Page 66 of The Space Between Stars

She gaped. “S-Seraphinden?”

Thacklore’s upper lip curled. “Some idiot sixteen-year-old decided to invest every penny of his inheritance into pure chance.”

Attlilatia’s muscles went weak. Her eyes welled. She swore a stream of Azadonian curses.

“I imagine the Kovathians gave up their bid, knowing that they’d be foolish to pay ships for what an assassin would do for three loaves of bread.”

Her short-lived relief curdled. He was right. This wasn’t over—it might never be. No matter where they went, Thacklore could easily put a Kovathian agent onto them… so long as Thacklore was alive. Perhaps she could kill him now.

As though reading her mind, Jamad stepped into the room beside Thacklore. Her hands fisted.

“Jamad will escort you to the door.”

Attilatia obliged.

She rode away in a carriage, to be indentured to another captor, but she gave the Fates a nod for the idiot sixteen-year-old who’d saved them, sure as the night was black. Maybe this captor would be more merciful. Or at least stupider. Stupid she could handle.

Only one thing mattered: in her arms, living and breathing, sat Thedexemore Jenolavia, heir to the matriarch’s throne and greatest threat to the Kovathian state. He passed gas on Attilatia’s lap and giggled. She blew raspberries on his tummy.

SIXTEEN

NIKLAUS

Year: 748 Post Cataclysm: Present Day

Location: Jiradesh

When sun hit the Jiradeshi sands, heat followed as surely as bad decisions chased a shot of whiskey. It was early to be breaking a sweat just by glancing across the russet-rimmed dunes: a promise that the day would be stifling.

As Niklaus tugged Dex from the wagon, the kid’s shoestring limbs lunged away from him. “Don’t. Touch. Me.”

The faint grinding of metal against wood told of the wagon’s lock clicking into place behind them.

Niklaus raised both hands. “I gladly release you.”

And he might have just saved the boy’s life, too. The mute had been chillingly serious. Rash as the thought might have been, it wasn’t unwarranted. If Dex’s sister was Attilatia Mitar, it meant she had connections in command, and so would he.

How serendipitous—that the re-attainment of Niklaus’s assets depended on Dex’s safe delivery back to Seraphinden. Like the Fates were testing just how far he was willing to go to find the truth. Niklaus’s only options were to quickly convert the boy to their cause, or lock him in the mess wagon for the next two months.

“Destruction awaits the indolent, so they say. Let’s get to the dishes.”

“Fuck you.”

Come to think of it, Niklaus was sure there was a good locksmith to be found in the merchants’ quarter.

“A more worthless excuse of a person has never existed.” Dex jabbed Niklaus in the chest. “I came here to have a reason for people not to hate me just for breathing. But instead of letting me learn how to defend this country, they paired me up with you! As if being spat at and cursed at wasn’t bad enough.”

How refreshing to be popular.

Dex had finally let the heat get to him. He kicked at the sand. “Then I finally get a chance to learn dowagian, and you ruin it by pulling the only friend I have out here into one of your shratten schemes.”

Niklaus bit back a retort. “You’ve joined the Red Wing. You’re not on restricted access. You have a hundred opportunities to learn dowagian.”

“No. I had one, and you’ve just corrupted him.”

A familiar dispassion throbbed in Niklaus’s core. He wondered how much longer it could do that before he eroded. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m going to report you both.”