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Pushing the door open no more than an inch, I listened first and stepped out only when I knew no one was nearby. I made it halfway to the hidden door I’d found last time before I was spotted.
“Death Maiden?” a young girl said with a gasp, blue eyes already watering.
Rounding on her, I drew my blade and pinned her with a glare. “If you treasure your life, you’ll leave me and speak of this to no one. One peep out of you, and I’ll hunt you for sport. Understand?”
“Is… is it my father?” she managed, trembling hands disappearing into her skirts.
“Would you really want to know if it was?”
Dark lashes cast down toward the floor, but she kept her chin raised. “Yes.”
“Then make sure he knows how much you love him, just in case,” I said from behind the mask. “And pray to whatever gods you believe in.”
Her eyes flashed to my hands, but black gloves blocked her view. I took one step toward her, inciting enough fear to send her darting away with a sob. Perhaps she’d tell, but it changed nothing. By the end of this week, Bram Ellis would be dead, or I would. There was no stopping Death’s coercion over fate.
Following a familiar path, I managed to sneak into the hidden passages of the castle, where light was scarce and people more so. The spiders didn’t bother me as long as I left them alone. Though an occasional high guard would pass through, I’d mastered vanishing into the shadows by the time I was seven. Back when training was fun and only one death haunted me.
“The king is ready for war, and I say more power to him. Why should we fear Perth?” A court member’s shrill voice carried through the thin walls.
My heart stopped my feet for only a moment as my father’s fears were confirmed.
“Aren’t you afraid?” another answered.
“Why should I fear war when it is my husband that will fight? Perhaps I’ll be a widow by year’s end,” the woman said excitedly.
“If not a thrall, Agria. Imagine being forced into the Scarlet District.”
“The men are ready. The people are ready. We’re double their numbers, last I checked. It’ll be nothing at all to conquer that entire wretched kingdom.”
I continued on, letting the voices fade away. My father would have planted me there to spy for hours had he known I could navigate these passages. I’d considered it once, knowing it might be the only thing I could ever do for him. But Silbath’s king hated Perth’s king, and the people in the middle would suffer the same, regardless. A war between our kingdoms felt imminent, no matter what. And the people would not die. They would be mutilated and left to suffer or forced into servitude until their hundredth year.
Eventually, I made it to the walls skirting the king’s council room, and while I expected to find a guard or servant eavesdropping, the area was clear. Crouching, I drew a long rectangle in the dirt on the floor and placed each voice to a seat until I’d narrowed down who might sit within the room. The king’s aged words carried through as he spoke of visits to Lady Visha’s and the last cunt he’d tasted. The valuable information was looser on the tongues of the court.
“Do make sure our seats are cleaned before we get to the theater,” the king was saying. “I don’t like attention before the show.”
I straightened, listening in order to decipher the plans as their voices quieted. It would be far easier to kill Bram Ellis if he was not behind castle walls. But the second the magic followed my train of thought, I had to fight the urge to storm into the room and claim my victim prematurely. Compulsion riled within me. I could end it now without the hunt. I could take out the guards at the door with throwing knives before they could think of defending the room’s occupants. And none of the men at that table were a threat to me.
The click of a door down the passageway was my only warning before a royal guard stepped beyond the threshold. I jumped backward, hoping he hadn’t seen me with my ear to the wall, but his hurried footsteps were his own damnation. I lunged before he could make a sound, landing on his back with an arm around his neck. Clad in black armor, I thanked the old gods he hadn’t worn a helmet before I smashed Chaos’s hilt into his skull.
The brute could take a hit, though, stumbling around for several seconds as I rode on his back. He smashed my spine into a wall, trying to free himself, but one more well-placed bash and that was it.
With adrenaline coursing through my veins, confident I hadn’t killed him, I threw my own body below his to quiet the ungraceful fall, twisting my ankle. Shoving him until he rolled, I managed to wiggle free.
It was always the fucking guards in this palace. Last time, I had to tie two in the dungeons. And only the old gods knew how long it’d taken for them to free themselves. Still, if I left this one here like this, he’d squeal as soon as his vision was clear enough to get out of the passage. And then everyone would be locked down and on high alert, and that wasn’t a problem I wanted.
Stripping away every piece of armor that made him heavier, I admired his chiseled body for only seconds as I drafted a plan. I gripped his ankles and tugged the king’s guard inch by inch down the passage, praying even to Death himself that no one else would come. I’d have to start killing at that point, just to make it out.
Chapter 4
Lugging a giant guard through the narrow passageways of Silbath’s castle was not how I’d envisioned my day going. In fact, I could think of exactly five hundred and seventy-two other things I’d rather be doing. I’d counted with each fucking step I’d hauled the bastard.
He’d be found too quickly near the council chambers. If not by a nosy servant, then by a courtesan seeking the king or another high-ranking scumbag. I’d have to get him into a space that no one would stumble across, and, unfortunately for me, that meant going all the way around the central meeting rooms, far beyond the kitchens, and toward one of the old bedrooms that were no longer used. The king had no children. Most of the rooms of his castle housed more dust than dignitaries.
When he woke up, he’d be in pain for days. If not for the pounding headache, then from getting the shit beat out of him as I dragged him, unceremoniously, over rocks, through rats’ nests, and even into a few walls when his body didn’t want to turn the way I needed it to. Even still, it wouldn’t be enough to keep him silent.
Once we were far enough away, I slipped the vial of poison from a hidden pocket. Double-checking that my mask was secure to avoid the fumes, I pried his drooling mouth open and deposited three drops on his tongue. But as I surveyed his body one final time, I added one more for good measure.
“You won’t die,” I promised. “But you’re going to hate your life for at least a week. You’re welcome.”
