Assassin's Gambit: The Hearts and Thrones Series (6 page)

This was ridiculous. She had to regain control. No more of this . . . whatever he was doing. She reached for his erection.

He shuddered and pulled away. “Not yet,” he scolded, kissing her in apology. “Or we’ll have a very short night.”

She reached for him again.

He dodged.
Gods-cursed war mage reflexes.
She glared at him. He grinned and moved downward along her body, keeping himself well out of reach. Then his tongue parted her, and such pleasure coursed through her that she did not dare move, lest it stop. He wasn’t the first man to touch her there, but most men were too rough; they had no idea how sensitive she was. Lucien seemed to know the right amount of pressure to use. No doubt it was a skill born of practice; he’d pleasured many a woman before her. Why he should bother, she couldn’t imagine. He was the emperor; he didn’t need to be a good lover to lure women to his bed.

But, for whatever reason, he’d made the most of his opportunities. He sensed her rhythm and adjusted to it, sometimes speeding his strokes, other times slowing them or stopping them entirely, until she was ready to burst with frustration. Then he began again, and the pleasure mounted, greater than before.

As she began to buck, he gripped her around the hips. Then her world exploded and she thought of nothing but uncontrollable, shuddering pleasure. When it finished, she lay back, panting and sweating. She closed her eyes as her body throbbed gently. When she opened her eyes, Lucien was there, staring into them. He kissed her.

Three gods
, she realized.
That was an orgasm.
She’d had plenty of sex, practicing for this very night, but never had any of her partners cared enough about her pleasure to bring her to orgasm.

The head of Lucien’s cock nudged her opening, poised to enter.

She prepared herself mentally. The moment was coming when she would have to kill this man.

He pushed himself inside. And the vision seized her.

“Gods.” The young soldier’s eyes fluttered closed as he penetrated her. His dark hair, overlong, fell across his brow. She could feel his energy, his excitement, his masculine strength. His mouth found hers and kissed it eagerly. “Who are you?” he asked. “Tell me your name.”

She said nothing. She lay still, submissive, waiting for her moment.

He sighed with pleasure, his hips moving. “You’re so beautiful. Say something,” he begged. “Are you a prisoner here too?”

She remained silent and motionless beneath him.

He smiled sadly and twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “I don’t understand. You offer yourself to me, but you won’t talk. Have they cut out your tongue?”

“Vitala, what’s wrong?” Lucien asked, waking her from the unwanted memory. He stilled. “Pox. I hear it. I hear it!” He rolled off her.

Vitala sat up, blinking back to full awareness. She heard it too. Shouts and the clashing of steel. Nearby.

“Septian!” cried Lucien.

There was no answer. By the sound, Vitala placed the action at roughly the entrance to Lucien’s tent.

Lucien flung himself off the bed and hopped to a bedside table.

Vitala sat up in bed, trembling and confused. What in the Soldier’s hell was going on? Had Lucien’s enemies chosen this moment to move against him? And if so, what should she do? Fight? Do nothing?

Lucien fished a pistol and a wicked-looking knife from a drawer. He caught her eye and said, “Get my crutch.”

His words ended her paralysis. She flung herself out of bed, grabbed the crutch, and shoved it at Lucien. Gods, they were stark naked, both of them. He would need the peg leg too, so she snatched it up, but Lucien was already in motion.

He scrambled across the bed on all fours, then, half hopping and half supporting himself with the crutch, made his way to the back of the tent. “Bring that here,” he said. Vitala joined him as he knelt on the floor and jabbed the knife into the tent wall. He began to haul it downward, opening a gap. The leather was thick. He strained with the effort, gripping the knife with both hands, his muscles trembling. Without his war magic, he probably couldn’t have done it at all.

He’d opened an arm’s length of leather when a sword point stabbed through the opening. Vitala shrieked, and Lucien jumped back with a shout of surprise. He looked around helplessly. They were trapped. “Get under the bed.” He yelled again, “Septian!”

Vitala heard someone unhooking the door panel—the intruders were close. She dove to the floor, still holding Lucien’s wooden leg, and scrambled beneath the bed. She still had no idea what to do. Her job was to kill Lucien. These men probably intended the same. Should she just leave the task to them? But what were they going to do with her? Kill her, probably, since she would be a witness.

Should she fight? Naked as she was, she couldn’t do much, not against men with guns and swords. With crippled Lucien as her only ally, the odds were impossibly long, especially if they’d already dispatched Septian, and she suspected they had. Or worse, Septian was among the traitors.

She heard the door panel open. She peered out from under the bed, and several pairs of boots crowded into the room. A gunshot rang out, and a man in a Legaciatti uniform hit the floor. Blood welled from his forehead. More pairs of boots entered. Lucien’s pistol clattered to the ground, useless now that its single shot had been fired. He had only the knife left. She counted six pairs of boots, and there might be more outside.

The boots shuffled forward. Steel clashed. Lucien moved with surprising agility despite having only his crutch. A man shouted in pain. There was more clashing, and Lucien fell with an anguished cry, clutching his right leg. From her vantage point, she saw his taut, ashen face, but he did not make eye contact or even glance in her direction. She realized with a twinge of shame that he was protecting her.

“Worthless cull,” said one of the men. She recognized the voice as that of Remus, and her anger rose to the boiling point.

Lucien lunged with the knife and stabbed it into the leg of the man nearest him.

Chaos erupted. “Gods curse it, get that away from him!” roared Remus. One man stomped on Lucien’s wrist, trapping his knife hand, and someone else kicked the weapon away. Then Remus was on top of Lucien, punching him in the face with his fist, once, twice, three times. Vitala winced with each blow. Lucien’s breath was ragged. She could sense his fear, but he did not give his attackers the satisfaction of crying out.

“You horse fucker,” snarled Remus. He turned back to his men. “Is Eustace dead?”

Someone laid a hand on the throat of the man who’d been shot. “Yes.”

“He’s naked,” said a voice she didn’t recognize. “Is there a woman?”

“Check under the bed,” said Remus.

Vitala froze in terror.
Pox, pox, pox.
Two faces appeared below the edge of the bed and aimed pistols at her. “There is.”

“Drag her out,” said Remus.

Her hands itched to call a Shard. The men were putting their pistols away; they didn’t expect her to fight. She could kill one man, maybe two, but all five? No. She hadn’t a chance.

Two of the men grabbed her arms and hauled her out. One of them took the wooden leg from her. Among the traitors, she recognized only Remus and the Warder, but all of them wore Legaciatti uniforms.

The men stared at her naked form, and one of them gave an appreciative whistle.

Remus’s mouth twisted in disapproval. “It’s the Caturanga player.”

“Let her go,” choked Lucien, who was still on the floor, held down by two men and bleeding from his nose, his mouth, and his good leg. “This isn’t her quarrel.”

“She’s a witness,” said Remus. “Kill her.”

Not a man made a move, even the ones holding her.

“We could fuck her first,” said the Warder.

Remus gave Vitala a second, more appraising look. “I suppose. Someone has to stay with the riftstone, anyway. Make sure no one runs off with it.”

“First watch,” called two men simultaneously.

“
I’m
first, you culls,” growled Remus. “Tie her up. Ankles together, wrists to the bedposts.”

The men holding her pulled lengths of rope from their belts, shoved her onto the bed, and began to tie her up. She tensed the muscles in her wrists and ankles in hopes of getting a tiny bit of slack into the knots.

“Here it is,” said Remus.

Vitala twisted her head around to see. Remus had found the folded loros and was holding it reverently to his chest. Was he claiming the throne for himself?

Remus strode to Lucien and leaned down. He grabbed the topaz riftstone that hung around his neck and yanked it away, breaking the chain. “Get him out of range of his riftstone,” he ordered. “I’ll stay with the Caturanga whore. Send someone to relieve me in half an hour.”

“That long?” teased one of the men.

Remus gave them a thin-lipped smile. “Go.”

One of the men took a length of rope, fitted it into a noose, and looped the noose around Lucien’s neck. “On your feet, half man.” He jerked cruelly at the rope.

Lucien rose to hands and knees and reached for his crutch.

Remus knocked it away with his foot, and the soldier who was carrying the leg picked it up.

“I can’t—” began Lucien.

Remus kicked him viciously, eliciting a gasp of pain. “Move, Emperor!”

Lucien crawled toward the tent flap, leaving a smear of blood in his trail. One soldier tugged him by the noose while the others surrounded him, laughing and jeering and urging him on with well-placed kicks.

Vitala’s heart ached for Lucien. Apparently killing him wasn’t enough; they meant to humiliate him too. How unprofessional.

The soldiers left the tent, tugging their unhappy prisoner. Only Remus remained. He laid the loros on the table and began to unbelt his syrtos.

She taunted him with her eyes.
Come on and fuck me, Remus. I’m ready for you.

7

V
itala watched closely as Remus set aside his double belts along with his sword, knife, and pistol. She hoped he would bare his chest and give her a glimpse of his riftstone. If it was anything but the topaz of a war mage, she could kill him before the sex and save herself some unpleasantness.

But he seemed to have no intention of doing so. He loosened his syrtos but did not remove it. And he had something on underneath—a mail shirt, which meant yet another layer below that.

Remus climbed onto the bed, knelt beside her, and checked the knots that bound her wrists to the bedpost. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “I’ve seen dozens of beautiful young women like you throw themselves at Lucien. And for what? Gifts? Money?”

“Dahatrian tea. Have you tasted the swill they brew outside the palace?”

Remus gave her a withering look. He untied and retied the knots, yanking them tight until she winced. “You think it’s funny, joking about how cheap you are? Whore.”

“And you’re such a paragon of virtue,” said Vitala.

He chuckled. Satisfied with the knots on her wrists, he moved down and untied her ankles. She willed the riftstone to reveal itself on his neck, but it stayed hidden.

He pushed back his syrtos and pulled down his leggings, displaying his cock with a flourish, as if he expected her to marvel at it. He lay atop her, covering her body with his own. “Kiss me,” he commanded.

She obeyed, without enthusiasm.

“Good girl,” he murmured. “Relax, and you might enjoy it.”

She hissed in pain as he entered her. She had some residual wetness and swelling from her encounter with Lucien, but it wasn’t enough. Remus didn’t notice or care. He thrust into her, occasionally fondling her breasts or kissing her. She tried to ignore it.
Mild discomfort,
she told herself.
It’s mild discomfort, nothing more.

She called a Shard into her right hand, maneuvered it into her fingertips, and angled its razor-sharp tip toward the rope that bound her wrist. Remus was oblivious. Though she had no leverage and couldn’t exert much force, the Shard separated the fibers of the rope like an oar parting water. Her bonds loosened. With more room to maneuver, she cut through the remaining coils of rope, freeing her right arm. Though it ached from its uncomfortable position, she kept it where it was, pressed against the bedpost.

Now she had a problem. In her rehearsals with Bayard, she’d never been tied up. She’d always held her hand close to her target’s body, usually resting on his back. That allowed her to strike with lightning speed—a necessity, along with distraction, for bypassing the war mage’s gift of anticipation. But her hand was far away. Could she strike quickly enough to make the kill? It was a lot of distance to cover.

She’d lain passive as Remus kissed and pinched and penetrated her. Now she kissed him back, moaning deep in her throat. She moved her body in time with his strokes.

Remus chuckled, thrusting harder and faster.

She inched her right hand downward along the bed. When Remus’s attention momentarily drifted toward her hand, she moaned as if in need and drew him back to her. Slowly, one finger’s breadth at a time, she moved her hand.

Remus’s body stiffened in a way she was well familiar with. She could wait no longer.

Vitala drove the Shard into the soft flesh of his hip and released the death spell. He began instantly to thrash. She scrambled out from under him, plucked the Shard from his hip, and kicked his flailing body away in disgust. She cut her left wrist free from the bedpost.

Remus twitched and seized, making little gasping sounds. His wide eyes stared at her; she had no doubt he was still conscious, but he couldn’t speak; the spell had paralyzed his throat. Bloody froth leaked from the corners of his mouth. She was tempted to tell him,
Relax, and you might enjoy it,
but taunting was unprofessional. She scooped up her syrtos from the floor.

How much time did she have? Not much. Remus had said half an hour, but it was not impossible that the next man could arrive early.

Remus gave one final, convulsive gasp and lay still. Vitala threw on her syrtos, went to Remus’s sweat-dampened corpse, and peeled the mail shirt and tunic back from his neck. There was his riftstone. Topaz. She’d made the right decision. She slipped the tiny stone up over Remus’s neck. He’d also been carrying Lucien’s riftstone. She searched his clothes, found it, and pocketed both.

A shudder racked her. She sank to the floor and put her head between her knees, riding out a wave of dizziness. Her stomach lurched. Good thing she hadn’t eaten anything.
Get yourself together, Vitala. There are more men coming. You want to go through this a second time?

She got to her feet, still trembling, and armed herself with Remus’s knife, sword, and pistol. She paused a moment to verify that the pistol was loaded. Remus’s belt pouch was heavy with coins, so she took that too, along with the jeweled loros, which she tied up in a blanket. It would be quite a trophy to deliver to the Circle. The door flap to the bedroom hung open. She stepped through it back into the sitting room.

Septian’s glassy, dead eyes stared up at her from the floor. Four additional corpses littered the room. One man had fallen partially onto a love seat, where he sprawled in a macabre imitation of a lounging aristocrat, with blood pooling beneath him. Did she have time to rifle the bodies and collect their riftstones? Some varieties of stone were hard to come by in Riorca.

Boots thudded on the grass just outside the tent. Vitala pulled the knife from her belt.

The man walked right in through the open door. “Remus?” he called.

It was the Warder. Which meant, thank the gods, he was not a war mage.
Come closer,
she willed him, fingering the knife, which wasn’t as balanced for throwing as she’d like.

He spotted her and his eyes went wide. “Wait. Aren’t you—? Shouldn’t you—?” His hand went to his pistol.

Vitala threw her knife. She’d aimed for the chest, but it took him in the shoulder. He reeled and drunkenly aimed his pistol at her. She ran at him, knocked the weapon out of his hand, and swept his legs out from under him. He landed with a thud. She jerked the knife from his shoulder and slit his throat.

Her heart was racing. Her kill count had just risen by two. She pulled the Warder’s riftstone off his neck. That was three stones she could present to the Circle, not to mention the loros. The rest she would have to leave behind. She hurried out into the night air.

•   •   •

It was quiet outside the tent—surprisingly so. When she’d entered, there had been a tiny bit of daylight left. Now it was dark. She took a moment to reorient herself. The campsite had been laid out in a series of concentric circles. She was at the center of that circle, surrounded by the tents of Lucien’s guards and servants. The tents were silent; she saw no signs of activity within. Scattered about were a few suspicious-looking lumps on the ground that she feared were corpses. Remus and his men had dealt with the servants first.

Beyond the tents was a ring of blackness, the wide perimeter that separated Lucien and the imperial staff from the rank and file of the battalion. Still farther, the distant specks of campfires were an ominous reminder that she had enemies on all sides. Lucien had encamped in the middle of his army, a security measure that in hindsight was ironic.

To the south, partially blocked by intervening tents, the plumes of a bonfire arced toward the sky. She should avoid it; probably it was where the Legaciatti and Lucien were. But could she really just leave? She didn’t know Lucien’s fate. She assumed they would kill him, but the plan could be something else, and she’d look unprofessional, even foolish, if she returned to the Circle and told her superiors,
I think he’s dead, but I’m not sure.

She had to be sure.

She ran back into Lucien’s tent and stripped the dead Warder. She considered his mail shirt, but decided against it. She didn’t have a man’s size and strength, and the heavy armor would hamper her movement should she need to fight. She put on the uniform, folding parts of it to hide the bloodstains.

Back outside, she circled around to the south and headed for the bonfire, using the tents as cover. Her Legaciatti uniform might fool someone from a distance, but up close, anyone might notice it didn’t really fit her. Plus the Legaciatti probably all knew each other by sight. As she crept closer, she heard voices and an occasional roar of laughter. Yes, they were definitely there.

She quickly identified two sentries. One of them was stationed on the far side of the bonfire and facing away from her. The other was facing her direction. Keeping a buffer of tents between her and the nearer sentry, she carefully skirted around him. Then she peered at the scene.

The bonfire was in the dark perimeter, just south of the tents, in a clear, open, grassy space with no cover. It roared skyward, sending a cascade of sparks dancing into the air.

“Get him! Get him!” someone cried.

A naked figure, dark against the orange glow of the fire, scrambled across the grass on hands and knees. Someone chased after him on foot, wielding a long stick with a glowing tip. He struck the crawling man with it. She couldn’t hear much over the roar of the bonfire, but she could imagine the sizzle of burning flesh, and Lucien’s agonized cry. The men laughed.

Vitala’s teeth clenched. Those witless culls! Why couldn’t they just kill him and be done with it? Her target was not dead, and not likely to be so anytime soon. If they hadn’t killed him yet, it was probably for a reason.

Who was behind this? Remus seemed to be in charge of the men here, but he couldn’t be claiming the throne for himself, or else he would have put the loros on right away to establish the rank. So who was the ringleader?

She perked up, watching in silence, as a uniformed soldier approached the northernmost sentry. “Florian’s Imperial Garden,” he said.

Vitala blinked. Gods, she’d heard that before. Remus had used that phrase when he’d escorted her from the docks in the carriage. It must be a code phrase that identified people involved in the plot.

The sentry let the man pass.

If there was a code phrase, the plot must involve a lot of people. What did this mean for Riorca and the Circle? Her purpose in killing Lucien wasn’t to commit a random murder; it was to spark a battle for the succession that would destabilize the Kjallan Empire, perhaps even start a civil war. But was that really going to happen? Somebody powerful had organized this plot. That somebody was ready to step in and take the throne. There might be another party who would challenge that person—but there might not be. On the other hand, if Lucien escaped unharmed, he would certainly challenge the new man. That would almost guarantee a war.

Her mind sifted eagerly through the possibilities. This was like a Caturanga game—someone had made an unexpected move, the board had changed, and she needed a new strategy. She’d never relished the thought of killing Lucien, and maybe now she didn’t have to. She could do more for her people by saving his life.

She counted targets. One, two, three . . . eight, not counting Lucien. Plus the two sentries. She had her Shards, a pistol with a single bullet, and a sword. One at a time, she might be able to kill ten men, provided there were no war mages in the group, but all at once was ridiculous.

Lucien curled up on the ground, clutching his side. As she watched, he lifted his head and stared right at her.

Vitala ducked behind the tent she’d been peering around, her pulse racing. How had he seen her? It was dark, and she was hidden.

His riftstone.
Of course. Mages were soul-bonded to their riftstones and could sense them. She was carrying the stone, and he knew it. By bringing it close to him, she had restored Lucien’s war magic. He might help her fight, but in his condition, he couldn’t be worth much.

Vitala needed a diversion.

She left her vantage point, recrossed the camp, and found a banked cookfire near one of the servants’ tents. She lit a tent pole and laid it against the imperial tent. It was slow to catch, but soon flames licked their way up the walls. For good measure, she repeated the task, lighting the tent in two more places.

Satisfied, she crept back to the bonfire. While she hid behind a supply tent, a group of men ran past her in the opposite direction—Legaciatti, she hoped, heading for the burning imperial tent.

Back at her vantage point, she set down the blanket-wrapped loros and assessed the situation at the bonfire. She’d thinned their numbers significantly. Both sentries remained and two Legaciatti, who had Lucien lying on the ground at sword point and were craning their necks to look at the tent fire.

These weren’t the best odds, but they were the best she was going to get.

The far sentry had ceased watching the empty field to the south and had turned to stare at the fire.

Painstakingly, Vitala circled round the bonfire, staying well out of its light and hiding behind tents when she could until she was behind the sentry. She drew her knife and crept forward, silent as death. When the sentry was close enough that she could smell his sweat, she drove her knife downward into his back, aiming for the kidney. He jerked convulsively. She grabbed him as he fell and slit his throat, grateful for the roar of the bonfire that covered the sound.

Now for the second sentry. She pocketed her bloody knife, straightened her borrowed uniform, and walked straight up to him. “Florian’s Imperial Garden.”

The sentry blinked at her, trying to figure out who she was.

She called a Shard, partially closed her fist over it, and held it out to him. “Remus said to give you this.”

The sentry looked relieved. “He’s all right? He got out?” He held out his hand. When their fingers touched, she stabbed the palm of his hand with the Shard and released the death spell. The sentry made a choking noise and sank to the ground, shaking.

“Hey! What’s happening to him?” called one of the guards at the fire. Both of them were staring at her, as was Lucien, whose eyes were sharp and alert.