy to prove you wrong on both counts anytime. Tonight, if you’re lucky.”
Reya shoved him a little too hard, but he just laughed, at ease in the lightness between them that had grown far too comfortable.
“If you two are finished!” Zaim shouted over his shoulder.
Reya turned to assess their position as she reaffixed her mask. With the guards gone, Zaim had turned the caravan off the Sovereign Road, and now they were hurtling toward the South End warehouse district, or as the locals liked to call it, the Heap.
Edris was the beating heart of an empire, a capital roaring with life and enterprise. A fitting stronghold for a king—murderous warmonger though he was.
And Reya was heir to its underworld.
Lennox had been explicit in his instructions: He wanted the entire caravan. And he’d been particularly cagey about what was inside.
Part of her was afraid to find out. Lately, every job made less sense than the last, even for someone like Lennox, whose hands were in too many pockets to count.
The more illicit his business dealings in Rhiterra became, the more people in positions of power who got involved, the more Reya added to her roll of sins the All-Gods were sure to read off at the gates to eternity.
She couldn’t deny she was glad to soon be leaving Lennox’s employ.
There were precious few pieces left of her soul, and she intended to keep them.
One last job.
“If anyone tries to follow us,” Reya said, nodding to the bow and quiver peeking over Gavin’s shoulder, “shoot them down.”
The caravan passed its first marker—a stone monument to some ancient royal Reya couldn’t name—as Zaim wove the maze she’d charted to lose any tails.
They had exactly ten minutes until they reached the drop-off point.
Reya maneuvered down one side of the first carriage, using the handles and footholds the engineers had conveniently placed there for the sentries, while Gavin took up position at the rear to cover them.
Each carriage door was chained and padlocked. Her job now was to remove the locks before they reached the drop-off point so the Bluehoods could quickly empty the cargo and torch the evidence.
The job was as good as finished. Already mentally packing her trunks, Reya freed the hatchet from her belt and hurled the blade down on the shackle.
Even she, for all her skill, couldn’t pick a lock at the speed the carriage was moving.
It only took three swings until the metal sparked and snapped.
She stowed her weapon. Grabbing the broken bar and chains, she creaked open the small door and tucked them inside, unwilling to leave so much as a breadcrumb for the Silver Guard to follow; the dead sentries would be the last anyone ever found of this caravan.
A hollow thump and clatter echoed back to her.
Opening the door a little wider, Reya peered into the darkness, expecting to see box crates, chests, barrels, antique furniture, something, anything.
But it was empty.
That’s not possible. Denial warred with reality as her mind raced for an explanation.
Could the caravan have been a decoy? Gavin had assured Lennox that he’d confirmed the transport time and day with three separate informants.
It had taken Reya weeks to coordinate this job.
Weeks to spy on the Silver Guard and pay off the right people, learn their route, and plan the assault.
This was precisely why she liked to work alone.
Grinding her teeth, Reya adjusted her grip and jumped to the next carriage, refusing to accept that this all had been for nothing. She caught the handle and pulled herself up with a grunt, wedging her toes into the footholds.
They passed their second marker—a tavern with a crescent moon sign half-hanging off its hinges. Seven minutes. The adrenaline lighting her veins on fire was better than a shot of whiskey. She did her best work to the symphony of a ticking clock and her own racing heart.
Reya turned the next lock over in her hand and examined its odd, intricate design. It wasn’t a model she’d seen before. Even the chains on this carriage were thicker.
This must be it. But then why have three carriages?
That’s when she felt the strange otherness emanating from the metal and recoiled. Praying she was mistaken, she angled the iron padlock toward the moonslight; it set the keyhole’s inner green lining shimmering, and she swore.
The lock was fashioned with Kellstone—the only natural substance in the world immune to magic.
Which meant whatever traveled inside this carriage was either so valuable that the Silver Guard had wanted protections against even magical tampering…
or it was magic. And magic had been outlawed in Rhiterra for centuries.
If it had been any other job, she would have leapt off the moving caravan and gone home, riches be damned.
She wanted nothing to do with whatever was inside.
And yet her future depended on it. Reya counted to five, willing someone to stop her.
But no one would or could. Freeing her hatchet, Reya threw it down once, twice, three times. Sparks flew, but the iron held.
Again.
Nothing.
Again. Again. Again.
“Rotting hell, break!”
The metal snapped. Reya tried to catch the padlock, but it clattered across the street behind them as the caravan sailed on. She would have to go back for it later. Groaning, Reya sheathed her blade and loosened the chains, hesitating over the threshold.
Opening the carriage would be reckless now that she knew magic was involved.
The safest plan was to toss the chains down to the street and move on to the next carriage.
She could come back to recover them with the lock.
But her feet wouldn’t move. She wasted precious seconds debating a choice she’d already made.
She needed to know what they were dealing with.
Reya prayed whatever was inside wouldn’t be the death of her.
With a tug of the iron handle, the door flew open in the wind. Waste and mold and rot and the faint scent of petrichor filled her lungs. Eyes watering, Reya covered her mouth and nose. She took one glance at the contents and swore against her palm.
All-Gods above.
They were all screwed.