AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He grimaced even as he tried to dodge them, his injury abruptly clear.
“Wonder how he got that little nick in the ribs,” said the first man with the torch. “Taking advantage of the effects of an exotic draught?”
“No,” Jav snapped. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
They were closing in on him now. They were going to haul him away. She had to do something. Anything.
She glanced desperately around her. The stool. Maybe… she’d reveal her location, but she had no choice at this point.
Hefting the stool, she swung it over the railing, lined it up, and let roll. It clattered down the tiles, bounced at the turned-up edge, and spun into the air.
She held her breath as the thing careened. It narrowly missed the back of Jav’s head and hit the third man in the face instead, sending him reeling to the side.
The bucket. Three of them. No time to waste.
Scrunching her nose and eyes and turning away, she grabbed its handle and heaved as she shouted, “Look out!”
The bucket went through the same trajectory, except this time with a fresh aerial liquid display of who-knew-what. She didn’t want to know.
Jav swung around the second man who still clutched his arm, making sure the bucket caught him in the back. The first one staggered back, his eyes on the balcony.
She ducked. If they wanted wild, she could be wild.
The pine boughs wouldn’t be much help, so she scrambled inside, grabbing the leg of a broken chair in one hand and the ale mug in the other.
Down the roof the items went, and she scrambled for more chair pieces before she even saw her projectiles hit the roof’s edge.
She’d tossed two more chair pieces and was going back for more when she heard his hushed voice.
“—seris! Hey! You can stop now!”
She turned and looked over the railing. The torch lay on the ground, still burning, barely illuminating the three guards all lying prone. Jav was standing a bit crooked, hand on his side, but he waved. And he was smiling.
She waved back. “What now?” she called as softly as she could manage.
He motioned his palms toward the ground, a sign for her to stay put. Then he jogged toward the street.
As she watched him, flakes of snow fell faster across her view. The heavens above felt low and heavy. No moon hung in the sky. But a cold wind drove the falling snow into her face, biting through her cloak. A bit like Alekur would have.
Would she truly be rid of him now? She frowned into the darkness. She hadn’t waited to see the true impact of the last blow that Jav delivered. Had it knocked him unconscious? Could it have been fatal? Certainly, a blow to a vital organ would have been unlucky, indeed.
Or would it have been lucky? Her brother was likely the one who’d ordered her death after all. Even still. It felt wrong to wish him dead. She didn’t want to kill him. Just to be free to live her own life.
She glanced down at the guards. Hopefully, a stool off a roof to the head wasn’t fatal either. But if she had had to choose between Jav’s life and theirs, well… the choice had been easier than she’d thought.
He was jogging back toward her. The jog seemed a good sign, but it was oddly uneven. “The patrols are gone for now. Can you slide back down? I’ll catch you. Quickly now.”
She didn’t bother to call an answer, just nodded as she climbed back over the rail. Good thing that her bag was light.
Although… each step away from the castle made that a bit more concerning. What she had couldn’t be enough. She’d done her best to plan, read books, and make lists, which she then burned. But she wasn’t a traveler. She didn’t really know for sure what she’d need.
She eased onto her butt on the roof, took a deep breath, and then followed the path of her projectiles, although she did slow her descent a bit along the way to the edge when she could.
True to promise, he did catch her, quickly depositing her on the ground. Regrettably quickly, in fact. No time to ponder the feeling of that—neither the embrace nor how quickly it’d ended. Nor the sharp gasp of pain he smothered.
Only time to run.
“Come,” he said, as they hurried back out of the dead end. “Let’s get out of here before what little luck we have runs out.”
