Tanin moved languidly along the fine wood-paneled corridor, her fingers trailing over the carved friezes of wild horses, hooves sharp and teeth exposed, manes and tails flying in a nonexistent wind. At either end of the short hallway stood a guard, each one alert and well-armed, their weight shifting easily with the gentle rocking of the ship.
“There’s an additional guard in each of the rooms,” said her lieutenant, Escalia, walking beside her. The woman was so tall and broad she seemed to strain the confines of the narrow corridor. Others might have shrunk from her presence, but Tanin had been forced to kneel before Stonegold, that pompous, overstuffed excuse for a king—for a Director—and she’d sworn she’d cut out her own spleen before she cowered in front of anyone again.
“One for each prisoner,” Escalia finished.
Wordlessly, Tanin opened the door to the nearest cabin and looked in. Already cramped with its bunk, wardrobe, and small basin for washing, the room seemed even smaller with the prisoner chained to a chair in the center of the floor and the guard standing behind him, blocking the light from the single porthole.
Face hidden beneath his black hood, the prisoner turned toward her. His chains clinked faintly.
Since his head was covered, even Tanin couldn’t tell if this was one of the two bloodletters or one of her decoys.
Perfect.
The guard flicked Tanin a salute, and she said nothing as she closed the door again.
“Satisfied?” Escalia asked. The woman’s gold teeth gleamed in the dim light filtering from the hatchway at one end of the hall.
“Hardly,” Tanin whispered. Hearing her ruined voice, she lifted her fingers to the scarf at her throat, the one that hid the scar Sefia had given her the first time they’d met.
She wouldn’t be satisfied until she had the Book in her possession.
Until she’d killed Stonegold, the bloated snake who’d displaced her.
Until she was Director of the Guard again.
“Now give them all the same clothing,” she said. “So they’ll look identical too.”
“Will do, ma’am.”
With the Book, Sefia was at an advantage. If she was clever—and she was clever, as clever as her father, if she’d mastered Teleportation, the highest tier of Illumination, simply by observing Tanin—she’d see the shipyard for the ambush it was. She’d detect Tanin’s tricks and see through her deceptions.
A flicker of admiration—or was that pride?—sputtered in Tanin’s chest, but she quashed it instantly.
Twice, she’d been betrayed by the girl and her family.
She would not be caught out again.
Sefia was her enemy—and her target—nothing more.
And for all her talents, she had a weakness that her parents didn’t. Lon and Mareah would never have gone back to rescue their captured friends. Lon and Mareah would have cut their losses and run.
But not Sefia. Sefia had come for the Locksmith. Sefia had come for the boy.
She was a girl of sentiment. She would come for her friends too.
Tanin checked on the next prisoner, heard the rattle of his chains, and smiled. She hadn’t held her own as Director of the Guard for over twenty years without cleverness and talent of her own.
She would outmaneuver both Sefia and the Book.
And then they would both be hers.