Her Last Deception
Raun stood stark still, back flat against the cold stone wall. His pitch-black tunic was damp with sweat, magnifying the chill against his skin. He held his short-sword in Thieves’ Pose, hilt gripped loose, blade pointing downward, parallel and flush against his forearm. Taking a deep breath, he scanned his surroundings. He had managed to conceal himself in a small, out-of-the-way storage closet. Smoked meats, dried goods, herbs and bottles of liquid lined the shelves.
Clangs exploded from the grand bell tower — two short, three long, two short for “Intruder in the Keep.” Leather-clad feet shuffled in the hallway outside the pantry. The Royal Guard were frantically searching the castle, trying to uncover the thief who had stolen a prized possession from the young Baroness herself. Raun could not hide in this hole forever.
He cursed his foolish arrogance. With his free hand, he pounded his frustration against his thigh. The woman he had loved, who he thought had loved him back, had turned his world on its ear.
A hundred times throughout their romance, Raun had wondered why royal blood would love a simple thief. Now he knew that their pairing was a ruse. Attracted by his honed thief’s skill, the Baroness had played his emotions and used him to steal a powerful artifact from her rival. Days after Raun had returned with the relic, the Baroness had exposed him as the thief in order to deflect the rival’s blame. ‘Plausible deniability,’ the politicians called it. She labeled Raun a traitor, and marked him as an outlaw to be killed on sight.
The affair was over. The simplest of Raun’s roiling emotions was anger. And it was the strongest. As a cocky young male, he did the first thing that came to his vengeful mind: he stole back the sacred relic from the Baroness. Now, hiding in a cold, dark pantry, Raun faced the consequences of his arrogance.
Sneaking away through the shadows was no longer an option. Attempting to fight his way out of the doors of the Keep meant almost certain death. Raun was skilled with a bow, but less so with a sword, and he was facing a score of the most professional and best trained warriors in all of Isindria. Plus, the Baroness’ men were authorized to kill on sight. Isindria’s arcane laws at their worst.
He rapped his head against the hard stone. His colleagues in the Isindrian underworld often boasted about laughing in the face of death, declaring their bravery in the name of the prize. As a confident youth, Raun had done the same. But now, as deadly guardsmen searched the keep with one thing in mind, he felt something new and real: fear. The bundle at his side hung like a bag of weighing stones. He was alone and outmatched. He was cold, and not just from the damp tunic. The thought of death chilled him to the core, and left him contemplating his other option: surrender. Surrendering to the Guard meant living to see another day, even if it was in the Keep’s subterranean dungeons. But the punishment for thieves was also death, and he dared not rely on the compassion of the Baroness to spare his life. She had already shown Raun her true colors. Could he escape from prison before the fall of the executioner’s axe?
Death by fighting and honor, on one hand. Death by executioner on the other. Raun cursed himself again and ran his hand across the back of his neck.
His hand came across a piece of fabric. He paused in mid thought, fondling the black silk that hung from his skullcap. Meant to conceal his face, it had been a gift from the Baroness when she had first tasked him with stealing the relic. His thoughts returned to the treachery of the woman he thought he loved. He had lived his life to earn the honor that would allow a common thief to exit the shadows and be with royal blood. Now, she had crushed his hopes and left him for dead.
The vitriol burned Raun’s blood, and he remembered the wrath that had brought him back to the Keep in the first place. A ruined relationship. Outlaw status, which would forever make Raun an enemy of every Isindrian, even the underworlders. A shattered pride. He would rather die fighting than let the Baroness have the satisfaction of a public execution. And he would die to see her face when he had his revenge.
With a deep breath and clenched teeth, Raun stepped into the hallway.
