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

The shoreline nearest to the Black Palace was packed with ships. Black laths with blue sails, whitewood decks with green and red flags. Longships with a hundred oarsmen. Cutters, barges, and skiffs with ratty flags of Skítkast. At each dock, near each vessel, phaetons, stagecoaches, and boxy road coaches awaited to take those guests, common and noble alike, to the Masque av Aska.

Lampposts were heavy with silver words on thick parchment. A simple phrase:

Come one, come all.

Welcome to the dark ball.

The Guild of Kryv gathered on the edge of slate-gray cliffs rising like dark sentinels above the Howl. Up here, the wind was angry, but I didn’t feel the cold. I only watched ahead where Kase studied the arrivals. Blacksteel in one hand, hood over his head.

I’d spent the morning braiding the sides of his hair off his face. Tova braided and twisted mine on one half of my head, so it looked as though one side was shaved like hers. Next, she’d painted my face to hide my freckles. My lips were stained in a dark blood red, and kohl darkened my lashes and eyes.

I looked like a noblewoman and felt terribly out of place in my own skin.

The others had helped one another paint runes on their faces in green as dark as black moss. Ash and Hanna added streaks across eyes and cheeks. The one rune on my body was from Kase. He’d drawn a symbol of protection on the inside of my wrist when no one was near, sealed with his kiss on the pulse point.

From me, his wrist had one of strength and power.

More than ever, tonight, I needed the Nightrender to be ruthless.

I went to his side. “This feels like a fantasy. Like a night we’ve talked about for so long but was never going to happen.”

Kase looked at me, the blackness of his eyes drinking me in. “Tomorrow will look different. You’ll have Hagen back.”

I’d have both Kase and Hagen. I refused to see it any other way.

Kase sheathed his sword and led the guild into the thick of the trees. Underfoot the soil thrummed with energy, as though the forest knew what was about to happen.

Our first mark of the night would be in play before the sun finished setting over the Howl.

Down the slope one of the many raked roads led to the Black Palace. There we waited. My pulse raced with all the skittering noises from creatures in the brush, and birds in the trees, the trickle of a shallow creek over rocks and logs, the rustle of damp leaves.

The sound of footsteps approaching.

A sharp whistle broke the night, and I breathed a little easier.

Kase stepped into the moonlight at the same moment as Niklas, Junie, Eero, and the Falkyns.

Most Falkyns dressed in black like the Kryv, but instead of hoods they wore caps, instead of swords they used throwing knives, pouches of potions and elixirs, and brass knuckles or rings on their fingers.

Kase and Niklas clasped forearms, diving into the plans of the night with hardly a word of hello.

Eero winked at me. “We meet again.”

I offered a nervous nod, unable to find a steady voice to answer.

Niklas tugged on the sleeve of his jacket. “Shouldn’t be too long now before our friends arrive.”

Kase silently gestured to the trees, and the two guilds faded as though stepping from one shadow only to get lost in the next.

I startled when someone pinched my arm from behind. “Dagny? You’re here.”

″I told you we’d meet again,” Dagny said.

″How did you get out?”

″Niklas is quite the smuggler,” she said.

″As I told you.” Niklas helped Junius adjust a black veil over her mouth, so she disappeared into the night.

″I’m glad you’re out.”

″I must ask you something.” Dagny’s eyes pierced me. “You are not a stranger to searching for someone who was lost to you, true?”

I found Kase in the dark. “Yes,” I said. “I know what endless searching feels like.”

″You asked me why I stayed in Skítkast. I, too, am searching for someone who was taken from me. I have a son.”

″A son?”

″Still a tiny thing but lost to me. His father used me, then sold me, and took my boy somewhere.”

″How? He’d be charged for rape, abandonment, illegal trading, or something.”

She closed her eyes. “Not Niall Grym.”

″The Heir Magnate?” My voice was rough.

″I was a serf in the Black Palace once.” Dagny shook her head. “It doesn’t matter who he is. I stayed at the Lark for my son. Traders fill the rooms like flies in a hog pen. I remained there, hoping to hear of anything. Even with a serf for a mother, a child of the Grym bloodline will have worth. The Kryv and Falkyns have helped, but when I heard you were taking your own fight to the masque, especially this one, I decided it was time to take the fight to Niall. Perhaps take the chance to cut off his favorite appendage.”

I chuckled bitterly. “You are helping me tonight, and I swear to you after this, I will help you search. As you said, I’m no stranger to it.”

Dagny rested a hand on my shoulder. “You are quite a Kryv. Don’t doubt it.”

Two Falkyns materialized behind a wall of aspen trees. With them was a grain wagon, pulled by a mule with jutting ribs and hips.

″Nightrender,” said Eero. “Time to move.”

Kase lowered to one knee in front of Ash and Hanna. “Ash—”

″No,” the boy snapped right away. His voice squeaked. “I can come. I can fight.”

″Inside the masque is not the role the guild needs you to play,” Kase said sternly, but still calm. “You and Hanna are our way to freedom. The most important role.”

Hanna waved her hands. Kase watched her, but quickly shook his head.

″No,” he said. “I’m not just saying it. Without you two at your post, there is no point going in at all.”

″We’re small is why,” Ash said to his sister.

″It is why,” Kase agreed. “You both are the exact ages the Lord Magnate wants. The most at risk, and I’m not willing to put you in such a spot, understand me?”

″But Hanna can block, I can rift—”

″Yes, and it would be useful,” Kase told him. “But not worth the risk of losing you both.”

The two children hung their heads.

Kase placed a hand on Ash’s shoulder. “Can we count on you to hit your mark?”

″Yes,” said Ash.

“You are alone out there,” Kase said. “You are the leader outside the gates. Lead well.”

Kase took out his favored karambit and handed it to Ash.

″Good for slicing,” Ash whispered.

The boy lifted his chin with a bit of pride as he tucked the blade through his belt. Hanna hugged my waist, then rushed about the rest of the guild bidding a tearful farewell. The Kryv were all she knew.

I understood what it was like to be young and lose those you loved most.

The two Falkyns helped the young ones into the back of the wagon. Raum slapped the driver’s seat. “Take them to get something warm at the Ruse alehouse. The aleman is with us. Knock four long, three short and he’ll let you in.”

The Falkyn handling the reins nodded and cracked the leather straps over the mule. I watched them fade into the misty night.

Raum tapped my shoulder, jerking his head at the others. I blinked through heavy breaths as if it would stop the spinning in my stomach and followed. Tensions were high. Slowly, the guilds faced one another, drawing into a tight circle.

“We said we’d never go back,” Kase said, meeting the eyes of many. “But we’re ready to face it. We are ready.”

The rumble of wheels on the road broke us apart. Kase lifted a fist. This was happening too quickly. I should’ve said something to him, told him I wanted to leave after this. I didn’t want to risk losing him again. I should’ve said it all, but I kept quiet and pulled my woolen hood over my head.

A Black Palace coach rumbled into view, followed by another. Two footmen, two drivers, and a few heads inside each coach.

No one moved. No one breathed.

Then, Kase lowered his fist and we lunged through the trees.

Our cries rose to the stars. With Ash and Hanna gone, two Falkyns pounded ominous drums. My feet kept time with the steady beat. At our noise, the drivers scrambled with their reins, unsure if they should pull back or speed forward.

The coach at the rear was taken before the coachmen had a chance to decide, but the one in the lead had a driver who thought on his feet. He snapped the reins and charged down the road. With the heavy load of the coach, the confusion of the horses, it gave us the delay we needed.

Half the crew handled the stalled coach. The rest of us raced after the lead.

I sprinted on the edge of the road, head whipping back and forth to keep an eye out for a perfect opening to jump.

Ahead of me, Kase, Raum, and Isak were already at the doors.

An arrow flew from the trees, struck a footman, and sent the man stumbling off the back. I flew past the tree branch where Gunnar perched. As I sprinted past, he grinned.

Kase reached out and gripped the handle on the door, and I couldn’t look anywhere else. I wished he would use mesmer. He could tear the coach in two if he wanted. But every ounce of energy from mesmer needed to be saved for the masquerade.

Kase heaved his body onto the wobbling coach. In two pulls, he was on the roof. Raum used the luggage rack to pull himself onto the rear. One leg dragged on the ground until he steadied his footing. The last footman tried to kick him off, but Raum gripped him by the collar and tossed him to the ground.

Isak was the fastest runner and took hold of the harnesses. Dangerous, but the redhead gripped a bridle, took a leap, and tangled his legs in the harnesses around the heaving belly of the horse. He clung to the beast like a web weaver on its silken strands.

My lungs were ready to burst. Gunnar abandoned his branch and had already caught up to me.

″Now, Mal!” he shouted.

I focused on the footstep, the handle of the door. I jumped.

My foot slipped and I smacked my head against the window. Before I could be pulled beneath the wheels, I hooked my arm into the handle.

On the roof of the coach Kase was down on one knee. One of the drivers sliced a dagger at him. The Nightrender bent back in time for the blade to swipe a hairsbreadth over his chest. With the driver thrown off balance, Kase kicked out his knee. The man grappled for the edge, but fell over the side, forcing me to smash against the door to avoid being hit.

My stomach lurched when the wheels crushed him. His body rolled for a few paces before it stilled in the road.

Raum took the reins from the second coachman. Only once the blacksteel of Kase’s sword was at the coachman’s throat did he surrender.

When the horses came to an easy trot, I wrenched open the door and slipped inside. A woman screamed and pulled her two serfs in front of her. On her head was a mask in the shape of a fish painted gold with blue sapphires for the eyes. On the opposite bench an enormous man sat beside two manservants in red cloaks. His cheeks were like round apples poking out the sides of his black and white troll mask.

The only thing slender about the nobleman was the skinny nose of the mask.

Squeezed between the door and the nobleman’s plump hips was a fragile young woman in a gown sewn in midnight blue scales. Her mask was more a headdress. A curled shape covered her soil brown hair. Meant to look like the sea snake, jörmungandr, the mask part was nothing but a thin bit of black lace over her eyes.

On her pale lips she wore the slightest grin.

″Who are you?” The man puffed and clutched his chest when I stepped inside. The answer he was given came by the point of my knife in the folded skin of his neck. “Th-the coin purse is in m-my pocket.”

″Good to know,” I snarled. “But this is where your ride ends.”

One serf choked out a sob when Raum’s head appeared in the window. He hung upside down from the rooftop.

″Beautifully ominous, lovey.” He swung off and ripped open the door. “Well, you heard her. Get your pampered asses out.”

The noblewoman whimpered when Raum dragged her from the seat, then he carefully reached for the two maids. One girl had a glass eye, and the other, like Dagny, was missing a few fingertips. The nobleman proved harder to persuade. Raum pulled him by the waistcoat, but it took Isak kicking him from behind to finally get him out.

The young woman went on her own accord, huddling among the serfs instead of her noble folk.

Kase leaped from the top of the coach, landing in a crouch. With the hood darkening his already mesmer-shadowed face, he appeared like a wraith of the Otherworld.

″We’re in need of your coaches and summons, Lord Hakan.”

The lord spluttered at the mention of his name. “You will regret this, thief.”

″Thief is such a broad word,” Kase said dryly. He hardly moved before the cutting edge of his blacksteel was steadied beneath the lord’s chin. “We’re more than thieves, and we’re losing patience. The summons.”

″No. My niece is a pitiful creature, but has enough of a dowry to tempt the Heir Magnate. She will have this chance.”

The young woman stiffened, her needle-like fingernails dug into her palms.

Kase chuckled darkly. “She does not wish it. In fact, she will no longer be your burden.”

The girl’s eyes widened beneath the black lace as a man wearing a dark cap and ratty trousers stepped from the trees, surrounded by a few of Niklas’s men.

The girl tore off her mask. “Ulrik!”

Hakan’s niece raced into the arms of the weary man. He clung to her, holding her tighter as her sobs came against his coat.

″Freya!” Hakan shouted. “You will stop this. Now.”

Kase took a fistful of Hakan’s dusty hair and jerked the man’s head back. “Forget her from your thoughts, or I will use other means to erase her from your head.”

The way he glanced at me it was almost as if he dared me to step forward and kiss the odious man until his thoughts of his niece were long gone.

There wasn’t a need. From the trees Fiske, Junius, and the Falkyns who’d brought Ulrik joined our group, slapping their knives against the brass knuckles on their fingers. With every side surrounded, the lord’s shoulders slumped. He reached inside his coat and removed a royal blue card, edged in silver.

Raum plucked it from his fingers like a weed.

″You think you’re sly,” the lord muttered. “You bastards won’t survive inside the Masque av Aska.”

″We’ll see.” Kase took the knife sheathed across his lower back and handed it to one of the servants. Eero, Fiske, and Isak did the same until each servant was armed.

″Do with your masters what you will,” Kase said, then faced Ulrik. “We delivered on our agreement, speak of this to no one and our dealings are at an end.”

I grinned. Kase told me before we’d left Felstad that Ulrik had approached the Kryv a turn ago, desperate to free his secret noble lover from the clutches of her guardians. Kase turned him away. The desperation was not potent enough. Until Hakan planned to offer his niece at the masquerade for the Heir Magnate’s bed, desperate to have a child born of the Grym line. Even if his niece was destroyed in the process.

Today everyone received the wish they’d desired most. The Kryv received their coaches and noble name as our guise.

Ulrik and Freya would be given forged travel papers to the Western Kingdoms to live their lives far from here.

Kase signaled the guilds to take the coach. Junius snatched the fish mask off the noblewoman as the two maids lunged and pinned their glamorous lady to the dirt, a knife at her neck.

I dreaded this part and hugged my middle, watching as Isak kissed Fiske with meaning. Fiske smiled with the ache of goodbye and brushed his thumb over smudged paint near Isak’s mouth.

″Junius,” Kase said in a low voice. “Watch after the Kryv going with you.”

She nodded curtly. “And you, the Falkyns. We’ll meet soon.”

We were to separate, and I hated it. The others had a precarious route. Through the aqueducts underneath the courtyards and manors of the Black Palace.

″Don’t look so despondent, Malin,” Niklas said as he gathered most of our weapons. “I am the greatest smuggler in Skítkast. If you want your knives and blades, we’ll need to go underground.”

″Be careful.” I spoke with firmness before hugging both Junius and Niklas.

Kase reluctantly handed Fiske his blacksteel. They took our largest weapons, but no one was entirely unarmed except me. Kase would hold my two small knives and rune pouch until the right moment.

By the time they left, the Falkyns, Fiske, and Junius were armed in totes and satchels filled with our supplies. We kept one bag inside the carriage with masks and costumes needed before we met at the festival.

When they were gone, Lynx emerged from the trees. He stared at Lord Hakan with contempt. “This is the one?”

Kase nodded and jabbed his knee into Hakan’s back, so the lord fell forward. The Nightrender pinned him with a heavy boot on his head.

″Get dressed. Another coach is coming,” Kase said. The distant rumble of wheels sent a trill through my stomach.

Lynx hurried and slid into Hakan’s oversized coat and took his troll mask.

Kase glanced at Hakan’s serf. “We’ll be needing your cloaks.”

″Don’t you dare, Philip.” Hakan still argued, even pinned down.

The servant hesitated. “He’ll pursue us.”

″He won’t. His coffers are empty without his niece’s dowry.” Kase pressed on Hakan’s neck with more force. “My Lord, your brother left his daughter plenty to live a grand life. There is nothing left for you but a disgraced name filled with gambling debts and rotten investments.”

″Philip,” Freya said, her fingers tangled with Ulrik’s. “Join us. All of you. We’ll live simply, but we’ll be free.”

″My Lady Freya, we need no more urging than that,” Philip said, gesturing at the other serfs.

Freya grinned. “Good. But no more, My Lady’s. I am to be a dock worker’s wife.”

She kissed Ulrik. No mistake, the freedom, the relief they felt, knotted a tangle of envy in my chest. Perhaps after this, I would kiss the Nightrender in such a way.

Kase turned to me. “Are you ready?”

″If I say no, will you tease me?”

He caressed my cheek with his knuckles. “Never.”

From the trees Tova and Gunnar appeared with Inge’s gown.

″Time to become hopeful mistress of the Black Palace, Malin,” Tova said with a laugh in her voice. She found this part delightful. No doubt since no one here knew how to be noble and Tova expected it to be entertaining to watch us try.

The gown was stunning. Delicate blue lace. Silver beads. Dashes of rich green ribbon across the bodice. I’d never worn such a gown.

As I pulled off my clothes, Kase’s prophecy came true. I did not ask him to turn away a third time. In fact, the Nightrender was the one who helped me step into the endless pleats of fabric.

When he’d fastened the silver clasp behind my neck, he turned me around and trapped my face in his hands. He kissed me softly and it ended too soon.

There wasn’t a need to say anything. The game was in motion, and we needed to keep moving.

″Enjoy yourselves,” Raum said to Ulrik. “Keep to the trees until you get to the alehouse written here.” He handed over a crumpled piece of parchment. “There will be people there who can give you passage to your new lives. We need to be going. Isak, I’m driving.”

Raum took the driver’s spot in the coach next to Isak. A Falkyn handled the remaining driver, dragging him into the trees as Gunnar took on the role of footman with Eero. Tova would be a lady’s maid in the second coach behind us with Vali and more of the Falkyn Guild.

Kase helped me step into the coach with Lynx. He would put me forward tonight as my cousin from the Hakan estate. Once Kase was inside, tugging on a black jacket from one of the satchels, he waved a hand over his face. Elof reappeared. The steward of our false noble house.

I grabbed his hand. His new smile was still comforting, and he squeezed my palm in return.

″Let us be off,” Lynx said in a pompous tone that didn’t fit.

The coach jolted forward. For the first time in ten turns, Kase and I would return to the Masque av Aska.