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  Chapter 1

  I pulled my cloak a little more tightly around my shoulders as I walked deeper into Falrion Forest. It was early morning, but even though the sun was up, the air was still chilly underneath the thick tree branches, and I knew that it would only be a few weeks before the weather turned a lot colder.

  I didn’t mind the cold, especially not now that I had a booming whiskey empire, because as much as people liked a drink when it was warm outside, they liked a glass of whiskey to heat them up when it was cold even better.

  Besides, our elven overlords hated the cold almost as much as they hated whiskey, and damn if they didn’t really hate whiskey. It wasn’t that they didn’t drink at all, of course, since they had their own nasty ceremonial wine that they liked to think was the best drink that had ever been created, but they couldn’t stand the idea of good human whiskey.

  And they especially couldn’t stand the thought that a human might be clever enough to make it.

  I glanced over at Cimarra and Dar to make sure they were both warm enough in the cool morning air, but they had already wrapped their cloaks a little more tightly around themselves, and the cold didn’t seem to bother them much.

  “What are you looking at?” Cimarra smiled as she caught my eye.

  “Well, obviously, he’s looking at me,” Dar said with a grin. “Because I’m just so very pretty, right?”

  “No offense, my friend,” I laughed, “but I’m afraid you’re not as distracting as you might think.”

  “There’s no need to be rude about it,” Dar grumbled.

  I just grinned and shook my head, but I glanced at Cimarra again before I turned my attention to the path in front of us. The beautiful woman really was distracting. Somehow even her cloak hugged every curve of her body as she moved with all the grace of a dancer, and her long black hair swayed in thick waves down her back.

  “How much further is it to Adi’s cottage?” the beautiful dancer asked.

  “Not too long now,” I said. “Probably fifteen more minutes.”

  “I still don’t understand why we couldn’t have just taken one of the wagons,” Dar sighed. “It would have saved us some time.”

  “You mean that it would have saved your feet the trouble of walking,” I told him. “I thought about it, but I figured it would be easier to go unnoticed if we went on foot.”

  “Well, I guess a wagon is much harder to hide,” Cimarra said, “but I enjoy the fresh air. I don’t usually get a chance to get out of the city very often.”

  “I’m glad, but you’re really doing us a favor,” I said.

  “Uh, definitely,” Dar added. “Otherwise, we would have had to memorize all the damn ingredients of those-- what were they? Burnt tomato puffs or something?”

  “Boiled tomato muffins,” the graceful dancer said with a smile.

  “Leave it to the dwarves to come up with something so disgusting,” I chuckled. “You remember everything that’s supposed to go into them, right?”

  “I do,” Cimarra replied. “Vazmet was very particular about the muffins, and he went over the details quite a few times just to make sure that I got it right. It’s not just the ingredients, but it’s the order that everything has to be done in, too.”

  “Thanks, Cim,” I said. “I’m glad the old dwarf seems to like you so much.”

  “Yeah, I wonder why,” Dar said with a roll of his eyes. “Probably something to do with the same reason that you can’t keep your eyes off your pretty dancer.”

  “Well, Dar, aren’t you sweet?” Cimarra smiled.

  “Ah, that’s not what I--” Dar started. “Well, what can I say? Wade has good taste in women.”

  “I think so, too,” the beautiful dancer said with a wink.

  I wrapped my arm around Cimarra’s shoulder and gave her a little squeeze. I had brought her with us partly so she could give Chef Marver the details of the boiled tomato muffins, but she also needed to go over a few business numbers with our chef, and now was as good a time as any.

  The beautiful dancer always kept a careful watch on the figures of our whiskey empire, and she was one of the reasons that we had done so well in the city. Cim knew exactly how much whiskey we could produce every week, exactly what price we should sell it for, and exactly how many customers we needed to turn a significant profit.

  And we had really started to turn a fucking profit.

  We had already made enough money that we could have lived like kings in the city, but I had bigger plans. I didn’t want to just distribute whiskey to our city, just like I didn’t want to just have the power and authority as leader of the Thief’s Guild in our city alone.

  I wanted more than that.

  I wanted it all.

  When I had found the Rainbow Keys months ago, I had told them that I wanted to be a king, and I knew now that it wasn’t just about the money that came with that kind of power. It was about justice-- for my friends and me, but also for all the races that had been crushed by elven cruelty for generations.

  Of course, not all the races thought that they needed liberation from the elves. Some of them, like a lot of the dwarves in particular, had things pretty easy under elven rule-- as long as they did exactly what they were told, whenever they were told to.

  But just like there were plenty of dwarves who were open to doing business with me, I knew there were plenty of dwarves like my friend Skam who wanted nothing more than to see the elves go down in a blaze of glory-- well, maybe not a blaze of glory. But definitely a blaze.

  There were also dwarves who didn’t seem to care one way or another about our elven overlords, and Vazmet was one of them. He was the head of the Retired Miners’ Association, so he had some authority in the city, but he seemed happy enough just to drink whiskey and eat whatever baked goods that our chef sent his way.

  I was just glad that Vazmet trusted Cimarra because it made it easier for the old dwarf to trust me, too. That was probably why he had continued to place orders with our catering company even after it wasn’t really necessary to keep up our cover.

  The head of the Retired Miners’ Association had placed orders with our catering company ever since we started to use the delivery of baked goods as a cover for our real delivery of whiskey to him. But even though we delivered our whiskey straight to Vazmet now without the cover of baked goods, he often still put in an order with our catering business just because he liked what our chef created.

  Sometimes, he ordered just for himself, but he usually placed a whole order of potato mash cookies for the Retired Miners’ Association, and yesterday, he had come to see Cimarra to tell her to throw in an order of boiled tomato muffins on our next delivery.

  And he had apparently been very particular about the details.

  “So fifteen minutes, eh?” Dar asked. “I hope Marver has already baked something that we can sample by the time we get there.”

  “He might be a halfling, but he’s also a chef,” I said, “so unlike the rest of your kind, he isn’t really one for sleeping until the middle of the day.”

  “Hey, I’m up and awake!” my halfling friend said.

  “Only because we dragged you out of bed,” Cimarra pointed out.

  “You sound like Penny,” Dar groaned. “Maybe you two have been spending too much time together.”

  “I happe
n to think we haven’t been spending enough time together,” the beautiful dancer said with a smile, “but I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “I’m sure Penny would love that,” I laughed.

  We turned off the main path onto a smaller trail that led to our catering company’s cottage. We were deeper in the forest now, so the trees grew thicker on either side of us, and while it helped hide us from the main road, it was also more difficult to see anything through the dense foliage around us.

  When we had walked for almost ten minutes down the smaller trail, the Rainbow Keys suddenly hummed in my pocket, but they didn’t speak. Instantly, I slipped my hand into my cloak to touch the keys, and they were white hot to the touch.

  The Rainbow Keys only hummed or sang out when there was something that I really needed to pay attention to, so I knew it had to mean there was something in the woods with us. The back of my neck began to prickle, so I released the keys and slowly started to reach toward the dagger in my belt.

  I didn’t stop walking, but I cleared my throat so Dar would look over and see what I was doing. As soon as my halfling friend saw that I had my hand wrapped around the hilt of my blade, he did the same thing with his own dagger, and he didn’t say a word.

  Cimarra glanced at both of us and then just took an extra-long stride so she was slightly in front of both of us. The dancer didn’t carry any weapons herself, but I knew that she had stepped forward so she wouldn’t be in our way if we were attacked.

  But even though the back of my neck continued to prickle and I knew that someone was watching us, I couldn’t tell exactly where they were or how many of them were against us. All I knew was that they were somewhere behind us, and they definitely didn’t feel friendly.

  I didn’t want to draw my weapon and let them know that I was aware of their presence, but I was about to get irritated that they hadn’t made a move yet.

  “What is it?” Dar finally hissed.

  “Someone’s following us,” I whispered, “but I can’t tell how many or who it is.”

  “I can find out,” Cimarra murmured.

  The graceful dancer suddenly dropped one of her bracelets, walked forward a few steps, stopped, and then started to search the ground for it. Of course, she had to turn around to find the bracelet that she had intentionally dropped, so by the time she slipped it back onto her wrist, she had gotten a good look at the woods behind us.

  “It’s dwarves,” the raven-haired dancer whispered after we all walked forward again, “and I think they’re wearing armor, so they must be dwarven guards.”

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Four, I think,” Cimarra said.

  “Fuck,” I said, because I knew that could only mean one thing.

  Lobrem must have sent them. The head of the Miners’ Union might have been Vazmet’s son, but he was nothing like his father. Lobrem was a real son-of-a-bitch, and even though I paid him to keep the dwarven guards off our backs, he had recently decided that he was less than happy with our arrangement.

  I just hadn’t thought that he would actually send the dwarven guards after us yet. After all, I was the new guild leader of all the Thief’s Guild branches in the city, so an attack against me would have been like an attack against the elven guildmaster.

  But maybe Lobrem was just that pissed off that I had renegotiated the terms of our deal-- either that, or maybe he was just that stupid.

  “What do we do?” Cimarra whispered.

  “Lobrem must have sent them,” I said.

  “Why?” Dar asked. “If Lobrem wanted to get rid of us, shouldn’t they have attacked us by now?”

  “I don’t think he actually wants to kill us,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Then why are they following us?” the beautiful dancer asked.

  “I don’t think he’s actually stupid enough to try to kill me right after the guildmaster left town,” I said. “It’s only been a few days since she left, so if something happened to me, she could easily get word of it and come right back here to fuck things up for whoever killed an officer of the elven empire.”

  “So what, then?” Dar hissed. “Do they just want to follow us and see how we wipe our asses?”

  “Trust me, no one wants to see that, my friend,” I said with a smirk. “Lobrem must have just told them to follow us and see where we’re going.”

  “Then he probably just wants to get a closer look at our operations,” Dar said. “Maybe he thinks he’ll be able to find our distillery.”

  “Too bad for him that we don’t even store whiskey at the cottage anymore,” Cimarra said. “And we didn’t leave the warehouse this morning, so I’m sure they don’t know where the distillery is yet.”

  “True enough,” my halfling friend replied. “It’s not like there’s even anything of value at the cottage-- just a bunch of baked goods and catered meals that Marver’s running for us to keep up appearances.”

  “So do we just keep going like we don’t know they’re behind us?” the graceful dancer asked. “And then after we leave the cottage, we’ll just try to lose them before we go back to the city?”

  “I mean, that makes sense to me,” Dar said, “but what do you think, Wade?”

  “I think we should kill them,” I growled.

  “Say what now?” Dar asked. “But if Lobrem just told them to follow us, then--”

  “We need to send a message,” I said. “Just because there’s nothing valuable at the cottage doesn’t mean I want Lobrem to know about it, and I definitely don’t want him to think that he can send his men to follow us without any consequences.”

  The trees had started to thin out a little on either side of us, and I knew that meant that the clearing with the cottage was just up ahead. It would be easier to fight the dwarven guards out in the open than here in the middle of the woods, so I wanted to wait until exactly the right opportunity to strike-- especially since there were four of them, and only Dar and I were armed.

  “Okay, so how do you want to play this?” Dar asked. “Four dwarfs aren’t gonna go down easily.”

  “And what do you need me to do?” Cimarra whispered.

  “Cim, I need you to just get to safety,” I said, “so as soon as we attack, run ahead to the cottage and hide there until it’s safe to come out again.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t do more,” the beautiful dancer said.

  “You don’t need to be sorry,” I said. “I just need you to be safe.”

  “I understand,” Cimarra replied.

  “Dar, I need you to take the guards on our left when we turn around,” I said. “I’ll take the two on the right.”

  “Won’t they be able to just see us coming?” my halfling friend asked.

  “Not if I use the Opalstone amulet,” I said with a grin. “I’m going to try to freeze everything, and hopefully it will give us enough time to take out at least two of the guards before the others unfreeze, so then we’ll be evenly matched.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Dar said. “Then just say the word when you’re ready.”

  As soon as we stepped foot into the clearing, I glanced at the cottage on the far side of the grove, and I knew that Cimarra should be able to make it there before any of the guards tried to grab her. The sun shone a little brighter now that we were out in the open, and that meant it should be easy to spot all four guards once we turned around.

  We continued forward across the clearing, but we walked a little more slowly so I could start to concentrate on the Opalstone amulet that hung around my neck. I didn’t think that I’d ever used it before without actually looking at my target, but I figured now was a good time to experiment with it, so I let my attention drift to the gemstone in the necklace as I thought about the four dwarven guards behind us.

  The moment that the gemstone flared hot against my chest, I whipped my dagger out of its sheath and whirled around to face our four followers.

  “Now!” I shouted.

  Cimarra took off in a streak of long
legs and black hair just as Dar and I launched ourselves at the four dwarves behind us.

  They had all frozen in place at the edge of the clearing, but each guard wore thick plated armor and was armed with a heavy axe, so we had our work cut out for us. But even though the guards might have been better armed, they also didn’t have the advantage of the Opalstone amulet on their side.

  As soon as we reached the four dwarves, I plunged my dagger into the throat of the guard frozen on my far right. I carved a gash down the side of his neck with my blade, and when it didn’t slash all the way through his muscles the first time, I just pulled out my weapon and pushed it in even deeper the next time.

  The second blow did the trick. A spurt of blood erupted from the dwarf’s neck and sprayed across the guard’s neck right beside him, but even as the first guard fell to the ground at my feet, his companion suddenly spluttered awake at the feeling of blood on his face.

  I glanced over to check on Dar, but when I saw that the halfling had managed to push his first target to the ground and now stood over him with his dagger raised, I redirected my attention back to my second opponent.

  The first dwarf that I had stabbed was motionless in a puddle of his own blood, so I knew he was no longer a threat to me. And since Dar was just about to take out another guard, that left only two that we had to get rid of.

  The dwarven guard in front of me growled and wiped his companion’s blood off his face, and then he came at me with his heavy axe. He was a big fucker, so one full-on blow from his axe would easily break a rib.

  I jumped back to avoid his first swing, and then I stepped to the side to avoid his second attempt. As I continued to dodge each of his blows, we started to circle each other in the clearing while we both looked for an opening to attack.

  The dwarven guard kept swinging even when there was no chance that he would hit me, but I guessed that he wanted to wear me down until I wasn’t able to dodge his blows quickly enough. It wasn’t a bad strategy, but mine was better.

  I was just going to let him swing until he wore himself out instead of me.

  As we circled each other, sometimes I attempted to stab him with the knife, but for the most part, I didn’t try any serious attacks against him. After all, I hated Lobrem and the whole dwarven guard that was in his pocket, but this wasn’t just the average scumbag.