“Jumped.”
“That can’t be comfortable.”
“It’s not.” He takes another bite of the cookie and shifts his weight, and then he simply falls off the beam.
My breath catches—but I should know better. Of course he doesn’tfall. His knees hook the wood, letting him hang upside down right over my bed. It would be comical if half his weapons spilled free, but he’d never be so careless. The hood of his jacket hangs loose behind his head, but all of his gear stays tight and intact to his body. Those blue eyes are always a bit gray in the dimness of my room, moonlight etching the curves of his face.
He’s so close that my eyes fall on the dark lines ink-branded on his left cheek. I have no idea what they mean, but I don’t think it’s anything good. When he showed up with the first one, the edges were still raw and red, but he refused to tell me what happened. I’d never seen anything like it, so I asked one of my ladies if they knew what an inked line on a man’s cheek could mean. Her eyes flicked around warily, and she whispered, “Judgment marks, Your Highness. From the slavers.”
“The slavers!” I exclaimed. We have no slaves in Astranza.
She winced. “That’s what the indentures call them.”
When Asher showed up with two, I asked what he’d done to deserve judgment.
He snorted. “I got caught.”
“By the slavers?” I said, and his eyes went dark, closed off.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. Then he disappeared for weeks.
By the time he had four, I learned to stop asking.
Now he has seven.
I quickly jerk my eyes back to his own, because he hates when I stare at them. “It’s been months,” I say. “Where were you?”
“North.” I don’t expect more of an answer than that, but he adds, “I had duties in Morinstead.” He takes another bite of the cookie. “There were complications.”
His voice is so bland that he could be talking about delivering a sack of grain, but I know better. I keep my voice equally bland, because nothing chases him away faster than digging for details. “Killing duties?”
“Yes.”
When he first told me he’d been accepted into the Hunter’s Guild, I knew what it meant. I’m notthatsheltered. But Asher read the horrified judgment on my face before I could say a word. It was two years ago, just after he earned his freedom from indenture, and I will never forget the flare of betrayal in his eyes.
“So your brother and his soldiers can be killers on the battlefield,” he said, “but you save your contempt for me, just because I’m not in uniform?”
“That’sdifferent.”
“It’s not. I’m still taking orders, still being trained for violence. Would you rather I go back to the slavers?”
“Of course not. But surely it wasn’t as bad askillingpeople—”
“It wasworse.”
I’d never heard his voice like that—so tight, so angry. It drew me up short.
“How?” I whispered.
He stared back at me, and for an instant, anguish flickered in hisgaze. But then he blinked, and the emotion was gone. “It doesn’t matter.” He gestured at the lines on his face. “No one will hire a marked man for honest work. So, what now? I shouldstarveso I don’t insult your delicate sensibilities, Princess Marjoriana?”
“No one in Astranzastarves, Asher—”
“Oh, you don’t think so? You have no idea what it’s like outside the palace.None.” He drew back, putting distance between us. Then he knocked a vase off my dressing table, making the porcelain shatter on the stone floor. He leapt for the rafters, disappearing into the night air, knowing I couldn’t call after him when the guards and my ladies came rushing in to see what caused such a racket.
Now I flick my gaze along his upside-down form while he takes another bite of cookie. He looks as lean and muscled as ever, and he’s hanging from his hooked ankles like he could do this all night.
“What kind of complications?” I say. “Were you injured?”
