The Pyramid Waltz (2 page)

“That’s all,” Crowe said. He took the pyramid away, and the Shadow went limp against Brutal’s legs. “He won’t be coming around for a long while. There was a lot to sift through, and most of it I couldn’t make heads or tails of. There was something about your father, Katya.”

“Wait, King Einrich couldn’t know who the conspirators are, right?” Maia seemed to realize what she said as soon as the words left her mouth. Blushing, she picked at her braid.

Crowe gave her a wry look. “Don’t you think he’d tell us, hmm?”

“Yeah,” Maia said. “You’re right. That was a silly thing to say.”

“Don’t worry, coz.” Katya clapped her on the shoulder. “We can’t be right all the time.”

“Wrong. You can just declare yourself right,
Highness
.”

“And don’t forget it.” Katya pointed a finger in mock warning. “Crowe, you and Pennynail know what to do.”

“Yes, one complimentary ride to the dungeons for our Shadow.” His smile didn’t diminish the dark circles under his eyes. “I wonder how many of the guards think it’s funny that an old pyradisté like me still goes out hunting villains.”

“Ah, but you’re the king’s pyradisté. Your duties are many and varied.”

“I notice you didn’t argue with the ‘old’ part.”

“I wouldn’t want to disappoint.”

Brutal heaved the Shadow’s unconscious body over one shoulder. “Lucky this one’s light. C’mon, it’s almost dinnertime.”

“Trust you to notice,” Katya said.

Brutal patted his large frame, but the muscled flesh didn’t wobble. “I’m a growing boy, growing outward, anyway.”

“I think your figure is very nice,” Maia said. When they all looked at her, she went scarlet to her ears and moved ahead to take the lead.

Crowe fell into step with Katya. “Ready to turn back into a numbskull?”

“Don’t remind me. It’s bad enough to do it. I don’t want to have to anticipate it, too.”

Ahead of them, Pennynail poked Maia in the arm before pointing off into the trees and sprinting out of sight, lost in the undergrowth.

“I’ll spot you,” Maia called.

“Need any help?” Katya asked.

“I can find him.”

“You shouldn’t encourage them,” Crowe whispered in Katya’s ear.

“Let them play.”

Crowe snorted. “And here I was thinking that the business of the Order deserved our complete attention.”

“I’ll be damned before I let my team stop having fun.”

“There he is.” Maia pointed into the trees and nocked an arrow. “I’ll just get close enough to scare him.” She took careful aim, oblivious as Pennynail loomed from the bushes behind her. He bounced his open palms off her shoulders, and she jumped with a cry, her arrow wobbling off into the brush. “Sneak!”

Pennynail covered the mouth of his mask as if stifling laughter and then swaggered ahead, his long red ponytail swaying from just above where the mask laced up the back of his head.

“You’ll get him next time,” Brutal said. Maia beamed at him before she ran to catch up with Pennynail. She tugged at one of the numerous buckles that secured his outfit and made his slender figure difficult to examine.

At the edge of the wood, the party turned toward the smoke of a campfire, this one carrying the odd scent of berries mixed with wood. They broke into the arranged clearing, and Averie stood beside a smoldering fire near their picket of horses. Her simple leather clothing was green and brown to match the forest, and the camouflage seemed to have aided her, as the stag hanging from a nearby tree could testify. “Seems we both got prizes today, Highness,” Averie said.

Katya peered at the downed animal and tsked. “One shot through the neck, nice and clean. I’m getting better and better.”

“Ready to trade one set of hunting gear for another?”

“I’d rather hunt traitors all day. Question is, are you ready to play the self-sacrificing, put-upon lady-in-waiting?”

Averie heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I never stopped.”

“Jewel of my heart!” Katya cried in mock longing. She fell to one knee. “What would I do without you?”

Averie pulled a change of clothes from her pack and tossed them over. “You’d go about naked, that’s what you’d do.”

Katya put on her best leer, but Averie laughed it off and helped her out of her black tabard and leather breastplate. Katya tucked her pyramid necklace next to her skin before she donned a leather-accented hunting shirt and buckled her rapier back on. She tucked a clean tabard into her belt, this one stiff with embroidery and bearing the hawk and rose of the Princess of Farraday. Averie smoothed her hair, forcing any stray strands into the loose bun at the base of her neck.

“There, much more regal,” Averie said.

Katya only muttered and mounted her horse.

“Your kill, Highness.” Brutal laid the stag behind Katya’s saddle. “The Shadow is similarly positioned on Crowe’s horse.”

Katya shifted away from the large dead animal. “Ugh. I’d rather have him.”

“We’ll meet you later for debriefing.” Crowe and Pennynail started down the road.

“Be careful not to be noticed!” Katya called after him.

He gave her a dark look over one shoulder. “Go and teach the wind to whistle while you’re giving out free advice.”

“You tease too much,” Averie said.

“It keeps him from descending into a sea of self-righteous grumpiness.”

“Or it hastens his descent.”

Katya shook her head, and they began the ride back to the city of Marienne, Farraday’s capital, past the fields and the homesteads, and along the main thoroughfare. Katya cast off her true self, becoming Princess Katyarianna Nar Umbriel once again, moderately fond of the people, inordinately fond of hunting and weapon-craft. She waved disinterestedly or imperiously at most of the gawkers and winked or leered at any young women. She thanked the spirits she didn’t have to play a pampered, simpering, garters-and-gowns princess. As a dark-haired peasant girl blew her a kiss, Katya also thanked her mother for deciding her persona should be a bit of a rake.

Katya caught the kiss and pressed it to her lips, but she didn’t stop. Cutting a swath through the women of Marienne had been fun for a while. No chance of children, just a trail of broken hearts. All her affairs had ended the same way, though; she could almost hear the entreaties in her head. “Princess, could you help me with… Could you convince your father to…? My brother has been trying to get into the Pyradisté Academy, and…” It went on and on. She’d trusted some of them, not with her sacred duty as leader of the Order of Vestra, but with her person, with her heart. Now, at nineteen, she simply played the part, a fact she reminded herself of as the peasant girl waved farewell.

The gate guards bowed as she rode into the sprawling palace proper, a series of long rectangles with the occasional turret or tower rising out of the jumble. Her party passed the statues of the ten spirits that lined the wide passage into the courtyard. Brutal saluted Best and Berth, twins of strength and courage, the patron spirits of his brotherhood. Katya saluted Matter and Marla, needing their sharp intellects and wisdom if she was going to find her family’s enemies.

Maia gave a half-hidden salute to Ellias and Elody, twins of love and beauty, as she passed. Katya hid a grin. The twin patrons of lovers couldn’t help Maia unless she learned how to speak to Brutal without blushing. If he’d been there, Pennynail would have made a great flourish to Jack and Jan, twins of skill and deftness. Katya made the gesture for him. All of them saluted Fah and Fay, spirits of luck, the twin statues perched precariously atop a stone egg.

They rode to the rear of the palace, to the royal stable, and Katya left Brutal, Averie, and Maia with the gear and the grooms. The princess couldn’t be seen tending her horse or her weapons or her kill. Getting out of brushing horses and handling dead animals were two perks she could deal with.

Still in her leather hunting gear, she passed through the halls of the palace to its interior and the winter apartments of the royal family. Pyramids set in the walls glittered as she passed, and she wondered for the hundredth time what they would do to an unauthorized visitor. She resisted the urge to touch her pyramid necklace as she always did when she thought of magic.

The guards at the entryway to her parents’ rooms saluted with a snap as Katya passed. She heard her father’s deep voice echoing down the hall and headed for the sitting room. Even after hearing him, she paused to knock at the door, recalling a time she’d slipped her nursemaid and seen her parents in a situation that was then confusing, but now unthinkably embarrassing.

“Come,” her father boomed.

King Einrich Nar Umbriel stood upon a wooden block while a tailor fussed with the robes that draped him. Katya’s father paid him no mind, leaving the fussing to Queen Catirin Van Umbriel, who supervised all aspects of the draping. Even while going about such mundane tasks, the two exuded an air of royalty that Katya strived to live up to. In her heart, though, they’d always be Ma and Da.

“Ah, Katya,” Da said. After a nod in her direction, he continued dictating to a clerk at his side who wrote hurriedly upon an untidy sheaf of papers.

“Too much velvet,” Ma said to the tailor. Though her mother only stood as high as the tailor’s shoulder, her bearing gave her a commanding presence.

The tailor cocked his head to and fro. “Purple is very regal.”

“There’s regal and then there’s looking like a window dressing.”

The tailor re-draped the velvet into a shorter, knee-length cape and folded it back from Da’s shoulders so that it wouldn’t meet in front, showing off the tacked-together fabric that would be a new suit for the Courtiers Ball.

Ma tapped her chin. “A credit to your art.” She smiled, and the tailor bowed nearly to the floor.

Katya ducked her head to cover a grin. One minute Ma was calling the tailor’s creation a window dressing, and the next she was calling it art, but the smile made the tailor forget about the former. She couldn’t stop politicking, even with tradesmen.

She turned to Katya with arched brows, a signal Katya knew of old. Anytime in front of witnesses was a perfect time for a “fight.” “Why do you even bother coming in here dressed like that, Katyarianna?”

Katya sagged against the woodwork and shrugged. She could do disapproving mother and disinterested daughter in her sleep. “I’ll dress up when there’s something worth dressing up for.”

“The Courtiers Ball is worth dressing up for. Your brother’s impending visit is
worth
dressing up for.”

“The ball’s not for another few nights. The visit not for half a month or so.”

“Still—” Ma started. Da cleared his throat and inclined his head to the clerk and tailor. The first was still writing, his tongue protruding from the side of his mouth. The latter was doing a poor job feigning ignorance. His eyes darted at them while he gathered up loose fabric. Da’s cough and look guaranteed the story would get out. “And then the king had to silence them!” the tailor would say. It was like living inside a complex ballet.

“That’ll do for now, Maxwell,” Ma said. The tailor picked up his kit and stowed everything in a rolling basket before he exited in a rush. Da finished what he was saying to the clerk and then excused the man, waiting until the clerk picked up all the papers and vanished out the doors.

As he stepped down from the block, Da kissed Ma on the cheek. “Thank you, my love, for saving me from looking like a window dressing.”

“The duties of a queen are many and varied.”

“And you.” Da gave Katya a squeeze. “You have made boredom into an art form.”

“I was just thinking that,” Katya said. Her mother squeezed her hand. For all their fake arguing, Ma really cared about her clothing, and Katya’s leather outfit was dusty. Katya knew she’d get a hug when she was clean.

Ma looked her up and down. “You’re all right?”

“Fit and hale.”

“Well, then.” Da sat on the tailor’s block. “Pull up a chair and let’s hear it.”

Katya pulled her stiff tabard out of her belt and over her head and laid it to the side. “We caught the Shadow, although he’s quite ordinary-looking for someone with such a nefarious name.”

“What did he tell you?”

“The usual, that there are more of his kind and that I have no idea how high his group has penetrated, but this time, I believe it.”

“The bastard has to have connections to have eluded you this long,” Da said.

“Language.” Ma stared off into space, and Katya knew what she was thinking. The second child of the monarchy had always headed the Order of Vestra, protecting the king, queen, and firstborn heir. If she fell in combat or had to assume her brother’s duties, the Order would go to Maia. That knowledge, that the Order would live on, never seemed to stop Ma’s worries.

“I’m fine,” Katya said quietly.

“Of course you are,” Ma said, but she didn’t seem convinced.

Da patted Katya’s knee, three quick smacks. “Yes, of course you are, my girl. Crowe is bringing the Shadow in?”

“With Pennynail.”

Ma made a face, her mouth turning down.

“I know you don’t approve of his fashion sense, Ma.”