Fated Blades (Kinsmen #3)(43)

It was worth it to see Matias in the traditional garb. He wore a white shirt that clung to his chest, formfitting white pants tucked into knee-high crimson boots, and a long vest that resembled a trench coat without sleeves with its hem split into three pieces at midthigh. The light from the lamps played on the carved muscles of his bare arms, and more than one person had given him a long appraising look as they passed. She couldn’t blame them. He looked like the hero of some First Wave saga, except that his short hair ruined the illusion. It should have been in a ponytail that reached to his waist. Yes, the hair was definitely a problem, and so was the expression on his face.

“Will you stop scowling?” she murmured. “We’re supposed to be having fun.”

“I feel like a jackass.”

“You look fine. Smile, Matias. You might like it.”

He growled under his breath.

An alert sounded in her head. Karion calling. She took it, subvocalizing her words. “Yes?”

“They’re here.”

A still image unfolded in her mind—Gabriel and Cassida walking across Kamen Plaza, eight guards behind them. Her husband looked dapper in a dark-blue doublet. It set off his blond hair. She allowed herself half a second to scrutinize his face. Golden tan, bright smile, not a trace of worry in his light-blue eyes. Next to him, Cassida radiated tension, her mouth set in a narrow line, but Gabriel was having a lovely time. She could recite what was going through his head, probably word for word. What a lovely party, look at all the pretty people just like us, soon we’re going to get paid, and then we’re going to go somewhere new and exciting . . .

She gritted her teeth.

Another image. Cassida tugging Gabriel closer, exasperation plain on her face.

That’s it, dear. That’s all there is to him. Don’t worry, we’re on our way, and it will all be over soon.

They sped up at the same time. Matias must have gotten the same report from his people.

They had briefly considered setting a trap by the plaza and snatching their spouses off the street. But with the bodyguards, the risk of bystander casualties was too high. The Vandals would not give up. They wanted the seco tech, and the only way to stop them was to wipe them out. Letting Gabriel and Cassida join them gathered all their targets in a convenient location they couldn’t easily escape.

The street gently curved around a narrow plateau rising from the city like a stone sword. They wove their way through the crowd until they reached the Kamen Gap, a narrow canyon between two plateaus. The crowd thinned. All those without reservations would be barred from entering the plaza, and for a moment they were alone, marching full speed through the passage, round amber lanterns sprouting from the living rock illuminating their way.

All her worries evaporated. The last traces of tension that had settled on her shoulders since she watched the recording of her husband’s betrayal left her. It was simple now. Live or die. Succeed and win everything, or fail and lose it all. Either way, it would be decided tonight. She felt light, strong, and ready.

Matias caught her hand and squeezed it. She gripped his fingers, searching for that same connection she’d felt when they danced. It pulsed into her, binding the two of them together, true, honest, without any subterfuge or pretense, and she leaned into the powerful current, eager to test it.

The entrance to the plaza loomed ahead, the two walls on its sides thrusting out like the jaws of some great beast. They walked toward it hand in hand.

A kissing couple lingered on the left, a blonde woman and a man half-hidden by a long pale cloak. As they passed, the man raised his head, and she stared at Karion’s face. They kept walking.

“My brother has a girlfriend,” she murmured, bewildered.

“Or at least someone willing to kiss him,” Matias said.

The enormous stone gates towered before them. The dancing troupe was already here, the couples milling to the right, just outside of the gate, wearing similar clothes. Matias and Ramona joined the dancers. A dark-haired woman nodded to Matias.

A drumbeat started, measured and light, a precursor of things to come. The first pair of dancers joined hands and strode through the gate in time to the beat of the drum.

Flutes joined in, weaving around the drumbeat. One by one, the dancer couples entered the plaza.

The strings caught the melody. The pace quickened.

The last of the dancers walked through the gate. It was their turn. Matias raised his hand. She put her fingers into his. The connection flowed between them, and they glided through into the plaza.

A square of paved stone thirty meters across greeted them. Textured walls rose on both sides, sheer until the top, where ornamental parapets fenced in the spectators seated in small groups at low tables. An older woman in a bright-yellow gown looked directly at them. Nadira, Matias’s aunt, sitting at a table with Adra’s mayor. Ramona glanced to her right and saw Uncle Sabor smiling at her from the other wall.

Directly ahead, the facade of the hotel emerged from the sheer cliff, its columns and reliefs carved with such care they seemed draped with velvet. Eight people sat on the balcony. Varden, two lieutenants, a large man standing behind them, and to the right, Gabriel and Cassida with two bodyguards.

At the base of the walls, the Vandals sat in small groups, on the traditional padded quilts. They were out of armor, weapons concealed, but their identical haircuts and rigid spines gave them away.

Where was Varden’s secare?