“Impressive,” I said, letting my voice drip with amusement instead of the terror clawing at my throat. If I hadn’t sent my cinderhawk, Gavelle ahead…
Yet here she was, raising the knife at me like she’d rip through my bowels.
I stepped in close before she could think to use it, twisting it from her fingers. The jolt of contact hit like a slap to my soul. She smelled of sweat and adrenaline and something too sweet for what she’d face tomorrow.
“Can’t have you taking another poke at me, can we, minxpip?” I drawled.
She froze. Smart woman. She didn’t know me, but she could sense what I was. What I could do.
Her shaking hands gave her emotions away.
I wanted to tell her the kill had been clean. That her technique may be foreign but it was effective. That I’d seen enough death to know this one would sit on her chest tonight, heavy and unforgiving.
But I didn’t. I provoked her instead with my words, which was safer for both of us.
She caught sight of the mark on my neck and went still. I didn’t expect the look in her eyes.
Pain. Raw and wild.
She covered it fast, snapping, accusing me of letting another woman touch me. I taunted her, told her she could give me the next mark.
“You can only dream of that happening.” Her reply came out bitter. Angry.
Then came the blow I’d earned.
“You watched while someone attacked me,” she snarled. “You didn’t help me at all.”
Her magic flared, heat and hunger lighting the corridor. I nearly reached for her. Nearly told her the truth. That I would’ve helped. That I’d been watching the whole time, yes, but holding myself back. Not because I didn’t trust her, but because I did.
She shoved the magic down. Shoved me down along with it.
That cracked something inside me, and I went cold.
“Why would I step in?” I said. “You’ve made it clear you don’t need saving.”
I continued to taunt her,savoredit, actually, before I turned away and disappeared into the shadows, using magic to slide back into Gavelle’s eyes. Through the hawk, I watched her friend tend her wound and lead her back inside their sleeping chamber.
Only once the dormitory door had been locked with magic did I approach the body. Blood pooled black beneath him. No insignia on his clothing. No identifying marks. I studied his unfamiliar face.
Someone had sent him, someone who knew exactly where to strike to make the killing blow.
I pressed my palm to the stone floor beside him. Tendrils of magic flowed from my fingertips, azure threads weaving beneath the corpse. The body rose above the ground, suspended on a cushion of my power.
Moving a corpse was never pleasant work, but necessary tonight. People would ask questions, and we couldn’t have that.
I guided the floating body through the deserted corridors to a small courtyard. Moonlight bathed the space in silver, illuminating a circular stone area at its center.
Lowering the body to the stone, I removed his weapons and searched his pockets. I found nothing but a cloth vial containing powder I recognized as bloodroot extract—a toxin that caused seizures and death.
Why was he after her?
I closed his vacant eyes with my thumb and pressed my palm tohis forehead. Magic stirred beneath my skin as I murmured the release incantation in the old tongue, the words my father had drilled into me almost from the time I could walk.
Blue flame licked across the body, consuming flesh and bone without heat or smoke. In moments, only ashes remained, which the wind caught and scattered, leaving no trace of the man who’d died tonight.
Death was an old companion in the halls of my home. I’d seen my first corpse at seven, when a spy infiltrated my father’s council chamber. I’d watched him die, choking on his own blood, killed by my father. At fifteen, I’d seen more as my father and his guard fell defending those he loved.
Each soul deserved release, even those who came bearing knives in darkness.
