Excerpt from The Queen’s Sin

One

“You will never get away with this.”

The man snarled at Sinclere D’Alen, showing his true nature. His nature was the reason she stood over him, a sword in her hand. She had been hired to deal with him—and sometimes, her methods weren’t pretty. Or bloodless.

Sin tapped his chin with the tip of her sword, and the snarl disappeared. “I was sent by Lord Barrit, who knows all about your nasty hobby.” She had more colorful ways of describing the way he lured girls into his shop, trapping them before they understood their mistake. This time, he had lured the wrong girl. “This is a warning. Next time, I will do more than gently persuade you.”

“Gentle? You call this gentle?” He waved one hand at the bruises on his face. “I will go and explain to him myself.ˮ

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that, if I were you.” She sheathed the sword, then crossed her arms, studying him. “Lord Barrit has a fiery temper, and you stoked it by touching his oldest niece.”

There it was—the predictable reaction to their obvious mistake.

His face drained of color, the bruises Sin had given him almost black against his sudden pallor.

“Niece?” he whispered. “I thought—ˮ

“She was some stranger, passing through? One who wouldn’t know you, or be able to report your lewd behavior?” She lowered her arms and leaned over him. “I am happy to say that you are wrong. Utterly and delightfully wrong.” She straightened while he sputtered in outrage. Of all the jobs she accepted, men who took advantage of the innocence of youth made her skin crawl. “Get up, and pack your belongings. You have until sunset to be gone.”

“Gone?” He pushed to his feet, flinching with every movement. “This is my home.”

“Not any longer.” She pulled the rolled parchment out of the bag tied to her sword belt and tossed it at his feet. “Lord Barrit wants you out of his town. He hired me to see that you comply.”

“Who in all the great hells are you?”

She smiled at him. “I am a Fixer.”

Two

Malik de Brok strode through the bailey, still sweating from morning sword training. Normally, he would have taken the time to change, but the page who had found him at the training field, waving for his attention, told Malik that the Queen wanted him.

Now.

He knew better than to keep her waiting.

Ignoring the stares of the new pages gathered at the foot of the wide staircase, he took the stairs two at a time and ran through the empty main hall. He slowed once he reached the long corridor that led to the Queen’s council chamber.

His heart pounded faster as each step took him closer to the ornate double doors. Queen Ravenna Lyonell expected promptness, but she had to be aware that she had pulled Malik from training. He hoped for one of her rare generous moods, and prepared for her temper.

One of the Guards standing at either side of the doors moved as Malik approached, bowing his head.

“Viceroy. She is waiting on you.”

“Her mood?”

The Guard shook his head. “Hard to tell. She just came from Prince Kito’s wing.”

Temper, then.

Malik nodded, and waited for the Guard to open the door for him. Malik had returned from the latest battle three days before, and knew so few of the new Guards that had replaced those lost at the border of Zahavi and Castil.

The Queen stood at the far end of the long chamber, her back to Malik. She spun when the door closed, studying him with narrowed green eyes.

“My new Viceroy. Battle hardened, perhaps too much for the niceties of court.”

He dropped to one knee and bowed, low enough that his shoulder length hair nearly brushed the floor. “I will always make the effort for you, Majesty.”

“Such pretty manners, from one with your common background.” Her heels tapped on the black marble floor as she approached him. He held his bow, waiting for her permission to stand; that lesson had been learned with pain. “Get yourself up, Malik. I have an assignment for you.”

He swallowed, and made certain he kept his gaze averted as he stood. “I am yours to command, Majesty.”

“Well, well. I do like the sound of that.” She trailed her fingers down his bare forearm.

Malik forced himself not to flinch. He knew the Queen played this game with most of the males in her household. It was his first time to receive her attention, and only because of his elevated position.

Ravenna studied his face, a frown marring her forehead when she focused on the old knife scar that traced his left cheek. “Such a shame, that scar. You would be a handsome specimen if not for the glaring flaw.” She waved her hand. “Never mind that, now. It will not affect the outcome of your assignment.”

Malik kept his focus on the wall. “Thank you, Majesty.”

“Such a shame,” she muttered, then finally stepped back from him. Malik smothered his relief. “My son, Haikito, is becoming an embarrassment. One I can no longer tolerate. Have you heard of Sinclere D’Alen?”

“I have heard her mentioned, Majesty, by some of my men who hail from Alera.” More than mentioned; several of them had seen her in action, and had told Malik about her unique skills.

“Then you know what she is.”

“I do, Majesty.”

“I want her here, to help take care of my son. There must be no gossip, no trail that leads back to me.”

Dread slid through him. “What is it that you want her to do?”

She did not seem to notice that he forgot her title. “I want him out of Zahavi. Permanently. He has shamed me one time too many, and I am—done with him.” Her voice cracked over the last words

“You mean for this Sinclere to—deal with him.”

“She is well known as a Fixer, has quite the reputation in Alera for taking care of potentially volatile situations. For keeping the details to herself. I want you to bring her to me.”

“I fear she will not agree, Majesty.”

Ravenna narrowed her eyes. “And why not?”

“According to what I have heard, she has ties to those who practice magic.”

“Which is why I want her, specifically. You will bring her to me, Malik.”

“I can try, Majesty. She is not one of your subjects, and cannot be ordered to your court.”

“I have already thought of that, and will give you incentive, my handsome Viceroy.” Malik swallowed, glancing at her as she walked to her smaller, but still ornate throne. “You owe this court much, including the fact that you live.”

Malik closed his eyes briefly. He had known this day would come.

That she would ask for payment.

Her voice snapped him back. “Bring her to me, and you will be well rewarded.” She climbed the two steps of the dais and sat, studying him for endless moments. “Come back without her, and your life will be forfeit.”

He could not control his reaction to her threat.

Shock had him backing away, his eyes meeting hers. She smiled at him, as if she had been waiting for this moment.

Malik forced himself to speak, his voice unsteady. “And if I refuse, Majesty?”

“Then my executioner will greet you at the door.” She leaned back. “I would prefer to keep you as my Viceroy longer than three months, my darling Malik. But you are the only one in my court at the moment guaranteed to do as I bid. What do you say?”

As if he had a choice.

He lowered his head, aware he still stared at her, and spoke the words that would seal his fate.

“When do I leave, Majesty?”

Three

Malik rode into the small town of Port Heaton eight days later, after numerous stops. His inquiries had led him here, where he would hopefully find the Fixer.

He stopped at the first tavern he came to. If anyone would know the whereabouts of someone like Sinclere D’Alen, it would be a tavern owner.

After settling his stallion in the small stable behind the tavern, he patted road dust off his brown leather coat, tried to make himself more presentable as he walked toward the wide oak door. It led straight into the common room, empty save for a tall man behind the bar.

“Welcome to The Dirty Hare, my friend. What can I get to ease your thirst?”

“Information,” Malik said. He watched the man’s eye widen as he approached, and knew he had seen the crest on Malik’s lapel pin.

“We have no quarrel with Queen Ravenna here, sir.”

“Please.” Malik kept his voice quiet, and kept his distance. “I am here to find Sinclere D’Alen. To hire her,” he added, when the man paled.

“She is not here.”

“I wish only to offer her a job. It will be her choice to accept, or not.”

Malik’s words seemed to have the effect he had hoped. Gradually, the man relaxed, his hands no longer clutching the edge of the bar.

“She goes to market, this time of the day. Helps me out with the fresh vegetables, good girl that she is. She just got herself back from another job and still offered to go for me.” He lifted his chin, though he still looked pale. “Mind yourself, Guard. Sin isn’t like the other Fixers you may have heard about. She don’t work with them, or follow their twisted idea of justice. And she’s well thought of here. Harm her in any way, and you’ll not leave healthy.”

“I will take your advice to heart.” Malik smiled at the man, who gaped at him, clearly not expecting Malik’s agreement. “Thank you for giving me a starting point.” He bowed his head and strode across the common room.

He was not surprised by the proprietor’s words; Sinclere had been spoken of with reverence at almost every place he asked after her. Perhaps if he told her the truth—

“You will not lay that on her,” he muttered, shrugging off the dread yet again.

The market was easy to find. As in most small towns and villages, it occupied a center square, with easy access for the residents. He stopped near a booth displaying fabric, scanned the crowd for a tall girl with light blonde hair—and spotted her, running out of an alley, just before a pair of huge men jumped her from behind.

“Bloody hell—” Malik sprinted forward. She was alone, and those men could crush her—

He skidded to a halt when she tripped the first man. The second man tripped over his companion, sending them both to the ground. Malik had a feeling this was not her first skirmish with them.

“Stay down,” she said. Her voice carried across the market, and those who had missed the first part were paying attention now. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

No one laughed at her preposterous statement. Even from his viewpoint, Malik could tell she was young, probably in her early twenties. But she stood with the confidence of someone much older, who had experience dealing with bullies.

The first man glared up at her. “You knocked my own sword out of my hand!”

“After you tried to run yourself through with it.”

Laughter surrounded Malik.

The man slapped his hand on the ground. “That’s a lie! We’re swordsmen—”

“You make decent swords, but you have no idea how to use them.”

Malik watched her back up as she spoke, her hands open and away from what looked like a high quality sword at her left hip.

The first man pushed to his feet, finally untangled from his companion. “Take that back, D’Alen.” He stalked toward her, his huge hands curling into fists. “You take that back right now.”

“Only if you agree to lessons.”

Malik tensed when the man charged her, ready to jump in and help. But Sinclere sidestepped the big man, swatting him on the backside as he passed her. The crowd roared their approval.

“What’s all this, then?” A tall man wearing the dark blue surcoat of a local constable strode into the open area. “Stirring up the Bellows boys again, Sin?”

“They ambushed me in the alley next to the smithy.” The people around Malik muttered, quickly losing any sympathy they might have had for the men. “I disarmed them, so they wouldn’t hurt themselves, and they chased me here.” She tossed her waist length braid over one shoulder. “You’ll find their swords in the street, right where they left them to come after me.”

Malik smiled, since he knew Sinclere could not see him in the now large crowd. She was not at all what he expected. His smile faded as he thought of Ravenna. She would not like this Sinclere, and would crush any sense of independence, of humor.

He wanted to leave now, and not offer Sinclere a job that would put her in danger.

As soon as he finished the thought, he dismissed it. Ravenna’s pet magic hunter had spies on this side of the border, and she would know if he walked away without meeting the Fixer.

He would simply approach her with the offer, and hope she did not accept it. Sinclere D’Alen had done nothing to deserve placing her in the path of Ravenna’s rage.

~ ~ ~

Sin climbed the stairs to her room, located on the top floor of the tavern she called home in between jobs.

All she wanted now was a hot bath, a bowl of the soup she had smelled walking through the common room, and a night’s sleep. Her last job had taken her halfway across the kingdom, to a city where she knew no one, and had to watch her back every moment.

She had arrived home this morning, and made the mistake of taking her spare knife over to the smithy before heading to the market. Tangling with the Bellows had cost her two wasted hours in the constable’s cramped, cold office, convincing him not to press charges against the brothers.

He refused her request, which meant she would have to watch her back here as well, until their tempers cooled.

Sin pulled off her long, travel-stained black coat, and was about to sit and take off her boots when someone knocked on the door.

“What now?” she muttered. Everyone in town knew she had just gotten back, that she didn’t like to be disturbed for at least a day after a job. “This had better be important.”

She yanked open the door—and immediately regretted her outburst.

A man stood in the hall, his arms crossed. He wore a plain shirt and trousers, a dusty brown leather coat over his arm, but Sin immediately recognized the stance of a soldier.

He raised one dark eyebrow, and studied her. “You are Sinclere D’Alen, the Fixer?”

“Just Sinclere. Sin.” She met his dark brown eyes, and did her best not to glare, or cross her arms. “And you are?”

His eyebrow twitched, but his voice was even when he replied. “Viceroy Malik de Brok. You may address me as Malik.”

That surprised her. Most high-ranking Guards she had been unfortunate enough to cross paths with demanded that they be called by their title. Malik offering such a familiar address helped lower her defenses.

“What do you want, Malik?”

He smiled, and she fought the need to take a giant step back. That smile was meant to charm, to disarm, and to lure in unsuspecting females.

Sin wasn’t about to grab the dangling bait.

Oh, he was a handsome devil; at least three inches taller than her almost six feet, with olive skin, and the dark hair that marked him as a citizen of Raichlan brushing his shoulders.

That hair framed an angular face that would have been devastatingly handsome, if not for the scar running down his left cheek, nicking the corner of his mouth. It was years old—and he could not be more than thirty, so it must have happened when he was young. It also looked like it had been incredibly painful.

She knew scars, having a few of her own.

When he finally answered, the humor in his deep voice surprised her. “I have come on behalf of my employer.” The humor faded when he spoke again, and set off her warning bells. “The Queen has sent me with a request, and an offer.”

“Queen?” Unless something had changed while she was on her last job, King Carric still ruled. “I thought you—aren’t you from Raichlan?”

He ran one hand through his hair. “Originally, yes. I am Viceroy for the Queen of Zahavi.”

Sin wanted to slam the door and lock it.

Zahavi was the most viciously anti-magic kingdom in the realm.

Not that she had any magic, but she had been raised by an enclave of magic users after her da died. She respected them, and what they gave to the kingdoms that offered them a safe haven.

If he was here about a job, nothing he could say would persuade her to step one foot across their border.

His voice jerked her back. “The Queen would like to offer you a job.”

Sin forced down the flare of panic. She had expected some ridiculous request from a noble, with a Viceroy as messenger boy. Not an audience with the Queen of Zahavi.

She had two rules about her employment. She did not work for free, and she never took jobs from Royals.

The first rule had been broken a number of times. There were circumstances where the need to rid a person or a place of evil overrode payment.

But she had never, ever accepted a job from a Royal. She refused to start now. Not after Da—

Sin shut down that memory before it could form, but the old grief still managed to scrape across her heart.

“Sorry,” she said. To her horror, some of that grief slipped into her voice. With an effort, she wrangled it back to the shadows, and glared at Malik. “Not interested.”

She grabbed the door and slammed it. At least, that was her goal. Malik stuck his boot between the door and the frame. Sin should have known he wouldn’t take a simple no as an answer.

“Please.” He closed long, scarred fingers around the edge of the door. The hand of a man who fought his own battles. Interesting. A Viceroy usually coordinated from the back of the line. But he was young for his position—most Viceroys she knew of were grey-haired and long retired from fighting. He probably wanted to prove himself. “Hear me out, Sinclere.”

“Sin.” With a sigh, she let go of the door and stepped back. “No one calls me Sinclere.” Not anymore. “Have a seat, Malik, but don’t get comfortable.” She moved to the window, keeping him and the chair in her peripheral vision. Any movement and she could have her sword at his throat. “You are done when the clock strikes the hour.”

Which gave him roughly five minutes, according to the clock in the narrow tower that crowned the town hall. Sin could just see it from her window, a convenience that saved her the expense of her own clock. Of course, that depended on how fast or slow the clockworks were running today.

The damp weather played havoc with them, and she had seen the poor clockmaker rage at the sky after working on the clock for the third time in the same afternoon.

Normal things, like a temperamental town clock, the people bustling past The Dirty Hare every day, the warmth of the huge fireplace in the common room—all of these small, everyday wonders helped center her, reminded her that there was still good in this world.

Brushing up against the bad on a regular basis left her jaded.

By the time she turned back from the window, Malik had draped his coat over the back of the chair and made himself comfortable. Exactly what she told him not to do.

With a sigh, she sat on the edge of the bed, since he had taken the only chair in the room. “Start talking.”

“You have a reputation for handling delicate matters,” he said, his deep voice soothing. It drew her—he drew her, in a way she had never experienced. She forced herself to focus on what he was saying. “You also keep what you learn to yourself. I need that, as does the Queen. What she wants done will create ripples through the court. I need to know that the person causing those ripples will be trustworthy.”

Sin liked the sound of this job less with every word. She shook her head and stood. “I lied. You’re done now, Malik. The answer is still no.”

“Sinclere—Sin.” He corrected himself when she glared at him. “All I ask is that you come with me, hear her out­—ˮ

“Tell me now, and we can avoid the awkward silences.”

A smile tugged at his mouth. She shut down her growing respect for him. He was the Queen’s man, which meant that Sin could not trust him. Would not trust him.

“I am not privy to her request. She sent me as her representative, to bring you back to Zahavi. I have heard that you give the benefit of the doubt, that you follow your instincts, even in the face of high odds—ˮ

“Then you also know that I don’t take jobs from Royals. Ever. And I don’t cross the border of Zahavi.” She strode across the room and opened the door. “Time for you to go, Malik.”

Sin didn’t want him to leave, for incredibly selfish reasons. She had a feeling they would be able to discuss endless topics, challenge each other intellectually. She would also admit—only to herself—that she wanted to keep watching that strong face. He showed more emotion than any Guard or soldier she had run across—or most men, for that matter.

He intrigued her.

Malik took his time, adjusting his obviously expensive brown leather coat after he pulled it on. Sin tapped her fingers against the door, loudly enough for him to look up. He actually smiled at her.

Finally, he walked over to the doorway, pausing as he met her eyes. That thrill of attraction spiraled through her again. She ignored it, and studied him, waiting for his parting words.

There were always parting words when she refused a job.

Malik didn’t disappoint. “The Queen did give me leave to state her price. She is offering two thousand. In realm coin.”

Sin stilled, certain she had heard wrong. Two thousand was a fortune to a commoner. Realm coin instead of the local Zahavi currency meant she could go anywhere, spend it anywhere. She would, literally, be set for the rest of her life.

It would also probably be an incredibly short life.

Offering that much coin meant that the job was dangerous, illegal, or both. She was guessing both.

But if she survived it, she could pick and choose, do only good, without skirting along the line of despicable. Sin had come too close to crossing that line, more times than she cared to recount. She could buy a real home, instead of living on the top floor of a tavern. She could—

“No,” she said, her voice raw. “Please get out.”

“Sinclere—ˮ

“I said, get out.” She laid her right hand on the hilt of her sword. She still wore it, since Malik had caught her just after arriving. With a start, she realized that he must have been waiting for her. Or stalking her. Either option left her shaky, and more furious than she had been in a long time. “Don’t think of returning, Viceroy, or you will be greeted by the point of my sword.”

“Understood.” He looked disappointed, but he nodded, and to her relief, stepped out into the narrow hallway. “Thank you for taking the time to listen. Good evening to you, Sinclere.”

Sin didn’t bother correcting him; she was too busy watching him walk away from her, afraid that she had not seen the last of Viceroy Malik de Brok.

~ * ~