Half the World (Shattered Sea #2)(69)

“I will.” Thorn looked out at the garden as it sank into gloom, fumbling for something else to say, and noticed that where the guard had stood beside the fountain there were only shadows. All of them were gone. She and the empress were alone. “What happened to your guards?”

“That’s odd,” said Vialine. “Ah! But here are more.”

Thorn counted six men climbing the steps at the far end of the gardens. Six imperial soldiers, fully armed and armored, clattering quickly down the path through pools of orange torchlight toward the empress’s little house. Another man followed them. A man with gold on his breastplate and silver in his hair and a smile brighter than either upon his handsome face.

Duke Mikedas, and as he saw them he gave a jaunty wave.

Thorn had a feeling, then, as though the guts were draining out of her. She reached for the silver plate and slipped the little fruit knife between her fingers. A pitiful weapon, but better than none at all.

She stood as the soldiers stepped smartly around the fountain and between two statues, felt Vialine stand at her shoulder as they spread out. Thorn recognized one of them as the breeze caught the glowing coals and light flared across his face. The Vansterman she had fought in the market, cuts and purple bruises down one cheek and a heavy ax in his fist.

Duke Mikedas bowed low, but with a twist to his mouth, and his men did not bow at all. Vialine spoke in her own language and the duke answered, waving a lazy hand toward Thorn.

“Your grace,” she forced through clenched teeth. “What an honor.”

“My apologies,” he said in the Tongue. “I was telling her radiance that I simply could not miss your visit. A gift, indeed, to find the two of you alone!”

“How so?” asked Vialine.

The duke raised his brows high. “Northern interlopers have come to the First of Cities! Barbarians, from Guttland, or wherever. Set on exporting their petty squabbles to our shores! They have tried to drive a wedge between us and our ally, the High King, who has accepted our One God into his heart. When that failed …” He sternly shook his head. “They have sent an assassin to the palace. An unnatural murderer, hoping to prey upon the innocent good nature of my idiot niece.”

“I suppose that’d be me?” growled Thorn.

“Oh, fiend in woman’s shape! Roughly woman’s shape, anyway, you’re rather too … muscular for my taste. I seem to remember you wanted to try two of my guards?” Mikedas grinned, and all the while his men edged forward, steel glimmering as it caught the light. “How d’you feel about six of ’em?”

Always look less than you are. Thorn cringed back, hunched her shoulders, made herself look small and full of fear even though a strange calm had come on her. As if the Last Door did not yawn at her heels, but she saw it all from outside. She judged the distances, noted the ground, the statues, the torches, the table, the pillars, the steps, the long drop behind them.

“An empress really shouldn’t take such chances with her safety,” the duke was saying, “but do not despair, my dear niece, I shall avenge you!”

“Why?” whispered Vialine. Thorn could feel her fear, and that was useful. Two weak, and scared, and helpless girls, and behind her back she curled her fingers tight around that tiny knife.

The duke’s lip curled. “Because you prove to be an utter pain in my arse. We all like a girl with spirit, don’t we?” He stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head in disappointment. “But there is a limit. Really there is.”

Thorn’s father used to tell her, if you mean to kill, you kill, you don’t talk about it. But fortunately for her the duke was no killer, prating and boasting and savoring his power, giving Thorn time to judge her enemy, time to choose her best chance.

She reckoned the duke himself a small threat. He wore a sword and dagger but she doubted they had ever been drawn. The others knew their business, though. Good swords out, and good shields on their arms, and good daggers at their belts. Good armor too, scaled mail twinkling in the twilight, but weak at the throat. The insides of the elbows. The backs of the knees. That was where she had to strike.

She alone, against seven. She almost laughed then. Absurd odds. Impossible odds. But the only ones she had.

“Theofora could never do as she was told,” the duke blathered on, “but then she was too old a horse to learn obedience. I really had hoped a seventeen-year-old empress could be led by the nose.” He gave a sigh. “Some ponies just chafe at the bridle, though. They kick and bite and refuse to be ridden. Better to destroy them before they throw their master. The throne will pass to your cousin Asta next.” He showed those perfect teeth of his. “She’s four. Now that’s a woman you can work with!” Finally tiring of his own cleverness, he sent two of his men forward with a lazy gesture. “Let’s get it done.”

Thorn watched them come. One had a big, often-broken nose. The other a pocked and pitted face, smiling in a faintly uninterested way. Swords drawn but not raised as they came onto the first step. You couldn’t blame them for being confident. But they were so confident they never even considered she might give them a fight.

And Thorn would give them a fight.

“Careful, your grace,” said the Vansterman. “She’s dangerous.”

“Please,” scoffed the duke, “she’s just a girl. I thought you northerners were all fire and—”