Broken Throne (Red Queen #4.5)(52)

My scurrier, Big Ean, is already in his little boat, his broad frame taking up nearly half the scurry.

“Six,” I mutter down to him, leaning over the side. “You know what I prefer.”

He just waves a hand and grunts, pushing off the keel with his paddle. With a few powerful strokes, he maneuvers the scurry to the opposite end of the docks from where Hallow drew his rats.

I stare after him, shading my eyes with a hand. From the center of the river, I can hunt the faces myself, looking for good jobs. Easy river.

A group of four stands out on one end of the dock, wrapped in matching blue cloaks hemmed in mud. I glimpse uniforms on the two women clutching each other and two children. The adults clearly maids from a fine Silver household. They’ll have money certainly, if not something more valuable to trade. Stolen jewels from their master, adorned knives from a mistress.

I signal to Big Ean, gesturing for him to approach them, but he’s already focused on another rat planted in the shallows. Though dozens of the rats beg, bending toward him to plead their case or bargain, he gestures to one figure in the crowd. I squint, trying to assess the rat as best I can from my place at the prow.

Tall, hooded in a filthy coat too big for her frame. It nearly trails on the ragged docks. Nearly.

The coat doesn’t quite hide the polished leather boots, well fitted and well made.

My jaw tightens as a real gold coin flashes between her fingers, catching the dawn light.

Someone bumps her shoulder hard, fighting for Big Ean’s attention, but she doesn’t budge, unmoved. She says something to Big Ean that I can’t hear.

Big Ean looks back to me. She’ll pay ten times the rate, in gold, he signals.

Take her, I signal back with ease.

With a wave of his hand, he passes on the message and she leaps from the dock, landing hip deep in the water without hesitation. In an instant she climbs onto Big Ean’s boat, settling into her coat despite the rising heat. I catch a glimpse of straight, gleaming black hair beneath the hood before she tucks it back.

My stomach twists, a familiar dread settling in me. I suspect already—but I won’t know for certain until I can look her in the eye.

As with all fat rats, the kind who pay more than they should for what we offer, Big Ean ferries her back alone, without filling the rest of the scurry. I need to assess her, figure out why she’s throwing so much gold away on a few days’ journey. And if she’s worth the risk of transport. If not, I’ll toss her back in the river and leave her to ratting on the shore.

She climbs from the scurry to the keel deck without aid, dripping water everywhere. The coat stinks close up, like sewage. I wrinkle my nose as I approach her, gesturing for Big Ean and my polers, Gill and Riette, to stand aside. She doesn’t drop her hood, so I yank it back for her.

Silver veins her eyes, and her skin is cold bronze. I try not to flinch.

“Half the gold now, half at the Gates” is all she says, her voice softened and slowed by a butter-rich Piedmont accent. Freckles dust her cheeks, a spread of stars beneath her angled, black eyes. “Is that suitable?”

She’s educated, rich, and noble, even with the disgusting coat. And she wants to go all the way to the end of the line, to the Gates of Mizostium, the place where the Great River meets the sea.

I clench my jaw. “What’s your name and what’s your business on the rivers?”

“I’m paying you for transport, not questions,” she responds without hesitation.

Sneering, I wave a hand back to the scurry. “You can find another keel if my terms don’t agree with you.”

Her reply is whipcrack fast. Again no hesitation. No second-guessing herself. I wonder if she even knows how to do so.

“My name is Lyrisa,” she says, chin still high. Her eyes rake over me. I get the feeling she’s looked down on men like me all her life. “I am a blood princess of the Lowcountry, and I need to be at the Gates of Mizostium as soon as possible.”

I almost toss her back into the river then and there. Only the danger of her ability, trained and lethal whatever it may be, stills my hand. Behind her, Gill tightens a grip on his pole. As if he could simply strike her and be done with it. Riette is more intelligent. Her hand goes to the pistol on her hip, unfastening the button keeping it holstered. Even Silvers aren’t immune to bullets. Most of them, anyway.

I wish I could touch my own gun, but she’ll see me do it. “Who, and more importantly how many, of your father’s Silver hunters are following you?”

Finally she wavers, if only for a moment. Her eyes drop to the deck, then blaze back to mine. “My father is dead.”

A corner of my mouth lifts in a cold smirk. “Your father is the ruling prince of Piedmont, currently at war with the Rift. We Rivermen aren’t as stupid as you think we are.”

“Bracken is my uncle, my mother’s brother,” she snaps. Her eyes narrow, and I wonder what her ability could be. How many ways she could kill me or my crew. How someone like her could possibly need us to get downriver—or why. “My father is dead, for six years now. I did not lie and I resent the implication, Red.”

Despite her blood, her Silver-born tendency to lie, cheat, and abuse us, I can’t see a lie in her eyes or hear it in her voice. She doesn’t flinch under my inspection. “How many hunters?” I ask again, leaning toward her, though all my Red instincts cry out in protest.