I wonder how she feels about seeing mine right beside it.
Then again, she was the one to leap onto the bed and punch Gunnar in the face. She leapt into the fray right alongside us. Fearless.
She proves it now, too, because she might be pale and wide-eyed, but her voice is steady. “Where did they come from?”
“The Hunters Guild,” I say. “These are the men who would have been sent if I didn’t finish the assignment.”
The assignment that the Guildmaster said wasn’t real.
But I don’t say that. They already know it.
I look up, toward the crisscrossed beams lining the ceiling, then toward the windows, which are both closed. That makes me frown. I don’t usually close a window once I’min. It’s just one more obstacle to gettingout.
Could they have been inside the inn all evening? I can’t quite make that work out in my head. They would’ve had to know we would stop, and even though I wasn’t privy to the king’s decisions, this doesn’t seem like a planned location. Then again, they could have followed our tracks in the snow. Could Logan and Gunnar have come down the chimney after snuffing the embers? I glance down at the bodies. They don’tlooklike they came down a chimney.
“There could be more,” the king is saying. He looks to his men in the doorway. Sev and Callum have stepped into the room, and their expressions are grave. Roman appears behind them with a lit lantern.
The king glances at me, and then to the closed windows as well. He uses his secret signals to give the men another order, and Roman and Callum both give him a sharp nod, then step back through the door, leaving the lantern.
Jory is watching, and curiosity must have broken through her panic. She swallows. “What did those mean?”
Ky inhales, but his captain’s gaze narrows. “Perhaps we can sharestrategies another time,” says Captain Zale. “When others might not be listening.”
I don’t know if he meansme, or if he suspects that there might be more assassins in the inn, but either way, it doesn’t matter. I reach down and push the other Hunters onto their backs.
The king’s voice is low. “Do you know them?”
“Yes.” They’re both in their mid-thirties, and neither looks particularly noteworthy, though one has a bit of a gut straining at his jacket. I point to him first. “Gunnar.” Then the second. “Logan.” I hesitate. “You’re lucky they weren’t sentfirst.They were two of the best.”
“The best?” says the king. “Then this felt too easy.”
“They’re good atkilling. Not fighting.”
Captain Zale has joined us now, and he’s looking down at the bodies, too. “Clearly.”
I bristle. “It’s not as if we meet much resistance. Your king would be dead in his bed if I hadn’t woken him.”
The king’s eyes meet mine, and I know he’s remembering the moment just before that, when my hand fell on his arm.
“I would’ve been dead, too,” Jory says softly. “And Charlotte.”
The captain looks up, and I watch him taking in the new marks on the king’s throat, clearly left there by Gunner. His gaze shifts to me, and I wait as his eyes flick over the blood, the chain that still links us together, the blade that’s still hanging loosely in my hand.
His eyes narrow, and I remember what he said at dinner about potential Draeg spies.
But I’m also remembering the moment I first opened my orders from the Guild and saw that the princess’s death had been paid with Incendrian silver.
Someonewrote those orders.
“They went after you first?” Captain Zale is saying to the king.
“Yes.”
His eyes flick back to me. “We were stationed at the door. Why didn’t you call for help?”
Oh. That question is a little piercing. The sad truth is that it wouldnever occur to me. I can’t remember the last time I was ever in a position where I could cry out for help and expect someone to answer.
But I resent the note of suspicion in his voice, and my eyes narrow. I say nothing.
