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The attendant listened with a slight frown. She looked as if she might protest, but then furrowed her brows in thought. “I might have an idea.”
Elma stoodin the deepest shadow she could find, breathing hard. She was alone, utterly alone. The corridor was empty. Now that the queen was reportedly safe in her room under guard, every other guard in the citadel was on the hunt for the assassin. In the distance, she heard the clang of metal echoing against stone — guards patrolling the halls.
Cora’s idea had worked flawlessly, the exchange of clothes, Cora devising a distraction to allow Elma to dart away, out of her room and into the corridors.
Elma couldn’t risk being seen. Even in Cora’s too-short dress and plain cloak, Elma stood out as the only person creeping from shadow to shadow. But it was too late to turnback. She would find her bodyguard and stay by his side. He would not die without her permission.
Following her instincts, Elma made her way deeper and higher up into the citadel. If she were an enemy assassin, out of her element in a strange palace, she would go for one of the tallest spires, get a look at her surroundings, and orient herself. And Elma knew enough of Rune to know that he would do the same. The journey was almost unsettlingly easy. Elma knew the citadel inside and out. She had grown up playing in servants’ passages, hiding in abandoned rooms, and inventing stories. Every time she came across a guard patrol, she found it too easy to duck inside a well-hidden door or a heavy shadow.
When she at last came to one of the tallest spires of the citadel, Elma was thrumming with eagerness and no small amount of fear. The longer she went without coming across Rune or the enemy assassin, the surer she felt that she was drawing near one of them. The wind’s howl was unearthly at this height, as if fabled beasts circled the citadel on leathery wings, clawing at its walls with curved talons.
Elma almost thought she could hear voices in the wind.
But no… those were voices in the corridor. Low, unintelligible above the wind, and very close. Pressing her back against the wall, Elma edged toward its edge, where another corridor cut across her path. When she came to the turning, she peered around the wall as slowly as she could manage.
The sight struck her in the chest. Not far down the other corridor, illuminated starkly in the moonlight,stood two figures. Both were lithe, armed to the teeth, with gleaming white hair. Rune was angled away from Elma, and the other man facing him bared his teeth in a glare.
She held her breath, waiting for Rune’s killing blow, but none came. The two Slödavans were just… talking.
Kill him, thought Elma.
But Rune did not. He said something harsh, but even with his voice raised, Elma couldn’t make it out over the wind. The other man seemed to laugh, shaking his head. There were no guard patrols here; nothing to distract Rune from killing his mark.
Then again, there were no guard patrols in this hallway. And it struck Elma that there was no reason Rune should not befriend this assassin and turn on her. They were countrymen. And with the two of them together, surely they would make easy work of Elma’s death. A sickly cold filled her chest. She was a fool. A naive girl. In a matter of days, she was set to be crowned as Queen of Rothen. Yet here she cowered, huddled against a wall like some child seeking adventure. If either of the men sensed her there, she would be dead in an instant.
And why? Because she had feared for Rune. This ruthless killer, her enemy, her father’s enemy. A man who stood by her side only under duress. And while their bargain had felt true to her, and she believed that Rune had every reason to stand by it… here, in a swaying tower with the sound of phantom monsters bellowing in the wind, Elma doubted everything.
I need to go, she thought, clutching her skirts with trembling fingers.I should not have come here.
Just then, both figures in the corridor turned, their gazes directed at Elma. Their eyes seemed to glow blue-white in the moonlight. A spike of cold fear thrust through Elma’s heart. Before they had time to call out or attack, she turned and ran. Frozen fingers of fear choked her as she made her way back to her room, shadow to shadow, until she was safe again under Hugh’s furious gaze.
Elma startedawake to the sound of her bedroom door opening. She sat up, heart pounding, feeling as if she had only just fallen asleep. It had been early morning by the time she was able to drift into oblivion, though her dreams had been sharp and strange.
Blinking, Elma pulled her blankets up to cover herself. A figure stood in the doorway, dressed all in black. Rune. And dangling from his outstretched hand, his fingers tangled in its white hair, was the dripping head of the enemy assassin.
Elma opened her mouth, her brain still catching up. Rune had done it. He’d killed the other Slödavan. He had not betrayed her. An unfamiliar feeling crept along her nerves, thick and honeyed.
“You did it,” she breathed.
Rune raised his eyebrows. “What did I say? Something rotten.” He let go of the head. It fell with a horrible thunk, rolling twice before it lay still. Its eyes stared at Elma, unseeing.
“What do you mean?” she asked, scrambling out of bed. Her pulse was thrumming; she had never seen a severed head up close. She knelt to peer at it. Its skin was paler than Rune’s, its white hair duller, but it was obviously Slödavan. Even the eyes were blue.
“Where’s his Rime Ice blade?” Elma asked, unable to take her eyes off the thing despite the roil of nausea in her belly.
“Fascinatingly, there wasn’t one.” Rune came to kneel at her side, his movements stiff and impatient. “Look,” he said, using one finger to pull down one of the severed head’s lower eyelids. “Those are not Slödavan eyes.”
Elma frowned, leaning forward. “They look blue to me.”
Rune took her chin in his hand, firm but not rough, and turned her head to face him. His gaze wasfierce, almost violent in its intensity, his scar craggy bright in the morning light. “Look at my eyes.”
She had done it countless times, in anger or frustration or even bursts of lust. But he was so close, and unlike all those other times, his gaze was icy clear. Her stomach in knots and her heart pounding, Elma studied the assassin’s eyes. They were bright blue, the bluest she’d ever seen. Ethereal, almost frightening in their strangeness, as if they harbored a magic all their own.
“I know they’re pretty,” Rune said, “but you needn’t take all day. Now look at his.”
Reddening, Elma turned back to the severed head. Its eyeswereblue, but she saw it now — they were ordinary blue, a dull, muddy color that was almost grey. If all Slödavan eyes were like Rune’s, then this was no Slödavan.
Elma turned to her assassin, questioning. “But… his hair.”
