“Elory Vednis.”
The assembly on stage whispered among themselves while Lory wondered if it even made a difference for them, knowing the name of the person they executed. It was when she decided it didn’t that, from the back of the group, a familiar face appeared.
Dressed in beige with lapis lazuli accents and jewelry, Top Knot stood between Observant Eye and the handsome man who shoved back rogue strands of dark hair, then crossed his arms again.
“Why did you steal the Almelyte?” Top Knot held up the bag Lory had so artfully retrieved the night before and dangled it from the broken strap.
“Alme-what?” Lory retorted, gritting her teeth against the persistent pain in her side.
Tapping the bag with his bejeweled finger, Top Knot cocked a groomed eyebrow. “The Almelyte.”
“You mean the bag?”
“He means what’sinsidethe bag,” Gray Braid explained, suspicion carving itself into her lined features for the first time since she’d laid eyes on Lory.
“There is a buttload of coin in there is all I know.” Lory did her best to come across like she couldn’t give a rat’s ass about it, but her voice was shaky—Guardians, her entire body was shaking as she slowly sat back on her heel, careful to stay away from the steel following her every movement.
Top Knot’s eyes flashed with ire while a mild grin seeped into Observant Eye’s expression.
Falcrest merely studied Lory, his jaw set, lips tight, as he took a casual step backward from the edge of the stage.
“Maybe we should have her publicly whipped for her impertinence,” Top Knot suggested to Gray Braid, who merely tilted her head as she examined Lory’s hunched form, and a new sort of fear settled in her chest. “Wouldn’t be the first thief to make up ignorance in hopes of subdued punishment.”
Images of people in rags tied to posts in the little squares of Dunai flashed through Lory’s mind, their screams echoing in her ears like she was there again, watching a man in beige-and-black snapping a whip at a bloodied back over and over again.
“Traitors,”some of the onlookers had said,“deserve what they get.”Or,“That’s what they get for hiding their magic.”
The gift of magic rarely occurred in Brestolya, but if it did, it had to be immediately reported. Once or twice, Lory had watched King Ulder’s guards retrieve someone who was suspected of performing magic. Some of them returned,their backs raw and bleeding just like those whipped in the squares. They were usually the ones who turned out not to have magic at all.
Then there were those who disappeared in the night, mere whispers on a wind. No one knew where they went and how they got there, but the working theory was that King Ulder had them tucked away somewhere they couldn’t spark another uprising like the one that had torn the lands apart a hundred years ago, when the fire-spitters tried to take Brestolya, and King Ulder’s forefathers saved the kingdom from burning to the ground by their fiery whims. Not that it made Lory like the current monarch any better.
She glanced up at Top Knot. “I steal to survive. I have no clue what’s inside that bag besides the gold you stuffed in after the card game; I didn’t get to open it.”
Much to her surprise, Top Knot’s face softened the tiniest bit—only to turn into a mocking grimace. “Very well, assuming you aren’t lying?—”
“I am not lying.”
Lory’s interruption was requited with a punch to the side of her face, and her vision darkened at the edges. Fighting to keep her consciousness, she inhaled slow, steady breaths, the pain in her side temporarily muted by the force of the blow.
As she panted her way through yet another occurence oftrapped little street rat, a new voice asked in a bright baritone, “And you’re sure it’s her?”
The question obviously wasn’t for Lory, but she couldn’t help wanting to tell the man it didn’t matter who she was when she’d obviously die any moment.
“Positive. It’s merely a coincidence we found her, but it’s definitely her.” Observant Eye’s familiar voice half faded from her grasp.
“Two years is a long time,” Gray Braid noted.
“I never forget a face.” Observant Eye again.
“She clearly has never heard of the Almelyte,” another voice pointed out.
“She’s a street rat. They steal and cheat and lie as well as your soldiers fight.” It didn’t matter that Lory was still fighting the buzzing in her head; this had been Falcrest, and the hard, dangerous edge of his voice lingered in the marble and limestone space like a bitter aftertaste, and her stomach constricted like he’d delivered a physical blow.
A street rat. Nothing more. Her life was worth nothing to these people.
“We should toss her back out onto the streets. Hunger or the Gargoyles will take care of her soon enough.” It was the bright baritone suggesting she wasn’t even worth the effort of executing her, but Top Knot wasn’t happy with that idea.
“Even if she hadn’t known about the Almelyte, she does now. We can’t risk her snooping around, or worse, spreading word on the streets…”
