CHAPTER SIX

Felene had stolen plenty of boats in her time, and she was pleased to find this one was one of the better ones. It wasn’t much more than a skiff, but it sailed beautifully, seeming to respond as quick as thought, feeling like an extension of herself.

“It would need more holes in it for that,” Felene said, moving to bail out water that had washed over the side. Even doing that hurt, and as for the times when she had to row because the wind had dropped…

Felene winced just thinking about that.

She tested the wound gingerly, moving her arm in every direction to stretch the muscles of her back. There were some movements where it almost seemed as though she could ignore its presence, but there were others —

“Depths take you!” Felene swore as pain flashed through her, white hot.

The worst part was that every flash of pain brought with it memories of being stabbed. Of looking into Elethe’s eyes while Stephania stabbed her from behind. Every physical pain brought with it the agony of betrayal as well. She’d dared to think…

“What,” Felene demanded. “That you might finally end up happy? That you’d float off with a princess and some lovely girl, and the world would just leave you alone?”

It was stupid thinking. The world didn’t offer the happy endings you got in singers’ tales. Certainly not for a thief like her. No matter what happened, there would always be something else to steal, whether it was a jewel, or a slice of the map, or the heart of some girl who would then turn out to…

“Stop it,” Felene told herself, but that was harder than it looked. Some wounds didn’t just heal over.

Not that her physical one had, yet. She’d stitched it as best she could on the beach, but Felene was starting to worry about the puncture Stephania’s knife had left in her back. She lifted her shirt high enough to douse it with sea water, gritting her teeth against the pain as she washed it clean.

Felene had been wounded before, and this felt like a bad one. She’d seen wounds like this among others, and generally it hadn’t ended well. There had been that climbing guide who had found himself mauled by an ice leopard’s claws when Felene had been trying to steal from one of the dead temples. There had been the slave girl Felene had rescued on a whim after her master had whipped her bloody, only to watch her waste and die. There had been that gambler who had insisted on staying at the table, even after he’d gashed his hand on a broken shard of glass.

The sensible thing to do right now, Felene knew, was to head back the way she had come, seek out a healer, and rest for as long as it took to get back to everything she had been. Of course, by that point, the invasion would probably be over, and everyone involved would be scattered to the wind, but Felene would be all right again, free to go off wherever she wanted.

It shouldn’t make any difference to her how the invasion turned out, after all. She was a thief. There would always be things to steal, and there would always be those who wanted to hunt her down. There would probably even be more in the aftermath of a war, when things tended to get a little less tightly controlled, and there were always gaps for someone cunning enough to slip through.

She could go back to Felldust, rest up, and then find some fresh adventure to set out on. She could go off in search of long-lost islands, or head into the lands where ice closed over everything like a fist. There might be treasure and violence, women and drink. All the things that had tended to mix together so readily in her life to date.

What made her keep the small boat’s tiller pointed toward Delos was simple: it was where Stephania and Elethe would be. Stephania had tricked her about Thanos. She’d used her to get to Felldust, and then she’d tried to kill her. More than that, she’d tried to kill Thanos, even if the rumors around Felldust suggested that he had at least survived through to the rebellion’s capture of the city.

Felene found that she couldn’t let what Stephania had done go. Felene had left plenty of enemies behind her when she sailed on, but she didn’t like to leave unsettled debts. She’d fought a duel in Oakford once over an insult a year before, and once hunted down a locksmith who had tried to cut her out of her share, following him across half the Grasslands.

Stephania was going to die for what she’d done. As for Elethe…

In a lot of ways, that betrayal was worse. Stephania was a snake, and Felene had known it from the moment she set foot on the boat. Elethe had actually dared to make her feel something. For one of the first times in her life, Felene had dared to think beyond the next theft, and had started to dream.

“And what a dream,” Felene said to herself. “Traveling the world, rescuing beautiful princesses and seducing fair maidens. Who do you think you are? Some kind of hero?”

It sounded more like the kind of thing Thanos might have done than something for the likes of her.

“My life would be so much easier if I hadn’t met you, Prince Thanos,” Felene said. She jerked on one of the lines for her boat, setting it skimming in a new direction.

She didn’t mean it though. The main thing her life would have been if she hadn’t met Thanos was shorter. She would have died on the Isle of Prisoners without him, and after that…

He was a man who seemed to have a cause. Who stood for something, even if it had taken Felene to remind him of what that was. He was a man who had been prepared to fight against everything he’d been brought up to be. He’d fought the Empire, even though it would have been easier for him not to do it. He’d been prepared to give his life to save the likes of Stephania, which was truly the kind of thing a hero did.

“I suppose if I had any sense, I’d be falling in love with you,” Felene said as she thought about the prince. He was certainly a better person to fall for than the likes of Elethe. But you didn’t get what you wanted in this life. You certainly didn’t get to choose when it came to love.

It was enough that Thanos was a man to respect, even admire. It was enough that just thinking about the kind of thing he would do made Felene into a better person.

“If not necessarily a more sensible one.”

Felene sighed. There was no point in all this trying to argue with herself. She knew what she was going to do.

She was going to Delos. She would find Thanos if by any stroke of luck he was still alive. She would find Stephania, she would find Elethe, and there would be blood for blood, death for death. Probably, Thanos would have argued for something kinder or more civilized, but there was only so far you could go in emulating people. Even princes.

Now, there was just the question of getting to Delos and getting inside. By the time she got there, Felene had no doubt that it would be a city at war, if it hadn’t fallen outright. Felldust’s fleet would probably be a floating barricade before the city, and it was a long established tactic in times of war to blockade ports.

Not that Felene cared about that kind of thing. She’d occasionally made quite a healthy profit from smuggling her way around blockades. Food, information, people who wanted to get out, it had all been the same.

Still, Felene couldn’t imagine that Felldust’s soldiers would be very welcoming to her if she were stupid enough to just charge for the city. Already, Felene could see fragments of Felldust’s fleet ahead of her, vessels strung out across the water from Felldust to the Empire like jet beads on a necklace. The main fleet had long since sailed, but they were going in clusters now, forming groups of three or four, setting off together as they tried to make the most of the invasion to come.

In a lot of ways, they were probably the sensible ones. Felene had always had more of an affinity for the people who came up after a fight to steal than for the ones risking their lives. They were the ones who understood about looking out for themselves. They were Felene’s people.

An idea came to her then, and Felene steered her skiff in the direction of one of the groups. With her better arm, she pulled out a knife.

“Hoy there!” she called in her best Felldust dialect.

A man appeared over the railings, holding a bow aimed at her. “Think we’ll take all you – ”

He gurgled as Felene threw the blade, cutting him off mid-sentence. He tumbled from the boat, hitting the water with a splash.

“He was one of my best men,” a man’s voice said.

Felene laughed. “I doubt that, or you wouldn’t have made him the one to lean out and see if I was a threat. You the captain here?”

“I am,” he called back.

That was good. Felene didn’t have time to waste negotiating with those who weren’t in a position to do it.

“You all off to Delos?” she demanded.

“Where else would we be going?” the captain called back. “You think we’re out catching fish?”

Felene thought of some of the sharks that had hunted her on the way in to the shore. She thought of the body tumbling among them now. “Might be. There’s bait in the water, and there are some big prizes in these parts.”

“And some bigger ones in Delos,” the voice called back. “You looking to join our convoy?”

Felene made herself shrug as if she couldn’t care either way. “I figure an extra sword is good for you.”

“And an extra fifty is good for you. But it looks as though you can fight. You don’t slow us down, and you eat your own supplies. Fair enough?”

More than fair, since Felene had found her way into Delos. However careful the cordon around the city, Felldust’s fleet wouldn’t look twice at her when she was a part of it.

“Fair enough,” she called back. “Just so long as you don’t slow me down!”

“Eager for gold. I like that.”

They could like what they wanted, so long as they left Felene be. Let them think that she was there for gold. The only thing that mattered was —

The coughing fit caught Felene by surprise, almost doubling her up with the force of it. It ripped through her, her lungs feeling as though they were on fire. She put a hand to her mouth, and it came away wet with blood.

“Are you all right down there?” the captain of the Felldust ship called, in a voice of clear suspicion. “Is that blood? You’re not carrying some plague, are you?”

Felene had no doubt that he would make her travel alone if he thought she did. That, or fire her ship just to be certain that no disease got close.

“Got gut punched in a fight on the docks,” she lied, wiping her hand on the railing. “It’s no big deal.”

“If you’re coughing blood, it sounds bad enough,” the captain called back. “You should go off and find a healer. Can’t spend gold if you’re dead.”

It was probably good advice, but then, Felene had never been one to listen to such things. Especially not when she had better things to do. If it had been just gold on the line, she might have done exactly what the man suggested.

“So they say,” Felene joked. “Me, I say they’re not trying hard enough.”

She let the other ship’s captain laugh. She had better things to do.

It was time to kill Stephania and Elethe.