The house that Petur had chosen to run the exercises from was, on their very first night there, set on fire in the early hours of the morning. Petur smelled the smoke instantly and was able to get himself, Deyvid, and every other inhabitant out well before the home went up in flames, but the perpetrator, once again, wasn’t found even though Petur was able to find evidence that the fire had been set by an arrow, not as a result of a spell.
“Ludicrous,” Petur snapped and snarled as he strode across the ground in the center of the little town. Everyone had been moved out of the buildings to shelter in tents. “Absolutely fucking ludicrous. What did they think they were going to accomplish by setting a random fire, hmm?”
“The destabilization of an entire force of highly trained shifters, most likely,” Deyvid suggested dryly. “After all, your presence makes the act far from random. Now settle down before you wear a hole in the ground, hmm?”
“Don’t tell me to settle down,” Petur snapped. “You have no idea the pressure I’m under. Can you imagine what my sister’s reaction would be if someone started firing flaming arrows at us on the road? She’d have my head. She’d haveyourhead. She’d haveallour heads.”
“That would be counterproductive.”
“Don’t be smart with me right now.”
“Then don’t be mad at me,” Deyvid replied with a bit of heat in his own voice. “You think I like this? I don’t. I especially don’t when everything that happens, time and again, makes it seem as though my own people are responsible.”
“They’re not your people anymore,” Petur insisted.
“I know,” Deyvid agreed, “but I’m trying to look at this from your sister’s perspective. And you know what she would say.”
“And we can’t stop her,” Petur said morosely.
“All we can do,” Deyvid agreed, “is our best. Everything else, our fears, our worries, it’s going to have to wait.”
Petur slumped back onto his cot. “I hate waiting.”
Deyvid kissed him just above the eyebrow. “I know,” he said, “but you’ll do it anyway.”
“Obviously.”
The third assassination attempt was the most concerning. Not necessarily because of the sly way in which it was delivered, and it was quite sly, but because it coincided with reports of an attempt on the life of Melisse, the queen of Bekkon.
Bekkon was a tiny nation, the smallest of the seven Southlands but deceptively powerful thanks to its monarch’s abilities with magic. Receiving a notification from Melisse that she and her consort had weathered an ambush during a ride together was testament to the determination of whoever was behind it because she had a plethora of magical protections, and yet the arrow which struck at her had to be stopped by none other than her consort himself.
Her magical protections had failed. Whoever had released that arrow was a High Harrier. That knowledge, plus the next attack on Petur, were enough to leave Tania both furious and worried.
The next attack on Petur was unsubtle but devious in its ferocity. It happened on the grounds just in front of the palace, Petur out glad-handing the locals while his sister held courtinside. Deyvid was keeping watch from afar, looking out for, he had thought, everything.
Except, it seemed, for the thing that he hadn’t counted as a potential danger at all.
It was a dog, whimpering and whining, pawing at its face now and then as it stumbled down a side street. Only once it entered the main square, its behavior changed entirely. Its head rose, eyes narrowing and mouth opening as its nostrils flared. Less than a second later, it took off at a mad dash. No barking, no howling, just jaws agape as it lunged straight for Petur.
Deyvid was too far away to do anything but shout. His daggers, his bow, none of them could be used with so many people between them who were taller than the dog.Fool, fool!Despite it all, Deyvid began to run.
A few of the townspeople screamed, and several fell back in the wake of the huge, snarling dog as it barreled through them, eyes set on the prince in their midst. It leapt through the air, fangs bared—and was caught by the head, by Petur, in his warrior form. One sharp ripple from shoulder to hand, and the dog went limp.
“Is it diseased?” one person called out.
“Must be,” another said. “Look at that foam round the mouth. Greenish like that, that’s drowning disease.”
“It was fine just a moment ago,” someone else said. “Or at least, it didn’t seem aggressive, did it?”
Deyvid’s heart sank as he made eye contact with Petur across the square. When Petur raised one eyebrow, Deyvid nodded grimly.Yes, this was an assassination attempt. Yes, he’d seen it used before successfully by his own people. It was simply a matter of time and timing: train a dog to attack a particular scent and then ensure before you released it that it carried a disease that would transfer through its bite.
And here they were, ready to leave for the convocation in two days.
“Shit,” Deyvid muttered. This was going to be a rough trip.
Chapter fifteen
Petur
