The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani (story reading .TXT) 📕

of the king or his son, but the princess will do the kingdom some good, and . . . neither anarchy nor a puppet king appeal.”

“So what? We quiver in fear and do nothing?” I don’t want to endanger the royal family, but I’m not giving up either.

Bren grins. “I can’t really imagine you quivering, to tell the truth.”

“Oh, hush! It’s a real question. I have to keep trying. I’ve seen what it does to a family to lose a child like that. And those boys—there are more like them out there. And girls.” The idea of girls like my sisters—of Bean—being stolen and sold into a brothel—of Seri—I can’t.

I look up at Bren. “I’m not going to stop when there’s still so much that needs to be done.”

“No, you’re not,” he agrees, a quiet statement of fact.

“Are you?” I ask uncertainly.

“No. But I don’t know how much I can actually help you beyond this.”

“I can’t share the sash,” I admit. “Not yet. But if what I think is true, then the Blessing doesn’t do what it claims either.”

“You think the Speakers are involved?” Bren asks dubiously.

“I don’t know. But the cups they use are enchanted as well, aren’t they? Not just blessed?”

He nods slowly. “They are. I always thought it was convenient how a child couldn’t keep their memory of being snatched, no matter what.”

A shiver runs through me.

Bren smiles tiredly. “I grew up knowing what was necessary for a thief to survive. It doesn’t take very much: you must never be caught, and never leave behind either clues or a witness. The slavers have it down to an art.” He raises a hand toward me, lets it fall. “If you wish, I should be able to get you the items from the Blessing. Do you have someone you trust who can look at them?”

I’d send them to Niya, but there’s no way to discuss this with her without fear of being found out. Which leaves . . . Stonemane. I’d rather not owe him a favor—there are stories warning against owing the Fae anything at all—but I can’t see a way around that.

“Yes,” I say. “But don’t steal them. If the Speaker you take them from doesn’t know they’re missing until they’re needed . . .”

“I’ll buy them off a Speaker for more than it will take them to get a new set,” Bren says. “Probably the same Speaker you saw today. She’s quiet, and trustworthy, and needs the money for her elderly father.”

I nod, and glance about the streets. They’re starting to look familiar again—there is the road we took to the brickmaker’s yard. Which brings me back to the first thought that struck me when Artemian and I arrived tonight. “I thought you said you weren’t going to help the boys.”

Bren shrugs. “Turns out Kel Téran likes his drink. It was easy enough to have a man join him at the local tavern and hand him a bottle with a little something extra to make him sleep. He won’t know what happened till sometime tomorrow, at which point the boys will be long gone.”

“But you planned that, however easy you say it was. Why?”

Bren snorts. “You asked me to steal them, now you’re asking why?”

“I didn’t—”

“Didn’t you?”

I wrap my arms across my chest. He’s right, and I don’t regret it one bit. “Maybe I did, but they were stolen from their families. And you said you wouldn’t.”

“Changed my mind,” Bren says quietly.

Even though they were on the Scholar’s territory. And I’m grateful for it. “Will you send them home?”

“Certainly. I think it a very good use of the money I lifted off of you when we first met.”

“Are you—” I cut myself off as he outright laughs at me. I take another deep breath, not sure why I’m so infuriated, and say, “I would have given it freely had I known.”

“Mmm. More’s the pity, that.”

“My ring you took—that was my grandmother’s.”

He raises his brows.

“I’ll buy it back from you.”

“Oh, Rae, no!” he cries with exaggerated horror. “That would be closer to blackmail, and I’m not such a criminal as all that. But I’ll take good care of it, now I know how special it was to you.”

Oh, the nerve of the man! “It wouldn’t be a crime, you know, if you didn’t steal once in a while.”

“I don’t know about that,” he says, his voice light and cutting as a blade. “I’d say it was a crime for the brickmaker to buy each and every one of those boys, to keep them captive and engage his neighbors so that they wouldn’t have even a hope of escape. What’s more wrong, Rae? That he would do that, or that I stole those boys out from under his nose and left him to deal with the consequences?”

I shake my head. “I won’t argue about the brickmaker, but—”

“Then you have no argument. What’s the law but one man’s decision of right versus wrong? I make my decisions how I see fit.”

“Bren,” I say, fighting frustration. Hurrying through darkened streets doesn’t seem like the right time to discuss the value of rule of law, but I ought to give it a little effort at least. “If everyone makes their own decisions on that, we’ll descend into anarchy. And then what we’re trying to fight right now? The ‘right’ of men to steal others and sell them into slavery? That’s what will gain power. Oppression gains power. Just because we disagree with the law doesn’t mean we destroy it. You yourself told me that you don’t want anarchy. That Alyrra should change the laws.”

“That’s because she is who she is. I, on the other hand, don’t have that kind of power. So I’ll make my own law around the edges of this one. And some of the wrongs will be righted.”

“Because all you do is look out for the poor and oppressed? You, and Artemian, and Red Hawk?”

He laughs. “Not likely. Does the king not reward himself and his closest allies for their work ruling his realm? So, we all