Her hand snatched her mug and cracked it against his head, the glass shattering as the keep dropped like a stone.
Aya whirled and rammed her shoulder into the patron next to her, sending him stumbling face-first into the woman he’d been well on his way to charming. The woman gasped and grabbed a fistful of his white hair as she threw him into the burly gentleman playing billiards behind her, and then …
Pandemonium.
Aya snatched one of the abandoned drinks on the counter and downed it in a single gulp before aiming for the back hall. She had to move quickly. The keep’s information had been useful in confirming what she’d long suspected: the queen was right. Trahir was stocking up on weapons – perhaps even preparing for war.
And with the chaos in the bar, she only had moments before the tradesmen slipped away.
Aya felt that cool, calm feeling rise in her – the one that found her when the next step of a mission was clear. She let it spread until everything was muted, until her very veins were ice as she slipped through the brawling patrons, her small form easily dodging blows. She ducked under a chair aimed for her head, her steps never faltering.
Fifteen paces toward the back hall.
Ten.
Five.
The guards finally noticed her amidst the fighting. Theymade to raise their swords, their warnings primed on their lips. But they weren’t fast enough for the Queen’s Eyes. Her knife was already free from where it was strapped at her thigh.
‘The Dyminara sends its regards.’
She lunged for the first guard, her knife sliding under his sword arm and into his chest. He was dead before he hit the ground. Aya whirled, her blade slashing across the other guard’s throat. Blood splattered across her face, but she didn’t stop. She leapt over their fallen bodies and dashed to the door on the left, her shoulder ramming it open.
The room was cramped and dark. The small wooden table and chairs had been upturned in a rush to the exit, which sat open to the side alley. Aya pushed through crates and boxes as she raced out the door, her boots sliding when she hit the icy cobblestones. The two men were halfway down the street already, heading away from the docks.
As if the backstreets were safer.
Fools.
These streets were a maze, filled with twists and dead ends.
She fixed her eyes on the billowing brown coat of the closest tradesman as she adjusted her grip on her knife, her arm drawing back, her inhale deep and steady. The blade flew from her hand and embedded into the man’s shoulder with a soft thud. He fell with a scream.
His companion glanced back, his feet catching beneath him as he took in the blood on her face.
Aya sent a knife sailing toward his head, close enough to graze his ear.
‘The next one goes in your skull,’ she called after him. ‘I only need one of you alive.’ He drew to a stop, his hands rising slowly in surrender as he lowered to his knees. ‘Wise choice.’
Aya strolled towards the first tradesman on the ground, his shouts of pain echoing off the brick buildings that linedthe street. ‘Quiet,’ she ordered as she hauled him off the ground. ‘Like I said, I only need one of you.’
The man whimpered, but he pressed his lips together, his body trembling in her grip. Aya glanced toward the docks. No sign of Ronan, the Royal Guard who had been assigned to the alley.
The supplier was missing too.
‘There’s supposed to be three of you,’ she said lightly, glancing between the tradesmen. ‘Where’s your supplier?’
The man on the ground shook his head. ‘There’s no one else.’
Aya sighed as she drew a rope from where she’d fastened it to her side. She dragged the tradesman she’d stabbed forward as she approached his companion, letting go only when she crouched down to tie the man’s hands together. He wasn’t going anywhere – not with that knife sticking out of his shoulder.
‘Lie to me all you want,’ she breathed. ‘But I’ll warn you … the Enforcer doesn’t take kindly to it.’
The man’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Oh yes, the Queen’s Second had a reputation that far preceded him; even the foreign councilors knew he wasn’t to be trifled with.
Aya stood, her joints stiff and aching in the cold. She pulled out another piece of rope and knotted it around the second man’s wrists as she glanced toward the docks again. Still no Ronan. Perhaps he had pursued the supplier.
She pushed against the unease that fluttered in her gut and instead reached for her power.
