A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)(71)

I smile.

Solt gestures at my empty bowl. “More?”

“No.” I hesitate. “Thank you.”

He stacks our bowls and sets them to the side, then takes a leather cup from a shelf, shaking it before rolling a dozen wooden cubes onto the table between us. “Dice?”

I think of Lia Mara, waiting for me, but I sense we’ve formed a tentative truce here. I scoop half into my hand. “Sure.”

He sets a coin on the table. “I’ve heard this is a quick way to take your money, Your Highness.”

That startles a laugh out of me, and I reach into my pocket to find a coin of my own. “The dice are never my friend.” I glance at him. “Grey.”

His eyebrows go up slightly, and he passes the dice from hand to hand. “You should wait to see how much money I take before you offer me your given name.” He pauses. “Grey.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Gehr Sehts?” he says, and I nod.

Crooked Six. It’s an easy game in theory, with equal elements of luck and skill, where you keep rolling dice until you have a full set of ones, then twos, and so on. I’m fast, but as usual, fate doesn’t care, and he’s rolling his final six when I’m still on my fours.

He stacks the coins. “Again?”

I put two of my own on the table. He wins again. And then a third time.

“You are making me feel like a thief,” he says.

“That’s good, because I’m feeling a bit robbed.” I put my last few coins on the table, but I don’t pick up my dice. “Your soldiers can trust me too, Solt.”

He says nothing to that, but he picks up his dice and rattles them between his palms. There’s a new tension across his shoulders, and I regret saying anything. When his dice spill out across the table, I don’t pick up my own, so he doesn’t re-roll. We sit there in complete silence for a moment.

Finally, he looks up. “I did not expect you to come here tonight.” He pauses. “No, that is not true. I expected you to come here and have me sent to Lukus.”

Lukus Tempas. The Stone Prison, where Karis Luran sent the worst criminals—and the people she hated. Maybe even people she vaguely disliked. I’ve heard stories about the punishments that used to go on inside those walls. Some of them make the enchantress Lilith look like a doting wet nurse.

“Because of Tycho?” I say.

He nods. Hesitates. I wait.

“Many of us worry you will lead us to slaughter,” he says, and his heavily accented words are slow and careful. “There are those in the city who think your magic will protect you and leave us vulnerable. That you will join with your brother and let his forces overtake ours. That you will use our queen until she has no army left to fight, and then you will destroy Syhl Shallow the way we once attacked your lands.”

I’ve heard these thoughts before, in whispers and rumors. This is the first time someone has confronted me with them directly.

Solt looks at me, dead-on, and his voice tightens. “The day we ran drills, I thought you meant to humiliate me. Again. Again. Again.” He makes a disgusted noise.

“I didn’t mean to humiliate you any more than you meant to humiliate Tycho.”

“Exactly.” He pauses, then picks up two dice to slide them between his fingers. “A man who meant to lead this army to its death would not have come here to apologize to me. A man like that would not have cared.”

I go still.

He scoops the rest of the dice into his palm. “You have been running drills with Jake,” he says, and he’s right. I’ve tried running drills with the soldiers, but ever since I ran Solt into the ground, they are reluctant to fully engage. I can never tell if it’s because they don’t like me or if it’s because they don’t care, but either way, it’s never been effective.

Until tonight, I didn’t realize why.

“Tomorrow,” says Solt, “you should run them with me.”

I pick up the rest of my dice for our final game and let them spill out onto the table. Not a single “one” at all. Solt has three, and he chuckles.

“I’m better with a sword than I am with dice,” I say ruefully.

He grins. “I am counting on it.”





CHAPTER THIRTY

LIA MARA

Snow falls overnight, blanketing the training fields in a thin layer of white, turning the forest beyond into a sparkling array of ice-coated trees. The windows of my chambers are cornered with crystals and frost. These early season snows never last long once the sun rises, but when I was a young girl, I loved waking in the morning to discover my entire world had changed overnight.

Grey retired late, climbing into bed after I’d fallen asleep, but he’s up before the sun anyway, fully dressed and armed before I’m even aware he’s awake. I roll over in time to watch him buckle a heavy cloak into place.

He meets my eyes, and the warmth in his smile melts my heart, because I know it’s a smile he only shares with me. “I meant to let you sleep,” he says quietly. “I will return at midday.”

“No breakfast?” I say.

He pulls on fingerless gloves and ducks to drop a kiss on my lips. “Jake and I are going to eat with the soldiers.”

“Wait—you are?”