Bloodchild. Anna Stephens

hands and they were gone, taken in a heartbeat. I lost them.’ Her voice began to rise and Tara shushed her, but it was no good. One of the Raiders looked up, scowling, and Tara did the only thing she could: she shoved the toys into her basket and walked away. She wasn’t even around the corner before the screaming started.

      As King’s Second, Valan occupied the large suite of rooms formerly belonging to the dead Prince Janis. Familiar with the palace’s layout from the siege, Tara knew exactly which corridors and shortcuts led from the suite to the king’s chambers. Handy, for when the time came, and the brief moment with the mason today gave her hope it would be soon. Getting the Rankers on side was easy enough, but they needed every slave rebelling at once, rising in every Circle and every district and causing so much chaos that no one would notice her slipping through the palace and putting a knife in Corvus’s heart before drowning Lanta in her own filthy, sacrilegious godpool.

      If only it could happen now. Tara didn’t do regret as a rule, but right now she was regretting buying those wooden horses with rare intensity. It had taken hard work and luck and the exact right mixture of defiance, ability and humility to charm Valan, but it could all come crashing down around her if he took exception to her decision-making.

      Tara had laid out the purchases on the big table in Valan’s suite and moved to her place by the door to await his return, when she’d have the honour of taking his weapons and boots and presenting him with wine and food. She got to remove his armour and then pour his bath, a luxury he couldn’t get enough of down here in the warm lands.

       So fucking honoured.

      She also got to tell him about any infractions by the other slaves during his absence, what the kitchens had prepared for him, and any messages that had arrived while he’d waited on the king. She tried to convince herself it was the same as being Mace’s adjutant back before the world had gone to shit, but then Mace had never insisted she scrub his back while he sat bollock-naked in a bathtub. She shuddered and reminded herself it was nothing like being an adjutant, because she’d never been one. She was an officer’s wife, not an officer.

      Her palms began to sweat when she heard his footsteps in the corridor outside. The other five slaves were locked in what must have once been Janis’s study. They were always locked away when the second left his apartments; Tara’s disguise as the wife of Major Vaunt had convinced Valan that she wouldn’t risk her husband’s safety by attempting to escape.

      ‘Welcome back, honoured,’ she said, as she did every single time, an affectation he enjoyed. He shoved his sword at her and strode into the main room, threw himself into a chair. She knelt at his feet and tugged off his boots, put them in the corner and then handed him a cup.

      ‘I got everything you requested,’ she said and gestured at the table. Valan grunted, rolling the wine around in his mouth as he wandered over. The fabric was arranged in what she thought was an artful sweep that hid the ragged edge where she’d cut it. The four cups and plates occupied the centre of the table along with the linens, and behind them stood the wooden horses.

      A muscle flickered in Valan’s cheek. ‘I did not ask for those,’ he said.

      Tara curtseyed. ‘No, honoured. Forgive me, honoured. The linens were so reasonably priced I had enough left over and more. I … was not sure whether your daughters would be able to bring any toys with them and I thought you might want to show you’d been thinking of them.’

      Valan’s expression was unreadable.

      ‘I can try and sell them on, honoured,’ she added quickly, voice quickening with anxiety, ‘or … or use them as kindling for the fire.’

      ‘Expensive kindling,’ Valan commented and drank some more.

      ‘Forgive me,’ she said again, ‘I should not have done it. I’ll get the money back somehow, I swear. I thought—’

      ‘You’ve done well. Where’s supper?’

      Tara bit off any more excuses and bobbed another curtsey, hurried to the smaller table set by the window where Valan liked to eat and lifted the heavy wooden cover off the plate. Cold meats, bread, cheese and greens and Tara’s stomach gurgled at the sight, wooden horses forgotten.

      Valan pushed past her and sat, gestured for more wine and Tara stood by his side and watched him eat and drink food and wine that didn’t belong to him while thousands of slaves went hungry.

      Her stomach rumbled again and a brief smile crossed Valan’s face. He picked up a half-eaten roll of bread and tossed it on to the floor. She stared at it, and then back at him, and then she picked it up and brushed it off and ate it.

      It was three days before she could get back to the market, but the mason was still there. He’d moved along the wall a little, and while she knew nothing about masonry it didn’t look like he’d made much progress. Perhaps Vaunt had managed to get word out to slow the work and it had spread beyond the Rankers forced to do the labouring.

      Tara circled the market a couple of times, wondering how best to approach the mason and what she could say, when he solved it for her. She was a dozen strides away when he reared back from the wall with the bellow of a wounded bull, a scarlet spray arcing out of the shade and across the discarded and broken stone.

      The man went to his knees, clutching his hand to his chest, and Tara moved for him with the instinct of a soldier to a wounded comrade. ‘Let me see, let me see,’ she said, prising at his supporting hand. The slice across his palm wasn’t deep but it was long and bleeding freely.

      ‘Merol, son of Merle Stonemason who died defending this wall,’ the man hissed and then let out another bleat of pain.

      ‘You! What are you doing?’ a Raider demanded.

      Tara stood up in order to curtsey. ‘Forgive me, honoured, I have a little skill in healing. I only thought to help so he would be able to continue working.’

      ‘Healer?’ the Mireces said sharply.

      ‘No, honoured. Just some skills I picked up over the years. I can clean and stitch this. Your will, honoured.’

      Merol bleated again. ‘I can’t lose me hand, milord, please. Forgive the interruption, I’m sure I’ll be able to work again once the bleeding’s stopped.’

      Tara was sure of no such thing but she held her tongue. ‘Get on with it then,’ the Raider snapped. ‘Over there, out of the way of those doing actual work. And I’ll be reporting this to your owner, bitch. What’s his name?’

      ‘Second Valan, honoured,’ Tara said and both Merol and the Mireces sucked in a breath. ‘Come, man. Sit down. You’re lucky my master sent me out for needle and thread among other things.’

      The mason sat carefully on a broken-down crate that creaked under his weight. ‘Tara Vaunt, wife of Major Tomaz Vaunt of the Palace Rank, currently imprisoned in the south barracks in Second Circle,’ she breathed.

      Merol pulled his hand out of hers. ‘Know Vaunt by reputation,’ he said quietly. ‘Didn’t know he had a wife.’ Tara got ready to run. ‘But then it’s a big city and I don’t know everything, do I? I mean, I know about walls and buildings. I know about gates.’ His eyes bored into hers. ‘I know about quiet routes from the harbours to First Circle, even, in the slaughter district.’

      Tara licked her lips. ‘You know a lot, Merol; you’re clearly a useful man. But are you a loyal man?’

      ‘Loyal to who? I got my da’s reputation to live up to and that’s enough for me,’ Merol said and put his hand back in hers.

      She broke eye contact and examined the cut. ‘Does it hurt?’

      ‘Nah,’ Merol said. ‘Just opened up an existing scar; barely felt it. I saw what you done the other day, how that stall-holder threatened you and you stood up to him. Made me think you were someone worth knowing.’

      ‘You cut your hand open for the right reasons then, Merol,’ Tara said as she dabbed at the wound and