Page 20 of Realm of Thieves

Andor makes an amused sound and I glance at him, my eyesnarrowed automatically. He’s watching me with large pupils, a smile tugging his lips.

“What?” I snap.

“Nothing,” he says after a moment, then turns his attention back out the window.

I do the same, though I can tell he’s staring at me again. I probably should act a little more blasé about everything. I feel my shell harden.

Still, the fresh scent of water, umberwoods, and blooming flowers that flows in through the carriage windows makes me breathe in deeply, and I feel as if something inside me is growing, invisible shoots sprouting from within. I’m not sure how I feel about it.

We leave the town, the buildings becoming farther apart, turning into red-timbered houses with grass growing on the roofs and large plots of fertile fields dotted with fuzzy, long-horned cows the size of horses and plump white sheep sprinkled here and there like dollops of cream. Beyond the fields thick with grazing animals, past the fruitful orchards with rows of gnarled trees bending toward one another like bowing men, and the rows of gilded wheat that wave delicately in the breeze are forest-covered slopes that reach up and up, interspersed by the occasional waterfall. I’ve never seen a waterfall before, though I’ve heard of them, and to see the water flowing so freely, so powerfully, stirs up something deep inside me.

I don’t want to be here. And yet…

I stare out the window in wonder, deciding it’s not worth the effort to keep pretending that none of this is impressing me.

The road becomes rougher with muddy patches as the wheels churn in the ruts, and then I remember the last time I was in a carriage.

It was the only time I was in a carriage.

Moments after my mother sailed off for the Midlands.

I was ripped away from my aunt, Ellestra, by the Black Guard. Iremember the large metal gauntlets digging painfully into my shoulders, the way my aunt screamed as she tried to hang on to me. I was dragged to a waiting carriage and they threw me inside, locking the door. I couldn’t escape and through the windows I saw the ship that had my mother disappearing into the night, heading toward her fate, her doom. I watched as the carriage pulled away from the only place I’d ever known and along a dark road into a long night that would culminate with my arrival at the convent.

The place where I ceased to have a name.

Where I ceased to have a voice.

Where I swore I would have my vengeance.

And yet I thought Ihadmy vengeance. I thought that stealing the precious eggs they revere so much and working for House Dalgaard was somehow sticking a dagger into the sides of the Soffers. But it hasn’t been more than a pinprick. I’ve barely made a dent.

“Worried about meeting the rest of the Kolbecks?” Andor asks me.

I blink and bring my gaze to his. For a moment I had forgotten where I was. Who knows what expression took over my face, what truth he tried to glean?

“I’m worried about my aunt,” I hedge. It’s not a lie—but I’m not about to tell him some sad memory from my past.

He nods and pulls out a necklace that was hiding beneath his shirt, its pendant grasped in his hand as he twirls it over and over again.

It’s a tooth.

A dragon’s tooth. Must have belonged to a sycledrage, perhaps the same one he got the claw from.

“We’ll get her safe, you’ll see,” Andor says.

“How am I supposed to believe that?” I tell him. “Thanks to Lemi, everyone in Menheimr is going to know I’m here. You said so yourself. Word will travel. Someone is probably sending a raven to Dalgaard as we speak.”

Lemi huffs at that, perhaps an apology, then lays his head in mylap. Andor continues to twirl the tooth around the chain. “And if that happens, they will also report that you were here against your will, under armed escort.”

“And then my aunt will get word of that and worry. It might kill her. Who knows what she will do?” The last thing I want is for her to go off on some sort of rescue mission.

He stops moving the tooth for a moment and stares at me thoughtfully. A wash of something soft comes over his face, like longing, but not quite.

I’m about to ask him what he’s staring at, when he starts moving the tooth again, sliding it up and down the chain of the necklace, making a whirring sound that seems to fill the cabin.

“Steiner’s raven will deliver her a message that you are in good hands and that you’ll see her soon,” he says.

I ignore the very untrue comment about being in “good hands.” I clear my throat. “And how do you expect this bird to reach her? You don’t even know where she lives.”

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