Even as he said it, his hand slid to her waist, tightening its grip as if he wasn’t ready to let her go just yet, and Lory held on to his shoulder like he’d evaporate into smoke if she let go of him.
But she didn’t dare repeat her question. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to face what was obviously building between them. No matter the reason he’d saved her a second time from certain death, the connection between them was more than a spark of heat. Deep in her chest, Lory felt that Khayrivven held the power to destroy her heart.
Carefully, she unhooked her ankles behind his hips, sliding down his front and instantly hating the distance between them as Khayrivven stepped back, his hands slipping off her, hanging loosely at his sides.
“Where are we going?” With a glance around, she cleared her head, trying to smother the embers inside her chest, refusing to die down, even as he led her the last few turns along the dark corridor to where the first rays of sunlight pierced through a slit in the wall above what looked like a steel door barely high enough for Khayrivven to fit through.
“It’s a surprise.” A hint of mischief returned to his tone, but his expression turned back into the contained anger from before he’d kissed her.
“But I’ve been there before, and it’s lively,” she repeated what clues he’d given her before, watching him open the door by pulling two levers at the side.
Daylight flooded the hallway, exposing every crack in the dark-gray stone walls and every wrinkle on her uniform, while Khayrivven became a dark silhouette against the brightness of the sun. Ducking his head, he stepped over the threshold, gesturing for her to follow.
“You’ll need to be patient for a little while longer, Gutter Gem.”
At least, he hadn’t returned to using her last name or her rank at Ashthorn, rather calling her that infuriating nickname that was now driving heat through her body, as if it was an actual endearment.
With her hands, she patted the sides of her hips, where her weapons belt hung empty. “Will I need a dagger?”
The way his mouth tightened made her worry wherever they were going would be the last place she’d go in her life.
“At least, tell me if I’m going to survive whatever this mission is.”
Khayrivven gave her an unreadable look. “You will survive this like you’ve survived any other day on the streets.” He paused, chewing on his lower lip for a moment. “But I’m not certainIwill.”
As if he hadn’t just given her another mystery to solve, he studied her stepping through the door, and shut it behindthem, before breaking into a jog along what was obviously the wall fencing in the palace premises. From up here, she had a view on the entire city—her city, where she’d stolen and hidden from city guards, where she’d fought for survival every last damn day of her life.
She’d thought breathing the air outside Ashthorn’s walls would give her a sense of freedom, but the only thing she saw as she scanned the endless ocean of limestone buildings with tall pillars marking the districts like lighthouses was pain. Pain and misery… and ignorance.
Except for the few families breeding ashlings for Ashthorn Ward, the people dwelling in those houses didn’t know of the hypocrite Ulder was. They didn’t know that some magic wielders were allowed to live and that the worst of them were given a choice to kill in Ulder’s name or die.
What a blissful existence. What alie.
As she followed Khayrivven along the wall, climbing down a narrow, hidden staircase carved into the stone, a part of her yearned for the days when finding her next meal used to be her only problem.
The baking heat of the midday sun beat down on them as they slipped through between the first buildings, tall, impressive structures of the richest district of Dunai. Here, no one bothered to be out on the street at this time of the day, and they didn’t need to hide in the sparse shade along the walls to avoid spying eyes, but Khayrivven set a fast, stealthy pace anyway, leading her through the narrowest alleys the district had to offer until a tall pillar of limestone announced they’d crossed into the next.
It was only when they reached the less reputable districts of the city that the streets started filling with people, their faces sweaty and their clothes dusty. No one paid Lory and Khayrivven any heed as they fell into the pattern of the loose, slow-moving crowd, with Khayrivven, either great at faking the slumping walk of the hard-working men or acting on muscle memory, Lory didn’t dare ask.
By the time the sun started biting at the pale spots of her face, they’d reached a way too familiar part of Dunai: narrow streets of packed dirt, one or two-story limestone buildings, barred windows shutting out the midday heat.
“Where are we going?” This time, Lory made sure it sounded like a demand rather than a request.
Khayrivven glanced at her over his shoulder, the glinting hilt of the saber painting flecks of light on his olive face. “Just a little farther.”
Without a warning, he turned into a side street, stopping in front of a stack of empty crates beside an empty rain barrel. “We’ll make the rest of our path across the roofs.” Not an order but an invitation for her to start climbing.
So, Lory did. Not because it was what he wanted but because she hadn’t seen this part of the city—herpart of the city—for too long. From up there, on the roof, she’d have a view of the streets she used to run with Evven; she’d see the corner where she’d snagged a fig for her brother and the alley where she’d dragged a bag of grain from a driving cart. She’d see who she used to be instead of who she was forced to become.
Khayrivven was right behind her when she hopped onto the crates, then the barrel, reaching for the drainpipe and scalingthe side of the low building. By the time she heaved herself over the edge of the roof, he was beside her, swinging his long legs up and crouching as if worried they might be seen.
“Are we hiding, or is this just general Ashthorn field trip protocol?”
Khayrivven gave her a humorless laugh. “It’s always better not to be seen, especially in our line of work.”
Our line of work?—
“So, you are an assassin?” Lory couldn’t say she was surprised. “And a captain and a hand?” She wiped back a strand of hair escaping from her braid and got to her hands and knees, peering over the edge of the roof to observe the slow-moving stream of people dispersing at the small square the street opened into. “Anything else I should know?”
