Sword Catcher (Sword Catcher, #1)

She raised her chin. Snapped the fan in her hands open, the black lace brilliant, laced with bright threads. She knew only one dance. She had never bothered to learn another, never been required to learn another. And she had never been grateful to have learned even the Dance of the Goddess. Not until this moment.

She let the music—different as it was from the music of the Sault—wash over her. She began to move, holding the fan as, in the dance, the girls of the Sault held their lilies. She turned, her body sweeping into the movements of the dance, the room blurring around her, vanishing. She was in Aram now, and it was overrun. Armies clashed on the barren-blasted plains, under a sky that was always dark. Lightning speared the clouds overhead. The end was very near.

She danced her terror, her excitement. She danced the howl of the wind through the broken walls of her kingdom. She danced the blackening of the land, the dim red light of the sun.

He approached, the Sorcerer-King who had once been her lover. The man she had trusted above all others. She wanted him with a fierceness that seemed to outpace the fire, the storm. She danced that fierceness now: her broken heart, her longing, the passion she still felt.

He begged her to stop, then. She was not to be a fool; to destroy magic would destroy him, who she loved, and destroy her, too. All he wanted was her, he said. He would put aside everything else: magic, power, kingship. She would be all he needed.

But he was not to be trusted.

Lin danced the last moments of Adassa—her defiance, her power, blooming like a flower of fire. She danced the shudder of the world as magic left it, draining from the earth, the rocks, the sea. She danced the grief of the Goddess as she stepped into darkness: The world was changed forever, her lover lost, her people scattered.

And lastly, she danced the first fingers of sunlight as they burst across the eastern horizon. The sun rising at last, after months of darkness. She danced the beginning of hope, and the glory of defiance. She danced—

And the music stopped. Lin stopped, too, hurled back into the present. She was gasping, utterly out of breath; perspiration ran between her breasts, stung her eyes. She was aware of eyes on her: everyone in the room watching. Charlon’s mouth was open.

“Well,” he said, “that was—”

“Very interesting,” said the Prince. His arms were outstretched along the back of the divan; his eyes raked Lin with a sort of bemused curiosity. She was suddenly very aware that her hair was plastered to her temples and the back of her neck, her dress clinging to her damply. “I had always heard the Ashkar were not particularly good dancers, so that was acceptable, considering.”

A murmur went through the crowd; a few titters. The Prince was smiling, a cool little smile, and she suddenly hated him so much that it was as if she were back in her vision, on the tower, choking on smoke. Her whole body seemed to burn with hatred for his arrogance, his contempt. For the fact that he clearly saw her as a joke, a plaything.

And she hated that because he was beautiful he was loved and forgiven, no matter what he did. He would always be wanted. The whole world wanted him. She could feel a violent trembling in her hands, utterly at odds with her healer’s instincts: For the first time since she had been an angry child, she wanted to slap and scratch and claw. To wreck his pretty face, to stop his sideways smirk.

With a gasp, she hurled the black fan across the room. It hit the floor and skidded to the Prince’s feet. “I hope,” she said, her voice shaking with rage, “that you have been recompensed for your lack of entertainment. For, as you say, I am unskilled, and have nothing more of myself to offer.”

She caught a look of surprise as it passed across the Prince’s face, but she was already turning away. Pushing past Charlon Roverge, she strode from the room. Her grandfather had been right. These people were monsters. Let all their ships burn.


“Lin. Lin. Stop.”

It was Prince Conor’s voice. He had followed her, through the winding corridors of the Roverge mansion. She could not believe he had followed her. Perhaps he planned to arrest her, for throwing the black fan? An assault on royalty, they would surely call it.

She whirled to face him. She had fled the main room without knowing where precisely she was going—all she had thought was out, away. Away from the titters, from the people who had seen her dance, from the look on the Prince’s face.

But he had followed. And now he had caught up with her in one of a set of deserted and interconnected drawing rooms that seemed to occupy the front of the mansion, each one decorated in a different color scheme. This one was blue and black, like a bruise. A carcel lamp glowed overhead, its flame striking sparks off his rings, his circlet. He seemed to loom over her, reminding her again how tall he was. Up close she could see his dark hair was in disarray, the black-and-silver kohl around his eyes blurred into luminous shadow. His eyes were a very dark pewter color. He said, in a voice of controlled fury, “What are you doing here, Lin? Why did you come?”

Even through her rage, the question set her back on her heels. “After all that,” she said. “That’s what you want to ask me? You know Mayesh is my grandfather. You know he brought me—”

He waved this away, with a short, sharp jerk of his arm. “You’re a physician,” he ground out. “You healed Kel. You healed me. I have been grateful. But now you come here, like this—”

His gaze dropped to her dress. She felt it like a touch, the fierce drag of his eyes over the neckline of her gown, her collarbones, her throat. She had always thought of contempt and loathing as cold emotions, but now they seemed hot, radiating off him. If she were not so furious, she would have been afraid.

“Oh?” she spat. “You mean I should know my place. Stay in the Sault, not presume to think I might be welcome, or allowed, on the Hill.”

“Don’t you understand?” He caught hold of her. She tensed up immediately, even as his gloved fingers dug into her upper arms. She could tell he was something more than drunk. He had always been unreadable, but now she could see too much in his face. The yearning printed plainly there, the hunger to insult her, to belittle her. “This place,” he hissed. “The Hill—ruins things. Things that are perfect as they are. You were honest. This place has made you a liar.”

“You dare call me a liar?” She could hear the fire in her voice. “The last time I saw you, you made a pretty show about how guilty you felt. How you’d gotten yourself into this situation, how I should pity your bride. I thought you meant I should pity her for the situation you found yourself in, but you meant I should pity her for the way you planned to treat her.”

“Touching,” he said, in a low voice, “that you believe I have plans.”

She reached up and caught at his wrist. Soft velvet, crisp lace, the heat of skin underneath. She said, “Perhaps you have no plan. Perhaps your only goal is to be a selfish bastard who treats his wife-to-be abominably.”