The Lyre Thief Read online

  She’ll be thanking me, he thought, when she realizes what fate is in store for the rest of the harem.

  “There’s no need to be excessive,” Hablet said, lowering his voice so only Naveen could hear his instructions. “I just think we need to start . . . culling the herd.”

  “Did you have a particular preference for which of the . . . cows . . . you wish to cut from the herd?”

  Hablet thought for a moment and then nodded. “The grandmothers.”

  “Sire?”

  “Any of them whose daughters have been married off and given birth to sons. They’ll be the ones with dynastic delusions.”

  Around them the sailors were preparing to cast off, Alaric was waving to the crowd, Sophany was staring at them suspiciously, while the numerous other slaves and courtiers accompanying the king to Medalon for the treaty negotiations hurried about their duties, tripping over each other in the confines of the deck. Naveen stood in the middle of the chaos, the soft rain running down his hair to pool uncomfortably under his collar, while his king instructed him to start the systematic extermination of his entire family.

  The order didn’t surprise Naveen—after all, Hablet had done the same to his father’s harem when he took the throne—just the timing of it. He’d always assumed Hablet would be content to let Alaric do his own dirty work when he became king.

  “Are you feeling unwell, sire?”

  “No. Why?”

  “No reason. Did you want the . . . heifers taken care of too?”

  Hablet paused for a moment. Even he, apparently, wasn’t able to order the murder of his own children without it giving him pause.

  He did not pause for long, however. Hablet nodded. “It’s time we started reducing the numbers. I’ll let you decide which order. I love them all equally, you know. Not sure I could choose, to be honest.”

  Naveen let that comment slide, quite sure the irony was lost on Hablet completely. He bowed to his king, anxious to be gone from the ship so it could set sail and he could get out of this wretched rain. He was paying that crowd by the hour, too, and the longer he tarried, the more they were costing.

  “It shall be done, sire.”

  He turned to leave. He had one foot on the gangplank when Hablet called to him, “Don’t waste money on the funerals.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, your highness.” He bowed once more and then made his way down the slippery plank to the dock, grateful to be left in Talabar and not accompanying the king.

  He turned and watched as the gangplank was drawn up into the ship and the captain began shouting the order to get the ship under way. He would not breathe easy until they were through the heads, Naveen knew, and not in any danger of returning for some time.

  No matter how awful his orders, arranging the mass murder of Hablet’s harem would be far less stressful than spending weeks in the confines of a ship with Alaric, he guessed.

  Or being anywhere in the vicinity of the young prince’s rage when he learned what his father had in store for him.

  Chapter

  27

  IN A PERFECT world, Adrina would have told nobody that her husband lay in a coma from which even the gods could not wake him.

  This was far from a perfect world, however, so of course the news flew around the city at the speed only rumor can travel. Before long, Adrina was confronted with every opportunist and troublemaker in Greenharbour looking to take advantage of the situation. Added to the complication of Marla preparing to leave for the Citadel and the treaty negotiations, reports of Caden Fletcher meeting with the High Arrion of the Sorcerers’ Collective far more than one would expect of a man who purported not to believe in magic, was the vocal disappointment of her children when they learned she had changed her mind about letting them accompany their grandmother to Medalon.

  She was overwhelmed, and quietly terrified, a feeling not in any way helped by the fact that Marla had summoned her for a meeting before she left the city tomorrow. With a heavy feeling of impending doom, Adrina took a deep breath and accepted the hand of the guard to help her as she alighted from her carriage.

  Marla’s relatively modest, walled house was a few streets from the palace, staffed by loyal slaves who had been with her for years. The guards on the main door wore the livery of Krakandar, rather than Greenharbour Raiders, and in all the time Adrina had been married to Damin, Marla had never before invited her here. She usually stalked the halls of the palace, doing most of her interfering there.

  To be invited to Marla’s home was a rare honor indeed—if it was an honor. Adrina was not entirely convinced Marla hadn’t lured her here to have her killed so there would be no danger of her evil Fardohnyan daughter-in-law being left in charge of her beloved Hythria while she was gone. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t arrange such an event without even raising a sweat. Marla had been married to the man who was once Raven of the Assassins’ Guild, after all.

  And with Damin in no position to stop her . . .

  Adrina shook her head to rid herself of such a ridiculous train of thought. She knew she was being silly, and before she could give in to her paranoia, she stepped up to the front door and stopped before the two guards, who stood to attention as she approached.

  “I am here to see Princess Marla.”

  The guard on the left bowed and opened the door for her. “She is expecting you, your highness.”

  “Wait here,” Adrina told her own guards. She hated not being able to move about without an escort, but she wasn’t going to tempt fate. Damin’s attack had come out of the blue. There would not be another if Adrina had any say in the matter. She’d already had Kalan arrange for Harshini from the Sorcerers’ Collective to scan and shield the minds of all the palace guard. There were no men in her service now, she was confident, with odd songs stuck in their heads.

  Marla’s ancient housekeeper, Cadella, led Adrina through the hall and a small but tastefully decorated reception room, out into a small walled garden where Marla was waiting, making the most of the slight breeze coming off the harbor. It was a hot and humid evening—there were really no other kind here in Greenharbour—and the princess had lived here long enough to know when to avail herself of what little relief was on offer.

  As soon as she saw Adrina, the dowager princess turned to breathe in the aroma of a large flowering hibiscus, saying, “You should not have come.”

  Gods, nothing I will ever do will please this unforgiving old cow.

  “You summoned me, your highness,” Adrina pointed out in a voice as unemotional as she could manage. This time tomorrow, Marla would be well on her way to Medalon, she reminded herself. Adrina could maintain her poise for a few more hours.

  “And you are the High Princess of Hythria, Adrina. You should have demanded I come to you.”

  “And if I had?”

  Marla turned to look at Adrina with a thin smile. “I would not have come. But I would have respected the effort.”

  “What have I ever done to make you distrust me so, Marla?”

  The princess returned to studying the hibiscus. “You’d like a list?”

  “Gods, you have a list?”

  Marla continued to study the plant, but she spoke as if she’d rehearsed this speech for decades. “Your father spent a good portion of Damin’s early life trying to have him killed, Adrina. You were raised at the knee of a man who murdered his own family when he took the throne, and is undoubtedly encouraging your brother to do the same when his time comes. You betrayed your first husband, cheerfully committing adultery—with my son, I grant you—and but for the intervention of the demon child would have brought the entire continent to war.”

  “My marriage to Damin stopped a war, and that marriage was also at the behest of the demon child. My father was ready to invade Hythria when we married. And he would have done, until I married Damin and he was forced to withdraw. You know that.”

  Marla nodded. “I do. And, when I’m feeling generous, I’ll even concede the wisdom of it. But that�
��s not why I don’t trust you, Adrina.”

  “Then why, for pity’s sake?”

  “Because Damin listens to you.”

  Adrina opened her mouth to respond, but couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say to that.

  Marla turned to face her again. Her mother-in-law seemed amused by Adrina’s loss of words.

  “I have spent every waking moment since I was fifteen years old protecting my family, Adrina. First for my brother, Lernen, who was barely worthy of the name Wolfblade, and then my children. I haven’t done a damned thing for the past forty years that wasn’t directly related to that goal. It cost me the man I loved, the dearest friend I have ever known, and every soft place in my soul. I made this country what it is, Adrina, so Damin could inherit something worth having.” She took a step forward and leaned on her cane with both hands. “And then the Halfbreed and the demon child come along and the next thing I know, Damin has abandoned his province to go haring off to the Medalon-Karien border to fight on the side of the Defenders, and when he finally comes home, it is with the daughter of my sworn enemy as his bride.”

  “Have I ever counseled Damin to ignore your advice?”

  “Perhaps not,” Marla conceded. “I don’t know what you two talk about in bed at night. But even if you haven’t, it doesn’t mean I don’t expect you to. Every single day.”

  Adrina was getting very tired of this. “You must be exhausted, Marla, expending all this energy on waiting for me to destroy everything you’ve ever worked for.”

  “I am.”

  “Then I wish you a safe journey, your highness,” she said, with a curtsey that managed to be more sarcastic than courteous. “Don’t forget to write.”

  Adrina turned on her heel and headed for the door, wishing that rather than come here, she’d sent back a message telling Marla what she could do with her summons.

  “That’s more like it.”

  “Excuse me?” Adrina stopped and turned to look at Marla.

  The princess limped back into the reception room after her, the silver cane tapping on the tiles. “You never push back, Adrina.”

  “You and I fight all the time.”

  “No, we don’t. We dance. We snipe. We hedge. We’re polite for the sake of the children, when I know what you would really like to do is tear my head off with your bare hands, and scream at me to stop being such an interfering old bitch.”

  “And if I had done?” she asked, appalled that Marla might have seen through her so easily. “What would it have achieved?”

  “I would know you have the spine for what lies ahead.”

  “What?”

  “Damin is incapacitated, Adrina, but he appointed you regent because he trusts your judgment. Strange as it may seem, it is that which gives me hope. I did not raise a fool, and if you were as shallow and dim as I once feared, he would not have spared you the time of day. My son trusts you and I trust his judgment. I just never see what he sees in you and now I have to leave and hand you the keys to the kingdom. I am terrified, because if you can’t stand up to me, how are you going to deal with the Warlords?”

  Adrina was shocked to hear Marla say anything complimentary about her, even if it was in such a backhanded fashion. This might well be the first time since she’d arrived in Greenharbour that Marla had conceded anything positive about her daughter-in-law at all.

  “When you ran Hythria in your brother’s name, Marla, keeping up the pretense that Lernen was in charge, did you tear the heads off your enemies with your bare hands and scream at them?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why do you fault me for having the same modicum of self-control?”

  “Because I don’t know if it’s self-control, Adrina, or simply a lack of fortitude.”

  Adrina took a deep breath. “Which is your problem, Marla, not mine. I am far more capable than you imagine, and I can stand up to anybody I have to. Ironically, the only two people I seem to be incapable of standing up to are you and your son.”

  Marla scoffed at that notion. “Damin is putty in your hands, Adrina.”

  “Only when he wants to be, Marla. A child died once because I couldn’t reason with Damin. You’d not be so certain your son was my willing puppet if you’d been there the day that happened.”

  For a moment, Adrina found herself back in northern Hythria, on the road with Damin and his army going to save the Citadel from the Kariens. She’d thought the memory long buried, but Marla’s question brought it all flooding back.

  “What child? What are you talking about?”

  “Do you recall the young Karien lad in my service when I first arrived in Greenharbour?” she asked, wishing she’d said nothing. The memory was so painful she’d done her best to bury it in the deep dark recesses of her mind, where it was unlikely to ever see the light of day.

  Marla shrugged. “Vaguely.”

  “Damin never told you about what happened to Mikel?”

  “I really don’t know what you are talking about, Adrina.”

  “It happened on the way to Medalon to relieve the Karien occupation of the Citadel,” she said. “Brak and R’shiel had just found us. They arrived on the backs of dragons, if you can believe it. We were having dinner. I remember Damin telling everyone about lifting the siege on Greenharbour. Mikel served R’shiel a drink, but he stayed behind her, just watching. Perhaps that was what tipped off Brak that the child had just served R’shiel wine laced with jarabane.”

  “The attempt failed, obviously.”

  She nodded. “Brak was the one who realized what was happening. He threw himself across the tent to stop R’shiel drinking the poison and then caught Mikel before he could run away.”

  “What reason would a child have to kill the demon child?”

  Adrina shrugged, not wishing to relive that awful night, sorry now that she had even mentioned it. “Apparently R’shiel traded his soul to the God of Music so he could learn the Song of Gimlorie and turn back the Kariens who were pursuing me—and Damin—back to Hythria after the Medalonians were ordered to surrender on the border. Until then, Mikel was a disciple of the God of Thieves. According to Dacendaran, her interference made the child vulnerable and the Overlord, Xaphista, was able to get inside his head.”

  “So the child Damin killed was the tool of the Overlord? My question would be, Adrina, not why you were not able to stop him, but why you would try to stay his hand in the first place?”

  “He was a child, Marla, and the fault for his vulnerability to manipulation was R’shiel’s, not his.”

  Her eyes filled with tears as she struggled to go on. Marla sat down, her hands resting on her cane, before asking, “I take it you were unable to dissuade him?”

  Adrina shook her head. “Neither could the Halfbreed or the demon child. I’ve never felt so helpless. Nobody tried to stop him, Marla, even with magic. ”

  “Let me guess: Damin offered them a choice,” Marla said. “Go to the rescue of those in the Citadel waiting for his help or interfere with his justice. The good of the many invariably outweighs the interests of one small child. I’m sure Damin learned that at my knee.”

  She nodded, quite certain Marla was right about that much. “I remember that night so vividly. We all stood there—even the Harshini who had come to aid the Hythrun in their quest to relieve the Citadel. ‘You can’t order this,’ I recall R’shiel shouting as he led Mikel away. ‘You can’t ask a man to execute a child!’ Do you know what Damin said then?”

  “Something along the lines of ‘I don’t ask anything of my men I wouldn’t do myself’?” Marla allowed herself the slightest of smiles. “I know my son, Adrina.”

  “I tried to stop him, Marla. I grabbed him, but he shook me off and told me I didn’t have to watch. Then R’shiel yelled something else about him being reasonable, and he turned on her. I’ll never forget the look on his face or how cold his voice was. ‘Define reasonable, demon child,’ he said. ‘Is it reasonable I let this child live so he can turn on yo
u again? It is reasonable that I let an assassin reside in the heart of my family? Suppose Adrina had taken that cup? Suppose Brak hadn’t noticed something was wrong? What the hell do you expect me to do?’”

  “I can’t say I am surprised at his reaction, Adrina. Thanks to your father and a few others I’ve taken care of over the years, Damin has lived with the threat of assassins all his life.”

  Adrina nodded. “That’s what Damin said. He was adamant his own children would not be raised the same way. ‘I want the whole damned world to know what I’m capable of if they dare to threaten me or mine.’ That’s what he said.”

  “And then he killed the child?”

  Adrina shook her head. “Brak did it in the end. The Halfbreed summoned Death to take him body and soul. It was kinder that way.”

  “And you think because you weren’t able to bat your eyelashes at my son and undo a lifetime of conditioning against the threat of assassins, he is somehow immune to your manipulation? If only you’d told me of this incident sooner, Adrina. I might have been much less harsh in my assessment of your insidious power over him.”

  “I tried to stop him, Marla.”

  “But you were unable to,” the princess replied. “That you tried to save someone you considered innocent speaks well of your character. That you were unable to change Damin’s mind on such an important matter speaks even more about his. Perhaps Hythria is not lost after all.” Marla leaned forward and rang a small silver bell on the table beside her chair. “Have a seat, Adrina. Join me for supper.”

  “Really?” she asked, rather ungraciously. “You’re inviting me for supper?”

  “I’m looking after my interests,” Marla told her, settling back into her chair. “If you are to rule Hythria in my absence with Damin incapacitated, there are things you must know. Things I would never commit to paper. People you need to be wary of. Other people who will help you if you need it. Quietly. People on whom I rely that even Damin is not aware of.”