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The doors shut, trapping her inside the assassin’s bedroom. Tenah’s jaw dropped. Three walls of the room were carved into giant, arched windows overlooking the capital. A massive four-poster bed took up the center of the room, dipped in red-and-purple silks. There was a small crystal pool along the balcony, lined by plush lounge chairs like soldiers on watch.
And the artwork…landscapes crafted so perfectly, they looked like windows to the outside world, begging to be explored.
Vesara vanished into a closet longer than a hallway. Colorful attire flew out at an incredible rate, piling up on the floor.
“Does this have anything to do with the tents outside?” Tenah asked, anxiety blooming in her chest.
Vesara popped her head out. Her arm followed, clutching an expensive-looking ruby, two-piece ensemble with delicate navy-and-cream stitchwork. “I knew I had something to match your eyes.”
Face twisting up, Tenah replied, “I’m not wearing that.”
“Why not?” Vesara met her challenge with all the wrath of a powerful woman used to getting her way.
Tenah waved a hand up and down at it. “There’s nothing to it.”
“Do you see how Denesè dress?” Nimble hands somehow forced the outfit into Tenah’s fists. From the determined sparkle in the assassin’s glacial eyes, there was no resisting. She hastily dressed, the rich material gliding over her skin.
At least it wasn’t another blasted gown or skirt. That much, she could appreciate. And while the shorts could have been a hand longer, theydidbreath nice in the hot evening air.
It was better than anything the staff had purchased for her.
Her stomach knotted with guilt. Quickly, she shoved all troubling emotions down and slid the leather gloves Renton had given her back on. Now was not the time to process grief.
With a skilled flick of a knife, Vesara cut the tie in Tenah’s hair. Smoky locks tumbled to her elbows in unruly waves. Then she was maneuvered to a gilded, floor-length mirror.
“Modesty’s frowned upon in this kingdom,” Tenah grumbled, taking in her frazzled reflection. She looked strung out on adrenaline, a strange combination with the outfit that revealed all of her toned midriff, more cleavage than she realized she had, and most of her long legs.
Accent rolling thick and smooth, Vesara said, “There’s nothing wrong with showing off. You won’t have this body forever.”
Tenah’s chest heaved with a painful breath. No, she wouldn’t have this body much longer because it didn’t even belong to her.
Vesara circuited the room, extinguishing candles with her fingers. She regarded Tenah with a troubled, far-off look. “That day in the prison cart, it wasn’t the first time I’ve been arrested. I was twelve when I was thrown into a cell in Corran.”
Tenah frowned, picturing the grim condition of that prison. Corran was a small, eastern Vozarian town inhabited mostly by shadows kicked out of the capital, unsuited to civility. She’d ventured there once with her father and immediately decided she never needed to return.
Vesara wandered over to her desk and picked up a pair of large, gold hoops, jabbing them into each ear. “I started out as a pickpocket. Growing up on a farm outside of Denoden, I saw how hard my parents worked for next to nothing, and I vowed never to have that life. So I took to Denoden’s slums, swiping from the rich right under their noses. It wasn’t long, and I was mastered in the art of cracking vaults.”
At the age of twelve, Tenah had been poring over histories of the world in the library, gorging on chocolates, and riling up Ames just for sheer enjoyment.
Crinkling her nose as if she’d caught a whiff of something rotten, Vesara continued. “My family works the crop fields all hours of the sun. Their harvests are meager. Had they sold their land to the king, they might have made enough to settle down in a nice home within the city. But no.” She drew out her last word with an eye roll. “Sut’hiks are farmers by blood.”
Tenah had yet to force her mouth closed. There was so much grandeur behind the esteemed Embassy employees. It was hard to believe they hadn’t all risen from wealth and power.
“There was this homeless girl named Pri. She was a year younger than me. She hadn’t eaten in three days, and you couldn’t even call what she was wearing clothes. A moth-eaten blanket was more like it. I let her break into a lord’s house with me in Corran, intending to split the coin we stole. But Pri was handsy. She touched everything. Broke a vase and startled the lord awake in his bed chambers. I got caught letting her slip away.”
Elementals, did Vesara even realize how lucky she was that it hadn’t beenhermanor she’d tried to steal from? If Ames hadn’t dissolved her mind, her father would have turned her into dust.
“How long were you sentenced?” Tenah couldn’t help but ask.
“All of three hours before the Embassy appeared on orders from Izral—prince at the time.” Her features shriveled up. “Had he not caught me snatching jewels from the neck of his cousin during a theater show weeks earlier, he might never have tracked me down. I would have remained a farm girl locked in prison for petty theft.”
“But you don’t like working for the Embassy.” Tenah’s brows furrowed.
“Oh, I liked it just fine until the royals became too involved in our work. I quit. Went solo for a while. Got myself tangled up in a mess in the Boglands, but that’s another story. After I got busted out, I ran into Pri on Denoden’s streets. She’d come out on top with the haul she’d run off with. I threw cruel words at her, swearing I would never forgive her. All over three measly hours I sat in a cell. Pri vanished after that. I haven’t the heart to track her down. The things I said were disgraceful. I have to live with that every day.”
Tenah lowered her head, visualizing Renton’s infuriating face and startling eyes. She’d given him hell. Now she was avoiding him entirely.
“When I became successful at the Embassy, the other employees only tolerated me. I was good at my job, but I was also self-absorbed and greedy. You wouldn’t think I came from a humble background.” Vesara gave an airy sigh. “Living in the Boglands without the fame and piss-poor reputation wasn’t bad for me. I learned this puny little heart could love.”
