To Kill a Kingdom(65)

Lira kicks me under the table, hard. Rycroft shoots her a devil’s smile and turns to one of his approaching shadows. The man is older than I am, his skin brandished by the sun, and I can’t help but think he looks familiar. A cleaver is sheathed to his belt, and large earrings stretch chasms into his lobes. When he leans down to whisper into Rycroft’s ear, he sweeps a long velvet coat out of the way.

I straighten, knowing where I’ve seen him before. The man from the Golden Goose. The one who started this quest by pointing me in the direction of the Sea Queens’s weakness.

He’s one of the Xaprár.

It was Rycroft who sent me after the crystal.

“I have a new bargain for you,” Rycroft says, all teeth. “Now that my men have sights on your crew, how about we both be a little more honest? Your guys are good at hiding, but they’re not Xaprár. What they are, is screwed. And they’ll be dead if you don’t tell me exactly how you plan to get the Crystal of Keto.”

I don’t blink. “Never heard of it.”

“Whose life should I bring you to get your memory going?” Rycroft slides his finger across the rim of his goblet. “The tattooed bitch with the gun? Or maybe I’ll slice the giant a new smile? Pick a person and I’ll pick the body part.”

I arch an eyebrow. “That’s very dramatic.”

“I like dramatic,” he says. “How about Kye’s head on a platter?”

“How about me killing you before your crew can even blink?”

Rycroft smiles. “But then where would your friends be?” He gestures to one of the Xaprár, who pours him another measure of rum.

“So you kill me as a trade for their lives?” I ask.

Rycroft throws his head back. “Now who’s dramatic? I wouldn’t risk starting a war with your daddy.” He waves a hand. “Just tell me what I want to know.”

“How about you tell me why you’re suddenly so interested in the crystal?”

Rycroft leans back in his chair, letting his gold teeth track to a lazy smile. “I’ve had my sights on it for a while. Every pirate likes hunting for lost treasure, and the more elusive it is the better. You know that, don’t you, Your Highness?” Rycroft pulls aside his collar. The necklace is not quite like it was in the stories. The stone is not a stone, but a droplet of blue that teeters from the chain like it’s ready to fall. Each fragment of it dances as though it’s made of water, with small ornate fangs latching around the diamond.

The lost Págese necklace. I was right. Rycroft does have it.

“I got my hands on this straight after hearing it was the key,” Rycroft says, folding his collar back over to hide the necklace.

“How did you even find out about that?”

No way had Rycroft gotten the information easily when I had to sell my country – and my damn soul – for it.

“I’m a man for hire,” Rycroft says. “And the Págese are always looking for someone to do their dirty work. I had a few words with one of their princes a few years back after completing a job. You’d be surprised how loose his lips got after a few whiskeys and some sweet nothings.”

I bristle. Rycroft had played the seducer, using a charm conjured from hell knows where, while I had put my country on the line. He had nothing to lose, so he’d traded nothing. Whereas I had an entire kingdom to lose and I’d offered it at a bargain price. Too caught up in my own crusade to even stop to think. Pathetic. I was starting to feel really damn pathetic.

“Why do you want to kill the Sea Queen?” I ask. “Hero isn’t exactly your color.”

Rycroft rolls his shoulders back. “I don’t give a damn about your little war with the octobitch,” he says. “I care less about her life span than I do yours.”

“Then what?”

Rycroft’s eyes are hungry. “All the power of the ocean,” he says. “If I get that crystal, then I control the oldest magic there ever was.” He takes a swig of rum and then slams the goblet back onto the table, hard. “And if the Sea Queen gives me any trouble, I’ll put her and her little bitches back in their place.”

Lira’s lips curl. “Is that so?”

“It’s a fact,” he tells her. “Let them try to come for me.”

The fabric of Lira’s dress is bunched between her fists, and when she makes like she’s going to stand, I place a hand on her knee. We’re far too outnumbered to start throwing punches.

“Why the charade of having your man come to Midas and feed me information?” I ask. “Why get me involved at all?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Rycroft says, though I beg to differ. “Nobody can make the climb up the mountain and live to tell the tale. The ice prince may have been willing to tell me about some ancient necklace nobody had seen in a few lifetimes, but he wasn’t going to give up the most carefully guarded secret of their bloodline.”

“And you knew that it was information I could get.”

“You’re the prince of Midas,” he says. “Royalty sticks together, doesn’t it? I knew you’d all be in on one another’s dirty secrets. Or if you weren’t, you could be.”

And he was right. I managed to weasel my way into the secrets of Sakura’s family just like Rycroft knew I would, learning things I had no right to, for a mission he had planned. All of my talk about being a captain, telling Kye I wasn’t some na?ve prince to be advised and influenced, and all the while I was playing into the hands of Tallis Rycroft and his merry band of miscreants.