The messenger only shook his head. “Get back to the palace,” he said, then transformed into his other shape and flew away. Petur swore. He was already working on the sail, pulling it aloft with a quick, jerky motion. Deyvid stayed out of his way, his heart sinking with worry and disappointment.
Their interlude, as beautiful as it had been, was over.
Chapter eleven
Petur
Arven was all right. That was the most important thing, Petur kept reminding himself. His nephew had survived the assassination attempt virtually unscathed.
That was theonlything that was all right. The effort had been tuned with precision to a moment when the prince had been on his own. Arven, being a sociable type and carrying the expectations of his station, was almostneveron his own. He preferred to spend time with his sisters, train with his guards, or even endure personal time with his father or his mother to solitude. He was only alone when he was in his room or between engagements.
It was between a pair of his engagements that the assassin struck, and only Arven’s sharp hearing saved him. The blow came from a distance, fired from a crossbow across the length of the palace courtyard. The weapon was so powerful that the bolt flung at Arven ended up stuck a full half inch into the mortar of the stone wall behind him. It would have killed him if he’d been there, but he wasn’t.
Arven was a gifted shifter. Petur and he had worked hard on that, and his senses had warned him of the danger just in time to shift. He flew upward a seagull, and the sound of his harsh cries brought guards running. Despite their haste, though, the assassin was nowhere to be found.
“It was a High Harrier,” Jemal insisted once Petur and Deyvid were back in the palace. The color was high in his cheeks, and his hair was disheveled as though he’d been running his fingers through it relentlessly. “Ithadto be a High Harrier. Who else would be able to sneak so far into the palace without being detected?”
“A mage,” Petur replied, a little embarrassed that he even had to say it. “High Harriers are most effective against mages since their magic won’t work on them. Mages, in turn, are more effective against us since their magic works on us perfectly. They have spells that can mask their scent and allow them to walk unseen.”
“Then why did they use a crossbow?” Jemal demanded. “Why use a weapon like that when they could use a spell to attack?”
“Maybe they were already using as many spells as they could,” Petur replied in frustration. “How am I supposed to know? I wasn’t here. I didn’t get the chance to—”
“No,” Jemal shouted, pointing his finger straight at Petur’s face. “No, youweren’there. You were out on the water, fucking your second-in-command, when you should have been looking after the royal family as is your duty. If Arven had died …” His voice broke and with it, so did some of his rage. “If Arven had died, Tania and I would never have been able to forgive you.”
That didn’t seem fair to Petur, but he understood the sentiment. He wouldn’t have forgiven himself either. But it was cruel to look at the prince and see someone who was solely in need of protection.
“He saved himself,” Petur told his brother-in-law gently. “We’ve been training since he was a child so that he could do exactly what he did. He saved himself, Jemal, and that’s cause to celebrate.”
“None of this is cause to celebrate,” Jemal replied grimly. “Tania’s on her way back, of course. It’s not as though I would dare attempt to hide something like this from her even though Arven tried to insist that informing her wasn’t necessary. The girls have been clinging to him, crying nonstop. I don’t know why you sent Deyvid to them. There’s no way he’s going to be able to calm them down.”
“Deyvid is very good at calming things down,” Petur said.
“Well, not this time,” Jemal snapped. He lowered his voice. “If you know what’s good for youandfor him,” he murmured, “you’ll find something else for him to do when your sister gets back here.”
Petur opened his mouth to reply, then paused. “You might be right,” he said after a moment.
“Oh, I know I’m right,” Jemal replied, something both prideful and pained in his eyes. “I’ve been married to Tania for over twenty years. You think I don’t know how she reacts to things that scare her? I know better than anyone.
“Get him out of the palace,” he repeated. “It doesn’t matter what task you have him doing, just make sure he’s not doing it where she can see him, and you had better look forward to a near future of waiting hand and foot on her if you know what’s good for you.”
It wasn’t what Petur wanted to hear. It wasn’t what he wanted to do. Thelastthing he wanted to do right now, in fact, was lavish attention on his sister, when he ought to be part of the crew hunting down the assassin. Speaking of which …
“I’ll put Deyvid on finding out more about the assassin,” he said. “He’ll probably have some ideas as soon as he lays eyeson the crossbow. Which,” Petur added a bit sharply, “is not a Harrier weapon as you well know. They don’t care for crossbows, too impractical from horseback.”
Jemal sighed. “I know that,” he said, “and you know that. And in her heart of hearts, Tania knows that. But it’s not going to matter to her if we don’t present her with an alternative that she can believe in.”
No, it wouldn’t. In Tania’s mind, life was very black or white. If it wasn’t this, it was that. There were rarely third options. “I’ll do what I can,” Petur said.
“Do more,” Jemal replied, “and do it quickly. Tania will be here by tomorrow at the latest. That’s how much time you have.”
“It’s all the time I’ll need.” Petur projected a confident tone, but inside he was worried.
“Let’s hope so,” Jemal said. “Go, get started.”
Petur left his brother-in-law going over the reports he had gathered from every palace guard who was working during the assassination, looking for holes in their defenses. He’d already handled the interviews himself, he’d assured Petur. And his nose was good enough to track a lie. It wasn’t an inside job.
But if it hadn’t been, how did they know the schedule so clearly? Had they just gotten lucky? What was going on?
