Lisa Shearin - Con & Conjure

And I couldn’t say a damned thing to prove that I wasn’t a prince killer.

The weather wizard controlling the boats had probably fished himself out of the harbor and was long gone by now. The pilots were blown up so there was no proof that they were Khrynsani, not elves. And to top it off, Chigaru’s people were well aware that I didn’t like him, and he didn’t trust me.

It was too much and too complicated for anyone to believe.

“No one move!” Tam roared. That order was intended for every goblin on the dock and yacht, but Tam’s dark eyes were leveled squarely on our over-eager guards. Their grip lightened. A little.

Imala knelt beside the prince, quickly pulling his long, wet hair away from his neck and throat. She hissed a curse, and pulled a tiny dart from the back of the prince’s neck with her gloved hand. She quickly but carefully examined the wound, the dart, and lifted back one of the prince’s eyelids.

“Baelusa,” she told Tam.

I had no idea what baelusa was, but Imala’s glare and Tam’s spat curse told me it meant plenty to them.

The goblin healer knelt beside the prince, his healing magic a living, pulsing thing. He placed one hand over Chigaru’s chest, holding the other a few inches above the prince’s mouth. A spiral tattoo on the back of both hands darkened from blood red to almost black. I felt the steady strength of air being pulled into Chigaru’s lungs and being pushed out from his nose and mouth.

The harbor around us was chaos, but no one on the dock moved or spoke.

Suddenly, the goblin prince gasped and started coughing.

Tam’s glare went from the guards to the goblins gathered on the yacht’s deck—the prince’s courtiers, personal guards, and mages. Imala’s eyes quickly took in the faces of everyone on that deck, storing them for later questioning.

One of them had just tried to assassinate their prince.

That dart had taken the prince in the back of the neck. The person who fired it had to have been standing behind him. Every goblin on Chigaru’s yacht had been standing behind him. One of his own tried to poison him. Khrynsani disguised as elves tried to blow him up. And an unknown assassin armed with a crossbow wasn’t about to be left out of the fun and took his own shot.

Someone—or several someones—wanted Chigaru really dead. Blown up, shot, and poisoned all in less than ten seconds. I think the goblin prince just set a new assassination attempt record.

Imala stood and carefully wrapped the dart in a small square of cloth. That done, she turned to our guards, who were still dutifully not tearing us in two. “Release them,” she told them. “Now!” she snapped when they didn’t immediately obey.

They did as ordered. As I straightened my doublet, I noted with satisfaction that she memorized their faces for later, too.

So there.

“Raine,” Imala called with a pointed glance back at the fancy goblin courtiers on the yacht. “Would you be so kind as to tell me who fired this dart?”

Imala knew I was a seeker, and that finding or simply identifying someone based on their connection to an object was one of my best tricks. Phaelan and I walked over to her and not one goblin dared to stop us. I carefully accepted the cloth-wrapped dart from her.

I glanced at the healer. “When he removes that bolt, I might be able to tell you who notched it.”

The head of the goblin secret service gave me a dazzling smile complete with dimple. “You’ll have the eternal gratitude of the goblin people.”

I knew of at least two goblin people who wouldn’t be grateful—the ones whose faces I’d be describing to Imala.

As Tam stood up, one of the goblin guards picked up his robe from the dock and respectfully draped it around Tam’s shoulders. The robe fell past the heels of his boots, and even sopping wet, Tam looked like a prince himself. Though Tam would have been the kind of prince who could wake a sleeping princess at fifty paces. Just because we weren’t involved didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate what was there in all of its tall, silvery-skinned, black-eyed wicked sexiness.

Imala nodded to her pair of dripping-wet agents who moved to prevent anyone from leaving the prince’s yacht.

“They were only doing their jobs, Raine,” Tam said, his voice low. “Something blows up and a Benares is close by.” He glanced at Phaelan. “Make that two.”

Phaelan snorted. “They do their jobs too damned well. Raine was trying to stop that boat, not push it.”

“And I had it until Chigaru’s mages horned in on my spell,” I said. “There wouldn’t have been an explosion if they’d let me finish.”

“Let you finish him off!” the healer snarled.

“Chatar!” Tam snapped. “She is not at fault. That will be all.”

The goblin thought about saying something, and decided to do as ordered. I knew he wouldn’t forget me, and for my own health, I memorized his face, too.

Tam’s hand was on my elbow, steering me away from the prince, his trigger-happy guards, and spell-happy mage. Phaelan gave the healer an I’m-not-through-with-you-yet look and followed us.

“You can understand his animosity, Raine,” Tam said. “Those pilots were elves.”

“Those pilots were Khrynsani,” I shot back. “Two of their assassins with glamours.”

Tam scowled. “What?”

“You didn’t see them when they dropped their glamours?”

“No. They were too close to the yacht.”

Oh, freaking marvelous. Even the goblins thought they were being attacked by elves. No wonder Chigaru’s healer wanted to take my head off. The Khrynsani hadn’t succeeded in blowing Chigaru up, and the assassin hadn’t shot a fatal hole through him, but the damage had been more than done. Within the hour, every goblin on the island would believe that a pair of elven suicide bombers had tried to assassinate their prince. Regardless of which Mal’Salin brother they were loyal to, more than a few goblins would see it as their duty to start sending elves to slabs at the city morgue.

With an enraged shout and some decidedly un-regal swearing, Chigaru expressed his displeasure at that healer/ mage removing the bolt. For what I could see, the healer had cut away the prince’s leather doublet, revealing body armor underneath. Well, at least the prince wasn’t completely stupid and had taken some precautions. The bolt hadn’t penetrated far. I turned and looked at the shoreline.

There were a lot of civilians who didn’t need to be here, and entirely too few city watchmen and Guardians. With the exception of his own people, Chigaru had sailed into Mid’s harbor with no protection whatsoever.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone he was arriving early?”

Tam lowered his voice even further. “I didn’t know,” he said barely moving his lips. Impressive. He clearly didn’t want anyone to know that little piece of information. Tam shot an exasperated look in the prince’s direction. “I didn’t know until Imala told me, and she didn’t know until half an hour ago.”

Phaelan laughed, a short bark. “The crazy bastard’s trying to commit suicide.”

I looked at the prince and almost smiled. “Someone’s going to get a lecture.”

“And then some,” Tam promised. “I know what he was trying to do—and I’ll be having a long talk with His Highness about never doing that again.”

“Playing assassin bait?”

Tam nodded once. He wasn’t looking at the shoreline; he was looking at the windows of the buildings within crossbow-sniper distance of the yacht. There were entirely too many of them, and the shooter was long gone, probably already planning his next attempt.

There couldn’t be one.

If Chigaru died, the hopes of preventing the goblins from inciting a war died with him.