The governors were the easiest to converse with. Most were glad to be at the Sanctum instead of the desolate homelands they came from, which perhaps lightened their dispositions. Three of the Rahtan were still gone, but the four who were present besides Kaden, Griz, and Malich were, by far, the most hostile of the Council. Jorik and Darius were the ones who had stood by Malich with their knives drawn when they saw my clan dress, and the other two, Theron and Gurtan, seemed to wear sneers like permanent battle paint. I imagined them as the men the Komizar would have sent to finish the job that Kaden had failed to do—and there was no doubt in my mind, they would have finished it without hesitation. They were the very definition of Rahtan. Never fail. It was hard for me to reconcile that in some twisted way Kaden had saved my life by bringing me here.

Every evening after the meal, the Council was drawn into games of stones or cards, or they simply drank the night away. The precious Morrighese vintages were swilled like cheap ale. The games of stones were foreign to me, but the card games I recognized. I remembered Walther’s first piece of advice to me: Sometimes winning is not only a matter of knowing the rules, but of making your opponent think he knows them better. I watched from afar, parsing out the nuances and similarities to the games I had played with my brothers and their friends. Tonight the stakes for one particular game grew, with the largest stack piling up in front of Malich. I watched smugness strut across his face like a barnyard rooster, the same cocky grin he had when he told me that killing Greta was easy.

I stood and walked over to the players. I decided I was in need of some entertainment too.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

KADEN

I watched her saunter over.

It was something about her steps. Her arms crossed in front of her. Her timing. The deliberate casualness of it all.

The muscles in my neck tightened. I didn’t have a good feeling about it.

Then she smiled, and I knew.

Don’t do this, Lia.

But I really wasn’t sure just what she was doing. I only knew no good would come of it. I knew the language of Lia.

I tried to disengage myself from Governor Carzwil, who was intent on sharing every challenge of transporting turnips and bags of lime from his province to Venda. “Lia,” I called, but she ignored me. The governor spoke louder, determined to regain my attention, but I kept glancing away. “She’s fine,” the governor said. “Give her a little rope, boy! Look, she’s smiling.”

That was the problem. Her smile didn’t mean what he thought it did. I knew it meant trouble. I excused myself from Carzwil, but by the time I got to the table, she had already engaged two of the governors. Even though they were two who had warmed to her presence more than the others, I still hovered, sensing something about to spring.

“So, the point is to get six cards with numbers that match? That sounds easy enough,” Lia said, her voice light and inquisitive.

Malich spit on the floor next to him, then smiled. “Sure it’s easy.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Governor Faiwell said. “The colored symbols must be matched too—if you can, that is. And certain combinations are better than others.”

“Interesting. I think I might understand it,” Lia crooned. She repeated the basics back to them.

I recognized the tilt of her head, the cadence of her words, the purse of her lips. I knew what she was doing as sure as I still felt the knot on my shin. “Come away, Lia. Let them play their game.”

“Let her watch! She can sit on my lap.” Governor Umbrose laughed.

Lia looked over her shoulder at me. “Yes, Kaden, I’d like to try my hand at it,” she said, then turned back to the table. “May I join you?”

“You have no stake,” Malich grumbled, “and no one plays for free.”

Lia narrowed her eyes and walked around to his side of the table. “True, I have no coin, but surely I have something of worth to you. Maybe an hour alone with me?” She leaned forward on the table, and her voice turned hard. “I’m sure you’d love that, wouldn’t you, Malich?”

The other players hooted, saying that was good enough stake for all of them, and Malich smiled. “You’re in, Princess.”

“No,” I said. “You’re not. That’s enough. Come away—”

Lia whirled around, her mouth smiling but her eyes lit with fire. “Do I not even have the freedom to make the simplest of choices? Am I the lowliest of prisoners, Assassin?”

It was the first time she had ever called me that. Our gazes locked. Everyone waited. I shook my head; not a command but a plea. Don’t do this.

She turned away. “I’m in,” she said and sat down in a chair that was dragged over for her.

She was given a pile of wooden chits, and the game began. Malich smiling. Lia smiling. Everyone smiling but me.

And Rafe.

He stepped up to the outer perimeter with others who had gathered to watch. I turned around, looking for Calantha and Ulrix, who were supposed to be guarding him, but they had joined the crowd too. Rafe shot me a sharp glance, accusing, as if I had let her walk into a den of wolves.

Lia made stupid errors in the very first hand. And the next. She had already lost a third of her chits. Her brows pulled down in concentration. The next hand she lost fewer, but still more than she could afford. She shook her head, rearranging her cards again and again, loudly asking the governor next to her which was more valuable, a red claw or a black wing. Everyone at the table smiled and placed higher bets, determined to win an hour with Lia. She lost more chits, and her face grew dark. She bit the corner of her lip. Malich watched her expressions more than his own cards.