They pulled her out of the bath, toweled her off, and then flung the dress over her head. The laces across the back seemed old-fashioned and over-elaborate, but Mary navigated them with ease.
“Suck your breath in more,” Mary ordered. Alyssa obeyed. The laces slid tighter. Alyssa’s chest heaved upward, looking twice its original size. When she looked down at her own body, the cleavage seemed obscene.
“Bear through,” Mary said, recognizing the look. “A man thinks with his nether regions. The sight of you will stir him, and as long as man’s stirred, he’s stupid.”
The girls dabbed her with perfume, combed her hair, and draped a multitude of necklaces across her neck and chest. When finished, she glanced into an offered looking glass, hardly recognizing the woman in the reflection. She knew that the Gemcroft name allowed her the luxuries she wore, but never once had she felt compulsion to decorate herself so outlandishly.
Mary dismissed the rest of the servant girls.
“For your sake, behave,” she told Alyssa. “You’ll gain yourself nothing but bruises if you resist ineffectually. A hundred rapes are nothing compared to a single stab of a knife.”
Alyssa nodded, realizing the comment cut both ways. Not only must she endure the rapes for her to kill him, she’d have to endure them well enough not to get herself killed. She shook her head, wondering how her future had turned so grim.
It had begun when she started listening to the lies Yoren had whispered in her ear as they cuddled in her bed. Her heart hardened. She had earned this, then. She had believed his silver tongue and turned against her father. For that, she was thrown out and chained to Yoren’s true nature.
The skirt she wore had several layers along the legs. Mary separated them, making sure that Alyssa watched. The innermost was thin, white, and silky. Along the inner thigh was a single pocket. Mary slid the dagger inside.
“Never let him find it,” Mary said.
Alyssa nodded.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Come,” said Mary, extending her hand. “You have a meal to attend.”
This time Theo did rise to a stand at her entrance. A stupid grin spread across Yoren’s face. Alyssa knew that at one time she had thought it charming, and that only enhanced her convictions that she had been an idiotic girl.
“You look stunning,” Theo said. “Isn’t that right, son?”
“Breathtaking,” said Yoren.
Without being asked, Alyssa took a seat beside Yoren. She could tell he was pleased by the obedient wife act. That was good, it’d keep him from raging at her at night, but more important was that this way she couldn’t be dismissed from their planning. She knew they still eyed the wealth of her namesake. The more she knew, the better her chance of minimizing the damage.
“We were actually just discussing returning your rightful namesake,” Theo said, sipping wine from a gaudy gold cup. “It seems we were foolish to trust those Karak bitches to do anything right.”
“My father was ready,” Alyssa said, hoping it might incite a bit of anger, and therefore information.
“He usually is,” Theo said, his words dripping with bitterness. “I remember sending my men to grab what was rightfully mine, but even all those miles away from Riverrun he was still prepared. It wasn’t just the gold, Alyssa, it was deeds, titles, and information. Everything east of the Queln River should be mine. Those lands deserve a true lord! Lord Gandrem has no rightful claim. Let him have the plains. He belongs with the grazing chattel.”
Alyssa stifled a smirk. If she’d meant to incite anger, she’d done exceedingly well. She’d never heard of the Kulls attempt on her father’s safehouses in Riverrun. If she had, she’d have seen Yoren’s courting in a whole new light.
“My lord, a visitor requests an audience,” said a guard as he poked his head in through the flap.
“What’s his name?” asked Theo.
“Her,” the guard said, looking a little flustered. “And she says she has no name.”
Theo let out a humorless chuckle.
“Send her in.”
Alyssa felt a bit of hope as one of the faceless women entered. She was fully clad in her black and purple wrappings, her face a mask of white cloth. By her build, she didn’t appear to be Eliora. She wasn’t sure which of the other two, though.
“I am Zusa,” the woman said, clearing that right up. “I have come to listen.”
“Listen?” asked Theo. “To what?”
“She means she needs orders,” Yoren said. He watched as shadows seemed to curl off her firm body and fade away like smoke. He shifted uncomfortably, not feeling confident or safe even though he was in the center of his own camp.
“Yes, well, we’d have those ready for you if we weren’t always being interrupted by bothersome women,” Theo said. “First Alyssa, now you. Well, since we’re all here, let us get down to business. Maynard’s got to go. Before he does, we need to find a way to reinstate Alyssa as the lawful heir to the Gemcroft estate.”
“Wills covered with blood are rarely followed,” Zusa said.
“I know that,” Theo said. “I’m a Kull, not an idiot.”
Alyssa thought they were one and the same and had to feign coughing to hide her laughter.
“There is another way,” Yoren said. “The rest of the Trifect won’t dare let one of its members appear weak for very long. If we kill Maynard and then march en force to the mansion, the others will make sure the matter is settled quickly and quietly. Who’ll give a fuck if he wrote her out of his will? She’s his own daughter, the last of his flesh and blood. There’s a thousand ways they could discredit his death wishes.”
“A good plan, though almost insulting in its simplicity,” said Theo. “I have only a hundred swords here in my name. When could we possibly storm the estate successfully? We number only a fifth of his house guards. Who knows how many mercenaries he also has on retainer?”
“When the head is gone, the body can only thrash for so long,” said Zusa.
“We have a philosopher,” Yoren said dryly.
“Is that an offer?” Theo asked. Zusa shrugged.
“We promised to do so once. We can do so again.”
“You also failed once,” said Theo. “Can you do that again?”
The shadows flared around her body. Alyssa wished she could back away from the two men. The faceless were dangerous, and to insult their professional pride and ability seemed beyond rash.
“We will not fail,” Zusa said. “Tell me when you will strike and I will tell my sisters.”
Theo scratched his chin.
“There’s only one time I can think of that we can catch the old goat unaware.”
“When?” asked Alyssa, unable to stop herself.
Theo’s grin belonged on a bear more than a human.
“The Kensgold,” he said.
A aron was getting good at choking down his curiosity. Any time he went somewhere with his father, he was never told where they were going or for what purpose. This particular task he followed his father on was already different. They moved in daylight instead of at night.
“What if we’re recognized,” Aaron asked as they neared the more populous parts of the city. More and more merchants lined up across the sides of the street.
“We’re just one of many,” Thren said. “Don’t give anyone reason to suspect otherwise.”
Thren wore the plain gray cloak of the Spider Guild. Because of Aaron’s age, it would seem odd for him to be ranked anything higher above a cutpurse, so instead of a cloak he had a thin band of gray cloth tied around his left arm. Thren had cut Aaron’s hair short just in case some of the guard’s might remember what he looked like. The bounty on his son had lasted only a single night, and not at all according to the castle records. Still, being reckless was not something Thren was known for. He kept his hood low, and had charcoal smeared across his face.
Thren had hammered Aaron over the importance of not acting scared or in a hurry. They merely went on their way, not rushing, not dawdling. They were on a job, and very few would be stupid enough to interfere.
“I’ve never met our target,” Thren said, talking casually as if about the weather. “Watch for a tall man with
