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"I wasn't about to die of emaciation, Hartwin. What harm was there in waiting a few more minutes for bread if they are in love?"
Jervaise nearly spat his food across the table. Hartwin glared at me. Surprisingly, it was Jervaise that chastised me. "Princess, Elite Hartwin is right. I was on duty, and so was Padget. What if someone attacked while I was off having a bit of fun?"
"Fun? That girl doesn't look at you as if you're a bit of fun, Jervaise."
"I'm an elite guard, Princess. She knows what we're about." He didn't need to say anymore. I'd already heard that speech.
'Elite guards don't fall in love, they don't take companions, and they don't have kids. We live to protect and serve.'
"The prince is an elite guard," I argued with more hostility than I intended.
"The prince is the prince. Even so, he sought permission from the King before taking his companion," Hartwin responded dryly. When I went to argue more, Hartwin cut me off. "End it, Princess! We are honor-bound. There is not a girl who comes to our bed naive of the fact that she will never be more than a way to let off steam."
Standing abruptly, I glared at him. "I doubt the validity of that statement greatly!" Storming into the bedroom, I slammed the doors shut behind me. Leaning back on the doors, I tried to bring my emotions under control.
"Is this still about Padg and me, or did she change the subject somewhere in the middle?" Jervaise asked Hartwin.
"She's not having the best of the times recently, Jervaise. Avalonians are highly emotional. She's just looking for someone to fight with."
At that moment, I hated Hartwin. Not only because he'd just dismissed my feelings as a temper tantrum, but because he was right. I wanted to yell, scream, and physically beat the crap out of something.
"What? Getting stabbed and killing a man wasn't enough of a fight for her?" Jervaise joked. "Maybe those Avalonians are just as badass as she looked today."
"Avalonian assassins are the most highly paid and sought after for a reason, Jervaise. Look how close that one got to the prince this morning."
"Which begs another question? How the blackness did she know he was there, and we didn't?"
"That's an excellent question, Jervaise," Luther's voice was clear with annoyance in the other room.
Groaning, I slipped down the door to the floor. When the door flew open behind me, I fell back to lie on the floor. Grimacing at the pain when my shoulder hit, I absorbed it and opened my eyes to see Luther peering down at me with frustration.
"What the blackness were you doing leaning against the door?"
Lifting my arm wearily, I pointed to the bed. "Those last few meters seemed more like light-years."
Shaking his head, Luther lifted me into his arms and set me down on the sofa gently before moving to the table to help himself to food. "Tell me."
"There are some who can bend light around them and thus seem invisible. When I realized one was missing, I started feeling around for disturbances in the air currents. I should have sensed him before he got that close, but Tudal distracted me." Annoyed with myself, I hung my head in shame.
"He was baiting your anger to try and draw you nearer to him, so they could snatch you when the assassin struck." Luther took out a syringe and held it up for me to see. "One of the mercenaries carried this tranquilizer." He placed it on the table. "I knew they were drawing you out, but I couldn't see how they expected to snatch you. I had no idea your people could turn invisible."
"It's a rare talent," I shrugged. "Only one percent of the population is born with the glyph."
"And you have what? A counter-glyph?" Jervaise asked, his eyebrows drawing close together.
Slouching on the sofa, I cuddled in against the armrest. "If royalty is going to be assassinated, it will be by an assassin who can bend light. We're trained from the time we can walk to feel air currents for movement and to look for shadows."
"Shadows?" Hartwin asked.
"Yes, outside in the sun, they still cast a shadow. A well-trained assassin will avoid the path that would leave one, hence the need to feel the air currents. I almost do it as second nature now. The problem today was that I was distracted, and everyone was moving. It wasn't until everyone stopped that I could feel what was out of place. I barely made it in time."
"You could have just yelled instead of taking the hit," Luther chastised, but there was admiration in his tone.
"By the time the message sunk in, you'd have been dead. I knew I had speed on my side."
"The element of surprise helped too," Luther growled. I had the decency to look bashful. "Commander Stark didn't know what hit him. I turned to his response only to see you blurring at me. I truly didn't expect you to come barrelling into me with such force behind you that you put me on my ass in my own throne. You were gone again so quickly that by the time I'd realized what had happened, you were stabbing a man in the throat."
"You could have at least let us question him," Jervaise grumbled.
