The Spymaster’s Prize: A Fantasy Romance Tale (Artisan Magic Book 2)

A crash and shout tore Elia from sleep. She tumbled out of the bed and landed on her feet with a thump. Angry voices rose in the hallway outside her room and she’d no more than pulled on a dressing gown over her shift before her door burst open.

“Is everything all right in here, my lady?” Light in the hall silhouetted the guard, but she recognized the shape of his armor. Behind him, a handful more guards ran past.

“Yes.” Elia’s voice cracked halfway through the word. She cleared her throat. “Yes, I’m fine. What’s happened?”

The guard turned back, listening, then extended a hand. “You’d best come with me, my lady. Her ladyship will want you.”

She padded across the room, holding her gown closed tight. She knew a hint to stay her questions when she heard it.

The guard offered his arm as she approached and she nestled her hand in the crook of his elbow. They’d made it no more than a few paces into the hall before Thea emerged from her private quarters a short distance away.

“It’s all right,” Thea said as she waved away a pair of guards that tried to escort her, too. “I’m not harmed.”

Elia hurried forward to catch her by the arms. “What’s going on?”

Her cousin clasped her shoulders in return. “Someone attacked me in my room. I don’t think they expected me to fight back. Are you all right? Did anyone bother you?”

She shook her head. “I was sound asleep until I heard that racket.”

A guard jogged up the hall to meet them. “Your ladyship, the other guest’s room is empty.”

“What?” Elia squeaked.

Thea gave a troubled frown.

“We’ve already stationed someone at all entrances and exits,” the guard continued. “If there’s so much as a window that opens, someone is on it. No one gets in or out.”

“Gaius could,” Thea said softly.

“Aye, ma’am, but no one in their right mind would try to stop the king from entering his own palace.”

Elia shook her head. “What about Cass?”

The guard hesitated. “Ma’am?”

“You said he’s not in his room?”

Before the man could explain, a commotion rose around the corner and out of sight.

Thea started off in that direction at the same time as the guards. Elia followed. The possibility Cass had decided to sneak out of the palace and head off in the storm left her stomach uneasy. Even in the depths of the palace, chill air crept along the floor, warning of the bitter cold outside.

Then they rounded the corner, and the uneasiness grew to churning.

A handful of guards stood around Cass in a half circle. One stood closer, the knife in his hand hovering dangerously close to Cass’s throat. In spite of being pinned against a wall, he glared back at the guards, a blade of his own clenched tight in his fist.

“What is the meaning of this?” Elia demanded.

“We caught him out here,” the guard with the blade to Cass’s throat said. “Sure was in a hurry.”

“I’m a guest,” Cass growled. “I can leave when I please.”

The guard pressed his knife close enough to split hair. “In the dead of night, with weapons on you?”

Elia’s stomach sank.

“As if I would leave them behind?” Cass snorted. His fingers flexed on his knife, but he made no move to sheath it. The rest of him was perfectly still. “I don’t know what’s waiting for me out there, but I’m not stupid enough to go unarmed.”

Thea approached more cautiously. “Why do you have a knife out?”

His eyes darkened. “Because I was accosted by men in the dark. Why do you think?”

“Is this him, your ladyship?” one of the guards asked.

“I don’t know. It was dark. I couldn’t see.”

Alarm pinged inside her and Elia wrapped her arms tight around her middle, as if the pressure might soothe it. Surely that wasn’t what the guard was implying. Was it? She studied Cass, the rigid stance he held, the sword at his hip and the knife in his hand. His sudden interest in visiting the palace sprang to mind unbidden.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Dark where?” Cass looked between Thea and the guard who kept him pinned to the wall.

“My room.” Thea raised her chin. “Where I was attacked by someone with a knife.”

He stared back. Silently, Elia prayed for some look of shock or anger, something to indicate the news was a surprise. But his face revealed nothing, and as her stomach turned over again and again, she wondered if a look of guilt might have been better. Something, anything, to show what he thought of this news. By the Light, what if she had it all wrong? What if it had been him, and she was meant to follow a killer out into the wilds?

Cass gave another snort. “How’d they get in?”

Thea pursed her lips. “I don’t know. The door was locked when I went to sleep. Did any of you notice signs of tampering?”

A few of the guards shifted uneasily. They hadn’t checked. Only one shook his head. “No sign of forced entry.”

“Search me for the key, then,” Cass said. Slowly, he widened his stance and spread his arms. “See if you think there’s any way it was me.”

The guard with the knife to his throat took the opportunity to remove the blade from his hand. Another removed his sword from its sheath, and then the rest pressed close to dig into his pockets and feel through his clothes.

“If you were just trying to leave, then where are your bags?” the lead guard asked.

Elia stepped forward. “We didn’t have any. We didn’t expect we’d be staying overnight.”

“I never intended to,” Cass said, and the way his gruff voice softened made it sound almost like an apology. His eyes flicked her way and she held his gaze for a long time.

“Keys,” one of the guards announced as he turned one of Cass’s front pockets inside out.

Elia’s heart hit her ribs.

“For my cabin,” Cass grumbled. “A man can’t lock his own front door?”

Thea held out her hand. “Let me see them.”

The guard deposited the small key ring in her palm.

She moved the keys with her thumb. “Keep looking.”

“My lady?”

“The shape of these is unfamiliar. I would recognize them if they were the right shape. You may test them on my door’s lock to see for yourselves, but they’re not an indication of guilt on their own.” Instead of giving back the keys, she held them out for Elia to take.

She stared for a moment before she plucked them from her cousin’s hand. She’d seen him with keys when they’d locked up the cabin, but she hadn’t paid enough attention to recognize them.

The guards continued their search. “Coins. Kentorian and… from somewhere else. And this… What is this?” One of the men removed a small paper packet from somewhere. “Wood shavings?”

“Herbs,” Cass said, with a nod in Elia’s direction. “From the lady’s maid.”

That, at least, Elia could confirm. “He has an injury. My family’s housekeeper tended the wound and provided willow bark to help with his pain.”

“Explains the bandages,” another guard muttered. “Which we’re going to need to check.”

Cass rolled his eyes, but relaxed his shoulders and let them unfasten his shirt.

Elia reddened and turned away.

The search concluded and most of the guards stepped back. “Nothing else, your ladyship.”

Thea extended her hand again. “Let me see the coins.”

They clinked into her palm, a small collection of modest value.

“Nylmerian?” she asked.

“Home,” Cass replied sullenly. From the corner of her eye, Elia saw him fasten his shirt again, closing the bandages out of sight. Her thought had been right, then. He wasn’t Kentorian. Were the people who had taken Peretor Nylmerian, too?

“Why are you here?” The lead guard still held both blades. From the way he brushed his thumb over the knife he’d taken from Cass, he wasn’t eager to give it back.

Cass grunted. “Work.”

“What manner of work?” the man pressed.

“I think that’s enough questions.” Thea handed the coins to Elia, too. The guards around them shifted uneasily.

Elia cradled the coins and keys to her chest. The Nylmerian crest on some of the coins drew her attention. The men who had attacked her and taken Peretor had looked Nylmerian, too. Was it coincidence? With the coins in her hand, she wasn’t sure she could believe that. Suddenly, the task of going along with him to seek information seemed more questionable, more dangerous than before.

The lead guard weighed Cass’s knife in his hand. “Shall we imprison him, my lady? Until His Majesty is present?”

“No,” Thea said.

“But he could be the one who—”

“You don’t have any proof of that.” Elia’s voice quavered, but at least the words came out with conviction. “You don’t even have any evidence. Keys to some other lock and a few coins from another country? You’ll find those in the pocket of any man in this city.”

Something touched Cass’s eyes. Gratitude? She wasn’t sure. All the standoffishness she’d seen in him before struck her as worrisome secrecy now, and she did not know if speaking up for him was the right choice.

Thea nodded in agreement, but her expression grew cool. “But he will not leave the palace.”

His face twisted with a snarl. “You can’t keep me here against my will when I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“And I cannot allow anyone to exit the palace until we find whoever that was in the dark,” she argued.

Without a word, the lead guard sheathed his own knife and tucked the one he’d taken from Cass under his belt.

Thea stepped back and motioned for the guards to disperse. “Sweep the palace for signs of the attacker. Continue to keep men posted at all possible entrances and exits until Gaius returns.”

A few of the men thumped hands over their hearts; the rest scattered like dandelion seeds on the wind.

Cass pushed himself away from the wall as they left. “Looks like you could have let us go after all. They don’t seem to have any problem listening to you now, your ladyship.” Sarcasm dripped from his words, thick as hot tar.

Thea was unimpressed. “Be grateful that they do.” She spared a glance for Elia, one weighted with the now-burdensome favor she’d asked, then swept up the hall in silence. The remaining guards trailed after her.

Alone, Elia didn’t know what to do. She curled her hand closed around the coins, then bit her lip and offered to return them.

He scraped the money and keys from her hand and returned them to his pocket. “Every moment I’m stuck here puts me farther behind.”

“And? What, do you think I should help you escape?” She squared her shoulders, challenging him to ask.

Cass touched the scabbard at his waist, then scowled. They’d taken his sword, too. “I think you should consider what they’re costing you.”

Her. Not them. Her heart beat faster. “I thought we were in this together.”

“Why would we be? You aren’t on anyone’s payroll.”

Keeping her breath steady took effort. The symbols on the Nylmerian coins flashed through her mind. Nylmeres and Kentoria were proper allies, once. The previous king had jeopardized that connection, but had he turned them against her home? She didn’t follow politics like her father did; she didn’t know. “And whose payroll are you on?”

He stared. “What kind of question is that?”

She didn’t know. She didn’t know how she wanted him to reply. All she knew was the palace was large, but they were stuck there together, and now it was more than the storm that held them in place. She curled her hands to fists and held them tight by her sides. “Why were you leaving?”

“So nobody would stop me.”

“In the dead of night?”

“Can you think of a better time?” He searched her eyes. From the way he frowned, he didn’t like what he saw. “Or are you trying to make an accusation, too?”

Elia brought her hands together before her and laced her fingers. Belatedly, she realized it looked like pleading. She forced her hands back to her sides. “Thea is my cousin.” What that had to do with anything, she wasn’t sure, but it was the only thing that sprang to mind.

His jaw tightened. “You brought me here and asked for help. Your cousin can’t offer it. Do you trust me to give it, or not?”

“Am I supposed to trust you? You’re trying to sneak off in the middle of the night and leave me here alone!”

“I don’t have time for anything else,” he spat back. “All you do is what you’re told.”

She recoiled as if he’d slapped her instead.

His brows drew together and his face softened, then his expression hardened to stone. “I’m getting my blades back. And then I’ll be out of here.”

Elia swallowed hard. “When we get out of here, we’re going to find Peretor together.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because he’s my friend. Maybe Vinson asked you to find him. I’m guessing that’s why he loaned you that sword.” She gestured toward the empty scabbard. “But I saw what happened too, and I feel responsible for the lack of assistance we found here. We came back to Samara because of me. I’m not walking away without doing something to help.”

Cass stared at her for a long time, then exhaled hard through his nose. “Go back to bed.”

“Promise you won’t leave without me.”

He opened his mouth to object.

“Promise me,” she said before he could.

“I don’t owe you any allegiance.”

“You don’t owe any to Kentoria, either. Or Peretor.” She raised a brow, challenging him to disagree.

His eyes narrowed. “I have allegiance to one thing. You’d better believe it’ll see this job through.” He put a hand on her shoulder and moved her aside, then headed down the hall in the direction Thea and the guards had gone.

She raised her voice after him. “Allegiance to what?”

Cass gave no answer.

Elia stared after him and twisted her hands.

Allegiance to what?