“There’ve been failures?”
They looked at each other and smiled painfully. Then they both nodded.
“But you’re still alive. I should have thought a failure—”
“Not all failures end in death. Take our mission to steal DeWitt’s sword from Essendon Castle. You can hardly call that a success.”
“But there was no sword. It was a trap. And in the end it all worked out. I hardly call that a failure.”
“Alburn was,” Royce said, and Hadrian nodded dramatically.
“Alburn?”
“We spent more than a year in King Armand’s dungeon,” Hadrian told her. “What was that, about six years ago? Seven? Right after that bad winter. You might remember it, real cold spell. The Galewyr froze for the first time in memory.”
“I remember that. My father wanted to hold a big party for my twentieth birthday, only no one could come.”
“We stayed the whole season in Medford,” Royce said. “Safe and comfortable—it was nice, actually, but we got soft and out of practice. We were just plain sloppy.”
“We’d still be in that dungeon right now if it wasn’t for Leo and Genny,” Hadrian said.
“Leo and Genny?” Arista asked. “Not the Duke and Duchess of Rochelle?”
“Yep.”
“They’re friends of yours?”
“They are now,” Royce said.
“We got the job through Albert, who took the assignment from another middleman. A typical double-blind operation, where we don’t know the client and they don’t know us. Turns out it was the duke and duchess. Albert broke the rules in telling them who we were and they convinced Armand to let us out. I’m still not certain how.”
“They were scared we’d talk,” Royce added.
Hadrian scowled at him, then rolled his eyes. “About what? We didn’t know who hired us at the time.”
Royce shrugged and Hadrian looked back at Arista.
“Anyway, we were just lucky Armand never bothered to execute us. But yeah, we don’t always win. Even that Crown Tower job was a disaster.”
“You were an idiot for coming back,” Royce told him.
“What happened?” Arista asked.
“Two of the Patriarch’s personal guards caught Royce when we were putting the treasure back.”
“Like the two at the meeting?”
“Exactly—maybe the same two.”
“He could have gotten away,” Royce explained. “He had a clear exit, but instead the idiot came back for me. It was the first time I’d ever seen him fight, and I have to say it was impressive—and the two guards were good.”
“Very good,” Hadrian added gravely. “They nearly killed us. Royce had been beaten pretty badly and took a blade to the shoulder, while I was stabbed in the thigh and cut across the chest—still have the scar.”
“Really?” Arista asked, astounded. She could not imagine anyone getting the better of Hadrian in a fight.
“We just barely got away, but by that time the alarm was up. We managed to hide in a tinker’s cart heading south. The whole countryside was looking for us and we were bleeding badly. We ended up in Medford. Neither of us had been there before.
“It was the middle of the night in this pouring rain when we crawled out, nearly dead. We just staggered down the street into the Lower Quarter looking for help—a place to hide. News hit the city about the Crown Tower thieves and soldiers found the cart. They knew we were there. Your father turned out the city guard to search for us. We didn’t know anyone. Soldiers were everywhere. We were so desperate that we banged on doors at random, hoping someone would let us in—that was the night we met Gwen DeLancy.”
“I still can’t understand why you came back,” Royce said. “We weren’t even friends. We were practically enemies. You knew I hated you.”
“Same reason why I took the DeWitt job,” Hadrian replied. “Same reason I went looking for Gaunt.” He looked across the room at Degan and shook his head. “I’ve always had that dream of doing what’s right, of saving the kingdom, winning the girl, and being the hero of the realm. Then I’d ride back home to Hintindar, where my father would be proud of me and Lord Baldwin would ask me to dine with him at his table, but…”
“But what?” Arista asked.
“It’s just a boy’s dream,” he said sadly. “I became a champion in Calis. I fought in arenas where hundreds of people would come to cheer me. They chanted my name—or at least the one they gave me—but I never felt like a hero. I felt dirty, evil. I guess since then I just wanted to wipe that blood off me, clean myself of the dirt, and I was tired of running. That’s what it came down to that day in the tower. I ran from my father, from Avryn, even from Calis. I was tired of running—I still am.”
They sat in silence for a minute; then Arista asked, “So what is the plan?”
“We send Gaunt in,” Royce replied.
“What?” She looked over at Degan, who was lying down on his blankets, curled up in a ball.
“You yourself said that he needed to be here, but why?” Hadrian asked. “He’s been nothing but a pain. Everyone on this trip has had a purpose except him. You said he was absolutely necessary to the success of this mission. Why?”
“Because he’s the heir.”
“Exactly, but how does that help?”
“I think because he needs to use this horn thing.”
“That’s obvious, but that doesn’t explain why we need him here. We could just have brought it to him. Why does he have to come with us?”
“We think that, being the heir, he can cross that room,” Hadrian told her.
“What if you’re wrong?” she asked. “We also need him to blow the horn. If he dies—”
“He can’t blow it if he doesn’t have it,” Royce interjected.
“But that’s where you come in,” Hadrian said. “You need to shield him, just in case. Can you do that?”
“Maybe,” she said without the slightest hint of confidence. “Everything with me is try-and-see. What are your other ideas?”
“Only have one other,” Royce said. “Someone walks in and diverts its attention while the rest make a mad dash for the far side in the hopes that at least one of us makes it. Hopefully blowing the horn can somehow stop the beast.”
“Seriously?”
They nodded.
She glanced over her shoulder. “I guess I’ll break the bad news to him.”
“Absolutely not!” Degan Gaunt declared, rising to his feet, his hat tilted askew and flat on one side from his lying on it.
When Myron and Magnus had returned, Arista had gathered the group in a circle around the lantern. While they ate sparingly from their remaining provisions, she explained the plan.
“You have to,” Arista told him.
“Even if I do, even if I succeed, what good is that? We’re still trapped!”
“We don’t know that. No one has ever crossed this room. There could be a means to escape on the far side, another exit, or the power of the horn could be such that we could escape with it. We don’t know, but an unknown is far better than a certainty of death.”