The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles #2) - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,48

Cam Lanteux. Something I heard.”

“Are you claiming this is your gift speaking to you?” There was a strange lilt to his tone, a hint of skepticism, and I realized that maybe he didn’t even believe I had the gift. We had never talked about it. Maybe the rumors in Morrighan about my shortcomings had spread all the way to Dalbreck. His doubt stung, but I couldn’t blame him. Spoken aloud, it sounded ludicrous even to me.

“I’m not sure.” I squeezed my eyes shut briefly, angry with myself that I didn’t understand my own gift well enough to give Rafe more answers.

He stood and pulled me into his arms. “I believe you,” he whispered. “There’s something looming, but that’s all the more reason why we need to leave here.”

I rested my head on his chest, wanting to hold him until—

You think he’d tell you when we were really leaving?

My thoughts froze on Finch’s taunt. Kaden wouldn’t tell me when he was really returning either. I don’t trust you, Lia. And he never had, with good reason. This was a game I loathed playing with Kaden.

“I have to go,” I said, pushing away, “before he returns and finds me gone.” I snatched up my cloak and ran to the window.

Rafe tried to stop me. “You said he’d be gone all day.”

I couldn’t take a chance, and I had no time to explain. I was only just stepping up on the ledge of the window when I heard the key rattle in the lock and Rafe’s door creaked open. I pressed close to the outside wall, but instead of fleeing, I lingered, trying to hear who it was. I heard Calantha’s voice, far more accommodating in her tone with him than she was with me. And then I heard Rafe complimenting her on her dress, transforming in a single breath from a prince to a solicitous emissary.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

KADEN

I wove my way through the troops who stood at ease laughing at the bottom of Corpse Call, happy to be relieved of midday duties. Pockets of soldiers called to me, welcoming me home. Most of them I didn’t know, because I was gone more than I was here, but they all knew me. Everyone made a point to know, or know of, the Assassin.

“Heard you brought home a prize,” one called.

The bounty of war. I remembered calling Lia the Komizar’s prize myself when Eben aimed to cut her throat. I’d said it without thinking, because it was true. All bounty belonged to the Komizar to distribute or use for the greatest benefit to Venda. It wasn’t my place to question him when he said, I’ll decide the best way to use her. Without a doubt, it wasn’t just I who owed him a great debt—all of Venda did. He gave us all something we hadn’t had before. Hope.

I kept walking, nodding; these were my comrades after all. We had a common cause, a brotherhood. Loyalty above everything. Not one of the men I passed hadn’t suffered greatly in one way or another, some even more than I had, though I wore the scarred proof on my chest and back. A few coarse remarks from soldiers I could ignore.

Look here.

Another call from somewhere in the crowd.

The Assassin.

No doubt weak from wrestling with his little pigeon all the way across the Cam Lanteux.

I stopped cold and stared at a group of three soldiers, smiles still on their faces. I stared until their feet shifted and their grins faded. “Three of your comrades are about to die. Now’s not the time for laughter about prisoners.”

They glanced at each other, their faces pale, then melted into the crowd behind them. I walked away, my boots grinding into the wet soil.

Corpse Call was a hillock at the far end of the Tomack quarter. The training camps spread out in a low valley just beyond it, hidden by a thicket of woods. Eleven years ago, when the Komizar came to power, there were no prepared soldiers, no training camps, no silos for storing the grain tithes, no armories for the forging of weapons, no breeding stables. There were only warriors who learned their trade from a father if they had one, and if they didn’t, brute passion guided them. Only the local quarter smiths banged out crude swords and axes for the few families who could afford them. The Komizar had done what none before him had, coerced greater tithes from the governors, who in turn coerced greater tithes from the