Dreams of Blood and Stardust

Ch. 1, part 3

For a moment, she remained as she was, frozen on top of him. Her mind was slow, her body unresponsive. The prince just kept staring up at her, brown eyes shining, breathing rapid.

Finally she managed to gasp, “Ryder?”

His eyes searched her face carefully. “Yes, Ryder. In fact, he just left my palace after telling me that he’d made contact with you, that he’d - that he’d told you.”

She glared at him. “Obviously he was lying.”

“Obviously,” he agreed easily. “Now will you please remove your knife from my throat?”

Absently, she did, stepping back from him. Her mind was far away, in the alleyway. He had not stumbled upon her by chance, then; nearly everything he’d said was a lie. Promise me, he’d said.

Vivian looked back to the prince and found him watching her, his expression careful. She studied him; his hands were ink stained, but he did not seem to even notice. His posture was calm, but ready. There was nothing of a lie in him, in his breathing or the dilation of his eye or his body language. Something about his face made her want to trust him. Still, she was not one to blindly listen to her gut without proof. She said, “Explain it to me. From the beginning.”

He held her eyes for a moment, a feat which impressed her. Her eyes were a strange, vivid green, and she knew the expression in them to be intense, dangerous. Finally, he nodded.

 

It was then that Vivian came to know that Ryder had been in the city for quite some time, a few months at least. He’d been hired by the prince’s younger sister immediately after coming into the city to investigate something in a nobleman’s home and steal something back. Instead, he had gotten the information and delivered it to the Princess, robbed the noble family he was investigating, and ran. By the time he was apprehended again, he had sold the item he had stolen. He was tasked with getting it back and returning it to the family, and then he was to be at the beck and call of the royal family until his debt was repaid. That was how Ryder came to be working with the prince investigating a rising suspicion in the court, and how he’d heard of a presence in the city, a thief they called Shadow, one who was never seen but well known in certain circles. He’d guessed it was her and realized Vivian was in the city, and had told the prince of her and her abilities, and how she could be of use to him in his endeavors.

When the prince finished his tale, she was quiet for a long time. She had long ago put the knife at her hip back in it’s sheath, and she clenched her hand around it now. She felt a strange sense of loss at his story, like she was missing something she’d had for all her life. She stared at the polished tiled floor, at the shadows dancing in the marble from the lone lamp in the room.

Finally she looked up at him, her expression sharp. She said, “What is it that you would have me investigate?”

He seemed a bit taken aback, but quickly he recovered. “It’s not - well.” He paused, struggling with his words. “Something is wrong in my court. Men who I’ve known my whole life, whom I trust, are betraying me. Small betrayals, selling pieces of information from my personal life to servants at my father’s palace, or placing an unkind word against me or my family where they normally would have put a kind one, but betrayals all the same.”

She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. “That’s it?” Vivian asked, and he clenched his jaw and nodded, his chin slightly upturned. “My friend,” she drawled, “it seems as though the tables have turned on you.” When he still said nothing, she popped her lip into a pout. “Poor dear,” she said to the wall. “He doesn’t know how to handle betrayal yet.”

His jaw feathered. “I am not some paranoid child,” he said, his voice carrying a little bit of bite, and her eyebrows rose of their own accord. “Ryder shares in my worries. He also believes that you could aid in rooting it out, if there is a problem, though I personally don’t see how a common thief would have the skills to do more than my own spies.”

Her eyebrows were practically in her hairline now, and her mouth opened in a purposeful O. She was enjoying this bit of backbone as it emerged from the genteel prince. “Common thief?” she echoed. “My, my, sounds like someone doesn’t want my help as much as they thought.”

Immediately, he softened, with the practice and ease she would expect of someone who grew up at court. “Forgive me,” he started, but she waved his apology off with a flutter of her hand.

“Oh, pish. I take no offense, princeling. I am no common thief, but it is no matter. Either you trust Ryder’s judgement on me or you don’t,” she said.

He stared at her, his eyes searching her face. The anger was gone from him now, only careful judgement. Vivian approved of his caution; it made her desire to trust him grow. She pushed it aside as she met his eyes, her chin raised defiantly, her palms loose against her thighs. Finally, he nodded. “I trust him,” he said in a subdued voice. She nodded back to him. “Will you take the job?” he asked. There was a hesitation in him, one that made her pause. By now she was intrigued, and most days that was enough to get her to take a job without delay, but something hung in his court, hid in the shadows and poked gently at her mind, manifesting itself as the quiver in her stomach that lingered long after the danger was gone, the tightness of her shoulders that would not ease. And she was not quite sure, as she took in this prince with his gentle eyes, that he could handle what she would find, if she truly went looking. She would not be drawn into this with him either way, at least not based on a simple gut feeling.

Lips pursed, she said, “I’ll consider it,” and ducked out the window.