Page 11 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

Nore took the stairs slowly, careful not to trip as she made her descent down and down and down. She’d found out where the prisoner was being kept earlier that day, using her own contacts, breaking one of her rules.

On the lower floors, it smelled dank, like mold and piss and blood. She shivered despite her cloak, walking slowly to keep quiet, careful to avoid the puddles. When she reached the second-to-last cell, she carefully hung her cloak on an empty sconce; here, they preferred to keep the prisoners in the dark, lit only by the cold moonlight through the barred windows, without even the flickering warm promise of torchlight.

She slid the key inside and turned it, flinching at the click of the lock—with the medallion on, she was unable to do the appropriate enchantment to soften the noise. The prisoner lay on a narrow bed, sleeping; he had his hands bound at the wrists and his feet chained to the bottom.

It was too dark to see the details of him, but that didn’t matter: they were burned into Nore’s memory. She knew his black hair, curling over his forehead and pasted to his neck; she knew his dark eyes and his warm brown skin and full lips, and the tidy beard that shadowed his jaw, and the fine, straight line of his nose. She knew the sound of his voice in Lindle or Idistran or any other language they’d laughed together in, the lilt of his Luthrite accent softening the consonants of her language. She knew the taste of his skin, the texture of him under her teeth. She knew, too, that her heart was thudding faster in her chest out of something worse than anticipation—and she would never forgive herself because the first emotion that rushed over her when she saw him there, whole and mostly unharmed after five long years, was not hatred, but heartache.

Fortunately, the hatred did not take long to follow.

Nore crept across the room, holding her breath. She’d already drawn her knife, glittering in the dim.

His hands were crossed over his stomach like a body prepared for the tomb. He had a streak of something dark on his right arm, staining his shirt, but Nore could not tell if it was blood or dirt. His right hand was wrapped, the left laid protectively over it, spots of blood marring the white of the gauze. She closed her eyes against the briefest flare of memories—a blade falling, a sharp gasp, a wet thump of disconnected flesh hitting the floor—and pushed it down. Nore forced herself back into the present.

Nore was ready this time—she had spent years, after their last encounter, going through the motions. Asking Sparrow to spar with her hand to hand, then Tern. She was not good at it, but she was no longer defenseless.

She waited, searching for any sign of consciousness. Seeing none, she struck.

She braced herself over him, her knees holding his body still as she put her blade to his throat, gripping his hair with her other hand. He was lithe, a former dancer with the muscle memory of grace imprinted on him.

He startled, eyes flying open; then, too soon, the prisoner relaxed. An easy, achingly familiar smile spread across his face.

He shouldn’t have looked at her like that. Not when he was here, in prison, bound and sentenced to death. Not when she held a knife to his throat.

Maybe she was not the only one who had the wrong first reaction, a knee-jerk holdover from a different time.

“Little Finch,” he said, his voice soft and warm as he took her in. “Haven’t been in this position in a while, have we?”

Nore felt the flush crawling up her chest, across her cheeks. “Shut up,” she hissed, pressing the knife farther, drawing blood. It ran in a lone rivulet, pooling in the hollow of his throat.

If anything, that seemed to relax him more. Caspian’s smile widened—she forced herself to use his full name, his formal name; she forced herself not to give in to the familiarity. “Is that any way to greet your husband?”

I know you permitted this for some sort of game. And in doing so, I hope you know—you have ruined one of the truest talents we’ve ever cultivated.

Bittern to Dove, 1631 UCE

Unsent. Recovered among Edith Gordon’s personal effects.

five

SHE DIDN’T KNOW HOW he managed it—she lost her attention for a fraction of a second, and then Caspian was out of his restraints, doing something clever with his knees and flipping Nore with such efficacy, without slitting his own throat on her blade. Nore gasped as her back slammed against the stone, the weight of his body pinning her down. She was breathing too hard as he loomed over her, his eyes shining in the dark.

So much for not being defenseless, Nore seethed. Again, she found herself outmaneuvered.

“I was wondering when you’d come,” he said.

When. Not if. Nore felt that familiar anger twisting in her belly.

He was not holding her firmly, as if, even armed when he was not, even free when he was bound, he did not see her as a threat. His hand moved down, skimming over the markings on her medallion. She watched as his nose wrinkled, the bout of nausea hitting—he could probably sense the medallion’s power.

Good. She wanted him to know how she’d bested him.

She bared her teeth at him, leaning into the visceral hate that coursed through her veins. “And I thought you knew better,” she hissed, “than to ever set foot here again.”

One dark eyebrow arched. Caspian pulled back, and Nore wrestled out from under him, pushing herself up to stand. She was breathing hard and her blood was overheated—she wasn’t certain how much of it was due to him overpowering her and how much of it was due to the simple agony of being in the same room.

His eyes traced over her. “You’ve always looked lovely in green,” he observed.

Nore very nearly threw the knife, damn the consequences. She forced herself to swallow her anger. “What time is your execution tomorrow? I’ll clear my schedule.”