Night of Masks and Knives (The Broken Kingdoms Book 4)

The longhouse was no longer dim and pensive. Every corridor, every alcove roared in screams as serfs fled from a rush of Kryv. The beat of drums drew nearer as a patrol approached, but the Kryv did not cease taking their fill.

Ash and Hanna wove through fleeing serfs with fine pillows in their hands. Fiske stumbled out of a bedroom, Isak at his back, both laughing viciously with fine fur coats in their arms.

I rounded a corner, silently taking an account of every Kryv, and found Helgi raiding a shelf lined in precious stones. He would’ve been wise to leave when he had the chance.

My frown was impassive, but my grip on the back of his neck was unrelenting.

“Nightrender,” Helgi fussed. “H-Here you are.”

“Here I am.” My palm flattened on his chest and slammed his back into the wall. Helgi met my height, nose to nose, but he was nothing but a weak fool.

“Were you leaving without saying farewell, Helgi?” I drew the hook of my blade across the ridge of his cheekbone, the edge of his jaw, to the throbbing pulse point in his neck in lithe, slow drags. “Strange how Salvisk knew to load her cakes with eldrish.”

“She . . . she must’ve smelled you lot.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true,” I said, blithely. “Our attention to Alver stink is painstakingly involved. We never step foot into a deal with a drop of blood on us.”

I teased the point of the knife into his shoulder.

Helgi winced, but he had the stones to meet my eyes.

“See, I think you told her, Helgi.” My voice lowered to a rough rasp. I didn’t wait for a word from him. “Did you think Salvisk would protect your bleeding ass?”

“She wrung me,” he cried. “Knew something about me was amiss, and she forced it outta me. She . . . she said the Lord Magnate wants you. Says you know things. I wouldn’t have said anything, but I need this position, Nightrender. How’ll I eat without penge?”

“I suppose you wouldn’t,” I said, turning the blade point down. “You reneged on our arrangement. This is disappointing. I don’t like disappointment.”

“I’ll do anything. Take on five more deals. I’ll serve you till I stop breathing, Nightrender.” His eyes flicked back toward the light of Salvisk’s parlor. “The girl in there. I saw what she does.”

My blood chilled.

“She took bits of her mind, didn’t she?” Helgi rambled on, unaware my body had shifted, blocking him entirely against the wall. He looked to me with a sly grin. “I could barter her for you, Nightrender. You must know what they say about the Alvers who twist memories.”

I smiled and patted the side of his face twice. “Yes, I know what they say, Helgi. And I can’t have you speaking of what you saw tonight.”

“I won’t. If you say so, I won’t.”

My grip on the knife tightened. “I know.”

The cut was swift. Straight and deep across his neck. Helgi gasped and curled his fingers around my tunic as his legs gave out beneath him. I helped lower him to the floor, and by the time his head touched the wood, his last breath shuddered out with a bubble of blood.

With the back of my hand, I wiped away a bit of blood from my chin.

A sharp breath lifted my eyes to the mouth of the corridor. My face remained stony, but a wild fever raged on the inside.

Malin looked to the pool of blood beneath Helgi’s body, to my bloodied knife, to my dark eyes.

Unease burned over my skin. Would the hate I wanted to see in her eyes finally come? If it did, would it ache, or be a relief?

I would not find out. Instead of hate, Malin’s mouth twitched.

She smiled. A small grin, but a grin all the same. “You killed him.”

I flicked my eyes to Helgi’s lifeless body. Gore and death soaked the stones, the wood floors.

Nothing pleasant was here.

With a touch of suspicion, I looked back to Malin. “Clearly.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, one shoulder leaned against the wall. She did not look horrified; she almost seemed pleased.

“He wanted to sell me.” Her grin took on an aggravating smugness. “And you killed him for it.”

What in the hells?

My fists clenched; a dark burst of shadows deepened the blackness of the room until I nearly lost sight of her. Where was the bleeding fear? Truth be told, the pitch shadows were from my disquiet. From her, there was nothing.

“This is not the worst I have done.” My intent was to frighten her. Malin Strom should’ve been counting the sunrises until the day she could be free of us. “I will do worse before this is over.”

Curse the gods. Her bleeding smile widened.

“Good of you to warn me.”

I could not stand still any longer. Two brisk strides and I closed the space between us. “What is wrong with you?” I gestured at the dead man behind me. “I killed him, tore out his throat, and you find it amusing?”

“Not amusing.” She lifted her chin. “He threatened me, you removed the threat. As you always did before. Do you recall the web weaver that bit me in the night? You did not stop until you found the web and destroyed it.”

She was disconcerting. I could not find a solid footing around this woman. Our faces drew close. My eyes narrowed. “I recall nothing, and would not consider slitting a man’s throat the same as killing web weavers.”

I recalled every sound, smell, and emotion of the battle with the web weavers.

Malin had fevered for a full day from that bleeding bite. I’d hunted for the silken orb all day until I’d found it in the last stall in the stable house. With a stolen flint and steel, I’d set a flame to it, then squashed the weavers as they scattered.

I took another step. Her back hit the wall. Our chests touched. A bite of cold drilled into my heart. Good. The first flicker of fear from the woman.

I gripped the side of her neck, hoping to pull more fear. It did nothing but bring her closer, with the fresh, honey-sweet scent of her skin in my lungs.

“I did not kill him for you.” Each word sliced through my teeth.

Her breaths came heavier, deeper. Malin didn’t cower or pull away. She held my stare like she was as captivated with me as I was with her.

“He was to blame for the poison, right?” she whispered.

“Yes.” This was needed. Let me become her monster. Her nightmare. “See what we do to our dealmakers.”

She tilted her head, grinning. “He brought his fate upon himself. If you did not kill him for me, then you killed him for the guild.”

I let out a rough growl and pulled back. “Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop making this some righteous form of justice. It was nothing but a kill to rid myself of a nuisance.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t think it is as simple as that.”

My nostrils flared as I closed my eyes. Shadows draped around my body as my temper boiled in my veins. “Believe whatever you wish. You have until the quarter toll to take what you please from this house. Skydguard are coming.”

I took a step to leave. No, to flee from her. I killed Helgi on her behalf, but it was not out of honor. It was out of fear, out of . . . well, I did not want to think too long on what motivated me to slaughter in the name of Malin Strom.

No mistake, she’d figure it all out and keep grinning at me like I was some sort of dark hero.

“I choose them.”

I stopped my retreat at her voice and glanced over my shoulder.

Tucked behind a barred door were half a dozen dirty faces. I’d not noticed the audience when I’d cornered Helgi, but no doubt, these were the cheeries Salvisk sold to the Masque av Aska. They all wore silver bracelets, a note of purchase, and looked at the bloody scene in horror.

The kind of horror Malin should have in her eyes right now.

“We have no room for cheeries.”

“Noted,” Malin said. “But as I understand it there is a particular steelman who has a proclivity to help rehome cheer boys and girls.”

My teeth ground together. “There is no time to return to Mörplatts.”

“Then they’ll return with me to Felstad.”

What had I done to be cursed with such an insufferable woman?

“No.”

“You, out of anyone, ought to know the finesse of a good deal, Nightrender. To Sigurd, or Felstad. Either way they are not remaining here.”

Malin came toward me, but I took a step away. I could not stand so close without losing all my wits by touching her again. Maybe more. My body trembled from anger or desire, I didn’t know. Didn’t want to know.

I looked at the Kryv rushing in and out of rooms.

“Isak. Fiske.” My voice was dangerous as hot iron. When the two Kryv came close, I pointed at the cheeries. “Take them to the steelman at the docks. Be back in two days’ time.”

Isak and Fiske shared a glance, then nodded.

“Anything else?” Fiske asked.

“No.” I grumbled and strode past. “Unless the bleeding queen has any more requests. I will be seeing to it that Salvisk wakes in the Otherworld. See to the cheeries and get the hells out of here. The drums are too close. Tell the others to prepare to sail; we go to Skítkast.”

“As you say,” Fiske said

“You cannot hide your heart behind shadows forever, Nightrender,” Malin called out.

I wheeled around, on the verge of losing what little control I had left. “We face the Masque av Aska. Sharpen your blades and forget your heart, dännisk. Or you will not last long.”