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

Isak brought me a message from Sigurd when they returned from delivering the cheeries. He said nothing—I’d yet to hear Isak speak—but the redhead didn’t look at me like I was made in the bowels of a hog. Something had shifted after returning from Salvisk’s. The Guild of Kryv treated me with less caution and more acceptance.

Except the Nightrender.

He avoided me like a plague.

A smile cut across my mouth as I read Sigurd’s missive. He explained more masquerade coaches had come and gone from House Strom, and most folk believed Jens had some sort of position within the masque.

I’d already guessed as much if the treasurer had brought Jens the coffers. Sigurd mentioned there’d also been a notice placed for a thief who’d stolen penge from the house on the hill. If only my stepfather knew the masquerade penge belonged to the Guild of Kryv now.

I laughed through a bawdy description of another rendezvous with Lady Ashton. The man was vulgar, and I was pleased to know him.

Tova finished painting a line of kohl beneath her eyes, then handed me a stick of it to do the same. “I suggest packing mint leaves if you’ve never been on a boat. The Howl can be vicious at times.”

With a nod, I finished securing a rough leather belt around my waist. “This place we go, the Lark, what is it?”

Raum had given me the name of the place in Skítkast, but explained nothing more before his busy movements took him elsewhere.

″It’s a cheer house, but with a wilder reputation folk in Skítkast are known for.”

″Another cheer house?”

″They welcome us. Some of my guild brothers find love there because it is a place both partners feel safe.”

My first thought was shameful. About Kase. Imagining him in a cheer girl’s bed made me ill. The second was an ache for the other Kryv. I’d never given much thought to their lives and possible pain. Killers, thieves, and Alvers, those were the Kryv, but I’d never considered a need for gentle lovers or affection.

″We’re expected,” Tova went on. “Although, I’m not entirely certain what Kase has planned, but that’s what he does. He plots and gives little pieces as we go.”

I grunted, unconvinced. “He gives pieces because he probably wants me to get snatched for the fun of it.”

″You know, for someone you fought so hard to find, and now fight so hard to gain his approval, you’re quite critical of him.”

″I don’t want his approval.” My voice broke in an embarrassing crack. I cleared it away, shrugging as if none of this bothered me in the least. “I suppose I did not like what I found. That’s all.”

″Oh, he didn’t fit into one of your daydreams?” Tova glared at me. “What did you expect? Kase was simply biding his time in a luxurious palace by the sea?”

I scrubbed my face free of the ache I could never shirk when I thought of him. “I expected to find him changed, but I didn’t expect him to hate me.”

″Did you consider hate is simply one of his weapons to keep those with the power to ruin him from doing just that?”

I scoffed. Power over the Nightrender was not something I had. Not the way he had power over me. Kase held a piece of me, and no matter what he’d become, I couldn’t find a way to take it back.

At Salvisk’s, I’d been frightened watching him hold a knife to a man’s neck.

For a moment.

Until Kase changed when the dealmaker mentioned me. From Kase’s head to his boots, he’d gone stiff, he’d reacted, and in the next breath the man had been dead on the ground. I closed my eyes against the memories of him doing much the same, only with more innocence.

“Where’ve you been, Kase?

He stomped his muddy boots at the top of the hayloft, a flint and steel in his hands. “Those weavers won’t get you again, Mallie.”

″Why’d you kill ’em?”

His mouth went tight, and he marched across the hay. “Because they needed to know you watch my back, and I watch yours. You’re always going to be safe with me, got it? Even against bleeding web weavers.”

He’d promised to keep me safe. Brutal as it was, the Nightrender was still keeping his promise.

″We were prisoners of the Lord Magnate, Malin,” Tova said when I kept quiet. “When we say we know the Black Palace and its brutality, we do. We broke out and were hunted for turns. The guild was formed out of the need to survive. And just so you know, we wouldn’t have made it without Kase.”

My heart cinched. Hunted by the Black Palace? What horrors had Kase endured? Those walls he kept between us were a façade. Protections to keep me from looking too deeply. No mistake, he did not want me to know the cruel details of what happened to the boy I lost at a masquerade.

Naturally, it made me want to know everything.

″We’re to leave soon,” Tova went on. “I would take what you want from the weapon wall before the men wake and get greedy.”

Tova faced the wall, more melancholy, as if I’d locked her in memories she’d not visited for a great while. I could offer to take them, to relieve her of the wicked past, but I gave her a soft nod, then left her to her thoughts.

I finished braiding my hair off my face as I walked the empty corridor. On my belt the vials with the bone dust memories clinked together in the rune pouch. The Guild of Kryv had not asked for the vials. They merely asked that I keep them safe and use them when they directed as payment.

I’d take the memories with me even without their direction.

Each memory had been too hard-fought to leave them unguarded again.

In the cold storage, I slurped a bowl of pickled herring, stopped to clean my mouth with mint leaves and powders, then stared at the weapon wall, overwhelmed by each menacing blade tonight.

Movement in an alcove of dried food caught my attention.

Cursed skies. My heart twitched in a strange beat as Kase bit into a juicy white plum and added more fruits to a drawstring pack.

Rooted in my place, I wished I could run, but he turned too quickly. The instant he realized he wasn’t alone, he cursed and whipped back around. The sack fell to the floor, and when he turned again his eyes were raven’s wing black.

″Why do you hide yourself?” I asked, exasperated. “What good does it do?”

Kase hesitated, clenching and unclenching his fists, then abandoned the alcove. His body crowded against me, the same as he’d done at Salvisk’s. I should protest, but in truth, I took a bit of solace having him so close.

I was a bleeding weakling in my resolve to detest the man. All at once, the reasons he should’ve been terrible were like the memories I stole. Nothing but smoke and ash.

″Why do you hide yourself from me?” I asked again.

Kase’s eyes bounced between mine. “Prove I can trust you, and I’ll remove all illusion between us.”

A dark, honest response, and my heart raced in all the wrong ways. “I think I proved trust well enough already.”

″Not for me.”

″Then let us trust each other with something now. We must start somewhere.”

″Don’t demand things of me,” he said as a warning.

I ignored it. “Ask me a question. I’m sure you have them. Then I get to ask one of you.”

The way he frowned, I expected him to walk away, but he stayed.

″I don’t want to fear you,” I admitted. “I want your trust again. If we can’t, then Hagen will suffer.”

He considered me for a long moment. “Fine.”

″Care to go first?”

Kase cleared his throat. In truth, it was wholly satisfying to see him discomposed. “Do you still tell stories with the stars?”

Of the hardened questions I thought he would ask, one about those nights traveling distant lands with our brave Prince Fell was not one of them. When I lost Kase, I lost my childhood. The stars were quilted into the night as a bitter reminder.

″No,” I said softly. “I stopped. It wasn’t the same.”

″Probably best. Fairy tales serve no purpose.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “A deal is a deal. Ask your question.”

The Nightrender returned where Kase almost broke free.

I stiffened against the futile hope the boy I knew was in there. “Are you a Malevolent Alver?”

He sighed. “A dreary epithet, I think.”

″So, you are?”

″I may be, or I may not.”

″You said you’d answer me.”

″I told you to ask. I made no promise of answering.”

My mouth pinched into a tight line. “Will you at least tell me what Malevolent means?”

He stepped closer. My tongue stuck to the top of my mouth. Something about him, the darkness, his voice, would always draw me in, and Kase seemed to struggle the same.

When he breathed, his body brushed mine.

″Malevolent mesmer,” he said in his gritty rasp, “means power over fear. Likely the inspiration behind dark sprites and fae in old legends.”

Raum told me Kase could torture him with fear.

I swallowed and reached out for his hand, gently brushing my fingers over the tops of his knuckles, as if the cold mesmer inside might slip out. “Do you like it? The power of fear, I mean.”

His hand coiled into a fist at my touch, and when I realized what I’d done, I began to pull back.

Kase didn’t allow it.

My heart slammed into my ribs when his callused fingertips took my hand. He rolled it over palm up, the rough brush of his thumb traced over the lines. A memory came of how he used to touch each finger, each wrinkle, and tell me my days were numbered since my fate line had shrunk.

One of those things that would end in giggles until we fell asleep.

″Do you like it?” I whispered, uncertain what question I was truly asking.

″I would if I was a Malevolent,” he said. “Wouldn’t you? Fear has power.”

True enough. I could see the appeal, even carried a touch of envy he might have access to such a gift, and I didn’t.

He released my hand and reached for twin knives with gold filigree on the blades. “Use these. They’re light enough even a child can wield them without losing grip.”

Our fingers touched again at the exchange.

Kase stretched his hand as if something irritated his skin. He left me with a furrowed glance, and all at once I wanted the sage wood smell back.

I wasn’t altogether certain if the thought thrilled me or if I’d stepped into something more dangerous than before.