“Very,” Izo muttered.
“You will call the Council dogs tonight,” Sezri went on as though Izo had not spoken. “Let them take the thief and the girl he keeps with him while Sted handles Liechten. Monpress is fickle, so we may not have long to act. Set it up quickly and you will be king before the month is out.”
Izo couldn’t help grinning at that thought. “There, at least, we agree,” he said, stomping down the stairs from his throne. “I’m going to make the rounds. We meet at sundown. I want both of you there.”
Neither of the men answered, but Izo just kept walking. He was king here, not them, and he would not stoop so low as to look back to see if they would follow. Instead, he pushed his way through the iron gate and stomped into the yard, yelling for his guard. Tonight, everything needed to be perfect, for tomorrow he was going to make himself king.
Sted watched the iron gate swing closed with a deafening clang. “He’s older than I expected,” he said when the sound of Izo’s shouting had faded. “Shorter, too.”
“Izo has been the Master’s servant for many years,” Sezri said. “Our numbers are greatly increased by his ambitions.”
“Who cares about your numbers?” Sted snorted, shifting his arm beneath his cape. “When do I get to face Liechten?”
“That depends on you.” Sezri’s voice was decidedly colder this time. “Follow the plan and you will have everything you desire. Be an idiot and I’ll rip the seed right out of you and give it to someone more worthy.”
Sted gave the skeletal man a sneering smile. “Is that what the voice tells you to do?”
Sezri’s eyes glowed brighter than ever. “He doesn’t have to,” he said, his voice carrying a hint of the strange double harmonic Sted had come to associate with well-entrenched seeds. “Unlike you, or the girl who had that seed before you, I am an obedient servant of the Mountain.
In the end, the Master’s desires will be fulfilled. I suggest you make sure you’re on the right side.”
“I’ve only got one side,” Sted said, shifting his arm below the cloak again. “Mine.”
“So I’ve heard,” Sezri said. “You should watch yourself, Sted.”
“I do,” Sted said, turning away. “Better than anyone.” He stepped sideways, slipping into the shadows. “See you at the briefing.”
He gave the thin demonseed one last smirk before vanishing into the shadows. Sezri glared a moment at the empty space where he had been, and then vanished as well, disappearing like a puff of smoke on the wind, leaving the great hall empty and dark as the sun began to set behind the mountains.
J
osef woke up to horrible, blinding pain. His back felt like someone had removed his spine and replaced it with a hot iron rod, and the rest of him didn’t feel much better. On the off chance his lungs worked, he took an experimental breath. It hurt. Powers, did it hurt, but not more than anything else. That gave him hope, and, very slowly, he opened his eyes.
He was lying in a bed in a cabin. Dappled sunlight streamed in through the open window, bringing with it the smell of mountains and trees. Josef frowned. He dimly remembered Eli and Nico moving him. After that, things went blank. He could tell from the light that they were no longer high in the mountains, but where?
Taking another deep breath in an attempt to clear his foggy mind, Josef began the serious business of finding his sword. He unclenched his aching hands and began to feel along the bed frame, careful not to make a sound.
“It’s on top of you,” said a familiar voice.
Josef’s head shot up, sending waves of pain down his back, and he cursed loudly as Eli’s smug face appeared in the air above him.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Eli said. “Glad to see you up.”
Josef glared murder at the thief and moved his hands to his chest. Sure enough, the Heart was resting directly on top of him. At least that explained the feeling of having a boulder on his ribs. He relaxed down into the bed with a long breath. “How long have I been out?”
“About three days,” Eli answered, pulling his chair closer to the bed. “And I’ve got the crick in my neck to prove it. You’ve been hogging the only bed. I’ve had to make do with a spare cushion on the floor.”
Josef was not sympathetic. “What about Nico? Where is she?”
“Who knows,” Eli said. “Out.”
Josef was startled by the hostility in his voice. “What happened?”
Eli shrugged. “The usual. You went down, Nico went crazy, I got us out. We thought you were going to die on us for a while, but the Heart did an excellent job patching you up. You look like you usually do after one of your fights now, which is miles better than the bloody mess you were when we laid you down.”
“And what about Nico?”
“Powers, Josef!” Eli cried. “Can you think about something besides the girl for two seconds? I go out on a limb, not even a limb, a
twig
, to save your hide, and when you wake up all I hear is Nico this, Nico that. I don’t even get a thank-you.”
“Thank you,” Josef said. “Don’t get angry about it. You
can take care of yourself, but Nico has a hard time with that right now. So when you say she’s ‘out,’ like you don’t even care—”
“Maybe I don’t,” Eli snapped. “Maybe you shouldn’t either.”
Josef stared at his friend. In the four years he’d known Eli, he’d never seen the thief this upset.
Eli looked away and took a deep breath. “Josef,” he said, more quietly. “When you found Nico, did you ever wonder why she was out there naked on the mountain?”
“Of course,” Josef answered. “But I figured she would tell me when I needed to know. I’m not concerned with people’s pasts, Eli.”
“Maybe you should be,” Eli said, running his hands through his dark hair, which was getting long and scruffy. “You know how oddly she’s been acting, right?”
Josef nodded.
“When I was in the mountain, I heard things,” Eli said. “I’m not someone to trust everything I hear, but this made too much sense to ignore. You’ve heard of the Daughter of the Dead Mountain?”
“I’ve seen the posters.”
“Who hasn’t?” Eli said with a shrug. “Two hundred thousand gold standards, the second-highest bounty ever posted. It’s twice as high as
mine
.” Eli scowled. “I think that’s what bothers me most. All this time, and she didn’t even have the courtesy to—”
“Stop,” Josef said. “Just stop. I know where you’re going. Nico is the Daughter of the Dead Mountain. So what? The Lord of Storms told me as much, but you can’t hold it against her. She lost her memory, remember? Maybe she didn’t even know.”
Eli rolled his eyes. “Come on, Josef. You’re stubborn, not stupid. Do you really believe all that garbage? Memory loss,” Eli said and snorted. “She remembered well enough how to get back to the mountain.”
“Yes,” Josef said. “To help us.”
“She lied to us.”
“She kept a secret,” Josef corrected. “You’re hardly in a position to blame others for keeping secrets, Monpress.”
Eli said sullenly, “This is too big. She should have told us.”
“And what would you have done?” Josef said.
“Not what I did,” Eli said. “She
lied
to us, Josef. We let her take off her manacles. I took her to Slorn’s
house
, to
Nivel
. Do you know what she could have
done
?”
“I never heard of her doing anything,” Josef said. “And I never heard her lie. I never heard her say anything about the Daughter of the Dead Mountain, that is, when she could say anything at all without you taking up all the breathable air.” He glared at Eli. “Whoever she is, whatever name you give her, it doesn’t change the last year. She’s still the same Nico who put her life on the line dozens of times for your stupid thefts, who risked exposing her past to help you find your bear-headed friend, which was more than you did, I could add. So if you have something to say about that Nico, unless it’s how you’re going to go find her and tell her I’m all right, then I don’t want to hear it.”
Eli looked away. “It’s not like that,” he grumbled.
“Then don’t make it like that,” Josef snapped back. “I don’t ask about your past, I don’t ask about Nico’s, and I haven’t told you about mine because the past doesn’t matter, Eli. What we did and who we were are just dregs
compared to who we are now and how we act when the sword is coming down. Think about that while you go out to find Nico.”
Eli started to say something, but then he snapped his mouth shut and stood up, sweeping the chair back with a clatter. He grabbed his blue coat from the peg on the wall and stomped out the door, letting it slam shut behind him. Josef listened until the thief’s angry footsteps faded into the forest, then lay back with a long sigh.
“He’s gone,” he said. “You can come in now.”
Something rustled below the window, and Nico quietly climbed into the cabin. Her hood was down, but it did little to hide her puffy eyes and wet cheeks. Josef held out his arm and she ran to him, burying her face in his hand.
“He hates me now.” Josef felt the words more than heard them.
“He may,” Josef said. “Eli doesn’t like surprises, but he’ll get over this. He can be a selfish idiot on occasion, but he’s rarely deliberately unfair. He’ll come around soon enough and things will move on. We’re all survivors. We’ll be all right.”
Nico didn’t move, but her breathing was slowing. Josef cupped her cheek gently. They sat like that for a while, Nico on her knees beside the bed, her head in Josef’s hand. Then, without warning, Josef went stiff.
Nico looked up immediately, but Josef put his finger to his lips, listening. Gently but firmly, he pushed her aside and sat up. Pain shot through him, but Josef stayed silent. The Heart was ready when he reached for it, the hilt almost jumping into his hand. With another burst of pain, he stood, and after a few wobbly moments, found his feet again. When he was sure he would not fall down,
he crept toward the cabin door and pressed his eye against the crack.
“Oh, no,” he groaned. “Not again.”
“Liechten!” A horribly familiar voice cut through the thin cabin walls. “Master of the Heart of War! Come and fight!”
Josef steeled his shoulders and opened the door, leaning on the frame for support as he stared at the crowd waiting in the little clearing around the cabin. They were bandits, that much was obvious. A bit better equipped than what he was used to, but Josef dismissed them as soon as he noted their sloppy stances and turned his attention to the real threat, the enormous man standing at the head of the group.
Josef heaved an enormous sigh. “Hello, Sted.”
Eli tromped through the woods, kicking the leaves and fallen sticks and whatever else got in his way. This caused the trees around him to rustle uncomfortably, but for once Eli didn’t care. He should have known better than to bring this up with Josef. They’d been together on and off almost since the beginning, back when his bounty didn’t even warrant its own poster, and though their arrangement had always been one of mutual benefit—he got a swordsman and Josef got to fight as much as he pleased— he’d
thought
they were friends.
Eli gave the rotten stump in front of him a particularly hard kick. Even he knew that was unfair. Josef had stayed with him even when there were no good fights to be had. He might be a stubborn idiot sometimes, but he was a loyal one. But why did the swordsman always have to take Nico’s side?
He didn’t understand, Eli decided. He wasn’t a wizard, he didn’t talk to spirits, he didn’t really know how horrible demons could be. Of course, Eli thought with a sigh, he was just as bad, letting himself get caught up in Nico’s power, forgetting what she really was. Well, the monster on the mountain had cured him of
that
delusion. The demon had made it very clear that the Nico they knew, the Nico Josef defended, she was just a shell. A cracking one, he realized with a shudder. It wasn’t a question of whether she would change, but when. When she’d been a normal seed, it had been easy to sweep that little unpleasantness under the table. Now that he knew what she really was, the stakes were different, and the game was getting too rich for his blood.
Eli stared at the woods in front of him, the rolling hills of dappled shade and fragrant evergreens. Thinking about it rationally, he should keep walking. He’d been a thief long enough to know when it was time to cut your losses and get out, but …
Eli stopped in his tracks. First rule of thievery, the
actual
first rule the old Monpress had drilled into him, was never risk what you couldn’t afford to lose. He couldn’t lose his team, not if he wanted to get his bounty to one million. Over the last year, he’d pushed higher and further than ever, and Nico had been a part of that as much as Josef. Even knowing what he was messing with, he couldn’t give that up. Not yet.
He was still standing there, sucking his lip as his better judgment warred with his ambition, when a loud noise, a whistle followed by a thunk, sounded right beside his ear. Eli jumped on instinct, throwing himself sideways into the leaves. He rolled into a crouch, then stopped and
looked up. An arrow was quivering in the trunk of the tree he’d been standing beside. Eli stared at it dumbly for a second and then craned his neck, frantically looking for the bowman.
Another arrow slammed into the ground beside him before he even got his head up. Realizing he was still an open target, Eli scrambled to the other side of the tree, madly beating on the trunk as he went.