At first, I didn’t even recognize her.
Solei stormed into the room like a living flame, a torn tunic pulled over a city guard’s uniform, one shoulder soaked through with sweat and dirt. Her braid had come partially undone, strands of dark hair sticking to her blood-smeared cheek.
And her knuckles—gods,her knuckles were raw and bleeding.
“Solei?” I breathed, standing quickly. “What happened?”
She didn’t answer right away. Just crossed the room, sat hard on the bench against the wall, and exhaled like she’d been running for hours.
“I had a little run-in with a Varnari assassin,” she said, as casually as if she were talking about the weather.
Zander straightened. “Here?”
She nodded, spitting a glob of blood into a cloth and wiping her jaw. “Not far from the Ascension grounds. He was tracking someone.”
I knelt beside her, already pulling the wash basin closer. “Is he dead?”
Solei grinned through the blood. “He’s missing a few important parts. That’s all you need to know.”
Zander let out a short whistle.
“You always did make the worst first impressions,” I muttered, grabbing a cloth to clean her hands.
She winced as I dabbed the torn skin. “He made the mistake of underestimating me. Thought I was just a pretty girl in a dress.”
I raised a brow. “You were literally wearing a guardsman’s tunic.”
Solei smirked. “Then he was doubly stupid.”
Zander leaned back, his eyes still sharp. “If they’re already this close… we’ll need to move soon.”
Solei nodded, more serious now. “At dawn. You’ll need to vanish before the city stirs.”
And just like that, the fragile stillness we’d built was gone.
“Who was the assassin targeting?” I asked, my voice louder than I intended as I rinsed blood from Solei’s knuckles.
She flexed her fingers, wincing as the cloth dragged over broken skin. “A warder. One, with little combat training. He would be dead if I weren’t so curious about the assassin.”
My stomach twisted. “Damn it.”
“They’re distracting us with politics,” I whispered, the realization hitting like a slap. “All this chaos with Zander, the accusations, the staged evidence—it’s pulling attention away from the real damage.”
Zander stood now, jaw tight as he crossed his arms. “I haven’t thought about the dwindling warders in weeks. The guild was supposed to be protecting them.”
“They were,” Solei said grimly. “But too many have been killed or gone missing. And it’s not just them.”
She met my gaze, her voice colder now. “There have been other killings. In the outer kingdoms, mostly. Quiet ones. Two confirmed warders, one in Grenthia and one near the coast. Both murdered in the last week.”
I swallowed hard. “And no alerts went out?”
“Buried,” she said. “Conveniently under travel accidents or fae ambushes. But that’s not all.”
I looked up, already bracing for the next blow.
“Three healers have also died quietly,” Solei added. “One in Thubia and two in Prima.”
Zander’s voice was quiet, but it held a razor’s edge. “They’re targeting our infrastructure.”
