Night of Masks and Knives (The Broken Kingdoms Book 4)

My skull screamed as if fire melted the bone. Incessant rocking kept lolling my head back and forth.

One eye cracked open. I was tucked inside a small cart. Above me sunlight waltzed through canopies of dark leaves. Tangled moss hung from the branches, and cries of unknown creatures rose from the brush.

The Kryv had smuggled me next to several swords wrapped in fur, and all edges were smudged in something wet. My limbs were stiffer than lead when I tried to move, and my trousers clung to my legs, fetid and rank.

Dense, muggy air provided the first clue we’d left the main townships and had crossed into the wilds of the Forest of Limericks, a sort of jungle of evergreen trees and ferns. Legends haunted the trees with tales of water sprites drawing travelers to their deaths in the rivers and lakes, and beasts with fangs longer than my fingers awaiting to break bones.

At one side of the wagon, Tova kept a steady pace, and at the front, the thick Kryv who’d put his hand on my face pulled the cart by a rod.

Where was the Nightrender? Out of anyone I wanted to account for the brutal man. Those shadows . . .

I shook my head as if it might wipe clean the memory of how the skydguard bent and broke with the simple tilt of the Nightrender’s head. How did he command darkness in such a way? It was mesmer I’d never witnessed, and in truth, wasn’t certain I wanted to witness again.

He was vicious. Terrifying.

He was perfect.

When I faced the Nightrender again, I’d be forced to hide the race of my pulse, but he was irrevocably formidable. Exactly the sort of man needed to hunt a lost Alver at the masquerade.

″How do you feel?” Tova asked, peering over the edge of the cart.

A bit of fear and frustration knotted in the center of my chest. “Like a torch has been lit inside my head.”

″Probably because Lynx mesmerized you,” she said, unfazed by my bitterness. “Kept your mind convinced it was asleep so you wouldn’t make noise as we left. Useful as they are, Hypnotik mesmer stings like a burning knife when it fades.”

I glanced at the big Kryv pulling the cart. “He’s a Hypnotik?”

″What else would he be?”

How in the hells would I know anything about Lynx the Kryv to fashion an opinion on who or what he was?

″Tova,” said Lynx as he rested the cart to a stop. “We’re back, but we’re to speak straightaway.”

Tova hummed a bright folk tune as she reached for my arm. Her mannerisms were almost playful, and it unsettled my previous opinions on the woman. Before she’d been harsh, abrupt, and I’d been certain she hated me.

I pulled away, but her second grab for my arm counted, and I was briskly yanked from the back of the cart.

My brain spun. Where solid ground had been, now I skidded into a damp pit, each step more slippery.

Blades chopped at branches; dew sprayed my face. Brambles, vines, and overgrowth tangled around my ankles, leaving welts as I ripped my feet through the shrubs. A hint of brine perfumed the air with wet heat, and it coated my tongue with the silkiness of nearby blossoms.

When the ground flattened, my legs shook from walking downhill, but Tova gave me no rest.

Buried in the trees was an overgrown bridge. Dried vines of ivy hid the shape from anyone not looking for it. Raum passed me with a wink and pulled back the brambles over the entrance of a tunnel at the end of the bridge. Musty and damp, it echoed like the inside of a water well.

When light broke, the tunnel opened to a town. Or what was left of one.

Old dirt roads and crumbling homes once made of wood and clay lined wooded paths.

″What is this?”

″We call it Felstad,” Tova said. “It means haven.”

Cold bloomed through my chest. This was their world. Out here I was at their mercy, and if they wished me dead, who would know?

I buried my fear inside, if only to hide the truth from the Kryv before they could exploit my weakness.

At the end of a path, a massive black stone ruin towered over the abandoned township. The ancient rooftop had caved in, giving way for a small forest to grow inside. Trees sprouted in tangles, and vibrant birds with long tail feathers nested in the branches beyond the walls.

In my mind, the Guild of Kryv lived in a dank pit surrounded by rot. They ate snakes and web weavers, or maybe bones.

When Tova released my arm in the center of the ruin courtyard, I lifted my face to the sunlight. Gold-winged butterflies flittered through the trees, and sweet songbirds welcomed us into the haven. No bones and web weavers; the Kryv’s refuge was beautiful.

A bit of bright in my sea of fear.

Old corridors honeycombed from the inner ruins into dark hallways and alcoves. Above, amongst the trees, were ledges of broken levels once part of upper floors. A few Kryv dangled their legs over the edges.

All the Kryv who’d traveled with the cart walked to a rack and dropped weapons in a pile in a way both organized and chaotic. Tova laughed with three others as they stripped scabbards, bows, and swords. A gaunt boy reached for Raum’s sword, and I recognized him as one of the battle drummers.

″Seven,” the boy counted. Dark hair, dark lashes, dark clothes, stood out against his pale face. He took every blade and organized them by size and type. After a moment the boy shook his head and flicked each finger methodically. “No, no, we have eight sickle knives.” He pointed at a shelf of wickedly curved knives. “There are only seven. Only seven.”

Tova snapped her fingers. “Sorry, Ash. Hang on.” She lifted her trousers and tugged the knife from a sheath on her shin.

The boy sighed in relief and carefully placed the knife next to the others, recounting twice. “You know, sickle knives are handy in the gardens, best for thorns and nettles if you don’t want to be poked. But in a battle, they can twist the stomach before you cut it open. If you aim right, that is.”

The boy spouted his information, but I didn’t think anyone was really listening. He didn’t seem to mind.

Tova came to my side. “Time to go. We have schemes to work out.”

In one of the narrow corridors, we joined Raum again. He laughed at something with Lynx and a Kryv with dark skin and a piercing in his brow, like the folk from the Hemlig region.

″That’s Vali,” Tova said. “If you get him to smile, I shall be impressed.”

Vali deepened his scowl in response.

Tova turned my shoulders and pointed to another Kryv with raven black hair. “Fiske,” she said. Fiske slung an arm around the shoulders of a lean redheaded man, who whispered in his ear and laced their fingers together. “The redhead is Isak.”

Tova went on as if I’d been waiting all night to learn every Kryv name.

Inside the corridor, moss draped in matted webs over doors. There were winding stairwells and carved in the stone walls were images of the gods’ oak tree and the gods’ ravens.

″Where is Elof?” I asked, unsure why. For someone familiar, perhaps.

″Outside already,” Raum answered as he ran to catch up to us, Vali behind him. “Shall we? I wanted to be here at the front to catch your face when you meet the Nightrender.”

″Wait,” I said. Blood rushed in hectic waves to my head. “The darkness he brought, what sort of Alver is the Nightrender? I mean, what am I walking into here?”

″Does it matter?” Raum asked. “Alvers are Alvers.”

″Not hardly.”

His grin fell. “Ah, you have prejudice against other Kinds, well then, perhaps he is a Hypnotik, or a Rifter, or maybe a Malevolent. Enjoy guessing.”

I’d made him angry, and I promptly decided I preferred smiling Raum over this.

But he was trying to frighten me because Malevolent mesmer didn’t exist. A myth—it must be. Pure evil and darkness couldn’t survive in one person alone.

″Will he kill me?” My voice came like a strangled whisper.

″You hired his guild, but you assume because of his mesmer he must be worse than the hells?” Raum slammed his palm against the wall near my head. “Funny you think anyone here is a monster when you have your own twisted magic. Don’t forget, lovey, you asked to be here.”

He snapped his teeth and took the lead.

″You’re off to a good start,” Tova murmured and dragged me through the door to meet the man who’d slaughtered a dozen men with nothing but shadows.