Poison Tree

“I was shocked as hell to hear her say she was with SingleEarth,” Christian admitted, “but Alysia has always been full of surprises. I gave it some thought and decided I might as well look into this attack she mentioned.”

Lynzi nodded. “I’m going to get dressed,” she said, “and then I would be happy to show you around the attack area, to see if you have any theories.”

“Alysia could do—” Christian broke o in the face of Lynzi’s even, determined gaze.

“Sure,” he said instead.

“I’m right across the hall,” Lynzi said before stepping back out of the room.

Alysia snickered as the door closed behind Lynzi, and started rummaging through her bags for clean clothes. “How much would Pandora kick your ass for that mistake?” she asked.

Christian had been human when she’d seen him last, but even then, he would have kicked himself to next Sunday for making such a stupid assumption. Just because someone looked young and harmless didn’t mean she was either of those things.

Christian turned away as Alysia changed from sweats and a T-shirt to dress pants and a chrome-blue button-down. They had lived in close enough quarters that she didn’t have a lot of modesty around him, but the fact that he looked elsewhere said a lot. There weren’t many people Christian would turn his back for.

“Are you here on a job?” he asked.

“Not a Bruja job,” she answered. “I know it’s hard to believe, especially since the circumstances make me look guilty as sin, but I’m here as exactly what they think I am.”

“A SingleEarth mediator?” Christian asked, incredulous, turning back toward her. “You expect me to believe that? Alysia, you eat adrenaline for breakfast and commit felonies for an afternoon snack. At least, that was the you I knew two years ago—before you disappeared. In the middle of the night. While I was sleeping. I thought you were dead, Alysia.”

She winced. How could she even begin to explain the last two years? She could explain why she’d left, she supposed. He deserved that much.

“I got a call and went to a meeting for a private contract. It turned out to be most of the guild leadership— Adam, Crystalle, and Kral. They o ered me seven gures if I could knock you off and make it look like an accident or a job gone south.”

“What did you say?”

“What do you think I said?” she snapped. “I told them to go to hell. In exchange, they doubled the money and put a public posting up in all three guilds—on me. I wouldn’t have lasted the week. I didn’t intend to disappear so long, but then I got involved here.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to warn me that Bruja leadership was trying to have me killed?” Christian asked.

“You …” Alysia trailed off, unsure how to phrase her response. The leaders hadn’t put out a contract on Christian because they’d wanted him gone, they’d just wanted to see what she would do. They had made it clear that they believed she was the one rocking the boat and

Christian was just along for the ride.

“No, go on,” he said. “You refused a million dollars to kill me but then didn’t want to waste a minute cal ing?”

“The contract wasn’t about you,” she bit out, “and you know it. Even when you and Kral want to kill each other, you’re obviously Bruja raised. I’m the one who came in and started trying to change the status quo. When I refused a million dollars to kill you, the leadership realized it meant that my loyalty couldn’t be bought. I knew that if I disappeared, they wouldn’t have any reason to go after you. I didn’t think they would come after me, either, as long as I was out of their way. But maybe I was wrong,” she added, thinking about the recent attack.

“It doesn’t matter,” Christian said. “Sarta was pissed about the cabal against you, so she competed for and won guild leadership from Crystalle shortly after you disappeared. Then

Adam lost the last Challenge—you should have seen the ght that went down there, before

Ravyn picked up the Crimson leadership—and I won Frost. Kral’s still around, but his teeth aren’t as big without Adam and Crystalle worshiping him. You would have allies now. You can come back.”

Alysia hesitated, remembering the rush of adrenaline after the attack. Christian was right that she wasn’t made for a sedentary life, but despite the two-million-dollar bounty on her head, she wouldn’t have stayed at SingleEarth this long if it hadn’t o ered her something she hadn’t found at Bruja.

She had joined Bruja when she was fteen; it had appealed to her as an angry kid who liked to buck authority and challenge the world and didn’t care if she ever got a high school diploma. When she had started wanting to make something of her life, she had naturally used Bruja as an outlet. Christian had supported her, but he hadn’t really understood, just as he wouldn’t understand if she told him that she was now three semesters into a double major in psychology and political science at the University of Massachusetts.

Lynzi rapped politely on the door once more, and Christian said under his breath, “There’s the babysitter. How old is she?”

“About a thousand,” Alysia answered.

“To answer your question, Pandora is going to kick my ass into the next decade,”

Christian said as he opened the door. “You always did make me leap before I looked.”

As Lynzi rejoined them, Alysia found herself simultaneously frustrated and relieved. The instant she had seen Christian at the Onyx Hall, two years had seemed to melt away. It could have been yesterday that they had been fighting side by side.

But she needed to remember that those two years had passed.

She wasn’t the same person she had been when she’d left Bruja, but Christian hadn’t yet realized that. She missed Bruja like crazy, especially on the dull days when she wanted to scream just to get her blood owing, but she wanted more than the mercenary guilds could provide.

I should be careful what I wish for, she thought as she followed Christian and Lynzi. She had wanted both Bruja and SingleEarth, but the only way those two groups would ever come together was with bloodshed.

CHAPTER 8

THE TWO MISTARI children, Jeht and Quean, were obviously brothers, with skin almost the exact same shade of dark russet, and straight black hair. As Sarik entered the enclosure that had been set aside for their use, Jeht prodded his younger brother to wake up, and greeted her: “Divai, ohne.”

It was a respectful greeting, appropriate for a nearly adult Mistari speaking to a queen in her own territory. The words would have been accompanied by both boys rising to their knees if Sarik had not previously forbidden them from performing such acts of submission.

A Mistari tribe could be run in many di erent ways, but it had taken Sarik only seconds upon meeting these boys to determine that they came from a tribe where the king’s word was the only one necessary to declare pardon or execution—and where the only way to challenge that word was a duel to the death. The hand-forged golden bands Jeht wore on his upper arms marked him as one of royal blood, even if his posture and direct- beyond-his-

years gaze had not. He and his brother had been driven out of their tribe after the coup that overthrew their father.

“Ciacin,” Sarik replied. In the boys’ native language, she continued, “How are you today?”

“We are comfortable,” Jeht replied, focusing on Sarik, his Asian eyes a distinct golden green rarely seen outside the Mistari.

Mark, the groundskeeper who had bonded with the boys and who supervised them—and their camp re— during the day, stepped forward as if to join the conversation. One gesture from Jeht, however, sent him scurrying