A sound filtered through the closed door of Talisa’s room. Cann didn’t even consciously recognize it, but a lifetime on the borders made his body go tense all the same.
In that one instant, his weariness evaporated, and his grief found itself tucked unceremoniously into a tight box, utterly removed from his current consciousness. Cann the grieving father gave way to Great Lord Barrial, the fierce and wily wolf of the borders. He set the perfume pot down, his hands automatically seeking the grip of his swords but finding only empty air in their stead.
“Krekk.”His weapons lay atop a bedside table, next to the rack holding the armor he now cursed himself for removing. The studded leather he’d slept in would do precious little to stop an axe, pike, or arrow strike in a full-on battle.
“We’ll wake you at the first sign of trouble,” his sons had promised when they convinced him to shed the armor. But trouble was here, and they had not come.
And that was troubling in its own right.
Cann raced across the room in swift silence, grateful for the plush furs on Talisa’s floor that muffled the sound of his footsteps. The latch on the door began to lift just as he reached the bed. He dropped down behind the bed and slipped one of his daggers from its sheath. He wasn’t half as good with the throwing daggers as the Fey, but at a distance as short as the one between him and the door, he didn’t miss.
The door cracked opened.
A voice whispered, “Da?”
Parsis. Cann let out a breath. “Here, Parsi.” Wary habit kept him crouched where he was, dagger pulled back for a throw.
Parsis poked his head around the edge of the door. Once he saw his father, he stepped quickly inside. Severn came in on his heels, closing the door behind them.
Now sure it was his sons and no one else, Cann rose to his feet. Both of them here, fully armed and armored, could only mean one thing. “So, it’s begun?”
“The king is dead but not by Elden hands. The attack came from within.” Parsis’s eyes were dark. “It’s Sebourne, Da.” He moved swiftly across the room to his father’s side and reached for the armor hanging on the rack.
“Sebourne?” That was a shock Cann had not expected. He slipped into the chest plates Parsis held out. “You’re sure?”
“Luce saw Sebourne’s men kill some of the King’s Guard.”
“Where is Luce?”
“Gone to lower the shields and sound the alarm.” Sev knelt to fasten the greaves to his father’s legs.
With the night shields up, they couldn’t spin a weave to alert the allies. Sebourne would know that and take precautions to keep those shields up, which mean Luce was headed for danger. As his sons helped him into his armor, Cann sent up a quick prayer for Luce’s safety and a quick curse for Sebourne’s insanity.
“Grief must have driven Sebourne mad.” Arrogant, hottempered, and power-hungry though he was, Cann had never known Sebourne to harbor treasonous sentiments against the king. But grief could do strange things to a man. “Who thejaffingHells let him close enough to the king to kill him?”
“I don’t think they let him, Da. Luce said all the guards in the main hall were dead. And Sebourne’s men were taking care to hide the bodies.”
The boys fastened the last of his armor in place and handed him his weapons. He buckled his sword belt, slung his quiver on his back, and settled the band of black Fey’cha across his chest. Sev handed him his Elfbow. He strung the bow quickly, curling his left ankle around one end, bending the long, recurved body of the bow across his back, and settling the loop on the end of the bowstring into place. Bow in hand, he nodded to his sons. “Let’s go.”
His sons pulled their swords, and together they slipped out into the hall.
***
The halls of the fortress’s central keep were eerily quiet. All of the King’s Guard stationed in the central tower were missing from their posts, with only a few drops of blood an occasional sign of disturbance to hint at their fate. Cann and his sons, followed by the King’s Guard who had been stationed in the east wing, padded through the silent corridors.
In the king’s suite they found the bodies of Dorian X and his valet, Marten, both unmistakably dead. Cann shared grim looks with the others. Even with the eyewitness accounts of his sons, this irrefutable proof of Sebourne’s treachery left him stunned.
“When we find him,” Cann growled softly, “he’s mine.”
His boys nodded. Together, they slipped back into the hallway and made their way to the stone steps leading to the central hall.
They found Sebourne and two of his men disposing of the body of a King’s Guard in the first hallway of the west wing.
Cann didn’t hesitate. With a speed that would have done his Elvish kin proud, he pulled an arrow from the quiver at his back, nocked it, aimed, and let fly. A second arrowed followed a split second later.
Sebourne’s two companions dropped without a sound. The Great Lord whirled, blade unsheathed and raised for battle. At the sight of Cann and his sons, Sebourne’s lip curled.
“You,” he spat. “I should have known.”
