Agiantwoman.
I turn back to the awful smell and see the illumination of a male form. I can make out a little more than the extent of his wounds.
“Who would do this?” Ulla whispers, just low enough for only me to hear. She crosses to the space where he is laid out and gasps.
“Ulla, later. Let’s finish this first,” I say through gritted teeth.
I adjust my grip on my weapon, and creep to the bed.
Moonlight spills over her face, showing off bright red hair that has been smoothed back into a tie. From the shape of her body in the lacy white nightgown to the sound of her snoring, she is the spitting image of Lijasa.
I am once again transported to Zlosa. To that opulent suite at the top of the palace. The curtains are drawn, and I don’t glimpse a single leaf as I retrieve the knife I’d hidden days ago.
The evidence of Lijasa’s passion is scattered around the room from the clothes on the floor to the drained wine glasses on the side table. Gods only know that it would take several glasses to willingly lay with such a woman.
Lijasa is sprawled out. Naked. Drugged.
And I hold a knife over her chest where her stony, wicked heart pumps out its last few beats.
There’s no way in all the dark corners of the earth that she shouldwake when I draw near, but somehow, as my hand hovers over the bed, Lijasa opens her eyes and looks at me with a wanton lust. Terror scorches through my body, but I only allow her a second before I plunge the dagger into her chest.
She doesn’t have a chance to scream.
The sound of the knife clattering to the ground draws me back to the present and causes thevery much alivewoman in front of me to stir. Her face turns toward the window, but it becomes clear she isn’t Lijasa.
It’s her sister—Laavi.They are similar, but I know her. She was supposedly executed when she tried to kill her sister on her wedding day.
I don’t have time to reach down and pick up the knife before I hear a soft thump behind me.
Quicker than a cave-in, I twist around to find a dark, black-clad figure stalking toward me, knife in hand and pointed at my breastbone.
I don’t have a chance to move, shaken as I am, and it’s nothing short of a miracle when Ulla stumbles in front of him from a shadowy corner.
The attacker halts in his deadly course, knife a hair's breadth away from Ulla’s long, blue neck.
“No,” she breathes, fumbling at the space on her hip. Feebly, she holds up a short Enduar blade between them. “No more death.”
“Put that down before you hurt yourself, my dear,” a low, theatrical voice grits out.
Blood roars in my ears.
Mrath sent us here knowing of my past and sent an assassin to kill us before we could return.
And not just any murderer in the night...
“Thorne?” Ulla asks as he stands there, frozen.
He reaches up and pulls back the mask covering his angular features and reveals a tight jaw and bunched shoulders.
Thorne doesn’t respond, and I take the opportunity to scoop up the knife, returning to the woman.
“Forgive me, Ulla,” I say.
“Wait—“
“No, she’s a monster, just like her sister,” I say. “May your gods save you, for I cannot.”
I bring the knife into her chest.Hard—for giants have much stronger bones than humans or elves.
