Read Online Sworn To Secrecy: Courtlight #4 by Terah Edun - Free Book Online

shrieking and coughing. Some began to run away from the alcove towards the larger ballroom. To Ciardis’s consternation she heard footsteps running toward their group. Booted footsteps. Lots of them. The mist began to lighten where they stood as Vana forced it outward, effectively corralling the curious guests away from their area. When her teary eyes cleared and she could stand up to attend to the snot running down her face, Ciardis paled at what she saw. They stood surrounded by a semi-circle of... servants . Armed servants. They all carried knives and swords. These weren’t the servants that attended the meals. No, only the children from the noble families attended the service as pages to refill goblets of wine, juice, and water for the very people they sought to emulate as adults and who often served as their guardians. Even the butlers and the maids were highly trained individuals who had served their entire careers either in the palace or highborn houses. But these people, they were from the lower classes—washwomen, stablemen and kitchen help. One man still had a bloodstained apron on and a towel thrown over his shoulder from his work as a butcher. All that was missing was the giant cleaver and the wrack of meat in front of him.
    “Vana?” asked Caemon with some awe.
    “Meet my team,” Vana said proudly. “Now let’s get out here.”
    “We can’t leave my mother,” argued Ciardis.
    Vana nodded at something in the distance. Ciardis turned to see Lillian being led forward by the hand of a determined waif of a girl who was covered in flour from head to toe. Lillian looked down at her captor with some amusement as well as distaste as she was led forward—or rather dragged where the waif wanted her to go—that is, until she saw what waited her near the alcove. The smiled quickly slipped from her face.
    “What happened?” she spluttered.
    They all exchanged glances and pointed at the confused boy sitting in the corner with Thanar looming over him.
    The young waif dropped her hand.
    She strode up to Vana proudly, disregarded the profusion of knives on her person, and demanded, “Fifteen shillings. You told me to get the one in the dark blue dress with feathers in her hair—I got her.”
    Vana raised an eyebrow but handed the pouch over without comment. The waif smiled, sniffed, and disappeared through a servant corridor in the blink of an eye.
    Told her when ? wondered Ciardis.
    “I suppose you want us to follow her?” Kane said with sarcasm.
    “Oh no,” said Vana with a smirk. “We’re going straight through the ballroom.”
    “We are?” echoed five surprised voices.
    Vana snapped her fingers and directed four of her servants to the incapacitated frost giant.
    “Even with four of them, that’s not going to be easy,” said Lillian.
    “The butcher’s a lightweight,” pointed out Vana.
    “Wouldn’t that make it worse?” asked Ciardis.
    “Not that kind of lightweight,” said Kane. “He has the power to displace the weight of an object with magic. A good skill on a construction site or in the ship docking business. And usually very hard to come by. In fact, the last one I heard of was traveling with a crew of mercenaries on the emperor’s road.”
    Vana smiled a toothy grin. “I might have convinced him to leave a life of crime.”
    “For the morality of your cause?” asked Kane.
    “For double his yearly take.”
    “Damn, I’m in the wrong line of work,” muttered Kane.
    “All right, lads and ladies,” said Vana. “My core will carry Inga, Thanar’s got the boy, Ciardis stick with your mother, and Caemon—you’re with me.”
    Everyone took their places. When Vana gave her marching orders in that tone of voice, it was best to just go along with it. Her other ideas tended to end in massive bloodshed and slit throats. This idea actually seemed reasonably safe.

Chapter 7
    T hey made it back to Lord Steadfast’s mansion in one piece and gathered in the downstairs parlor. Vana set