Night of Masks and Knives: Book 3 – Chapter 41

The ache in my skull was as if fire cracked the bone down the middle. I retched over the side of the skiff as Lynx pulled the boat out of the river. Groaning, I wiped my mouth and gathered my bearings in the velvet night. The riverbed was rank and burned my nose.

″They’re here.” From the shadows of the surrounding forest Ash and Hanna appeared.

I slumped onto the bank, indescribably relieved to see the youngest Kryv at their mark. Despite Ash’s protests at being told to stay out of the masquerade, Kase hadn’t lied to the boy about the importance of their task. Their job had been to go to rogues awaiting the signal in the trees and bring them here to help us disappear.

″Hurry, the ride’s here,” Ash said. “Where is he?”

I knew exactly who the boy meant. With Ash’s scrunched face, Hanna’s frantic search, a sob broke out. I curled forward as the other Kryv took hold of the youngest among us, gently explaining that plans went awry.

″No!” Ash screamed, racing for the bank of the river. Raum had to catch the boy and pull him back. “No. We don’t leave Kryv! We don’t leave Kryv!”

I hugged my middle, weak and broken. The slightest breath seemed too great a feat to take.

Soft hands lifted me gently off the damp earth. Hagen pulled me against him. “Malin,” he whispered, “we must keep going. We’re too close to the palace.”

″I can’t leave him,” I muttered.

″We’ll regroup. We’ll plan.” It was Niklas. He came up behind us, face as stone. “It is what Kase would do, and it is what we will do. Ash spoke out of emotion, but it is no less true. We do not leave Kryv, we do not leave Falkyns, we do not leave our folk behind. Today is not the day we start.”

Without another word, Niklas wheeled into the trees. He had a gift. The proclamation struck me to my core, and I believed him. I had to believe every word, or I would bend and break under the pain.

Tova walked beside me, silent tears on her cheeks. I squeezed her hand. She gripped mine back.

When we broke through the thorn hedges, there on the edge of an overgrown road a wagon and horse waited. A man and woman with beautifully familiar faces sat on the driver’s bench.

″Ansel?”

The grounds master released a long breath, hopped from the seat, and wrapped me, then Hagen in his arms.

″I promised we’d see you again,” he whispered.

His wife, Sasha, stepped down from the wagon, and we traded weak hugs until Lynx cleared his throat and nodded at the cart. Lynx sat at the front with Ansel and Ash, who was horridly quiet. Not even a curiosity about the wagon, or Ansel’s knife.

The rest of us filled out the back of the wagon, lost in our own thoughts and silence. Ansel snapped the reins, and it wasn’t long before the blood of the masquerade faded into nothing but a memory.

The ride to Jagged Grove took through the night and into the dawn. By morning, my shoulders slumped, and my eyes drooped. Lynx picked at black seeds in his palm. Ash slept on Raum’s lap, Hanna on mine.

″We’re here,” Sasha said wearily.

Ansel stopped the wagon between two mammoth trees with leaves as large as my head. Jagged Grove was made of bowers, tents, and slat houses. Some were new, and others were built turns ago.

Fires burned every few paces, most with big pots of boiling ragged clothes, savory stews, or spits of rodents sizzling over the flames. A few burly men dressed in wiry pelts and axes on their waists walked to a tent where a pretty woman handed out tin cups of brӓn.

The Grove had grown its scruffy population in recent turns and looked like a small township beneath the thick canopy of trees. Folk dressed simply, some littles ran around naked as could be, but there was laughter.

At a kettle of simmering tea, I caught sight of a familiar face. “Hob?”

Hob lifted his eyes. “Ah, hello again.”

My brow furrowed when Inge leaned forward scooping out hot water for tea. “Made up with your liar, I see?”

I did not want anyone untrustworthy here, not after a traitor had ripped Kase from me a second time.

Hob took Inge’s hand. “Don’t act like you’re going to cut her. Misunderstandings have been cleared away.”

Inge’s chin quivered. “I sold secrets to my brothers to keep Jakoby safe, . They backed my shop with penge, and said I owed them. I’ve been scrimping and saving to buy my debt off, but sold out crooks on the side. If I did not, they would’ve gone after Jakoby, locked him away, and . . . if they discovered I was to have his little one, they’d have killed him. I was planning to leave as soon as I could buy them out.”

My eyes widened when Hob pressed a kiss to her middle.

He winked at me. “Speaking of paying debts. Where is the Nightrender? The bastard thinks he’s sly. I know what he did.”

″What—” I cleared my throat. “What do you mean?”

Hob chuckled. “Don’t tell me he didn’t have something to do with the noble lady who commissioned Inge’s work in the exact amount she had left to pay off those sods of brothers.”

″And the wagon parked outside the morning after his guild retrieved your gown, packed and ready to bring me here,” Inge said, smiling at Hob like he lit up her skies.

My jaw tightened. Bleeding Kase. I loved him. Fiercely. Enough I thought I might hate him for all those wicked things he tried to do to hide the good man inside.

″He is not here,” I said.

My tone was rough, sharp, and violent. Hob’s smile faded, but I did not wait around to answer any more questions. I spun away, moving deeper into the huts and shanties.

A few strides away from the edge of the grove, Gunnar erupted through the trees, still wearing his clothes from the masquerade.

″Daj!” His voice cracked.

″Gods,” Hagen breathed out and raced for his son.

My heart wanted to soar at the sight of it, but I wasn’t certain there was anything left of my heart remaining.

Hagen swallowed Gunnar in his arms. They were close to the same height, but in the moment, Gunnar looked less Kryv and more like a boy. He buried his face against Hagen’s shoulder. My brother kissed the side of his head, pulling him back to look at him. He’d laugh, then embrace him all over again.

I made my way slowly toward them, not wanting to break the moment.

″How are you here?” Hagen asked, a quiver in his voice.

Gunnar tightened his arms around his father’s waist. “My uncle won the kingdom; the Kryv helped, so Kase vowed to find you for Maj. I came with him.”

″Uncle?” Hagen’s mouth parted in stun, but he blinked it away, gripping Gunnar behind his neck. “Your sister, your mother, they’re—”

″Waiting for you, Daj.” Gunnar beamed.

Hagen’s face twisted with emotion. He hugged Gunnar again as if he might never let him go.

″Where is Kase?” Gunnar said. “We owe him everything.”

The somberness returned.

″The Nightrender was taken,” was all Lynx offered his fellow Kryv before falling deeper into Jagged Grove.

″What?” Gunnar flashed his eyes at me, then Hagen. “No. No, he can’t go back there.”

Vali broke through the trees, a drinking horn in hand. His eyes were shadowed. No mistake, he heard the news. Dagny followed, her dress torn. Next came Junius and Fiske. Everyone but the Nightrender had made it to freedom from the Masque av Aska.

In one breath, Niklas had his wife in his arms, her back against a tree. He took her mouth hard and desperate. Isak held Fiske’s face, laughing softly before kissing him much the same.

″When do we make plans to return, then?” Dagny asked.

It was a welcome relief to know I was not the only one who would demand a swift, brutal scheme be made to retrieve the Nightrender before Ivar could destroy him. I’d only gotten him back, and I would not lose him again.

I would never stop.

My fist gripped what was left of my shredded gown. Around my neck hung the two vials Jens proffered me. I clasped them in my palm. My mother had been the heir and had died because of it. I’d look into her final moments soon, take what knowledge she could give, because I would not be hiding like others before me.

I took in the haggard group. Exhaustion, rage, fear, it all lived in the eyes of the guilds. But there was a flame too. Our battle was not over.

And I knew how it would be won. The Nightrender would need to forgive me. “I am the heir of the Black Palace.”

The words hovered in the trees like a whisper, no one was sure if they heard or not.

Gunnar broke the silence first. “You’re the heir? As in the . . . what?”

″As in the queen’s ring will fit me. An item we should retrieve since I, unfortunately, dropped it and ran. If we have any luck, the Master of Ceremonies will have found it.”

″Why is that lucky?” Raum asked.

″Because he is also my stepfather.”

″There is more to this than all that,” Hagen interjected. “Our father—” He gestured to me. “Is not our father by blood. He is an Alver who can twist the tongues of those who know truths that should not be spread. Like the true heir to the queen’s ring.

″It is what Jens Strom does. Protects those of the royal lines from Ivar’s assassins.” Hagen gave me a swift glare. “Malin, that ring is a curse. They will hunt you, kill you, and destroy anyone who knew the truth.”

″But we have allies,” I argued. “Jens being one. He has concealed the truth of all of us for turns. He is an enemy to Ivar in plain sight.”

″Yes, but they will know you belong to him, right?” Lynx asked.

Hagen tilted his head side to side. “We don’t know. Jens has worked tirelessly, perhaps cruelly, to make Malin someone invisible.”

My brother offered me a tender look. All those turns of sleeping outside House Strom, of being dismissed, were all to keep eyes turned off the forgotten stepdaughter in the hayloft.

″Even if Ivar learned I am his stepdaughter, Jens could act as if he disowned me,” I said. “He could keep his rank and demand my head as a ruse.”

″And he will,” Hagen said. “If it will help keep you alive, he will play whatever part he must play.”

I did not know if the warmth in my chest was affection for my stepfather, but it was new and strange. I shook my head, focusing on other ways to get to Kase. He was what mattered here. “What about the second son of Ivar?”

″Luca,” Tova said. “He can be considered an ally. There is little love between father and son.”

I took in the group. “We are not utterly alone. We have hands to play.”

Kase had begged me not to touch the ring, but he was not here. Once again, he’d stepped into harm’s way for me, and it was long overdue for me to take the fight to the ones who kept stealing him from my life.

″I do not know what exact steps to take,” I admitted. “What I know is this is a move we can play, and if we succeed?” I grinned with a touch of venom. “It will be the thread to unravel Ivar’s rule.”

″Malin,” Niklas said, “it will unravel our world. With that ring, you will see what more your mesmer can do. It will change everything.”

He’d known about me. Whether it be instinct, or the way he looked at me now with lack of astonishment, Niklas Tjuv knew what my mesmer meant when we’d visited the Falkyn nest.

With a deep breath, I faced sunrise, a cruel grin on my face. “Then I will learn exactly what I can do with it. There are no lengths I would not go to get Kase Eriksson. He would do the same. He would not stop. Nor will we.”