Vera watched her carefully. “I’ve just threatened her with the thing she fears most, and she didn’t so much as blink. She is exactly who we want.” She curled forward, bringing her face level with Kasira’s. “The question, Kasira Vitalis, is what doyouwant?”
The words struck her strangely. Whatdidshe want? It had been so many years since she had allowed herself to ask that question, since she had felt safe enough for something as simple as wanting. Most of her life had amounted to little more than a scramble to survive, every choice made to serve that purpose, that promise.
Three years she had spent in the darkness of her cell, as words like “light” and “life” slowly lost all meaning. At first, she sang to herself, until the sound of her own voice was too much to bear. Then she turned to stories. All the ones she had accumulated throughout her life on the street, tales she had memorized and held close like a thick coat against the night’s chill.
Eventually, the comfort of their familiarity became monotonous and cloying, another weight holding her down. When they came to her asking for information that would give them Thane Ryarch, she had provided it willingly in exchange for freedom. Those first few steps into sunlight had been more painful than anything before, her body withered and hardly able to support itself. The world had seemed impossibly large.
Her first weeks in the Malikinar, they had treated her like a servant. Worse. Until the day she killed a Relin, a bone-thin, canine-like creature that had entered the mess tent in search of food and found her instead. They put her in training after that, and though her body slowly recovered, some parts of her never did. Some parts remained trapped in that cell.
Still, she had thought she could make this her life. That she could set fire to her old one and let the smoke wash her clean. At least she was alive. At least she breathed fresh air. But Vera’s proposal was a mirror, reflecting the truth back at her: This was not living.
It was barely surviving.
But a want was a dangerous thing. It gave people power over you, made you vulnerable. And yet she had not spent the past four years in the Malikinar to return to darkness. Now, Kasira had a chance for something greater, to see through the promise she and Loraya had made to each other.
She owed her partner at least that.
“I want my life back,” she said at last, the words half a prayer on her lips.
Vera’s smile sharpened. “Done.”
CHAPTER 3
KASIRA
AMBASSADORVERA GAVE HER A NEW IDENTITY.
Eirlana Corynth was heir to a small noble house in the north that had recently run into financial troubles. In exchange for wiping out their debt, her family had agreed to send their only daughter to the Library.
It was a smart move by Vera. There were factions in the Kalish court, beast sympathizers like the Yadoras, that would oppose a strike like this against Amorlin. To them, it would look like a woman sacrificing herself for the good of her family to fill a role no one wanted. To the Librarian, she would seem a harmless noblewoman.
What none of them knew, however, was that Eirlana Corynth was dead.
Though Kasira had no proof of it, she suspected the woman’s death had been orchestrated to create this opening. Her family truly had been drowning in debt, and it had been paid for in their daughter’s blood. This was a plan that had been set in motion long before it reached Kasira.
The Paratal and the Ambassador had retired hours ago. Only Dessen and the palace guards remained, the former slowly working his way through his second carafe of ale as he watched her prepare. The weight of his gaze was nearly oppressive, and she knew it was only the presence of the guards that kept him from finishing what he had started in the woods.
Her back radiated with a steady ache, though the medic had tended to her wounds hours ago. The numbing agent they had applied had done little to dull the pain, but she didn’t mind. It kept her awake and focused on the tale before her.
The history of Eirlana’s life lay spread across the floor, the blue glow of a balestone the only light to see by. The pages contained a simple portrait of a woman who bore a decent resemblance to Kasira: the same woodland-green eyes and pointed nose, the same curve to their pale faces, framed in obsidian hair. The physical was where their similarities ended.
Eirlana had been pampered every day of her life. Her family had once owned a vylor mine until it dried up, the steel worth more than gold in a kingdom forged on weapons. Her father, who had been shuffling funds across several interests, could no longer pay his investors. She was a champion rider before her horses were sold toward his debts. She was left-handed, favored riding clothes to skirts, had a fondness for cakes from a particular bakery, and was known to be as quick-witted as she was sharp-tongued.
The file Vera had given her on Allaster St. Archer was far thinner, and Kasira had already been through it twice.
The rumors about the Librarian were as vast as they were varied. People spoke of him in hushed whispers or else made impossible claims: He had wings like a demon and the eyes of a beast; he feasted only on the marrow of bones and could enthrall you with a single glance. But Kasira knew the sound of a good story, and that was all these were.
“You’re going to fail, you know,” came Dessen’s low voice from across the tent. “Then they’ll give you back to me to do with as I please, and mine will be the last face you see before the doors to Belvar close behind you forever.”
Kasira didn’t reply. There was a high likelihood that Dessen was right. What she was attempting was the most complex, difficult con she had ever embarked on, and it came after seven years of accumulated rust.
It would also be the first time she had run a game without Loraya at her side.
Do not let him inside your head, said her partner’s voice.A con is lost the moment the artist doubts it.
Dessen’s chair scraped against the ground, his heavy footfalls punctuating the silence until he stood at the edge of her ring of papers. The room had lightened with the rising sun, and his form cast a heavy shadow over her. He seized her chain, jerking her hand away from the paper she had been reaching for to hold the shackle above her head. The manacle bit sharply into her skin.
“Did you hear me, criminal?” he hissed.
