Toran stuck close as she followed the trail, moving quickly through the sparkling, cobblestone streets of the Ring. His exhales were sound and sure, even over the pounding of her heart in her ears.
Part of her hated how confident he was. What she wouldn’t give to feel such confidence, to feel that sort of control. Often her own courage was a farce. Fear ran circles inside her, but she could never let it out. Showing her insecurities would lead to one of two things: death or servitude.
Already, Toran had taken her love for her father and used it against her. The ring he’d reluctantly loaned her was a surefire way to retaliate—if she knew anything about the meaning behind it. Until she did, she’d have to find another way to make him squirm.
With the clocktower ahead and the Ring behind them, the magic’s scent—fading into dying hyacinths with her every inhale—led her past the first few stalls showcasing the expensive goods of the Prime Market to a narrow pathway lined with tall opaque hedges.
On instinct, she quieted her footsteps upon entering. Toran, too, was silent behind her as the hedges engulfed them and the rest of the city fell away. At the end of the path stood an iron gate, fencing stretching out on either side. She took a deep breath in. They were close—the magic was strongest beyond the gate.
Toran stepped around her. His shoulder swiped hers, and tingles spread down from the contact. Part of her hated his confidence, but another, much smaller part of her whispered of its allure. She lifted her shoulder and shook off his touch.
Both hands on the iron rods, he rattled the gate. “It’s locked.”
She lifted her knee high and placed a foot against the side of one of the spokes. “Watch and learn, Cap. I’ll teach you the art of fence-hopping.”
Toran glanced around like he expected someone to emerge from the bushes to chastise them.
Hand braced on one of the fence’s horizontal rods, Nes stood up onto her raised foot before swinging herself over the top of the fence and setting two feet back on solid ground. “See?” she said, turning to face him. “Nothing to—”
The ground shook slightly, chipped pieces of stone jumping, as Toran landed hard on both feet beside her.
“—it?” he finished, raising a brow at her.
Scowling, she continued up the path, rounding the corner of another tall hedge. On the other side of the bush, the path opened into a large clearing filled with luscious green grass and a dozen trees.
And beneath the trees, twelve dead guards.
Nes froze.
“Are we alone?” Toran breathed.
She inhaled and caught nothing but sea and the chill of winter on the wind. There was no trace of the magic that had so desperately called out to her. No trace of any magic.
Something brushed her arm, and Nes glanced down. Toran’s hand shook—the only part of him that moved.
“Yes,” she answered and shoved her own hand deep into her pocket. “The Witch is long gone.”
Just as she would be once they completed this mission.
Toran stood stock-still beside her as he took in the corpses. She’d led him to the Holy Triad, an area just outside the castle and the entrance to the Ring. It was an ethereal sort of ground—kept by the Brothers of the Capital Monastery and surrounded by iron gates—with beautifully blooming peach blossom trees and a delicately bubbling fountain, known as the Prime Fountain, in the center.
Or it had been.
Now the area was desecrated. At the base of each tree trunk lay the body of a guard. All twelve had had their throats cut clean, smooth lines of blood still running down the sides of their necks. The trees cast the bodies in shadow, the lines of the branches running over the faces of the dead like prison bars.
Toran clenched his fist. “Why is she doing this? Why target guards?”
He was right—only guards had been killed. First Mikaud and the two with him, then the four in the Drowning Square, and now this.
Nes didn’t have any answers. Had Toran not come to her, she wouldn’t have given the murders of a bunch of guards a second thought. Maybe that made her callous, but she was better off keeping her head down around the King’s Guard.
Still, something about these murders bothered her. “This didn’t start with the guards at the Northern Gate, did it?”
Toran shook his head. “The first body was discovered two weeks ago.”
“And how many guards have died in all?”
“Twenty-one.”
