CHAPTER ONE
I’m elbow-deep in cleaning mold off the bottom of a bookshelf when six of the king’s guards come for me. Five of them with swords drawn, which makes no sense.
Because I’m nobody.
I heard the tramp of boots, of course, but I ignored them. King Pallan often sends his guards to the royal library to demand scrolls from the Sisters. Not that he’s a scholar, from what I’ve heard in the kitchens, but it gives him pleasure to order people about as if he’s playing Spires with living pieces.
If you’re a king, I guess you always capture Triple Crowns—the winning hand.
I freeze and drop the sponge on the ragged hem of my skirt. Kneeling in the corner at the base of the marble staircase, I wait for them to pass by.
Except they don’t.
Instead, the lead guard, wiry in his crisp blue uniform, frowns at me. He curls his lip in distaste as he touches the point of his sword to my neck, forcing my head up.
“This? This can’t be what he wants.” His voice conveys enough contempt to fill the entire kingdom of Pyrrh. “How can the king expect—”
“Shut your mouth. All of you, put your swords away,” growls a voice like broken gravel.
Four swords immediately slam into sheaths. The fifth digs into my throat.
A thickset guard, her uniform bearing the silver chevron of rank against its royal blue, shoves past the first guard and slaps his sword down. “I said put it away. King Pallan wants what he wants, and it’s not for the ravens-begotten likes of you to question it. Or do you want to face the Inquisitors?”
He shrinks back. A tiny part of me I’d thought was long destroyed is viciously glad to see the fear in his face. But then the heat trickling down my neck tells me he cut me, and my defiance vanishes. I quash my instinct to slap a hand on the wound, because my hands are filthy. Instead, I swallow hard and look up at the officer.
Her square face is impassive, but I see a glimmer of pity when her gaze lands on my throat. She digs in a pocket and tosses me a small bit of white cotton.
“Hold that on your neck and get up, girl. We don’t have time to dally.”
“Thank you,” I whisper, staring at the cloth in disbelief. It has been a very long time since anybody in authority aimed even such a small kindness toward me.
A whore’s daughter doesn’t deserve pity.
Especially one who’s scarred and broken, like me.
I stand, my knees shaky after hours on the stone floor, and press the cloth to my neck. “Why … where are we going?”
Instead of answering, she glares at her soldiers. “Move back, you fools. Does this pathetic wisp of a girl look like a threat to us?”
Patheticis not an unfamiliar word in the lexicon of descriptors thrown at me, so I barely notice it. Instead, I focus on the officer and ask again, “Where are we going?”
She bellows out a humorless laugh. “To see the king, girl. You’re a very important person today.”
I blink and then relax. This is all a mistake. They have the wrong person. “Oh. No. I’m sorry, but you’ve made a mistake. I’m not her. I mean, I’m not whoever you’re looking for.”
The officer, who’s already turned to leave, whips her head back tostare at me. “Are you Soli Graymind?”
“I … yes, but—”
“Then get your feet moving. The king doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
She marches off, confident that the rest of the guards and I will follow behind her. For a moment, I wonder what it would feel like to have that kind of confidence. But then the first guard, safe now that the officer’s eyes aren’t on him, punches me in the back so hard I have to scramble not to fall.
“She said get your feet moving,” he snarls.
“Flack!” the officer bellows. “Get your bony ass up here and open doors for me.”
As he scurries past me, Flack elbows me in the ribs and sneers when I gasp. “Just wait till I get you in the dungeon,” he hisses.
