Mask of Shadows (Untitled #1)(2)
She pulled away and her warm scent went with her.
“Hide it. Sorry I mucked up your hair.” I gestured to the curls behind her ears. Lusting after Erlends would get me nowhere but dead.
“Well, I am being robbed.” She slipped the locket up her sleeve into a hidden pocket and patted down her hair. “You’re young for a road agent and nicer than the stories I’ve heard.”
“And you’re young for a member of the queen’s court. Bet that pissed off all your old Erlend friends.” I held up her silver ring stamped with Our Queen’s entwined lightning bolts. She couldn’t have been more than a year older than me. “You piss them off too much and they might send you out here with too few guards and refuse to pay your ransom.”
I’d not put it past those warlords to turn on their own for profit.
A scream ripped through the window as the scuffle outside pitched into shouts and clashing swords, and the lady lurched away from me.
“Sorry—not kidnapping you. Only joking.” I pocketed her ring and bowed. “Apologies for scaring you, my lady.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not for the robbery?”
“Only for scaring you.” I whistled once—I was done, time to go—and nudged the servant with my toe. “And for kicking her. Tell her I’m sorry for that.”
“And the robbery?” She didn’t even flinch, just lifted her chin.
“Lords, girl, and the robbery. You harass everyone?” I twisted round, memorizing the line of her jaw, the fall of hair over her light-brown cheeks, and the smear of freckles along her nose. Least I’d have one bright light among my list of bad, bloody memories.
“Only the ones robbing me.” She smiled, lips closed and eyes narrowed. “You’re not one of those who’ve been kidnapping, are you?”
“No, they’re vicious as cottonmouths and running the southern roads. Stay clear of there.” I gestured at her, waiting for Rath’s answering whistle. “But tell them I was mean. For my warrant.”
Those fools kidnapping nobles would steer clear of our roads if they thought we were meaner than them.
“Terrifying,” she said with a mock gasp. “A giant, monstrous beast with knives and a mask as hideous as their manners. It’ll save my guards their egos.”
I opened my mouth to make her take back the manners jab when the carriage door flew open. Rath ripped the top hinge clear off.
“More guards,” he hollered, shaking his head and flinging blood across the carriage.
Fast as he’d appeared, he’d vanished into the trees. Outside the carriage, soldiers and thieves flailed in the darkness, a tangle of limbs and blades. I glanced at the lady.
“You want that warrant, then you have to escape.” She shoved me out the door. “Go.”
I leapt out of the coach and into the night, her image scorched into my mind.
Two
“Road patrols swapped routes.” Rath tore through the underbrush, stolen spears slung across his shoulder and bouncing on his back. “I nicked their reins, but they might follow. Most loyal guards I’ve ever seen.”
“You get much off them?” I stopped and turned an ear to the forest behind us. Nothing coming.
Even if the guards chased us, they’d pass out from heat sickness. I could barely stand the humid air in trousers and a shirt. Armor was sweaty torture.
“Not enough.” He skidded through mud at the edge of a lake and jumped onto a rock, leaving a track straight into the water. He leapt from stone to stone along the water’s edge. “Think having only eight fingers is acceptable?”
Grell da Sousa—our gang leader who ran every street fight, robbery, and gambling house in the district of Kursk—took Rath’s little finger when we were nine. Rath had only skimmed enough for room and board, but that day, we’d dropped below quota. We hadn’t missed quota since.
“Who needs fingers?” I ripped off my mask, timing each breath with my strides. Breathing through linen was like gasping underwater. “I lifted some pearls and gems. Should be enough to cover us. Let’s go.”
Rath veered right back onto the bank.
I followed. I had to. Grell had sucked me into this profession when I was eight. He gave me the option of either paying him a tribute or losing a finger for every coin I stole in his district. Eight-year-old me liked my fingers. Rath and I worked together, saving wisely and rigging bets liberally, but I’d no sooner trust him to guard my back as Grell. Least Grell was upfront about clipping fingers.
Grell had lost his own finger in a fight, learned from it, and saw no wrong in teaching us how to live by breaking us down piece by piece.
I slipped my hand into the lady’s purse and pulled out her small silver ring. The band scraped over my busted knuckles, but it was prettier than anything I’d ever owned.
“You’re dawdling.” Rath turned to me, now running backward. A tree loomed over his shoulders. “Losing focus in your old age?”
“Sharper and younger than you still.” I studied the crest on the ring. Running and robbery went hand in hand, and I could outrun Rath with my eyes closed. “Mind yourself.”
“Always do.”
He smacked into the tree.
Rath was a terrible thief. He wanted a real licensed shop with customers and as little fencing as possible, but he’d never make enough to buy his way into the merchant class running under Grell. He’d never make enough without me either, and he couldn’t double-cross me because of it. Grell let us keep enough to get by and took enough to keep us crawling back to him. I’d set my sights on cheaper dreams.