Page 39 of Thief of Souls
“Tell that to my hunting leathers,” Falion drawls. “The bitch can breathe fire. It took me all morning to lure it into the maze and then I had to make a hasty retreat into one of the ponds, where I managed to finally lose her.”
A questing beast? In the maze? A little shiver runs through me. They’re usually monsters formed of several different animals and viciously dangerous. Some say they were fae who were cursed or betrayed by former lovers, and now they seek to take their vengeance on all fae.
Or maybe they lose the part of themselves that retains any sense of identity and become merely rage-driven beasts hungry for fae flesh, consumed with an unwitting fury for all of my mother’s kind.
Rule number twenty-six in the unwritten Codex of Thieves: Do not try to steal from a questing beast, unless there’s a knife to your throat.
“What’s it going to eat?” Mistmark murmurs.
“Hopefully the bride.”
They exchange a long, steady look.
“Unkind,” Mistmark says, his lips quirking in a smile. “I don’t want her dead.”
“Who? The questing beast? Or Belladonna?”
Mistmark laughs. “You’re in a rare foul mood, my friend.”
Falion pushes past him, running a hand through his hair. “My boots are ruined, I’ve lost my best knife, and I’m not allowed to kill Malechus. You promised this would be fun. So far, your description of the word doesn’t seem to match mine.”
“What’s not to enjoy?” Mistmark spreads his hands wide. “There are beautiful women everywhere you look, and weddings are prone to make them sentimental. You might get lucky and have someone take pity upon you.”
“Ha, ha.” Falion crosses his arms, flicking lint off his sleeve. “I’d laugh if I wasn’t so certain you were going to end up with your heart cut out of your chest.”
“Belladonna’s no more allowed to renege upon this bargain than I am—”
“I wasn’t talking about your intended,” Falion drawls.
That cuts through Mistmark’s smile. “Yes, well. Allow me to worry about that. First we have to find her. And my bridal tithe?”
“Safely guarded by that fire-breathing bitch.”
“Excellent.”
“I was talking about the beast, not the woman who’s going to cut your throat. Nobody’s getting near it until this ceremony is over, and I can retrieve it but—"
“Play nicely.” Mistmark taps the scroll against his lips. “We’re one step closer to getting this noose from around my throat and rescuing her. You can afford to smile for once in your life.”
“I wouldn’t want to steal all those ladies from their lords.”
Mistmark contains a laugh in his fist.
What noose?
A little quiver runs through me. This marriage has never made sense, but if Malechus is blackmailing Mistmark into joining his house….
But how?
Or rather, what?
And this bridal tithe…. I was right. It has to be the horn.
It’s always expected—when marriages are conducted between courts of unequal power—that the lesser of the courts is the one to provide a bridal tithe to the more powerful court.
But why would Mistmark give it to the questing beast to protect?
Is he planning to double cross Malechus?
