“Hold your weapons,” he ordered as his men rounded on me. Three fellow sentinels, but to my disappointment, not one of them was the kind soldier from Sparrow Inn.
“I remember you: the kitchen wench who wouldn’t bow,” Takkan sneered. “Your timing is suspect, demon. I knew you were no cook.”
He held me up by my neck and forced me to look at the bodies fallen in the forest. “Look around: your companions are dead. Soon you will be too.”
Arrows stuck out of their ribs, gashes bright red with death. All seven were robed in brown, camouflaging themselves with the woods. Assassins.
Everything was ringing, the trees rustling in the wind, my pulse drumming in my throat. I kicked air, and my fingers clawed uselessly at my neck.I’m not with them.
Takkan didn’t understand. Neither did his men.
“I can’t even see her face,” grumbled one of the sentinels. “Can’t she speak?”
Takkan squeezed my jaw so hard it hurt. He shook me. “Where is my cousin, demon? Speak, or this breath will be your last.”
Was he talking about the soldier at Sparrow Inn?
“She doesn’t look like she’s with the A’landans,” said another sentinel, studying me. He was the oldest of the four, his pewter-colored hair tied into a topknot. “We should let hergo.”
“Let her go? I’ve met this minx before.” Takkan shook me again, harder this time. “Where is Takkan?”
I looked up, disoriented. I could have sworn he had just asked me where Takkan was.
But you’re Takkan,I thought, my mind reeling in confusion.
“The girl’s a wildling, not an assassin,” said the older sentinel again. “Hasege, we don’t have time for this. Release her and let us be on our way.”
Hasege?
Whatever this false Takkan’s name really was, it did not matter. I grabbed an arrow from his quiver and dragged the pointed end across his face.
Hasege let out a roar, and I head-butted him in the skull. It was the best use I’d ever made of the bowl on my head. He dropped me, and I snatched my dagger, twisting away from the sentinels.
I wasn’t fast enough. He seized my wrist, squeezing it until my heart leapt with pain and the dagger fell out of my grasp.
He caught it in his other hand. Blood trickled down to his chin, clotting in the dark bristles of his beard. He was pressing the blade against my neck when he let out a deep laugh.
“Look what we have here,” he said, showing his men. “Takkan’s dagger.”
Takkan’sdagger? My thoughts churned wildly. But that…that meant that the sentinel at Sparrow Inn was…was…Lord Bushian’s son. My betrothed.
My head hurt too much to make any sense of it, and it didn’t help that Hasege dug the dagger deeper into my skin, the metal’s sting cold and biting. “So youhaveseen him.”
I kicked at the three sentinels, knowing it was useless to try and make them understand, but I was desperate enough to try anyway.He gave it to me.
The older one, the one who’d suggested letting me go, frowned. “She has Takkan’s emblem.” The sentinel pointed at the knotted tassel on the dagger, the one I’d thought a useless decoration. “She is under his protection.”
Hasege darkened. “Would he offer to protect a spy? I think not. More likely she stole the tassel from him.”
“We ought to release her.”
The emblem dangled before me, a blur of blue, and for the first time, I saw it clearly. All these weeks I had ignored it for the dagger, never noticed that the other side of its silver plate was emblazoned with Takkan’s name and family crest: a rabbit on a mountain, surrounded by five plum blossoms—and a full, white moon.
Gods, it was true. The sentinel at Sparrow InnwasTakkan! If Lord Bushian’s son had given me his protection, no sentinel could harm me without grave consequences.
Hasege’s gaze hardened. A beat too late, I realized he had no intention of letting me go. By the time I started running, his men seized me. I tried to kick and punch, but ropes bound my hands together, and someone forced a gag into my mouth.
The sentinels threw me to the ground. I landed against a hard rock and winced from the pain. As the wind whined against their blades, I went rabbit-still, awaiting the blow that would end me.
