The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles, #1)(92)

“It’s time for rest, my little angel,” one of the young mothers said to her son, a boy named Tevio. Many of the others had already gone bed. Tevio protested that he wasn’t tired, and Selena, just a dash older, joined in as if anticipating that she’d be the next one dragged away. I smiled. They reminded me of myself at that age. I was never ready to go to my bedchamber, maybe because I was sent there so often.

“If I tell you a story,” I said, “will you be ready for bed then?”

They both nodded enthusiastically, and I noticed Natiya nestled closer to them, waiting for a story too.

“Once upon a time,” I said, “long, long ago, in a land of giants, and gods, and dragons, there were a little prince and a little princess, who looked very much like the two of you.” I altered the story, the way my brothers had done for me, the way my aunts and mother had, and told them the story of Morrighan, a brave young girl specially chosen by the gods to drive her purple carvachi across the wilderness and lead the holy Remnant to a place of safety. I leaned more toward my brother’s version, telling of the dragons she tamed, the giants she tricked, the gods she visited, and the storms she talked down from the sky into her palm and then blew them away with a whisper. As I told the story, I noticed even the adults listened, but especially Eben. He had forgotten to act like the hardened ruffian he was and became a child as wide-eyed as the rest. Had no one ever told him a story before?

I added a few more adventures that even my brothers had never conjured to draw the story out, so that by the time Morrighan reached the land of rebirth, a team of ogres pulled her carvachi and she had sung the fallen stars of destruction back into the sky.

“And that’s where the stars promised to stay for evermore.”

Tevio smiled and yawned, and his mother gathered him up into her arms with no further protests. Selena followed her mother to bed too, whispering that she was a princess.

A heavy stillness settled in their wake. I watched those who remained stare into the fire as if the story lingered in their thoughts. Then a voice broke the silence.

Hold on.

I drew a sharp breath and looked over my shoulder into the black forest. I waited for more, but nothing came. I slowly turned back to the fire. I caught Kaden’s sharp stare. “Again?”

But this time it was something. I just didn’t understand what. I looked down at my feet, not wanting to let on that this time I wasn’t performing for anyone’s benefit.

“Nothing,” I answered.

“It always seems to be nothing,” Malich sneered.

“Not at the City of Dark Magic,” Finch said. “She saw them coming there.”

“Osa lo besadad avat e chadaro,” Griz agreed.

The older vagabond men sitting on either side of him nodded, making signs to the gods. “Grati te deos.”

Kaden grunted. “That story of yours, you really believe what you just told the children?”

I bristled. That story? He didn’t need to attack a story the children clearly enjoyed just because he was frustrated with me. “Yes, Kaden, I do believe in ogres and dragons. I’ve seen four of them firsthand, though they are far uglier and more stupid than those I described. I didn’t want to frighten the children.”

Malich huffed at the insult, but Kaden smiled as if he enjoyed seeing me rankled. Finch laughed at the girl Morrighan and then he and Malich took the whole story down a profane and vulgar path.

I stood to leave, disgusted, narrowing my eyes at Kaden. He knew what he had unleashed. “Do assassins always have so many loutish escorts?” I asked. “Are they all really necessary, or are they just along for the crude entertainment?”

“It’s a long way across the Cam Lanteux—”

“We aren’t escorts!” Eben complained, his chest puffed out as though he was greatly injured. “We had our own work to do.”

“What do you mean, your own work?” I asked.

Kaden sat forward. “Eben, shut up.”

Griz growled, echoing Kaden’s sentiment, but Malich waved his hand through the air. “Eben’s right,” he said. “Let him speak. At least we finished the work we set out to do, which is more than you can say.”

Eben hurried to describe what they’d done in Morrighan before Kaden could stop him again. He described roads they had blocked with landslides, flumes and cisterns they had fouled, and the many bridges they had brought down.

I stepped forward. “You brought down what?”

“Bridges,” Finch repeated, then smiled. “It keeps the enemy occupied.”

“We’re not too ugly or stupid for some tasks, Princess,” Malich jeered.

My hands trembled, and I felt my throat closing. Blood surged so violently at my temples I was dizzy.

“What’s wrong with her?” Eben asked.

I walked around the fire ring until I was standing over them. “Did you take down the bridge at Chetsworth?”

“That was the easy one,” Finch said.

I could barely speak above a whisper. “Except for the carriage that came along?”

Malich laughed. “I took care of it. That was easy too,” he said.

I heard the screams of an animal, felt flesh beneath my nails, the warmth of blood on my hands, and strands of hair between my fingers as I came down on him again and again, gouging at his eyes, kicking at his legs, kneeing his ribs, my fists pounding his face. Arms grabbed my waist and yanked me off him, but I continued to scream and kick and dig my nails into any flesh within reach.