Honor Bound by Joey Hill (speld decodable readers .txt) 📕

on the back of her neck, down her spine, her arms. A single scratch and Giral’s death would be as far from pretty as it was possible to imagine.

Hours of it.

Rhio read her expression easily enough. His lips thinned. “A fitting vengeance, but not by your hand. Evil destroys evil. You’ll sleep better, I guarantee.”

She had to moisten her lips. “It could . . . work. But your Queen will be angry if the talks fail.”

He shrugged. “There are other capable men in the delegation. She’ll make do. This is more important.”

Amae uncurled her fingers, smoothed the crumpled shirt. His heart beat steadily under her touch, a reassuring thump-thump. “You take a great risk for me.”

“Not really,” he said matter-of-factly. “There are greater ones than this.”

She was still puzzling over that when he asked, “Are we agreed, then?”

There was no way she could kill Giral face-to-face and survive. She’d always known that; it had simply been a question of waiting for the opportunity and accepting the consequences. All these years, he’d treated her like an exotic but dangerous pet, a performing tygre. But a tygre was never truly tame, and Giral had known. He was never alone with her, never turned his back.

She met those clear gray eyes, knowing it would destroy her to see them shadowed by disappointment. How had Rhio’s opinion become so important so quickly? Because he listened? Because when he looked, he saw her mind as well as her body?

All that, yes, but he’d given her something precious. Hope, the possibility of a future. She hadn’t realized how dark her existence had been without it.

But to abandon her vengeance, so much a part of her for so long . . . Her head whirling, she sank down into the squashy embrace of the sofa, gazing blankly at the cold embers in the grate. Her life had been like that, gray and cold, the ashy remnant of something real and warm. Giral must pay, it was a given, set in stone. But, oh, if she could live!

Knowing she was doomed, she’d never considered it before. By the Ancestors, surviving to spit on the bastard’s grave would be the best, most perfect, revenge. The dream, so long denied, was almost unbearable in its intensity.

Gripping her hands together in her lap, she said, “You are right. It will be fitting—if it works. If it doesn’t . . .” She shrugged. “I’ll do it myself.”

“Good enough.” He dropped a kiss on her lips, closemouthed, almost chaste. It felt strangely like a promise. “Come on down to the practice floor and show me what you remember of the quarterstaff.”

Amae bared her teeth. “Ah, Captain, I shall teach you to dance, yes?”

Rhio gave the quiet chuckle she’d come to love. “You can try, my Shar warrior. You can try.”

Swathed in her dark cloak, Amae sat where Rhio had put her, in a dusty cupboard on an upper floor, her eye pressed to a discreet spy hole in the wall. She had a surprisingly wide field of vision, the Queen’s reception room and its occupants spread out beneath her.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t hear very well, so the whole thing had the flavor of a mime show.

Giral sat quietly enough, though his plate was untouched and a muscle jumped in his cheek. Amae smiled. She knew that expression. The Ambassador-Pasha was beyond

furious.

Sethril, on the other hand, was leaning across the table, his mouth hanging slightly open, mesmerized by the half-naked dancers. Rhio had laughed aloud when he heard Sikara had hired a male troupe from a local courtesan house called the Garden.

In the cupboard, Amae clapped a hand over her mouth, just to be on the safe side. The Queen certainly had a strange sense of humor. The entire Trinitarian delegation, save for Sethril, was rigid with offense. She couldn’t fault the grace of the performers—or their beauty. Acres of gorgeous male muscle, shamelessly displayed. ’Cestors’ bones, the Trinitarians’ faces were so funny!

But after that, the evening wore on and on. Amae entertained herself by staring at Rhio, standing behind the Queen at parade rest. His face was a studious blank, but it gave her ridiculous pleasure to realize she could read the subtle changes in his eyes, the way he held that magnificent body. By the First Mother, he was fine! She couldn’t ask for better.

If his plan worked . . . Her heart turned a somersault and tried to climb out of her throat.

Ruthlessly, Amae forced it back down. There’d never be a better time to run. Caracole was a big city. She could lose herself in the streets and the bastards would never find her.

She’d find a way to live. But—oh, gods, Rhio! How she’d miss him. But if she stayed, she’d put him in an impossible position. What was the penalty for harboring a fugitive slave in the Queendom? Let alone treason. She shivered.

Below, Giral bowed over the Queen’s hand, following her out into the dark of the colonnade, trailed by a gaggle of courtiers and diplomats. Over his shoulder, he cast a look of grim relish at Sethril. At last! Amae gripped her hands together to stop them shaking.

The assassin was working his way through a crowd of junior officials toward the dancers.

When Rhio stepped forward to tap him on the shoulder, he spun around, looking none too pleased. Rhio bowed, said something, and produced the prettydeath blade with the air of a conjurer. Immediately, a space opened around them. Heads turned; conversation

ceased.

As Sethril took the blade, Rhio spoke again. Even from a distance, Amae could see the blood drain from the assassin’s face. A jerky nod, and Sethril pushed his way through the crowd to vanish into the dark.

Feeling a little ill, Amae extricated herself from her hiding place. Gods, she was getting soft. Where was her warrior’s soul? Stealing downstairs, she flitted through the Palace gardens like a wraith. By the time Rhio returned, she was sitting up in his bed, freshly bathed, the fire lit.

“What did you