Twenty-One
Remy stood slowly from the corpse, the blood-slick parchment still clenched in his fingers. The fire in his eyes had cooled, replaced now with calculation. Worry.
“Solei,” he said, glancing toward me. “Has she been by? Did she say anything at all?”
I rubbed my arms, trying to shake the cold that clung to me. “She has a few times. She warned me but also said…” My voice faltered, my memory slicing deeper than the assassin’s blade. “Solei said she would never hurt me again. That she was sorry.”
Remy’s jaw tensed. “Did she say she’d protect you?”
“Sheinferredit,” I admitted, pushing a hand through my tangled hair. “But I’m not sure I believe her.”
“I do,” Remy said quietly, surprising me. “If she gave you the oath, even implied it, she won’t break it.”
I studied him. “You trust her that much?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he knelt again beside the corpse and retrieved the dagger from the assassin’s belt, examining the hilt, the balance, the make. “This… it’s Order standard issue,” he muttered. “Not just someone imitating them. It’s real. But Solei would’ve known.”
“Then maybe someone’s trying toframethe Order,” I said slowly. “Make it look like they ordered the hit.”
“Why?” Zander asked, stepping closer, his voice tight with control. “To discredit them? To cause division between their agents?”
“Or worse,” Remy said, standing fully. “To divideus.If someone wants you dead, Ashe, and they can make you doubt the few allies you have left…”
He let the thought trail off.
The room was too quiet. Too heavy.
“Who would do that?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
Zander didn’t move.
But I saw the name burn in both their eyes long before anyone dared speak it.
Theron.
Zander crossed the room in three strides, his eyes raking over me like he was assessing wounds I couldn’t see, though there were plenty of those too. He didn’t speak right away, just lifted my chin gently with two fingers and studied the fine line of blood along my cheek from the blade’s first pass.
“You need to see Meri,” he said, quiet but firm. No argument in his tone, just that steady command I used to find so infuriating.
Now it just felt like safety.
I nodded, too tired to pretend otherwise.
“I’ll walk with you,” Zander added.
Remy didn’t object. He stepped back from the corpse and exhaled, glancing toward the shattered doorway.
“I’ll find out how he got in,” he said, his voice low. Dangerous. “The guards on the outer gate… they’ve worked for the Order before. Guard pay is laughable, but the Order’s coin? That talks.”
Zander’s eyes narrowed. “So getting inside the compound was easy.”
Remy nodded grimly. “Too easy. Someone opened a door.”
I turned toward him, the fear in my chest colder now. “You think it was… someone in the guild?”
“I think,” Remy said slowly, “someone wants you dead badly enough to risk pitting the Order against the dragons. That means they’re either very stupid…”
“Or very powerful,” Zander finished.
