Crooked Kingdom (67 page)

Authors: Leigh Bardugo

Inej laughed, her hood falling back from her hair.

“That's the laugh,” he murmured, but she was already setting off down the quay, her feet barely touching the ground.

“Mama!” she called out. “Papa!”

Inej saw them turn, saw her mother grip her father's arm. They were running toward her.

Her heart was a river that carried her to the sea.

Pekka sat in the front room of his country house, peering out from behind one of the white lace curtains. Kaelish lace. Imported from Maroch Glen. Pekka had spared no expense when he'd polished up this place. He'd built the house from the ground up, specifying the dimensions of every room, the varnish for the floors, choosing each fixture and furnishing with care. The Emerald Palace was his great pride, the Kaelish Prince the crown jewel of his empire, a testament to luxury and style, decked out in the highest Barrel flash. But this place was his home, his castle. Its every detail spoke respectability, prosperity, permanence.

Pekka felt safe here, safe with his son and the bodyguards he paid so well. Still, he moved away from the window. Best not to take any chances. Plenty of spots for a marksman to hide out there. Maybe he should cut down the beech trees that bordered the lawn.

He struggled to understand where his life had gone. A month ago he'd been a rich man, a man to be reckoned with, a king. And now?

He clutched his son closer and stroked his red hair. The boy was restless in his lap.

“I want to go play!” Alby said, leaping from Pekka's knee, thumb in his mouth, clutching the soft little lionâone of the many he owned. Pekka could barely stand to look at the thing. Kaz Brekker had bluffed him and he'd fallen for it.

But it was worse than that. Brekker had gotten into his head. Pekka couldn't stop thinking of his boy, his perfect boy buried beneath clods of earth, screaming for him, pleading for his father, and Pekka unable to come to his rescue. Sometimes his son was crying from somewhere in the fields but he didn't know where to dig. Sometimes Pekka was the one lying in the grave, paralyzed as the earth was piled on top of himâlight at first, a patter of rain, then in heavy clods that filled his mouth and stole the breath from his chest. Above him he could hear people laughingâboys, girls, women, men. They were silhouettes against a blue dusk sky, their faces lost to shadow, but he knew who they were. All the people he'd swindled, duped, killed. All the sorry sobs he'd sacrificed as he made his climb up the ladder. He still couldn't remember the name of Brekker's brother. What had he been called?

Pekka had been Jakob Hertzoon; he'd worn a thousand different faces. But Kaz Brekker had found him. He'd come for his revenge. If one of those fools could find him, why not another, and another? How many would stand in line to throw the next shovelful of dirt?

Making choices, even simple choices, had become difficult. What tie to wear. What to order for dinner. He doubted himself. Pekka had never doubted himself. He'd started life as a no one. A stone breaker from the Wandering Isle, a sturdy boy valued only for his strong back and his youth, for his ability to swing a pick and carry a load of rocks. But he'd cheated his way onto a boat coming to Ketterdam and made his reputation with his fists. He'd been a boxer, a bruiser, the most feared enforcer in the gangs. He'd survived because he was the wiliest, the toughest, because no one could break his will. Now all he wanted to do was sit inside, drink his whiskey, watch the shadows move across the ceiling. Anything else filled him with a terrible fatigue.

And then one morning he woke to a bright, blue-enamel sky. The air was full of birdsong. He could smell the arrival of summer, real heat in the air, fruit ripening in the orchard.

He dressed. He breakfasted. He spent the morning in the fields, working in the early sun and playing with Alby. When the day grew too hot, they sat on the wide porch and drank cool glasses of lemonade. Then Pekka went inside and actually faced the papers and bills that had been piling up on his desk.

Things were in disastrous shape at the Emerald Palace and the Kaelish Prince. They'd been closed by the city as a health precaution, the doors and windows marked with dire black
X
s to indicate an outbreak site. News from Ketterdam indicated that the plague had been a false alarm, some strange fungus or virus that had struck quickly but seemed to be proving harmless. City officials were cautiously optimistic.

Pekka studied the balance sheets. Both gambling halls might be salvageable in time. He'd take a loss for the year, but once things had calmed down, he'd slap a new coat of paint on the buildings, give them new names, and he'd be back in business. He'd probably have to close the Sweet Shop. No man was going to pull his trousers down when the price might be catching the plague, not when there were so many other establishments willing to cater to him. That was unfortunate. But he'd had setbacks before. He had a good source for “indentures” who would work for nothing. He was still Pekka Rollins, king of the Barrel. And if any of those little skivs roaming the streets had forgotten that fact, he'd be happy to serve them a reminder.

By the time Pekka was done sorting through the masses of correspondence and news, night had fallen. He stretched, downed the last of his whiskey, and looked in on Alby sleeping soundly with that cursed little lion tucked beneath his chin. He said good night to the guards posted outside his son's bedroom, then made his way down the hall.

“Turning in, boss?” asked Doughty. He and another huge bruiser watched over Pekka's quarters at night, men Pekka knew he could trust.

“I am, Doughty. And a good night it'll be too.”

When he climbed into bed, he knew he would not dream of his son crying or the grave or that dark chorus standing above him, laughing. Tonight he'd dream of the Wandering Isle, of its rolling green fields and the mists that wreathed its mountains. In the morning, he would rise refreshed and restored, ready to see to the real work of reclaiming his throne.

Instead he woke with the weight of a heavy rock on his chest. His first thought was of the grave, the weight of earth pressing down on him. Then he came back to himself. His bedroom was dark, and someone was on top of him. He gasped and tried to shove up from his sheets, but he felt a pair of knees and elbows locked onto him, the stinging press of a blade against his neck.

“I'll kill you,” Pekka gasped.

“You already tried.” A woman's voiceâno, a girl's.

He opened his mouth to bellow for his guards.

She jabbed at his neck with the knife. Pekka hissed as blood trickled into his collar. “Scream and I'll use this blade to pin your throat to the pillow.”

“What do you want?”

“Do you like life, Rollins?” When he didn't answer, she jabbed him again. “I asked you a question. Do you like life?”

“How did you get past my guards?”

“You call those guards?”

“You killed them?”

“I didn't bother.”

“The only window is barred. Itâ”

“I am the Wraith, Rollins. Do you think bars can stop me?”

Brekker's little Suli girl. He cursed the money he'd spent on that Ravkan mercenary.

“So Brekker sent you to deliver a message?” he asked.

“I have my own message to deliver.”

“Tell me what deal you struck with Brekker. Whatever he's paying you, I can double it.”

“Shhhh,” the girl said, pressing down with her knees. Pekka felt something in his shoulder pop. “I left pretty Dunyasha's brains dashed all over the Ketterdam cobblestones. I want you to think about what I could do to you.”

“Why don't you just kill me now and save your threats?” He would not be cowed by some slip of a girl from the Menagerie.

“Death is a gift you haven't yet earned.”

“Youâ”

She stuffed something in his mouth.

“You can scream now,” she crooned. She peeled back the fabric of his nightshirt, and then her knife was digging into his chest. He screamed around the gag, trying to buck her off.

“Careful now,” she said. “You wouldn't want me to slip.”

Pekka forced himself to still. He realized how long it had been since he'd felt real pain. No one had dared lift a hand against him in years.

“Better.”

She sat back slightly as if to review her work. Panting, Pekka peered down but could see nothing. A wave of nausea rolled through him.

“This was the first cut, Rollins. If you ever think about coming back to Ketterdam, we'll meet again so I can make the second.”

She replaced his nightshirt with a little pat and was gone. He didn't hear her leave, only felt her weight release from his chest. He tore the rag from his mouth and rolled over, fumbling for the lamp. Light flooded the roomâthe dresser, the mirror, the washbasin. There was no one there. He stumbled to the window. It was still barred and locked. His chest burned where she'd used her knife on him.

He lurched to his dressing table and yanked back his blood-soaked nightshirt. She'd made a precise slash, directly above his heart. Blood spilled from it in thick, seeping pulses.
This was the first cut.
Bile rose in his throat.

All the Saints and their mothers
, he thought.
She's going to cut the heart from my chest.

Pekka thought of Dunyasha, one of the most gifted assassins in the world, a creature without conscience or mercyâand the Wraith had bested her. Maybe she really wasn't entirely human.

Alby.

He crashed through the door into the hallway, past the guards still posted there. They came to attention, stunned expressions on their faces, but he raced past them, careening down the hall to his son's room.
Please
, he begged silently,
please, please, please.

He threw the door open. Light from the hall spilled over the bed. Alby was on his side, sleeping soundly, his thumb tucked into his mouth. Pekka slumped against the doorjamb, weak with relief, holding his nightshirt to his bleeding chest. Then he saw the toy his son was clutching in his arms. The lion was gone. In its place was a black-winged crow.

Pekka recoiled as if he'd seen his son asleep with his cheek on a hairy-legged spider.

He shut the door gently and strode back down the hall.

“Get Shay and Gerrigan out of bed,” he said.

“What happened?” asked Doughty. “Should I call a medik?”

“Tell them to start packing our bags. And gather up all the cash we have.”

“Where are we going?”

“As far away as we can get.”

Rollins slammed the bedroom door behind him. He went back to his window and tested the bars again. Still solid. Still locked. In the black shine of the glass he could see his reflection, and he didn't recognize himself. Who was this man with thinning hair and frightened eyes? There'd been a time when he would have faced any threat with chin up and guns blazing. What had changed? Was it just time?
No
, he realized,
it's success.
He'd gotten comfortable and found that he enjoyed it.

Pekka sat before his mirror and began to wipe the blood from his chest. He'd taken pride in making Ketterdam his. He'd laid the traps, set the fires, put his boot to the necks of all those who'd challenged him, and reaped the rewards of his boldness. Most of the opposition had fallen, easy pickings, the occasional challenge almost welcome for the excitement it brought. He'd broken the Barrel to his whim, written the rules of the game to his liking, rewritten them at will.

The problem was that the creatures who had managed to survive the city he'd made were a new kind of misery entirelyâBrekker, his Wraith queen, his rotten little court of thugs. A fearless breed, hard-eyed and feral, hungrier for vengeance than for gold.

Do you like life, Rollins?

Yes, he did, very much indeed, and he intended to go on living for a good long time.

Pekka would count his money. He would raise his son. He'd find himself a good woman or two or ten. And maybe, in the quiet hours, he'd raise a glass to the men like him, to his fellow architects of misfortune who had helped raise Brekker and his crew. He'd drink to the whole sorry lot of them, but mostly to the poor fools who didn't know what trouble was coming.

C
AST OF
C
HARACTERS

Adem Bajan
[
ad
-em bah-
zhahn
]

Music instructor indentured to Jan Van Eck

Aditi Hilli
[uh-
dee
-tee
hee
-lee] (deceased)

Jesper Fahey's mother

Alina Starkov
[uh-
lee
-nuh
stahr
-kovf] (deceased)

Grisha Etherealnik (Sun Summoner); former leader of the Second Army

Alys Van Eck
[
al
-is van ek]

Jan Van Eck's second wife

Anika
[
an
-i-
kuh
]

Member of the Dregs

Anya
[
ahn
-yuh] (deceased)