Chapter Two
The Princess
My ladies added two extra quilts and a fur to my bed when I finally retired, but I still can’t stop shivering. I toss and turn, tucking the bedding around me more securely, then shift to face the door. I’m sure Dane expects me to be prim and demure tomorrow, but at this rate, I’ll be awake all night. When the king arrives, I’ll end up yawning through a curtsy, and Maddox Kyronan will set the tapestries ablaze because he’s so offended by my rudeness.
I’d laugh if it weren’t all so tragically possible.
Instead, I want to scream into my pillow.
If Asher were here, he’d lift my spirits. He’d call Dane an uptight ass and threaten to poison his tea. Maybe he’d hang one of my stockings from a nail high in the rafters, so I’d have to stifle a giggle in the morning while my ladies tried to figure out how it got up there. We’d sit in the shadows and I’d beg him for gossip from the distant corners of Astranza that I never get to see. He never stays too long, but sometimes the night will grow dark and quiet and he’ll linger. We’ll share memories from our childhood, from before our mothers died and the world became too dark and lonely to think about.
Once I’m in Incendar, I’ll be completely alone.
My throat tightens, and I sniff back tears before they dare to form.
I wonder if I could figure out a way to send word to the Hunter’s Guild in the morning, to inquire about Asher and his whereabouts. Dane could surely do it, but he’s the last person I would ask. Officially, the Hunters never work for the Crown, because no one in the palace would ever admit to hiring them, but I know it’s been done. When some nobleman or high-ranking soldier needs to be dealt with discreetly instead of publicly.
I asked Asher about it late last summer.
“Does Dane use your services?” I said primly.
“Myservices?” he echoed. We were in the midst of a game of cards in the moonlight, and I saw his lip quirk up under the hood of his jacket. Ever in the shadows, even in the dead heat of summer. “Jory, I’m not polishing the silver. I’m hired to kill people.”
My heart always stutters a little at the casual way Asher talks about his occupation, but I pressed on. “Then does hehireyou?”
The smile fell off his face. “Not me. I won’t take your family’s money.”
It was one of the last times I saw him. He often disappears for weeks, though I rarely know where he’s been. An assassin wouldn’t be very successful if he broadcast his whereabouts. But this is the longest he’s ever been gone, and it’s not as if Astranza issovery large. When he was first exiled from the palace at sixteen, he was sold into indentured labor to pay his “debts to the Crown,” but even then he’d manage to slip away, finding his way back to me time and time again.
I toss myself sideways and face the window, willing Asher to appear.
He doesn’t. Not that he’d simplyappear, anyway. He’d never be that obvious. I might see a flicker of shadow, or the draperies might flutter.
Tonight there’s nothing.
I heave an exasperated sigh and punch the pillow, then bury my face in it.
“Stars in darkness, Jory. What did that pillow ever do to you?”
I gasp and sit bolt upright. “Asher.”
“Careful.” He draws out the word slowly, and his low, quiet voice is like a caress. “I don’t think your ladies are asleep.”
He sounds close enough to touch, but I don’t see him anywhere. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. He’s quicker than lightning, and he can move through darkness like a ghost.
My heart is leaping in my chest, but I drop my voice to a whisper. “Where are you?”
“Up here.”
I look up, and there he is, perched on one of the dozen rafters that artfully stretch across the room. The decorative beam seems too narrow to be comfortable for lounging, but somehow Asher manages. He’s dressed all in black, from the soles of his boots to the strap of his pack. Black leather, black canvas, black wool, black buckles. Even his weaponsare specially forged so they don’t reflect the light: there’s not a speck of gleaming steel anywhere. The only brightness is Asher himself. He’s pushed back his hood far enough for me to see the shock of white-blond hair that hangs into his eyes, and the fair skin that rarely sees the sun. His eyes are in shadow, but I know they’re a bright, vivid blue. When we were children, the ladies at court would always comment that he’d grow out of that hair color, that his eyes would darken once he got out of childhood. They were wrong on both counts.
I wonder if any of the older ladies ever think of Asher, or if they cast him out of their minds as soon as he was exiled. They never offered him an ounce of pity or mercy when he desperately needed it, so I doubt it.
My jaw is set now, my joy at his presence replaced with protective anger over the boy he once was.
Asher pulls a cookie from somewhere and bites off a piece. “What’s with the look?”
I force my features to soften. “I’ve been so worried,” I say. “How did you get up there?”
