her face smooth of thought or feeling and chilling his sweat. Was this another one of Old Toady’s stupid ideas that end up biting chunks out of everyone but him?
He looked away, toward the toad form of his father. Urgaut blinked slowly and spoke without preamble, without even a greeting for his own son.
“You’ve stopped watching for Van Gast.” Urgaut looked him up and down and snorted disdainfully out of flared nostrils. “But then, I hardly think you could watch unobtrusively, if this is the best you can contrive. You look like the bastard love-child of a painted whore and a dyer with no sense of color.”
No, just your bastard love-child, and you’ve never let me forget that, have you? Rillen held it all in—it would achieve nothing except ridicule—and waited for his father to continue. Interruptions were not tolerated.
“Arden would have made a much better job of it, would have caught Van Gast long before now.” Urgaut’s eyelids drooped, hooded his eyes against the barb he hoped to put in Rillen’s heart.
Arden—yes, shame he was dead then really. Arden the perfect in their father’s eyes. Arden the legitimate. Arden, the one person Rillen had ever truly admired. He wished he could say the thoughts that sprang to mind every time he was in his father’s presence, but the dungeons were close, and dark, and full of screams. A small, sly dig was all he could afford until the time was right and he could squash little toady flat. “Maybe he would have, if he’d been sent to watch the right ship.”
Urgaut’s lips twitched in annoyance and he cast a wary, sly look at the mages. They sat calm, seemingly uninterested, except Rillen thought that he could see a spark of concentration among the glint and gleam of crystals in one mage, the center one.
Rillen addressed himself to that one rather than his father. “The Lone Queen is no longer Van Gast’s.” Give them a little, keep the rest, keep Haban’s niece to himself for now. “But I have every confidence I shall be able to catch him.”
“I doubt it, you little—”
The mage cut off Urgaut’s latest stream of invective with the merest twitch of an admonishing finger. His eyes studied Rillen, the only thing about him that seemed alive, the only things that could move freely. So much power, but so little freedom. Yet Rillen would swap in a heartbeat just for the ability to make his father’s heart and soul twist in a bond. The mages had Urgaut in their power now, even if he thought otherwise.
The mage crooked his finger, and Rillen approached. The stench of unwashed skin, of greased hair trapped in clumps under a swathe of glittering yet stinking crystals, made Rillen hold his breath. Not because if he got close enough a bond could be his reward. The smell, only the smell made him hesitate.
“You’re a brave man, to come so close,” the mage murmured, then louder, “I have every confidence in your son, Urgaut. Let’s see what he brings us.”
He smiled Rillen’s way, a careful smile, mindful of his crystals, and his eyes spoke many words to Rillen. Chief among them was a disdain for Urgaut, a wish that they not need to deal with such a man. Very interesting.
* * *
Van Gast sat in his quarters, going over everything with Guld.
“Ten thousand sharks!” was about all Van Gast had managed to say for quite some time.
“Well, um, we knew they’d have a price on your head. Not just that stolen diamond, you shot a Yelen man in Bilsen.”
Well, he hadn’t—but his name was the one the escapees had heard. “I know, but Kyr’s mercy—I’m proud, Guld, that’s what I am. No one’s ever been worth that much before, not even half that much. Even old Faelin himself wasn’t worth more than five hundred, and he stole half the Yelen’s fleet before they caught him.”
“Proud?” Guld looked at him sideways, as though he’d gone mad from the heat. “Really? I’d have thought itching to get out of here would be more like it. Um, I’d quite like to. Leave, I mean.”
“First things first, young Guld. We have things to do here. Re-crew, re-fit.” Do whatever he had to, to gain Josie’s trust again, but Van Gast didn’t say that part. Guld knew, Holden knew—damn it, they all did. They all looked at him like he was crazy. He was crazy, but gods alive, this would be fun. If he got what he came