“Thank you,” huffed Kintra. “Now, tell me what you are looking for.”
Niya ran a hand through her hair, a tangling mess coming out of its braid. “A portal token. I know Alōs must have some in his personal bounty, which he keeps in this room, yes?”
Kintra eyed her suspiciously. “Perhaps.”
“And you have the key to it, being his most trusted second-in-command.”
Kintra didn’t answer.
“Well?” Niya shoved out her palm. “Don’t just stand there like a statue for the birds—hand it to me.”
“You truly must be off your sails if you think I’m to give you Alōs’s treasure with barely an explanation.”
“Didn’t you hear me? He’s to be eaten!”
“By giants?”
“Who else would be able to stomach such a sour soul? Yes, giants. We found the final piece.” Niya fumbled in her pocket, her fingers trembling with barely contained magic as she revealed the small shard of the Prism Stone. “And then were caught.”
Kintra stared at the gem, the red reflecting in her dark eyes. “You got it.”
“Yes, we got it.”
“It’s over.”
“Not quite. Kintra, please, where does he keep his bounty?”
“But you escaped? Not Alōs.”
“It’s complicated.”
Niya felt Kintra’s quick movement, the singing of her blade as she unsheathed it.
“What are you doing?” Niya spun, placing the desk between them.
“Do you think I am a fool?” Kintra’s gaze was an aimed arrow as she held her knife at the ready. “You want a portal token to escape after feeding Alōs to the giants.”
Niya slammed her brows down. “No. That is not—”
“You cannot kill those who hold your binding bet with your own hand, so you found a way around it. And to think I was beginning to believe you were one of us.”
“Kintra, listen to what you are saying,” Niya said in an exasperated breath. “If I were planning to walk away now, why would I have told you about the Prism Stone? Why would I have come back here at all?”
“Because it’s the only way to leave.”
“We don’t have time for this!” Niya threw out her hands, frustration boiling over. “Alōs could be getting chopped to bits right now!”
Kintra glanced to Niya’s wrist, to where her debt was inked. “No, unlucky for you, my captain still lives.”
Niya hadn’t thought of her band disappearing as a sign of Alōs’s death. With a fresh shot of panic, her powers vibrated along her veins. Another unknown sandglass flipped over.
“Kintra, I do not want to use my powers on you, but I will if you do not shut up and stand down.”
Kintra lunged at her, but Niya knocked away her daggered hand. Spinning, she jumped atop the desk and pinned the quartermaster to it.
But Kintra was a pirate of the Crying Queen and easily slipped from her grip.
She attacked Niya again.
“I’m . . . giving . . . you . . . one last . . . chance . . . to stop,” Niya warned, blocking blow after blow, making a point not to extend any blows back. She had inflicted enough pain this day.
A vision of Alōs’s bruised and bleeding face filled her vision.
Niya’s desperation soared.
“You know,” said Kintra while attempting an uppercut, “he was beginning to trust you too.”
“And you know what?” asked Niya after dodging it. “This is growing tedious.”
Spinning like a gust of wind, she shot out a red wave of her magic. It blazed against Kintra, sending her flying against the bookcase.
Heavy tomes fell, plunk, plunk, plunk, atop her head as she slid to the ground, unconscious.
“I’m sorry.” Niya crouched beside her, feeling under her clothes. “But I did warn you.”
She pulled a chain from around Kintra’s neck. On it dangled a group of small keys.
“One of these should work.” She tugged them free.
Rounding Alōs’s desk, Niya began to unlock drawers, rifling through them as her desperation climbed. But then her fingers stilled, heart lurching, as she found one with a false bottom. Sliding it to the side, she revealed a heavy onyx chest.
She let out a shaky, hopeful sigh, but as she grabbed the box, a consuming cold burned her fingers.
Niya hissed, dropping the chest.
A defensive spell.
“Clever, pirate,” said Niya before pushing flames awake along her palms, protective gloves of sorts, to grasp the box once more.
This time her hold held, sending steam sizzling through the air as the conflicting magic collided. Fire fighting ice.
She settled the chest on the desk with a heavy thunk, quickly trying each key again on the chain. Finally an unlatching click as the lid swung open. “By the lost gods,” she breathed.
Atop Alōs’s desk an array of precious gems, gold coin, and silver winked out like a temptress. Niya opened a felt bag resting on top, finding the other pieces of the Prism Stone.
She swallowed down the rising ball of anguish as she added the final one. They each glowed bright for a grain fall, a whispering sigh of relief to be reunited, before fading to dark.
It was done. The pieces were collected. But Niya’s sense of accomplishment was void. There was much still to do.
Pushing aside the bag, Niya fingered through the rest of the bounty, searching for the one thing she needed more than any of the riches before her. “Please be here, please be here, please be—aha!” Snagging up a silver portal token that swirled black in the middle, she kissed it. “Always a sight for sore eyes.”
Pulling one of her daggers from her hip, she pricked her finger. Then, holding the token with a smear of blood, she whispered a secret into it, one she’d only recently realized she carried, and flipped the coin into the air.
Before it hit the floor, a portal door rose up.
And Niya ran through.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
In a remote part of the southern sea, a sandglass hissed the passing of time while a pile of treasure winked, vulnerable, atop a captain’s desk. A portal door glowed open in the center of the room while a pirate slumped unconscious in the corner. A strange sight indeed for any of the Crying Queen’s crew to have found, had they dared enter. Luckily for Niya, the pirates hardly desired to go near their captain’s lair when summoned, let alone when they were strictly not allowed.
So the room held quiet, an unmoved spectator as the sun slowly rose higher outside the paned windows, sending rays of light stretching along the floor and walls.
A commotion barreled into the calm as three figures in black hooded robes and gold masks slipped in through the portal.
“Darius will not enjoy me missing another dinner,” grumbled Larkyra.
“You’ll be back before he’ll notice you’ve left,” assured Niya, snatching up the portal token.
The door to the Thief Kingdom disappeared with a snap, and Niya turned to regard her sisters, disguised as the Mousai.
It had taken longer than she would have liked to gather them both together, and her nerves continued to buzz chaotically through her veins.
Go. Run. You are out of time.
“I think it will be hard to miss his wife gone from his bed when he wakes,” pointed out Larkyra, eyes narrowed behind her mask.
“Then perhaps you should have told him goodbye upon your leaving,” suggested Arabessa, straightening her robes.
“I left him a note. I didn’t want to wake him after last night.”
“What happened last night?”
“Let’s just say he put in a very thorough perform—”
“Never mind.” Arabessa held up a hand, stopping her. “I just ate breakfast.”
“Niya.” Larkyra studied Kintra’s body beneath the bookshelf. “Who is this?”
Niya glanced to the woman, relieved to find her still unconscious. “Our quartermaster.”
“Is she dead?”
“No, but help me tie her up before she wakes.”
Without question her sisters aided in securing Kintra to the metal hook bolted to the floor.
Niya didn’t miss the irony, in that she had once been bound to that very spot, kneeling, bruised, and bloody, and now was tying up another to save someone she had left bruised and bleeding.
“All right.” Niya stood. “Now to take care of the rest of the pirates.”