Rissa turned to me, seeming to read my thoughts no matter how hard I tried to cover them. She tilted her head, a mass of blonde curls trailing down her side. The bruise on her eye was nothing more than a shadow now, the healing powers of her Shifter blood working quickly.
“Come on, little brother,” she said, a sly grin pulling at her lips. “Look at the bright side. After all these years, don’t you think it’s about time we avenged our parents?”
Chaz lifted his glass, and the others followed. “To Branock and Evadine Aris.”
His murmured toast echoed from the lips of our friends, and I met my sister’s gaze. The firstborn to Emperor Branock Aris. Her black eyes tinged with gold held such power, such cunning determination, that it caused resolve to thicken inside of me.
Yes, it was about time.
And when the person Lark had selected to infiltrate the emperor failed, I would be ready.
It was time for Theodore Gayl to burn.
12
Leo
“Ibet you ten silver coins you can’t knock the apple from that man’s hands,” Chaz said to Horace, nodding at the shiny dart in the latter’s hand. Horace leaned back in his chair and eyed the man with the apple laughing across the bar.
“Don’t you even think about it,” Lark snapped. “You’ll take his eye out.”
“Nah, Horace is a great shot, aren’t you, big guy?” Chaz smacked him on the shoulder.
I snorted. “Not when he’s five ales in.”
“Just for that, I’ll take your bet.” Horace put his hands on his knees and braced himself to stand. Lark’s exasperated sigh made me chuckle.
“Are you not going to stop these idiots?” she directed to Rissa, who lounged in her seat with an arm draped lazily over the back of her chair.
“You’re right. This is ridiculous. Horace”—Rissa lifted a finger to get his attention—“make it twenty coins.”
“You don’t evenhavetwenty coins,” Chaz shot back.
My sister winked at him. “And he can’t make that shot. So I think I’ll be fine.”
Lark gave a disgruntled scoff. “I’m surrounded by children.”
The sound of laughter and clinking glasses and feet pounding on wood mingled with my friends’ voices as they discussed Horace’s dart-aiming prowess, which soon devolved into his aiming prowess withotherthings, and the challenge with the apple became long forgotten.
I shook my head and grinned along with them, soaking in the moment of normalcy. Too often, especially as the Decemvirate drew nearer, our nights were spent tracking down potential victims and putting a stop to random attacks on the capital streets. More and more fugitives from the six provinces were seeking the safety of Veridia City as their own borders became too dangerous to live near, only to find capital-dwellers evenlesswelcoming.
I supposed one had to be truly desperate to exchange one hell for another. Either that, or the provincers didn’t know what they were walking into when entering the capital. Didn’t know that true refuge no longer existed in this empire.
Despite the dangers, there were still pockets of happiness to be found. I looked forward to nights like this, where the smiling faces of those closest to me broke through the constant sense of vigilance I carried. Perhaps not family by blood, but family by duty. By choice. I was stuck with Rissa, as she so often liked to say, but I knew I would have chosen her as my sister in any life. There was nobody else I could walk through this dark world with. Nobody else with whom I would have wanted to grieve the loss of our father, care for our sick mother, endure the spite and shame this legacy placed on our shoulders.
Lark came into our lives during one of our lowest points, only three years after our father died and our mother fell ill. Rissa and I were two teenagers trying to take care of ourselves in a city that still believed the curse was Branock Aris’ fault and refused to give our family so much as the scraps from their tables. Lark, in her early twenties at the time, caught my sister stealing food from her bakery in the south sector, and instead of reporting her, offered her a job. The first person to have seen us as something more than oursurname, to truly give us a fighting chance at becoming our own people.
It was a gift I could never repay. I didn’t know if Larken Everest quite understood what she did for us that day. What she meant to my sister and me.
Chaz and Horace were later additions to the Sentinels, and while our history may not run as deep with the two of them, I trusted them with my life. Chaz was the son of one of the elderly lord’s on Emperor Gayl’s council, while Horace was a member of the Royal Guard. Two men with everything to lose, who were willing to sacrifice their reputations, their jobs, even their lives for the vision my sister and I had of what this empire could be.
I took another sip of ale, its warmth spreading through me, and snuck a glance at Rissa. She seemed to feel my gaze on her and looked over with that crooked smile, a silent moment of thankfulness passing between us.
The door to the tavern flew open with a bang.
Four huge men in the silver Royal Guard uniform sauntered in, swords clanging in sheaths against their legs. They swaggered toward the bar, gleams in their eyes as they took in the crowd. The din went from raucous and uninhibited to hushed whispers and strained near-silence in a matter of seconds, eyes shifting and spines straightening.
“What aretheydoing here?” Rissa muttered. Horace and Lark immediately turned so their backs were to the guards, their normally composed features now tight with alarm. If the newcomers were to see them, a fellow member of the Guard and the head architect of the Decemvirate, meeting with a group of strangers in this part of town…
