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Nia did not remember how old she was the first time she stole. She must have been very young, though, to have been so small.
She did remember sitting out in the garden on Mama’s lap for tea, watching Hector and Paris as they ran around the lemon trees. She tugged on Mama’s sleeve and pointed, and Mama let her down gently to go play with her brother and cousin.
Before she could sprint for the boys, however, Nia heard the voice through the hedges, the whisper on the wind, urging her in the other direction.
The earrings, Eugenia. I want the earrings.
Nia turned and saw them, glinting merrily in the sunlight, dangling from Aunt Helen’s ears. Later, she could not tell you if they were silver or gold, rubies or diamonds, long or short. She just knew the earrings were beautiful, and she understood immediately why the voice on the wind wanted them so desperately.
Nia toddled over to Aunt Helen and held up her arms then, and all the adults present laughed as Mama pouted and Aunt Helen pulled Nia into her lap and hugged her close.
Nia made a show of resting her head on both Helen’s shoulders tiredly, of playing with her short hair and the necklace lying on her chest. Aunt Helen didn’t mind, just smiled softly as she rubbed Nia’s back and continued to talk with the adults at the table.
Nia felt a bit badly then, and thought about simply slipping the earrings out of her sleeve and back in place.
It is done, Little Thief. Eddis will understand. He promised.
Nia hoped he was right.
Task completed, Nia slipped down from Aunt Helen’s lap and walk around the table slowly, careful of the treasure hidden in her sleeve. When she reached Papa, she lifted her arms up and the adults laughed again.
“You’re certainly making the rounds today, aren’t you, my love?” Papa asked as he tapped her nose, making Nia giggle. He attempted to turn her around on his lap so she could face the table, but Nia squirmed away and stuck her little hand up her sleeve, retrieving her treasures.
“Papa,” she said, making a fist around the earrings and patting it against her free hand. Intrigued, Papa offered his hand forward and open.
Nia dropped the earrings into Papa’s hand and the table went startlingly silent. Nia watched guiltily as Aunt Helen felt at her ears for the missing earrings and gaped.
Papa faced her then, his arms tight about her shoulders. He was smiling, but there was something sad about his brown eyes, something thoughtful and frightening and fierce.
“Why did you take the earrings, Eugenia?”
“He told me.”
Behind them, someone gasped. Papa brushed a hand against her cheek and shook his head. “Do you know who he is, my love?”
Nia shook her head.
“He is our god, Nia, the god who has chosen us, and the one after which we have both been named. When he speaks to you, you must always do as he says. For as long as we have his favor, we shall never fall.”
Then, Papa plucked her into his arms and stood, and carried her all the way to the temple of Eugenides, where Nia slipped Aunt Helen’s pretty earrings into the bowl on the altar and made her first offering.
The first of many.
***
***
***
Nia pouted as Phresine tucked her tightly into bed, a glass of water on her nightstand and Hector sleeping soundly in the cot across the room.
“But I want to go, too,” Nia whined, crossing her arms across her body as Phresine looked to the heavens for guidance. “Three weeks is much too long; Papa will miss me too much. I must go with him.”
Phresine shook her head with a sigh, then looked at Nia’s arms, possibly contemplating if she could get away with tying the little girl to the bed. The nurse sighed again.
“If Lieutenant Costis catches you on the roof again, Your Highness, your mother will have all our heads. His Majesty will be fine, it is only an inspection of the forts. He will be home before you know it. Now, it is time for all the good little princes and princesses to go to sleep.” Phresine said emphatically, looking pointedly at Hector sleeping peacefully along the other wall, then to little Alyta, being rocked by Chloe slowly in the alcove through the door.
Nia scrunched her nose. “I am not a princess; I am a Thief!” she whispered as loudly as she dared.
Phresine muttered something that sounded astonishingly like “Gods help us all,” before bending down to kiss Nia’s brow.
“Good night then, Little Thief. Please, please go to sleep.”
Nia didn’t mean to listen. But Phresine looked very tired, and the climb up to the roof had worn Nia out before mean old Costis had scrambled after her across the tiles, caught her with a yelp and carried her back to the nursery.
So, for once, Nia listened.
***
Nia’s eyes flew open, maybe minutes, maybe hours later. The nursery was dark, the candles all out. Hector and Alyta’s familiar breaths were the only sounds in the room.
But Nia could feel him beside her, standing silently. With barely a whisper of movement, a heavy bundle of clothes was dropped at the end of her bed.
Nia smiled widely. The ghost at her bedside tapped the top of her hand twice, before swiping their fingers along the top of her wrist, Pheris’ special sign.
Quickly. Go quickly, Nia.
Nia got out of bed quietly as she could and pulled off her nightgown, her bare feet tingling on the cold stone until she shrugged on the thick wool socks from the pile. She finished dressing as fast as she could, until she was left in wool breeches, a big jumper, a warm traveling cloak and her special boots.
Blindly, Nia reached out and squeezed the figure’s hand.
He picked her up then, and went first to Hector, leaned down to kiss his head and pull the blankets up to his chin. Then, to Alyta in the crib, where he offered his finger for her little hand to hold before finally pulling away.
Instead of going out the door or window like Nia expected, he carried her to the bookcase beyond Alyta’s little nook. A familiar hook reached out and pulled back a book from the top shelf, and part of the bookcase lurched inward silently.
Nia slapped a hand to her mouth to hold in her surprised gasp. The arms around her tightened; Nia imagined his happy grin.
Then, he set her on her feet alone in the damp and frightening corridor and swung the secret door shut behind them, plunging them into darkness.
Nia swallowed thickly. “Papa?” she whispered to the void.
A scratch against the stone, the hiss and spark of flint, then Papa’s happy grin didn’t just exist in her imagination anymore.
Sighing in relief, Nia reached forward and wrapped the fingers of both hands around his wrist, just above the hook.
“Am I going to the forts with you, Papa?” Nia whispered as her led her down the passageway.
“That,” Papa said, voice bright, “Is just our cover, my darling. You and I are headed on an adventure.”
“All by ourselves?”
“All by ourselves.”
“For three whole weeks?” Nia asked, awestruck by the possibilities. Three whole weeks, out of the palace. Outside, with snow and horses and hills and trees, with no mean old Costis keeping her from the roof, or Mother making her wear dresses, or Phresine telling her to go to bed.
Three whole weeks of freedom, just she and Papa against the world.
“Three whole weeks,” Papa agreed with a hum. “It will be marvelous.”
Papa, as always, was right.
***
***
***
Nia and Hector were only eight, little Alyta barely five when their caravan from Eddis was ambushed and they were taken hostage.
Nia didn’t remember most of it.
Hector told her, years later, that she was clever and brave, light on her feet and ruthlessly efficient.
Alyta told Nia she was desperately frightened by her that day.
But, try as she might, Nia did not remember the mercenaries. She didn’t remember Phresine’s fateful end. She didn’t remember Costis falling into the ravine with a sword in his belly or Pheris getting bashed in the head or Alyta’s terrified cries for their mother.
She remembered the end, though.
She remembered walking up to the palace with Hector in the dead of night, Alyta cradled in his arms. She remembered demanding that Aristogiton bring Eugenides to her.
She remembered Mother running through the courtyard, calling all their names, anguished tears streaming down her face as she held Hector and Alyta close.
And she remembered Mother falling to her knees before her, kissing the hem of her torn and dirty dress before sitting up and kissing her brow.
“Thank you,” she whispered, pulling the earrings out of her own ears and fastening them in Nia’s. They were her favorite earrings, the ones Father had given her at their betrothal, the gold filigree studded with rubies. “Thank you for my children.”
Then Papa was there, pulling Nia into his arms, his own face wet with tears.
“Ormentiedes lives yet,” Nia informed him. “As does the young Erondites. They will need to be retrieved.” Papa nodded.
“Do not overreach, Eugenides. Do not forget your limits. The ending will be different next time if you do not change course.”
Papa bowed his head. Nia watched his tears fall to the dirt below.
“Let her go,” Papa whispered softly, rubbing his thumb over the new cut, shaped like a feather, at the corner of her eye. “Please let her go,” he begged. “Give me back my child.”
“She belongs to no one but fate, Eugenides.” Nia said.
Then, a howling wind spirited through the courtyard, whipping the flags and the tree branches and the guards’ capes in wild frenzy. Papa hugged her close and held her face tightly against his neck.
The wind ended. Nia gasped.
Then, she burst into horrified tears.
***
***
***
Five days after they turned twelve, Hector informed Nia that as he’d finally surpassed her in height, he would remain taller than her forevermore.
Nia summarily informed Hector that she didn’t care one lick how tall Hector got, so long as she was always able to climb higher than he.
Which, in turn, led to a tree climbing contest with the big oak in the garden, after lessons with Kamet were completed for the day. Nia may have been the Thief, but they were raised by the same father, and for all his stuffiness and manners, Hector knew how to sneak. Not as well as Nia, but he knew how, and both slipped their guards and scuttled away separately to meet in the empty courtyard for their contest in the hot afternoon sun.
“First to the top?” Hector asked, rueful smile on his face as he stuck out his hand. Nia took it and shook firmly, looking up (slightly, only slightly, Hector wasn’t that tall yet) to meet his brown eyes.
“Count of three,” Nia agreed, and both hiked back their sleeves as they counted together, before sprinting to the tree to climb.
Nia won. Nia was first to the top.
That fact, however, seemed relatively trivial when the topmost branch, holding both Nia and Hector, unexpectedly broke and fell far beneath their feet.
“Don’t let go!” Nia screamed at her brother, his grip latched around her like the desperate lifeline it was as they hung, suspended miraculously in midair, not a thing besides each other to hold them steady. “Don’t let go, Hector!”
“Nia,” Hector cried, his voice choked. His hand was slipping; Nia reached down her other hand and clamped onto his wrist as well as she could. “Nia!”
“HELP!” she shouted, then her shoulder wrenched and Hector dropped further and she wailed. “HELP!”
A crowd gathered far beneath them, guards swarming, women crying. There were calls for Petrus, calls for the priests to witness the miracle. Calls for the king and queen.
“Can you climb up?” Nia said through a groan. “Just climb up and get to another branch. I’ll be fine.” Hector tugged and pulled and tried, then Nia bit down so hard on her scream as he wrenched her aching shoulder that she could taste blood.
The gathered guards obtained a large tapestry from the nearby hall and pulled it taut below them.
“Drop him!” Costis bellowed from the ground. “We’ll catch him, Your Highness! Drop him!”
Nia’s eyes widened.
“Just do it, Nia, I’ll be fine,” Hector promised evenly; his eyes were full of tears. “It’s alright. It’s alright. Just drop me.”
“No!” she screamed. “NO! I WON’T, I WON’T!”
Something in her shoulder popped then, and she positively wailed.
Sometimes, a voice whispered on the wind, Sometimes, we can save only ourselves, Little Thief. No matter how beloved a brother may be.
“NO!” Nia cried again, her voice echoed by a familiar, but agonized, cry below. Nia twisted her head to find the voice and--
She fell.
***
Costis’ mad scheme with the tapestry worked, to a degree. Hector and Nia did not hit the ground.
But as they twisted and fell through the air, to the cacophony and shouts and cries, hands still linked, Nia maneuvered herself underneath her brother, because what is a Thief without her king?
[What is a twin without the other half of her heart?]
Hector landed on top of Nia.
Hector was, miraculously, unhurt.
Nia was not.
***
“Stupid child,” Mother said immediately when she saw Nia’s green eyes open, pulling her gently but firmly into her arms. “You insolent, reckless little fool.” She sat back against Nia’s headboard, holding them both against the mound of pillows, careful of the sling on Nia’s arm.
Mother pressed a kiss to the top of Nia’s head, then wiped Nia’s cheeks with a lacy handkerchief before wiping her own.
“Is Hector alright?” Nia croaked. Mother picked up a cup of water from the nightstand and held it to her lips like a baby. Nia felt awful enough that she let it go.
“He’s fine, darling.” Mother said with a sigh. “Absolutely fine.”
They were both silent for a while; Mother continued to hold her close, stroking Nia’s tangled mess of hair gently. Nia closed her eyes.
“What am I going to do with you, Eugenia?” Mother whispered. “What am I going to do?”
Nia pretended to sleep so long, eventually she actually did.
***
“He dropped me,” Nia said to the familiar presence at her bedside the moment she woke. “Eugenides dropped me.”
“You lived. You both did,” Papa countered. Nia looked at him in the flickering candlelight and nearly winced. He looked awful, tired and ragged and unshaven, like he hadn’t slept in days. His coat was a wrinkled, subdued navy blue with no adornments, and that, more than anything, informed Nia of just how dire it had been.
“He told me that sometimes we can only save ourselves. No matter how beloved a brother may be. I said no.”
Papa winced.
“You cannot overreach, Eugenia. Goodwill from the gods is a tenuous thing, and you were already born both a princess and a Thief. The gods are wary of those with power, you must listen when they speak to you.”
“So, I was supposed to let my brother die?” Nia cried out, tears dripping down her cheeks. Papa bowed his head and grabbed her hand.
“You were supposed to trust that we could keep him safe for you. You didn’t have to fall, Nia.”
“Yes, I did.” Papa looked away.
***
***
***
Nia tapped the counter, meeting eyes with the barmaid and tossing her a coin as she poured Nia another glass of wine. As Nia looked into the depths of the barely passable fare before taking another long swig, the seat beside her was soundlessly filled.
“Took you long enough,” Nia complained, still not deigning to look up from her cup. The stranger beside her scoffed.
“I’m not as young as I once was. These days, your mother does her best to have me tailed.”
“And where has poor Costis ended up tonight?”
“The harbor,” he said, and Nia finally looked up to see her father’s beatific grin. Nia rolled her eyes.
“By the harbor, or in the harbor?” She specified. Father didn’t answer, still grinning, and Nia shook her head.
“One of these days he will finally quit, and you shall rage for a week before falling to a terrible depression. Then you shall interrupt his idyllic retirement on his large farm with Kamet and beg him to return because you miss him so.”
Father looked at her oddly for a moment, before shaking his head with a rueful smile. “This is the danger in having children, my love. In the end, they know you better than you know yourself.”
Nia rolled her eyes again and shoved his shoulder with hers, before whispering, “Do not call me that. I am Gen the messenger boy, remember?” She indicated the cap on her head, the flowy shirt tucked into wool trousers and sturdy boots. Father scrunched his nose.
“You’ll not be able to use that cover much longer.” Nia pouted. She knew he was right, that her growing chest and hips and long hair were doing no favors at all for her favorite disguise, and the thought made her unspeakably sad. There was a freedom in being Gen that Nia never had, a freedom Princess Eugenia locked away most days.
It would be a terrible thing, to lose Gen, and she didn’t much like to think about it.
“So, so, so,” Nia said instead, and Father grimaced.
“Those are the kind of slip-ups that get you killed,” Father reprimanded. “You can’t use an Attolian phrase with an Eddisian accent. It raises too many questions.”
“Perhaps my mother is Attolian,” Nia countered archly, “The best lies are born of the truth, you taught me that.”
Father raised he eyes to the heavens, then grinned again.
“I cannot argue with you there. What news, my Gen?” Father asked, leaning closer under the guise of taking away her cup. She sighed and let him, then gave her reports from her week among the Sounisians.
“The Medes are going to treat with Brael and Gant within the next year. There are talks of a marriage between the Prince of Gant and the Emperor’s youngest daughter. If the treaty occurs and an invasion is planned, Brael and Gant will be given the pass through the mountains, while Mede gains control of the Little Peninsula.”
Father leaned back in his chair, contemplative. “Well, we knew they had not been stopped forever. It was only a matter of time before the Medes tried again. We’ll have to treat with Roa, and--,”
“Ferria.” Nia concluded, and Father nodded. “If we have a strong enough alliance with Ferria and they help us block the roads, Brael and Gant do not have enough ships to send their soldiers through.”
“What of the new Median heir’s visit to Attolia?”
Nia shrugged. “A distraction. A sign of peace for us while a new invasion was planned behind our backs.”
Father hummed. “It is much to think on. You’ve done well,” he added, and Nia could not help her blush at the praise. It had been a long week of listening in wine shops, making deliveries for aristocrats throughout the city, looking and listening for foreigners on their own scouting missions.
Her breakthrough, in the end, had been card game in the back room of a wine shop owned by a Braeling immigrant. A front, for an early treat between some Medes ‘doing business’ in the city. Nia had sat uncomfortably in the vents and listened for hours, remembering all that should could of their dates and plans, to write down later for Father.
“Did you see any other interesting things this week, my Gen?” Father asked.
Nia’s thoughts went immediately to Paris and Alyta’s sweet, soft kiss in the broom cupboard of the megaron. But that, she thought, was not Father’s business.
Not yet, at least.
“Not really,” Nia hummed, voice practicably vague. “The city was glad to see you yesterday. It’s always great fun to actually watch the parades instead of participate in them. The candies were a nice touch, the children loved them.”
“So, so, so,” Father said quietly, sipping his own cup and looking pensive. Nia had done well; she knew she had, as Father was never effusive with praise when it came to her skillset. But the news she brought, while not unexpected, was uncomfortably troubling. After sixteen years without so much as a word from the Medes, the thought of another war would not be easily explained or well-received.
“A widow,” Father said with a snap of his fingers, and Nia swung her head toward him in shock.
“What?” Nia sputtered, and Father grinned slyly.
“Once you’ve outgrown Gen, just be Irene, the young, heartbroken, beautiful widow. Nobody looks twice at widows; they make people highly uncomfortable, and you’ll have to wear a veil, so nobody will ever see your face. It’s the perfect disguise.”
It was the perfect disguise.
Father didn’t need to know she thought so, though. It was her job to keep his ego in check, after all.
“Do you say so from experience?”
Father tilted his head back and laughed.
***
***
***
“Your Majesty, the tales of your daughters’ beauty have certainly not been exaggerated,” Prince Rajesh purred as he leaned down to kiss Nia’s hand. Nia slid slightly to the right, keeping Alyta firmly behind her. To her left, Nia could practically hear Hector grinding his teeth.
“All from their mother,” Father said with a laugh; only those who knew him best could hear the anger, but even the prince heard the subtle warning in his tone. He backed away from Nia and bowed respectfully.
“This one could nearly pass as a Mede, with her lovely skin,” the prince continued, nodding his head again toward Nia. “Except for her eyes. Like emeralds sparkling in the sun.”
Nia bit her lip; her eyes turned to slits as she glared. Beside Father, Mother cleared her throat. “Where is your new wife, Your Highness?” she asked primly, and Nia smiled.
“She is in a family way, Your Majesty, due to give birth very soon.” He replied airily. Father frowned.
“We apologize to keep you from such a momentous event. It is a heartbreaking thing, to miss the birth of one’s children.”
Prince Rajesh waved away the apologies with a smile. “It is no matter; the priests have foretold this child is to be a girl. Perhaps next time the gods shall grant me my son. I shan’t miss that.”
Father’s frown turned to a scowl.
“In place of my wife, I have brought my youngest sister, the princess Imani,” the prince gestured behind to his sister, draped artfully in sky blue silks. She curtsied and finally pulled the veil away from her face.
Nia heard a soft, strangled sort of gasp to her left, and looked up at her brother in concern.
One look as his smile, the smile she’d seen so often throughout their eighteen years, the one Father wore every time Mother walked into the room, and Nia knew from the bottom of her heart they were all surely doomed.
***
It was a long and tiring summer for Nia, as she had to ensure the sweet and innocent love letters between Paris and Alyta weren’t intercepted as they made their way to and from Eddis, while also keeping everyone in the palace and beyond so distracted they had no time to realize there was a very real and highly dangerous romantic tryst occurring between the Crown Prince of Attolia and the Median emperor’s favorite daughter.
She did so, mostly by finding increasingly irrational and highly entertaining ways to browbeat her potential suitors into running for the mountains.
“I decree,” Nia announced to the laughing court before her with a smile, as Hector and Imani strolled alone in the private gardens and Alyta finished her latest missive, “that I shall have no man as my husband, until he who brings me the Attolian Sky!”
The nobles roared. One baron shouted over the rest, mad grin on his face, “No man has that kind of money. Who can buy the diamond from the Pents?”
“Perhaps he’ll turn to thieving,” she said in a staged whisper, winking, and the laughter became deafening.
Behind her, Mother and Father exchanged worried frowns.
***
The meeting was called a week after the Medes departure. Nia, who had been practicing her widow disguise in the lower town most of the afternoon and missed the announcement sent to her attendants, who were under the impression she was taking a very, very long nap, arrived rather late.
“Where have you been?” Mother asked as Nia finally ran into the council chambers, Delilah on her tail, still attempting to fix her hair. Nia shrugged her off as she slipped into her chair.
“Praying,” Nia replied simply. It was not completely a lie. Widows did tend to spend many hours in the temples, making sacrifices for their lost loves, after all. She stared at the party assembled as she caught her breath.
Mother and Father at the head of the table, Hector to the right of Father, Alyta to the left of Mother. Relius, Costis, and Kamet on Hector’s side of the table, while Pheris was settled next to Alyta.
A very private matter to discuss, then.
Nia signed hello to Pheris, who gave her a small grin before Mother spoke again.
“This behavior cannot continue, Eugenia. You cannot keep running off who knows where alone without telling anyone. It is too dangerous, should anything ever happen to Hector, you are--,”
“Nothing will ever happen to Hector so long as I am here,” Nia interrupted, her voice light, with an undercurrent of ferocity she’d carefully practiced for years to mimic Father.
And it wouldn’t, not on her watch. Hector was her brother, her twin, the future king to her Thief. She would always keep him safe.
Even if his heart, so broken and sad in the week since Imani’s tearful goodbye, was the thing that needed saving.
Across the table, Costis grimaced. Nia frowned.
“I’m assuming this meeting was not called simply to berate me for being a naughty child,” Nia said slowly, looking back up to Mother and Father. Mother pursed her lips.
Father’s face was a blank slate. He stared at her for a long moment before speaking. “We’ve had the Mede ships tailed. They are not returning home. Instead, they’re headed north.”
“Gant?” Nia asked. Relius shook his head.
“Pentos,” he replied, and Nia took a deep breath. “Our sources tell us a treaty with the Mede involving the marriage of Princess Imani to the Prince of Gant is to be signed there.”
Hector looked up to the ceiling before staring longingly out the window. Nia’s heart began beating very quickly. It seemed they no longer just had the roads to worry for during a new invasion.
“A treaty between the Little Peninsula and Ferria is imperative,” Kamet said quietly, and Nia nodded.
“Pheris has been conversing with the Ferrians under the guise of letters to his uncle. Dite has been our representative in the Ferria for years, he has the ear of the Duke and his heir. And they...” Kamet trailed off and looked up to Father.
Father met her eyes again, his face still frighteningly impassive. “The Ferrians are willing to ally themselves with us. With the promise of a marriage for the prince.”
Down the table, Alyta swallowed thickly, and rubbed a lacy handkerchief against her eyes. Nia felt the rage grow inside her, hot and fast and terrifying. “You can’t send Alyta away to Ferria! She’s barely more than a child. And she and Paris are desperately in love with one another, anyone with eyes can see that. I’ll not stand by and--,”
Father held up his hand to silence her.
“Alyta,” he said with a deep breath, “Is already betrothed to Paris. She has been for some time.” The lack of shocked gasps around the table informed Nia that, uncharacteristically, she was the last to know.
Nia looked to her sister with wide eyes. “Lyta, why--,”
Alyta sniffed again, and looked back at Nia with teary eyes. “I did not want you to feel pressured, Nia, but Paris and I, we cannot marry until, until--,”
Alyta could not marry until Nia did. Because Nia was older, and an heir, and born first. And they were telling her this now, revealing the plans with Ferria and Paris and looking at her with desperation and doom in their eyes because--
“But I cannot,” Nia said quietly, still confused as her heart thudded painfully in her chest. “How can I be Hector’s Thief if I’m the Duchess of Ferria?”
For the first time, something like pain echoed in Father’s eyes.
“You will not be the Thief.”
***
“I refuse! I will not go! You cannot make me--,”
“I am your queen!”
“I thought you were my mother! Who will watch after Hector, and Alyta, who will keep them safe? How can you--,”
“You’re a princess, not a Thief! You’re not meant to be a Thief, you never were!”
“You’ll have to cut off my hand before I believe that fucking lie.”
“EUGENIA!”
“Oh, now you care? Now this conversation interests you, Father? Curse you all, curse your lessons and your trips and your stupid, stupid god and this wretched name you’ve given me. I hate you all.”
Nia ran from the room, ran to her chambers and immediately dismissed her attendants.
Then, she packed a bag and felt no guilt as she sneaked back into their old nursery, back to the bookcase in the corner with the secret door Father had shown her so many years ago.
As she disappeared into the night, her name echoing from the palace walls as the guards began their fruitless search, Nia did not look back.
***
***
***
“Gitta,” Lorenzo whispered to her, raising her hand to his lips before gripping it tightly. “Hang on, Gitta. We’re nearly there, I can see the shore--,”
Nia shook her head; combined with the waves roiling beneath them, Nia very nearly vomited, but she had nothing left to vomit. Instead she choked and retched, and Lorenzo stroked her hair back comfortingly.
“You must take Imani to the palace,” she instructed in a rasp. “Make sure she keeps her face covered, and when you reach the guardhouse, ask for Costis. He will,” Nia stopped to cough again, “He will help you once he sees her. Imani--,” Nia beckoned with her free hand, and the princess stepped up to her little cot, tears in her eyes.
“Give these to my parents,” Nia pleaded in the language of the Medes, dropping the ruby earrings, Mother’s favorite, into Imani’s palm. “Tell them I’m sorry. Tell them I love them, Hector and Alyta, too. Please, Imani.”
Imani curled her hand around the earrings and bowed her head.
“Thank you, Princess,” Imani whispered, falling to her knees beside Nia. “Thank you for saving me from my fate. I am forever in your debt.”
Nia took a shuddering breath. “Make peace with your father,” she instructed. “He now thinks you are dead. Let him know the Attolians saved you. Tell him of your love for Hector; to have his grandchildren rule the Little Peninsula should be enough to stave off another invasion.” Imani nodded in agreement.
“Take care of Hector for me. Please, Imani,” Nia begged, her voice breaking. “Please.”
Imani nodded again, and leaned forward to press a kiss to her forehead. Then, she whispered in her ear, “Leave nothing left unsaid now, Princess,” before looking pointedly at Lorenzo and leaving the tiny ship’s cabin.
“What did she tell you, Gitta?” Lorenzo asked hesitantly, his blue eyes earnest. Nia sighed and closed her eyes.
“That I should tell you I love you before I die,” Nia admitted. The hand around hers tightened painfully.
“You’re not dying. Once we’re onshore I’ll find you a surgeon, the infection isn’t so bad, truly it’s not. It is not your time to go, my darling.”
Nia shook her head again, accepting. She had wanted for too much, had angered the gods. She’d stolen the princess from the palace of the Pents, faked her death and stopped a war before it could ever occur. She’d flown too close to the sun, had seen the light, the brilliant colors and the wonder of the world. But she hadn’t listened to her parents, listened to her god.
And now her fate was to fall to a blasted infection from the knife wound in her stomach from an incompetent pirate’s raid as they finally reached Attolian shores.
At least she’d gotten to fall in love before she died.
“The crew will care for me. You must take Imani to the palace. That is all that matters now.”
“Gitta, you are so wrong.”
“Promise me, Lorenzo. Promise me you’ll get her there.”
Lorenzo took a deep breath, his blue eyes shining as he smiled sadly. “Oh, my Gitta, how could I ever say no to you?”
***
The world fell to a frightening haze after that, full of nightmares and bright color, more retching and heat, movement and tears. Nia knew that she screamed often and cried even more, knew that somewhere, someone up above must hate her, for this could not be death. This could not be the peace she so frequently begged for because it burned and it ached and it must be torture for her sins.
Torture from Eugenides for falling so low.
She called often for Lorenzo, for Hector and Alyta. At the very worst of it, she screamed for Papa, wailed and thrashed as angry hands held her down.
When she cried, she asked desperately for her mother.
“I am here,” a voice seemed to echo through the haze, as slim and familiar hands held her close. “Nia, I am here.”
But Nia knew it couldn’t be real; she was not lucky enough for that.
***
Wake, my Little Thief. Wake and see what you have done.
***
Nia opened her eyes to see her brother at her bedside.
“You idiot,” Hector cried, as he pulled her into his arms. “You stupid, stupid fool. We’ve thought you dead all these months, Mother and Father have been beside themselves, and--,”
“Did Imani make it?” Nia croaked into Hector’s shoulder as she did her best to return the hug. The words startled her brother into a wet laugh. He pulled back, one arm still around her to lay her gently against the pillows as he wiped his eyes.
“Only you could figure out a way to stop a war and give me a spouse I love in one fell swoop.”
Nia laughed then, “On the contrary, Hector, I rather think that’s exactly the reason we exist.”
Hector laughed again and grabbed her hand. “I’ve missed you, Nia. We all have. So, so much.”
“I’m sorry. I was—it was stupid of me. I just—I didn’t...” Nia trailed off, unsure exactly what she meant, how to articulate what she felt.
But Hector always knew. He was wonderful like that. He smiled wryly and said, “I like Lorenzo very much.”
“So, you’ve met my dear pirate from Pentos.” Hector’s grin widened.
“The whole court has, you’ve been out for a few days now. They’re all smitten by him. Mother and Alyta find him ridiculously charming.”
“And Father?”
“Wants to have him hanged.”
Hector and Nia laughed again, and laughed and laughed and laughed ‘til they cried, and the world felt a bit closer to right once again.
***
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Nia cried as her mother held Nia to her chest and rocked them to and fro. “I’m so sorry.”
Mother was wearing the ruby earrings. She kissed Nia’s forehead and buried her face in Nia’s hair. “I do not care if you are a princess or a duchess or a pirate or a thief. I do not care who you are or what you become so long as you are here. So long as you are mine. The river made me wait for you, and here you are to stay. So long as you live, so long as you are mine, my sweet and clever girl, I care for nothing else.”
***
“Took you long enough,” Nia rasped to the silent figure at her bedside. The darkness of the night kept his silhouette hidden, but Nia knew who it was. She always had.
Father took a seat on the corner of her bed and picked at a loose thread with his hook.
“I am not as young as I once was,” he replied tiredly, and used his hand to cup her cheek. “You’ve done well, my love.”
“So, so, so,” Nia whispered, and Father chuckled quietly. He brushed her hair back and sighed.
“You frighten me, Nia. You always have. In you, I see so much of my mother, so much of myself and I--,” Father paused and took a long breath. “To keep you safe and to keep you happy are two very different things. As are treating you as my daughter and treating you as my Thief.
“I’d like to do it all. I—I wish I could do it all. But the older I get, the more I empathize with my dear father. Because much as you look like your mother, you are me, Eugenia, cut of the same cloth and born of the same soul and you will never be safe until you find an anchor. Find your place.”
Nia thought of ships, of open skies that matched the blue of Lorenzo’s pretty eyes, and realized perhaps that day was not so far away.
“I do not think I can marry the Duke of Ferria,” Nia admitted quietly, and Father’s gaze turned questioning. “I--I am in love with Lorenzo.”
Father cleared his throat quickly and bit his lip. “So, you wish to marry Lorenzo? Even without the Attolian Sky?” he teased, and Nia rolled her eyes.
“If he will have me. Yes.”
Father’s eyes twinkled merrily, and something in Nia’s stomach turned.
“Oh, he shall,” Father said knowingly, “I know he shall. And I give my whole-hearted approval to the match to be sure.”
“What do you know that I don’t?” Nia asked cautiously, anticipation churning in her gut.
Father, gremlin that he was, had the audacity to simply wink.
***
“You are the Duke of Ferria?” Nia cried out at she looked at Lorenzo, now dressed in silk robes with a circlet to crown his golden curls. “You? Oh, gods, I shall be the laughingstock of the peninsula. How could you not tell me you were the Duke?”
Lorenzo cleared his throat, looking wary. “Well, I am technically not the Duke yet, my father is still alive--,”
“Lorenzo!” Behind her Father cackled.
“You did not tell me you were the Princess of Attolia,” Lorenzo countered, stepping closer to her, “Imagine the troubles we could have avoided if you had--,”
“But you were a pirate! Why on earth were you a pirate--,”
“To get the Attolian Sky! Lords, Gitta, what other reason would I have to be in Pent?”
That, summarily, shut Nia up. She tilted her head, eyes wide with shock. “You--what?”
Lorenzo rolled his eyes then, shaking his head at all the nonsense. “Pheris wrote Dite, said that you’d only accept a suitor who stole the Attolian Sky for you, that you’d vowed you would have no one else for a husband. And I, young and stupid, made a similar vow as a young man, that I’d have no wife but the clever Little Thief whose escapades my music master recounted to me during my lessons as a boy. I so wished to dance with you across the rooftops, to make you smile and come along on all your merry adventures.
“So, I hired a ship, pretended to be a pirate, stole the Attolian Sky, and met a ridiculously beautiful and clever girl named Gitta who unfortunately stole my heart. I was headed for Attolia to give the princess the diamond, so some other poor sod would have a chance with her as I no longer needed it.”
“You have the Attolian Sky?”
“I say you’ve stolen my heart, and all you can think about is a diamond?” Hector snorted with laughter behind her. Lorenzo shook his head, before crouching down before her on one knee and pulling the blue diamond the size of her fist out of his pocket.
“My Gitta, I--,” he began.
“Yes,” Nia said, crouching down and pulling her face to his, “Yes, yes, yes.”
***
***
***
“Oh,” Nia said quietly, as she held her son close, brushing back his dark hair. Blue eyes blinked back at her, and she could not help but smile.
“What is it, my Gitta?” Lorenzo asked worriedly. Nia’s smile widened.
“It’s just—I know what my father must have seen in me when he first held me. I understand now,” she looked down at her child and tapped his little nose. “He shall be Eugenides.”
“Gods help us all,” Lorenzo replied with a happy grin.
***
***
***
Hector and Nia were well into middle age when their father finally passed, barely a year after Mother succumbed to illness.
Up and down the Little Peninsula, his subjects wept for the death and praised the life of their great Annux, Attolis Eugenides and the golden age he’d brought to their land. And, as the charter written before any of them had been born specified, all descendants of Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia gathered in the temple of Hephestia to vote on the next High King.
Or, as apparently the vote had declared, High Queen.
“What?” Nia choked on her wine as the priestesses announced the results. Alyta thumped her on the back with a smile. Nia looked over the crowd gathered, her siblings and cousins, her nieces and nephews and children and the ridiculous grins on their faces.
“Of course it’s you,” Hector said, adjusting the crown on his head. “It must be. You have father’s head and his heart. The crown was meant to be yours.”
“All hail Eugenia, Duchess of Ferria, Princess of Attolia, and Thief of the Little Peninsula,” Paris stood and announced, his voice carrying through the temple. “All hail the Annux, our Thief Queen.”
“All hail Annux!” the shouts began, echoing against the stone walls and carrying outside. “All hail Queen Eugenia!” From beyond the walls, the gathered crowd heard the news and erupted. Lorenzo, who’d been forced to wait outside during the proceedings, sprinted into the hall with a wild grin.
“Does this mean I can be your Thief?” her son asked, blue eyes dancing as he looked up at her with glee.
Queen Eugenia buried her head in her hands and groaned.
***