“Really?” I turned to Maz, our faces inches apart. I shifted slightly and the cold steel of the dagger at my thigh reminded me that I had a knife on me. But I didn’t want a swift resolution. I wanted him to suffer as I had. I wanted them all to realize what they had done, and regret who they had destroyed to their very last moment.
I smiled at him, taking satisfaction instead from the way his eyes lighted on my lips and not from envisioning his spilled blood.
“Really? You must introduce me to the swordsmith. I would very much like to meet him and buy directly.”
That doused the smile on his face. His eyes darted to Casildo, a look of raw emotion crossing his features, his mouth twisting into a grimace before it all settled back into a smooth mask.
“He’s no longer with us, unfortunately.” Maz looked away from Casildo. “He died.”
I coiled my hands to my side. “What a shame. How did he pass?”
“He was a traitor.” Casildo’s voice rang out through the room before Mazin could respond.
“He and his family tried to betray the emperor. They were arrested and executed.”
I gritted my teeth.Not all of them.
“Indeed? That makes his knives worth even more, then.” I forced my lips to lift.
Casildo gave me a greasy smile in return. “Exactly my thoughts.” He turned to the case once more. “I think you might find a blade similar to what you saw here.”
“Show me, please.”
I had already pinpointed the knife he wanted to show me as soon as I saw my father’s collection. This one had a pommel carved into the head of a northern mountain wolf, not as large as the halmasti, but to hear my father tell it, equally as fierce. But I would have all these swords back in my possession very soon. This moment was spinning the tale for Casildo.
The tale that I was wealthy, influential, and I could afford expensive trinkets with no more than a second thought. Because that would also gain entrance into the emperor’s court.
The fact that Mazin was also here was wonderfully convenient for me.
I glanced at the dagger in question and inhaled excitedly as if I hadn’t known exactly where it was all along. “Why, it’s so similar to the one I saw! I must have it.”
“I’m afraid it will be costly, coming from my private collection.”
Mazin moved behind me, and I darted a look over my shoulder. He was remarkably still, watching Casildo with a veiled gaze. But then his eyes flickered to mine.
For a second I forgot I was pretending to be someone different. I forgot that I was looking at him through unfamiliar eyes. And when he met my stare it must have showed, because his own eyes widened, and he tilted his face as if he were examining a puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.
I caught myself—I wanted him intrigued, not suspicious. I wanted him to long to meet me again, not set his soldiers on me.
I turned back to Casildo and waved my arm distractedly, as if any amount would be inconsequential to me. Which was true, I wouldpay anything to get my hands back on my father’s legacy. But this was to create the character we needed to take Basral. “My servant will provide the sum.”
I nodded at Noor. Casildo held back a smile so wide it could barely contain his glee. A rush of warmth spread through me, the satisfaction of a plan clicking together like an intricate design on a sword.
Casildo needed to know how muchpossibilityI had. So when he decided to try and take it, I would destroy all of his.
We departed soon after, Casildo counting his fresh coins and one of my father’s daggers resting gently in an ornate box on my lap.
The satisfaction I felt faded, leaving a hollow bitterness that was compounded by Mazin’s final expression. He didn’t meet my gaze to say goodbye, nor did he attempt to take my hand to kiss it so I could begin laying the foundation of my seduction. Instead, the entire time we were walking out of Casildo’s grand home, Mazin never took his gaze off that box.
Nineteen
Before
THE HAWK
Baba made me start training with Mazin, despite his talent being so much less than mine. Maz trained with the other soldiers too, but the emperor decided he needed more.
“The boy is incompetent,” I had grumbled to my father as he walked us to the training field at the back of the smith. Field was not perhaps the right word—the ground was so worn it was more like a yard of dirt with some sparse shrubbery.
