The Thief King's Heart

Chapter One

Her blade sliced toward my face and I smiled as I moved out of range. She lunged again and I knocked her sword away with my own, as easily as I would a young Thracian child with their first blade.

She tightened her grip on her weapon, a sword that looked more like a dagger. I wasn’t deceived—I knew how deadly she could be with it.

Although she wasn’t being very deadly at the moment. I felt a bit bored.

Despite her skill, she moved as if trapped in a large vat of honey. I predicted each action she’d take and was there to counter before she had even finished lifting her sword.

“I seem to remember you promising me that you could hold your own against me.” I didn’t mean to tease her but couldn’t help myself. Her frustration was evident and she always rose so quickly to a taunt.

Which she did. She let out a curse word so foul that I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s not very becoming for the queen of Ilion,” I told her.

Lia took a step back and then bared her teeth at me before invoking her goddess. “Dea Soteira.”

Her eyes turned a bright green and my boredom fled. I had only heard about this ability; I’d never been on the other end of it. I shifted into a defensive fighting stance and readied my sword but Lia was everywhere, moving faster than anyone I had ever seen.

Including her husband.

My own gift was not enough to keep up with her.

For the first time in my life, I was going to lose a fight.

Before I knew what was happening, she had knocked my feet out from under me and had me flat on my back, her sword to my throat.

“We’re only supposed to be sparring. You’re not supposed to try and kill me,” I reminded her wryly.

“You’re still alive,” she said with a shrug, and I couldn’t help but laugh again. She smiled back but said, “Yield, Basileia.”

“I yield,” I said, letting go of my sword. Words I’d never thought I’d say. “But you cheated.”

She moved away from me, offering her hand to help me up. I knew she was strong enough to assist me but she looked as if she might fall over at any moment, so I got up on my own. I had no idea how she managed to keep her center of gravity, given how big her stomach was.

“I didn’t cheat,” she said. “You used your goddess gift, and I used mine.”

“Those two things are not equal,” I said. The strength and quickness my goddess had blessed me with couldn’t match Lia’s invocation. “I am not my goddess’s savior.”

“You can’t be sure about that,” she said in a singsong voice. As if it were my fate to follow a path similar to hers.

If there was anything I was sure about in this life, it was that my goddess did not have a plan for me beyond fighting.

It was why I was determined to chart my own path. I wanted to take over my clan after my mother passed. That day was far off in the future, but I intended to be every bit as good a leader as she was.

Lia repeated the phrase she’d said earlier, turning the power off, and her eyes returned to their normal shade.

She brushed a long strand of red hair away from her shoulder.

When I had learned of her magic years ago, I had been the only one not surprised by her abilities.

Among the Thracians, red-haired women were often battle-favored, meaning they had extraordinary strength and speed while fighting.

The Ilionians called those with that gift “goddess-blessed,” and unlike us, both men and women could have the ability.

Like Lia’s husband, King Alexandros of Ilion, or Xander, as he was known to his friends and family, was goddess-blessed.

I had often wondered how I would do in a fight against him but our mutual brother, Thrax, had forbidden us from sparring.

He was worried we might do actual, permanent damage to one another.

He should have been more worried about Lia and her savior power. She could have killed or dismembered me without effort.

“Not to mention that I’m almost as big as a palace.

I needed the extra help,” she said, placing a hand on her very round stomach.

When she’d suggested we spar, I had tried to convince her that we should wait until some point far in the future, long after her baby had come.

I had no desire to face Xander if I somehow damaged his beloved wife.

The idea of sitting out seemed to personally offend her and she insisted that we fight. She said she didn’t want to lose any of her skills, but since she had her goddess-given power, I guessed that it wouldn’t ever be a problem.

She’d said, “I like to reassure myself that it’s still there if I need it.”

I understood that completely. I had never taken being battle-favored for granted. What would I do if it were gone? If I couldn’t protect the people I loved? I couldn’t imagine myself without it.

It meant everything to me.

She inclined her head and we began walking back to where everyone else was gathered outside, having a picnic. She glanced at me. “Am I about to get a lecture about honor? You have that look Demaratus used to get on a regular basis.”

That wasn’t where my mind had been at all, but I was glad to discuss something different because I didn’t want to think about my gift being gone.

“The Thracian code isn’t much different than the Daemonian one.

Don’t lie or steal. Fight with honor. Protect those that need protecting.

Don’t leave the fight until the enemy is defeated. ”

She opened her mouth to say something but instead made a slight groan and put a hand over her stomach. “He never stops moving. I don’t know what I’m going to do when he’s born. I already have a child who couldn’t hold still if her life depended on it.”

I heard the adoration and affection in her voice despite her half-hearted complaint. I understood her weary tone—her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Kyra, was a total delight bordering on madness. I considered her my niece as much as I did Minha, Thrax and Quynh’s daughter.

Thracian families weren’t conventional units like in some other nations. We were a broad family connected in so many different ways. Lia was my sister because her husband was my brother’s brother. We claimed one another as family, and that included everyone she cared about.

At the moment Kyra was running in circles, brandishing the wooden sword my mother had brought for Minha and whooping loudly. Minha watched her cousin from my mother’s arms.

Mother had focused all her attention on Minha. She had barely let the toddler touch the ground since we’d arrived two weeks ago. A different child might have squirmed and tried to get away but Minha was calm and content.

Someone might have thought that my mother was Minha’s as well—while the little girl had the shape and color of Quynh’s eyes, she had our family’s red hair. I wondered if she would be battle-favored when she was older.

“What did I tell you about not antagonizing my wife while she’s pregnant?” Xander called to us from where he sat on a stone bench, watching his daughter. “Pregnancy makes Lia far less patient.”

“It’s all the vomiting,” she shot back. “Which is entirely your fault.”

“It is.” He nodded, trying to suppress his smile. “But you were the one who said you wanted a dozen.”

Outrage flashed across her face. “No, you said you’d give me a dozen. I didn’t ask for it.”

He reached for her and pulled her closer so that she stood between his legs. “That’s not how I remember it.”

Her cheeks flushed and she gave him a sly smile. “That sounds like you’re questioning me. Do we need to take this to the sparring ring?”

“Wife, you know the only way you can beat me is with magic.”

She leaned in and stroked his face. “I don’t need magic to drive you to your knees.”

“You do not,” he agreed in what could only be described as a seductive tone, putting his hands on her hips and moving her even closer. “We should go upstairs and have you prove that right now.”

“We have guests!” she chided him with a laugh.

“Basileia is not a guest. She’s family.”

“Other guests are coming.”

“Who are also family.”

They continued to banter back and forth and I tried not to sigh in annoyance.

From time to time I actually managed to forget how stupidly in love they were and how, despite the fact that they’d been married for years and were about to have their second child, they still behaved as if they had personally invented sex.

Xander let out a sigh of his own, one that smothered his frustration, and he attempted to be a polite host. “How was the match?” he asked me.

“Your wife cheated,” I informed him. “She used her savior aspect.”

He grinned. “Welcome to my life.”

“So . . . does that mean you lost the fight?” Thrax asked, the laughter evident in his voice.

“Would you like to spar?” I retorted.

Quynh just shook her head at both of us, her long dark hair swaying behind her. “There’s no point. We all know who will win.”

Her husband scoffed. “I let Bas win.”

I crossed my arms. “You’d better thank Invara that you have a child because it is for my niece’s sake alone that I will not cut you down for lying.”

Instead of trembling as he should have, he laughed. “I wouldn’t advise it. Quynh fights dirty.”

“Only against people who deserve it,” she said, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. While I would die for them both, they were also nauseatingly in love and I had to remind myself not to roll my eyes every time they were affectionate.

Xander had placed Lia on one of his legs and she wound her arms around his neck. She looked at me inquisitively. “Invara? That’s your goddess?”

I was sure I had mentioned her name before. I nodded.

“Do you know her aspects? Have you tried invoking them?”

Before I could speak, Thrax jumped in. “Invara is a goddess of war and fertility. She has two aspects, fighting and fu—” Quynh elbowed him hard in the stomach to stop him from finishing his sentence, pointing at the two children.

“Sorry,” he said. “Invara’s aspect of . . . physical relations means that we can worship her that way. And I like to worship her every chance I get.” He wrapped his arm around his wife, who giggled.

Invara, give me strength.

Lia ignored their flirting. “Or maybe you think Invara only has two aspects because those are the two Thracians care about.”

That was a fair point.

“It doesn’t really matter if she has more. I rely on my own inner voice. I don’t need to call on her for help because I’m already glorious at both her aspects,” I said.

“That seems like a waste to not even try. Using those powers is fun,” Lia said with a shake of her head.

My mother called to Thrax and Quynh, and they went over to join her. The rest of us watched Kyra continue to fight invisible enemies.

“I think she’ll be a great warrior,” I told her parents.

“She might become queen in her own right,” Xander replied.

That didn’t sound like something Ilionians would do, but I reminded myself that Lia and Xander had been working hard to change things.

As if she could hear my thoughts, Lia added, “Xander and I altered the law so that daughters can inherit as well.”

“Then why do you say ‘might’?”

Lia let out a whoosh of air and said to her husband, “Your son is kicking my ribs.” When she turned her attention back to me, she answered my question. “We had to keep the council voting for the next king or queen. We wanted to eliminate that process, but the people were insistent.”

Xander added, “We had changed so much that I thought they should be able to keep this one thing. The citizens wanted to feel like they had a voice in who was chosen through their representatives.”

“And in this single, lone instance, he happened to be right,” Lia added.

“I tried explaining to the people that the system had been instituted to create chaos, but they wouldn’t listen.

We will try to circumvent it by ensuring that only good people serve on the council so that they will make the best decision for Ilion. ”

“Mommy, Daddy, look!”

While we’d been talking about her future, Kyra had apparently been busy trying to make sure she didn’t have one. She had lit the tip of the wooden sword on fire and the flames were racing down toward her hand.