Amongst Thieves

28.

Maize quickened her pace to match the beating of her heart and the pounding within her brain. With most of the palace still in attendance at the Grand Tournament, she was unbothered as she hastened her steps and returned to her rooms. Once there she kicked off her ruined slippers and quickly stripped out of her soiled dress, leaving both in a pile on the floor as she padded into the adjoined bathroom.

She turned the water to the hottest setting and found the most bubbliest bubbles and scentiest oils and stepped in before the water even had a chance to fill the bottom of the bathtub. Her impatience left her in a weird limbo between discomfort and weariness as she leaned her bare skin against the cool tub. It prickled her skin, the combination of searing water and chilled porcelain but her mind was a mess and she could barely focus on what she was feeling emotionally, let alone reacting to minor uneasiness for her own battered corpse.

That's what she felt like. A corpse. A shell.

A vessel for whatever it was that continued to live inside of her, and keep her moving forward.
There was a certain irony in that, she supposed. The one thing that she wanted to rid herself of the most was most likely the one thing that kept her going. But she made a promise to Ress— they would finish this damned mission, take Forge's money, pay off their debt to Celese and finally get the hell out of Dreduor.

But in order to do that... they needed the Legacy.

The identity of Lusciana's Legacy still thwarted them, and they were no closer to figuring it out now than they were the day they arrived. Even though Remembrance Day was in the late Queen's memory, no one seemed to want to talk about the deceased monarch— her name didn't come up once in any commemorations or announcements. The King flaunted her belongings like a trophy rather than in memoriam, and Laris... how did she even begin to approach the topic of his dead mother without giving away more than she was willing to?

She should have taken more time in Forge's room. She should have scoured every book he had because surely he had to have done some of his own research— chances were the books she couldn't find about the Legacy in the library had been there, stacked in piles on his floor the entire time. It would have made sense, too. If they couldn't solve his mystery, he wouldn't have to pay him, and honestly she hadn;t trusted Forge since the moment their paths crossed on that rooftop, and rightfully so. But she had been too distracted— first with the letter from Celese, and then with the pages referring to the revenant.

In regards to the former, she still hadn't completely processed. Celese all but turned them over to Forge for the damn Legacy, and they had lied to her about accepting the mission outside of the Den's code. She even wrote letters to her to continue to farce, all of which Celese knew the truth in it from the beginning. Maize sat in front of Celese and fed her the lie about Ress' aunt, all the while knowing Forge had already offered them the job because she was the one who told him too. Maize lied to her face and Celese smiled right through it.

But it was because of the latter discovery that she felt like she could trust Laris more than anyone else in that castle. If she was correct and he had the revenant, then he would be the only one who could possibly comprehend what she was going through, and potentially understand why she had to accept this mission and take Forge's money. Even if it involved stealing something so precious of his mother's the King felt the only way to showcase it would be ten years after her death.

He'd have to understand.

However, ever since arriving at the castle, or rather meeting Laris, the revenant itself was growing more restless than she had ever experienced. It could have been because she was without the herb—ruggoria, as it was more commonly called— since Josue, his supply, and the market were burned to the ground. Or there was a chance it was the first time she was closer to another with the same predicament. She had noticed only now that her own revenant seemed to quiet when Laris was near, and that his touch seemed to silence it completely.

It wasn't until she was in a high-stress, near-death situation without him near that everything seemed to spiral out of control. The strength she exhibited in the tournament field was not her own—she knew that now. It was as though a force took over her mind and her actions, and she knew where they originated. The presence within her was too familiar to ignore it, and she was terrified of what would happen the next time anything similar occurred.

She couldn't take that chance again.

Even if Ress met this contact, even if he discovered the source of the ruggoria within Dreduor with or without Cade's help now, it didn't matter. She had put him in too much danger, too much of a risk just because of her. Forge didn't even want him on this mission— did that mean Celese too was trying to keep them apart? And for what? More questions without answers that she knew she wasn't going to resolve just sitting on her ass.

They were so close to the end. They only had one more event— The Spectre's Vow. From there every last one of Lusciana's belongings would be on display and under constant surveillance and protection and their chances of stealing the Legacy would be slim to none. No, they had to act now, and act fast. There was just one thing Maize needed to do before anything else befell them.

Laris.

She hadn't even turned the water off before she was already standing up and stepping out of the bathtub. And she almost forgot to turn it off before she left the bathroom to get dressed. Her mind was elsewhere, and rightfully so. The time for contemplation was over. She needed to act. She'd find Laris and tell him everything— about her revenant, about their need to find Lusciana's Legacy, and who she really was and it wasn't a consort. She'd regroup with Ress and finally get to the bottom of what the hell Celese was trying to accomplish with putting them on this mission. And then they'd reveal Forge for the two-faced prick he truly was, take his money and get on that ship to Xelthan once and for all.

She dressed quickly—something more akin to her normal wear than that of the consort she was not. Leggings. An oversized cotton shirt that was probably Ress' at one point, belted at the waist with her knives. Boots. She was braiding her hair in the mirror, practicing how she'd confess everything to Laris when the door of her room was thrown open.

"What did I say about knocking first—" but her admonishment was overshadowed not only by the presence of Lawson Forge standing in the doorway, but also by the two palace guards on either side of him, with their hands on their swords. "What the hell is this all about?"

She already wanted to smack the arrogant smirk off of Forge's face, which immediately told her nothing good. "Prince Laris has requested your presence."

Maize's brows furrowed as she returned her attention back to the mirror to finish her hair. "You can tell him I'll see him in a moment."

The sound of steel scraping against leather had her spinning around, this time to see those guards now in her room with their swords drawn. Her first instinct was to grab her knives but she knew that would be a death wish with the way those guards were watching her, like they were waiting for her to do something stupid.

She swallowed and looked to Forge— that smug arrogance seething off of him. "But I insist, the matter is of the utmost importance, and it would be best that we not keep the prince waiting."
The guards didn't even wait for her response. They were surrounding her and corralling her out the door.

And Forge just stood there with the most disgusting smile on his face, looking like he won a game Maize didn't even know they were playing.