Page 105 of The Silversmith

His lips brushed over the crown of my head, and my heart leapt. “What would you like to know?”

“Where did you grow up?”

I heard the smile in his voice when he answered. “I grew up in Brinnea.”

“Brinnea is home for you?”

“It was once, long ago. I’ve lived in many places since then, but I can’t say I’ve called any of them home.”

The dirt path dipped steeply into a ravine. Although the mare handled it well, I felt my body slide forward on the saddle. With both reins in one hand, Gavin fastened his arm around my middle and held me tight to keep me from sliding any farther. Without thinking, I rested my gloved hands on the arm that held me.

“Which place is your favorite?” I asked.

“I grew up in the tradesman district south of the old palace, but I built a cottage on the far southern outskirts of Brinnea, on the beach off the Windcrest Sound. Tucked in rock and trees and hidden away. That cottage is my favorite place.”

“The palace?” I asked. “What palace?”

Gavin’s hand flexed against my stomach. “Brinnea is where the Whitlocks lived. Simeon, Christabel, her husband, and—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “And their castle was built along the sea cliffs, overlooking the city. But it’s all ruins now.”

After four hundred years, I imagined it was.

“Will we be close to the ruins tomorrow?” The final word grated in my throat. Tomorrow was too soon.

“Yes. I can show you if you’d like.”

I squeezed his hand. “Yes, I would—”

The mare let out an agonized groan before stumbling, losing her balance beneath us. Instinctively, I grasped onto the horn of the saddle to keep myself from falling.

“Fuck,” Gavin hissed, and had us both off of the mare before I could register what happened. My feet hit the ground, but he kept me close to him.

The black mare fell to her knees, then to her side. I cried out for her when I saw the arrow in her shoulder. I tried to run to her, but—

“Insidions.” Gavin grabbed my arm and nodded to a group of at least ten people clustered in the trees to our right. They wore black fighting leathers with a blood-red sigil of a bull’s head engraved on the front. Some wore black cloaks with hoods. Others went without cloaks but displayed sinister face and neck tattoos. The shapes of skulls and bones and symbols I’d never seen before were inked onto their skin. One of them, I noticed, wore an empty bow and a quiver filled with arrows just like the one lodged in the shoulder of our mare.

They were close—too close for us to run and remain unnoticed.

And they were coming right toward us.

I gasped when he restrained me with my back against him and his cold blade pressed carefully but firmly against my neck.

“What are you—?”

“Do you trust me?” he whispered in my ear.

My voice was lodged in my throat, so I nodded.

He shifted his mouth into my neck so that my hair was covering it. I realized it was so they couldn’t see him giving me orders. Despite my fear, with his lips against my skin, it was an effort to focus.

“Act terrified,” he commanded, his voice low, “and when I say the word ‘hunt,’ you run as fast as you can, east toward the river. Start counting and do not stop until you get to three hundred. Then, I want you to hide. When I’m done with them, I will find you.” His steel arm tightened around my stomach. “Do you understand?”

They moved toward us quickly—twenty steps or so away now.

“Okay,” I breathed through clenched teeth, too afraid they’d notice if I nodded.

Their leader wore no hood or mask. He was a tall, middle-aged bald man with pale-blue eyes like ice and thin, red lips. The rest flanked him, but all had their eyes on me.

“Hello, Smyth,” the icy-eyed Insidion purred.