“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“Seeing if I get to eat human liver,” Terror responded, his voice loud. At my annoyed look, he cackled. “Well? Get on with it. I want to see how you plan to die tonight.”
I crept across the roof of Turtle House. I had two options for how to get to the Mountain Thrown buildings. Either I crossed the lake or the military buildings and the building where the wedding guests were staying. Both had risks, but the latter meant that I was exposed to more guards patrolling. The wedding guests were being watched closely, and someone was bound to notice a man dressed in dark clothing creeping over rooftops.
That was the sort of thing that guards were trained to watch out for when keeping an eye on potential threats to the emperor.
“I’m not going to die,” I said uncomfortably.
“So you say,” Terror said. He hopped along the roof as I tiptoed to the end of it. “I have my doubts.”
At the edge of the roof, I took the same handholds down to the ground, hiding in some bushes to make sure that no one had seen me. Then, I headed to the lake.
In the dark, the water was still as glass, reflecting the nearly full moon. If I had a choice, I would have waited until the new moon to do this, but the math didn’t work out. With Rute alive, things were complicated. Once he was gone, I could finish my task.
My task of… since when had it become hard to admit what I was here to do?
Creeping across the long pier to the center building, I remembered the way Tallu had said, “I would kill them,” as though he was talking about something else, about someoneelse. My mind thought about the person I’d have to kill after I framed Rute, and I thought,I will kill Tallu, and everything in me chilled.
Voices and light up ahead made me freeze. Guards were walking along the pier opposite me, and I didn’t have time to wonder if they were going to cross on this pier or take one of the perpendicular ones. If I waited, they’d be able to see me, no matter what I did. There was nowhere to hide. There wasnowhere—my eyes caught on the water, and I didn’t give myself time to think.
I jumped over the side railing, holding on with both hands, and lowered myself into the water.
My feet hit the lake first, the supple leather holding up against the water. But the rude awakening was immediate when my legs clad only in fabric hit the water, the cold sending shivers like electric shocks up my thighs, making them jump. The voices were getting closer, and I used the last of my strength to ease myself into the lake, making sure not to splash as I dropped in, the water up to my neck as I grabbed onto one of the pillars holding the pier in place.
This was nothing. Once, Eonaî had dared me, and I’d jumped into the bay because I’d been foolish and young. Every year after that, we’d marked the anniversary by jumping in together and then sprinting half-naked back to the palace and submerging ourselves in a warm bath. My heart felt like coal in my chest, my body still twitching with the cold.
Something slithered past my leg. I froze. It twisted around, brushing over my other leg. The powerful muscles slammed against my calf as it tested me.
Sea serpent.
I held my breath, going as still as I could. It twisted by me again, wrapping around once, and then slid away.
I started breathing again, a gasp of air that left me nearly lightheaded. Spots formed in my vision, and I shook my head. As I breathed, I tried to keep myself from panic.
It hadn’t realized I was food; my clothes probably felt too strange to this creature used to eating livestock. I was safe. I was safe.
The guards up ahead had reached the center pavilion. They weren’t moving, their lights casting shadows on the water.
I swore. They were going to stay there. Maybe they were taking a break or slacking off, or maybe it wasn’t guards at all but a late-night tryst.
New plan. I would swim back to shore, hope that none of the sea serpents took an interest, and?—
Someone screamed.
Not the sort of scream to emerge from a late-night tryst when all participants were enjoying some pleasureal fresco. There was a sound, a splash in the water, and Ifeltthe current as something large and powerful rushed across the lake, snapping up whatever had been thrown in.
Closing my eyes, I kept my breathing as still as I could and let myself take only one extra-long breath. Then, I began moving,hand over hand, toward the pavilion. I kicked just enough with my legs to keep my momentum going but otherwise moved myself with my hands along the pier, keeping as close to the wood as I could.
It was slow going, and I felt the occasional movement in the water, the change in pressure as a creature swam around the pavilion. My blood was so loud in my ears that it took a moment for me to understand what they were saying.
“You thought! Youthoughtyou could hide from me!” Prince Rute yelled.
I kept moving, kept creeping closer, even when I felt a sea serpent against my leg, the curious curl of its tail as it tried to discover what I was.
The answer was inaudible. No one spoke for a moment, and then Rute said, “What did you say?”
Adrenaline masked the cold of the water, but I still knew that the longer I stayed in, the more difficult it would be to get out, the more my muscles would clench up at the cold, and the more likely that my thrashing attempt to rise would end up with me being digested in a sea serpent’s stomach.
