Assassin's Gambit: The Hearts and Thrones Series

A DEADLY GAMBIT

Lucien Florian Nigellus. Vitala had never met him, yet he’d occupied her thoughts and shaped her studies for years. His biographical information painted a picture of an isolated man. Both his elder brothers were dead; his father had been forcibly deposed and imprisoned on the island of Mosar. He had no heirs and had not yet married. His only close relatives were an aunt, a female cousin, and a younger sister, none of whom were eligible for the throne.
He’s crippled and alone,
Bayard had said.
Kill him, and you will spark a succession battle that will tear the empire apart.

A
SSASSIN’S
G
AMBIT

T
HE
H
EARTS AND
T
HRONES
S
ERIES

AMY RABY

SIGNET ECLIPSE

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Copyright © Amy Raby, 2013

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ISBN 978-1-101-60800-5

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

For Sean and Ethan,

my Caturanga players.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
offer my deepest appreciation to Alexandra Machinist and Claire Zion for believing in and championing this book. We’ve made our moves. Now we see how the board plays out.

Thank you also to Angie Christensen and JoAnn Ten Brinke, who understand the challenges of writing with children in the house. You’ve always been there when I needed you.

I write my early drafts in isolation, but much of the magic happens in the later drafting stages when I bring other people into the process. Many people helped make this a stronger novel. First, thank you to my romance critique group, Jessi Gage, and Julie Brannagh of the Cupcake Crew—you ladies are so talented! I can’t tell you how much I look forward to our meetings, even if we’re just having a chat. Nobody understands a writer like another writer.

Next, my SFF critique group, Writer’s Cramp. Thank you to Barbara Stoner, Mark Hennon, Kim Runciman, Stephen Merlino, Steven Gurr, Tim McDaniel, Amy Stewart, Thom Marrion, Janka Hobbs, Marta Murvosh, Michael Croteau, and Courtland Shafer. And my online critique partners: Marlene Dotterer, Bonnie Freeman, Anna Kashina, Lisa Smeaton, Steve Brady, John Beety, Heidi Kneale, Jarucia Jaycox Narula, Becca Andre, Bo Balder, and many others who reviewed individual chapters or the synopsis.

Finally, to five anonymous first-round judges of the RWA’s Golden Heart
^®
contest. I do
n’t know who you are, but you do. You made a difference. Thank you.

PROLOGUE

H
is body moved against hers, chafing her skin. Vitala shifted beneath him and tried to remember his name. Rennic, maybe. Some spy in training from the practice floor who’d leapt at the opportunity to engage in a different sort of practice.

“Not much into this, are you?” he murmured, pumping away.

Right—she was supposed to act like she enjoyed this. And if she couldn’t fool this Rennic fellow, she’d never fool the emperor. She moaned and writhed, convinced, as always, that such obvious fakery couldn’t work. And yet it did. He quickened. The hard muscles of his arms tensed against her, and his rhythm accelerated. His eyes fluttered shut.

She ran her hands down his back.

Her mentor’s words echoed in her head.
Remember the nature of the emperor’s magic. If your timing is even a little bit off, he’ll see the attack coming, and you will fail.

She knew the difficulty of her task and the importance of getting the details right. She would practice until every move had the slick perfection of a well-played Caturanga game.

Rennic grunted, beyond speech. He jerked and gasped. The moment had come.

A touch of her mind and a flick of her finger, and from out of nowhere a Shard glinted in her hand. She stabbed the tiny blade into the soft flesh of his back. He didn’t react, probably didn’t even feel it. Another touch of her mind, and she released the spell it carried—a benign white-pox spell, easily cured. Not the more fatal alternative.

With a grunt that could have been satisfaction or pain, he collapsed atop her, sticky with sweat.

She yanked the Shard out of his back, and he jerked in sudden awareness. He twisted and stared at the inky Shard, now daubed red with his blood. “You get me with that thing?”

“It’s a good thing you’re not the emperor,” said Vitala, “or you’d be dead.”

1

“
V
itala Salonius?”

She set down her heavy valise on the dock’s oak planking. The man approaching her looked the quintessential Kjallan—tall and muscular, black hair, and a hawk nose. He wore Kjallan military garb, double belted, with a sword on one hip. On the other hip sat a flintlock pistol with a walnut stock and gilt bronze mounts, so fine and polished that Vitala found herself coveting it. His orange uniform bore no blood mark but instead the sickle and sunburst—the insignia of the Legaciatti, which made him one of the emperor’s famed personal bodyguards.

“Yes, sir. That’s me,” she said.

His handsome face broke into a smile. “My name is Remus, and I’m here to escort you to the palace. I’ll get that for you.” He hefted the valise with ease and gestured at a carriage waiting at the end of the dock.

She followed him, swaying at the sensation of being on dry land after two weeks aboard ship. Remus’s riftstone was not visible. Most Kjallan mages wore them on chains around their necks, concealed beneath their clothes. The collar of Remus’s uniform hid even the chain. He was certainly a mage—all the Legaciatti were—but she could not tell what sort of magic he possessed. Was he a war mage? That was the only type difficult to kill. She relaxed her mind a little, opening herself to the tiny fault lines that separated her world from the spirit world, and viewed the ghostly blue threading of his wards. He was well protected from disease, parasites, and even from the conception of a child.

They arrived at the carriage, a landau pulled by dark bays. At Remus’s gesture, she climbed inside. He handed her valise to a bespectacled footman, who heaved it onto the back and strapped it in place. Remus, whom she’d expected to ride on the back or up front with the driver, stepped into the carriage and sat in the seat opposite her. Of course. The vetting process began here. He would make small talk, and she’d have to be very, very careful what she said to him.

The carriage lurched forward, and the Imperial City of Riat began to pass by the windows—wide streets and narrow ones, large homes and small ones, with the usual collection of inns, shops, and street vendors crammed into the available spaces. She spotted a millinery shop, a gunsmith, a Warder’s, an open-air market with fresh, imported lemons. A newsboy with an armload of papers cried his wares from a corner. Kjallan townsfolk moved about the streets, buying, flirting, and trading gossip. The citizens caught her eye with their brightly colored, robelike syrtoses, while slaves in gray flitted by like shadows. The city was pleasant enough, but unremarkable. Well, what had she expected? Marble houses? Streets lined with diamonds?

“I hear you’re a master of Caturanga,” said Remus.

“Yes, sir. I won the tournament this year in Beryl.”

“The emperor was impressed by your accomplishment.” His blue eyes studied her with a more than casual interest.

“I’m honored by that.”

“And you’re from the province of Dahat?”

Please don’t be from Dahat yourself.
It would be a disaster if he were looking for someone to swap childhood stories with. She’d been to Dahat, so she could provide a few details about the region, but she hadn’t grown up there. “Yes, sir.”

“How are feelings toward the emperor there?”

Her forehead wrinkled.
What sort of question is that?
“Citizens of Dahat have great respect for Emperor Lucien.”

Remus laughed. “You think this is a loyalty test, don’t you? Tell me the truth, Miss Salonius. Emperor Lucien likes to know how public sentiment runs throughout his empire. Platitudes and blind expressions of loyalty mean nothing to him. He wants honesty.”

Vitala bit her lip. “I’ve been on the Caturanga circuit for more than three years, sir, longer than Emperor Lucien’s reign. What little I picked up from my visits home is that while most of the citizenry supports him, there are some who disapprove of his policies and preferred the former emperor. I imagine that would be true in any province.”

“Indeed,” said Remus. “There are those who miss the old Emperor Florian and his Imperial Garden. Have you had the privilege of visiting it?”

“Visiting what?”

“Florian’s Imperial Garden.”

“No, sir. This is my first visit to the palace.” Vitala was puzzled. He had to know that already.

“Ah,” he said. “You should seek it out during your visit.”

“That would be lovely, sir.”

The carriage tilted backward. Vitala looked out her window. They’d passed through the city and started up the steep hill that led to the Imperial Palace. The carriage was navigating the first of half a dozen switchbacks. When she turned back to Remus, his eyes had lost their intensity. Whatever the test was, it seemed she’d passed it. “You are the first woman to win the Beryl tournament,” he said. “Pray tell me who you studied under.”

Vitala smiled. This was one of the questions she’d been coached on. “My father taught me to play when I was four years old and I showed an aptitude for the game. Within a year, I could beat my cousins. Later, I studied under Caecus, and when I’d mastered his teachings, I studied under Ralla.” She droned on, feeding him the lies she’d recited under Bayard’s tutelage. Remus leaned back and nodded dully. It seemed he’d lost interest in her. Thank the gods.

As the carriage crested the final switchback, Vitala craned her neck for a look at the Imperial Palace. Three white marble domes, each topped with a gilt roof, rose into view, gleaming in the sunshine. Next appeared the numerous outbuildings and walled gardens that surrounded the domes. A wide, tree-lined avenue directed them to the front gates.

Inside the palace, silk hangings of immeasurable value draped the walls, while priceless paintings and sculptures graced every nook. She’d never been anywhere so boldly ostentatious. What a contrast to Riorca, with its broken streets and ramshackle pit houses! How much of this had been built by Riorcan slave labor?

Two Legaciatti, both women, met them inside the door. Vitala studied them, curious at the oddity of female Kjallan soldiers. Bayard had told her that women made ideal assassins for Kjallan targets because Kjallan men didn’t take women seriously. Ostensibly, that was true; Kjall was patriarchal, and women had little power under the law. But as she’d traveled on the tournament circuit, she’d learned the reality was more complicated. Most Kjallan men were soldiers who were often away from home. In their absence, their wives had authority over their households. Women and slaves were the real engine of Kjall’s economy; few men had many practical skills outside of soldiering.

“Search her,” ordered Remus.

One of the women beckoned. “Come along.”

The search took place in a private room and was humiliatingly thorough. Vitala knew what they were looking for: concealed weapons or perhaps a riftstone. They would not find either. She didn’t wear her riftstone around her neck; it was surgically implanted in her body, along with the deathstone, her escape from torture and interrogation if she botched this mission. Her weapons were magically hidden where none but a wardbreaker could detect them. And there were no Kjallan wardbreakers; only Riorcans possessed the secrets of that form of magic.

As she put her clothes back on, the Legaciatti emptied her valise, checked it for hidden compartments, and pawed through her paltry collection of spare clothes, undergarments, powders, and baubles. They found nothing that concerned them.

They repacked her things and led her up two flights of white marble stairs. The walls were rounded and concave; she must be in one of the domes. Her room was the third on the right from the top of the stairway. A young guard with peach fuzz on his chin stood in front of it, wearing an orange uniform but no sickle and sunburst. Peach fuzz. He looked familiar.

The young soldier lay on the cot, his wrists and ankles bound. His blanket had fallen to the floor, a result of his struggles. His eyes jerked toward her, wide with fear, but when he saw her, he relaxed a little. He wasn’t expecting a teenage girl.

“Miss Salonius?”

He shouldn’t know her name. How did he know her name?

“Miss Salonius?”

And why did he sound like a woman?

Vitala blinked. The Legaciatti were staring at her in concern. “Miss Salonius?” one of them asked.

“I’m sorry.” Gods, where was she? Marble walls. The Imperial Palace.

“You stopped moving. You were staring into space.”

“Sorry, I was . . . never mind.” Averting her eyes so that she wouldn’t see the young man guarding her door, she stepped inside.

Vitala’s room was a suite. Just inside was a sitting room with a single peaked window along its curved wall and a pair of light-glows in brass mountings suspended from the ceiling. The room was lavishly furnished with carved oaken tables and chairs upholstered in silk. A bookshelf on the far wall drew her eye. Among its contents, she recognized all the classic treatises on Caturanga and some she’d never seen before, as well as books on other subjects. An herbal by Lentulus. Cinna’s
Tactics of War
. Numerous works of fiction, including the notoriously racy
Seventh Life of the Potter’s Daughter.
Who had put a book like that into an otherwise erudite bookshelf?

On a table in the center of the room sat the finest Caturanga set she’d ever seen. Pieces of carved agate with jeweled eyes winked at her from a round, two-tiered board of polished marble. She picked up one of the red cavalry pieces. The rider was richly detailed down to the folds of his cloak. The warhorse was wild-eyed, his beautifully carved expression showing equal parts fear and determination.

Had Emperor Lucien set up this room just for her? No, of course not. He hosted many Caturanga champions. Probably all of them had been housed here.

The bedroom was equally fine, with a high, four-poster bed, silk sheets, and a damask down-stuffed comforter. The silk hangings were blue and red. Was that by design? Blue and red were the traditional colors of Caturanga pieces.

“You will reside here until the emperor summons you,” a Legaciatta instructed. “Take your rest as needed, but you are not to wander about the palace. If you desire something, such as food or drink, ask the door guard. If you wish to bathe, he can escort you to the baths on the lower level.”

Vitala nodded. “Thank you, ma’am.”

The Legaciatti left, closing the door behind them. Vitala went to the window—real glass, she noted—and peered out. Below was a walled enclosure obscured by a canopy of trees, through which she caught glimpses of red, purple, and orange. The famous Imperial Garden? Looking up to take in the broader view, she noticed a patch of too-light blue in the sky and picked out the Vagabond, the tiny moon that glowed blue at night but faded almost to invisibility in the daytime. God of reversals and unforeseen disaster, the Vagabond wandered across the sky in the direction opposite the other two moons, and was not always a favorable sighting. “Great One, pass me by,” she prayed reflexively.

Leaving the window and lighting one of the glows with a touch of her finger, she pulled
Seventh Life
from the bookshelf. Sprawling on a couch, she waited upon the pleasure of the emperor.

•   •   •

Vitala was not her given name. When she was born dark-haired, Papa named her Kolta: “blackbird.”

She was eight years old when the stranger arrived. Mama and Papa took him into the bedroom to speak with him. They shut her out, but she pressed her ear against the door to listen.

“We’ve completed the testing,” said the stranger, “and your daughter is exactly what we’re looking for. Highly intelligent, physically strong, and coordinated. And, of course, she’s black-haired.”

Mama said something she couldn’t quite make out.

“In the village, perhaps,” replied the stranger. “But in the Circle, dark hair is an asset. She can pass for Kjallan. It will allow her to move in areas where others cannot.”

More mumbling from Mama.

“The Circle is prepared to offer you compensation. Four hundred tetrals.”

Papa gasped.

Mama raised her voice. “I’m not selling my daughter!”

“Of course not,” soothed the stranger. “But Kolta will never reach her potential here in the village—not with the prejudice against girls like her. Why subject her to harassment and ostracism, when among the Circle she will be valued and revered? The money is our gift to you. A token of our thanks for aiding Riorca in its time of need.”

Mama began to sob.

“Treva, he’s right,” said Papa. “It would be selfish to keep Kolta here. A half-Kjallan bastard will never be accepted—”

“You hate her!” cried Mama. “You want to be rid of her!”

“Madam,” said the stranger, “consider the advantages to Kolta in joining the Circle. She will receive a thorough education, far better than anything she could get here. And she will be among her own kind. We have other half-breeds like her, dark-haired girls who know what it’s like to be Riorcan but look Kjallan. For the first time in her life, she will have friends.”

Mama continued to sob.

“Treva, think of it,” said Papa. “Four hundred tetrals! You know what that money would mean for us. This man is right. The Circle can do far better for Kolta than we can.”

Something unintelligible from Mama.

“No,” said the stranger. “It must be now. She must begin her language training immediately, or she’ll never speak with the proper accent.”

A long silence followed, broken only by Mama’s sobbing. There were soft words that Kolta could not make out.

The stranger was saying, “We find it’s best if there are no good-byes.”

The door opened, and the stranger stepped out. Terrified, Kolta hid in the corner between the wall and the door. But the door moved away, revealing her. The stranger stared down at her in surprise. “Were you listening, Kolta?”

She shook her head.

He knelt, bringing himself to her eye level. “Tell me the truth, and you will not be in trouble. Were you listening?”