Alarm bells clanged through the village streets. Thea jerked awake at the same time Gil rolled off the bed. He landed beside her with a quiet thump, daggers already in his hands.
Panic clawed at her throat. She’d fallen asleep with her back against the side of the bed and his shirt lay unfinished on her lap.
“Pack everything,” Gil said as he swept his cloak from the floor beside her and stalked to the door. “We’re leaving. Now.”
“But I’m not finished yet!” She gripped the shirt with both hands and raised it, as if it might change his mind.
“Later. Pack. Meet me downstairs.” He slid into the hallway and shut the door. Voices rose with questions and she caught the deepest tones of his response, but couldn’t make out the words. Elsewhere, perhaps in the main room below, someone shouted.
Thea swallowed hard. She didn’t know what might stir a quiet village to panic and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Biting back fear and frustration, she crammed her sewing into its basket and took her bags. Gil’s still waited on the bed. Was she supposed to bring those, too? She chewed the inside of her lip a moment before she picked them up, as well. Only after they bumped against her back did she recall what one of them contained. Her stomach lurched.
More voices rose in the room below, too muffled to make out, but their distress was unmistakable. She pushed into the hallway, expecting to find other people fleeing. Instead, a handful of village folk scurried past on their way into the rooms. More than one cast her a worried look, but she pushed on.
Gil stood empty-handed at the foot of the stairs, conversing with a man in armor made of metal plates sewn to leather. “They won’t stop me, and neither will you. You can stay and hide or you can help. It makes no difference in how many I’ll cut down.”
“They’ll dig you no grave here,” the man replied.
“There won’t be a need.” Gil glanced back as he heard Thea approach. He nodded his appreciation when he saw the bags. “Come. We have a head start.”
“Ahead of what?” she asked.
“Your funeral,” the armored man said.
Gil took her arm and tugged her toward the door. “Raiders from the mountains. Attracted by the festivities last night, no doubt.”
Thea pulled back. “Then we should stay and help.”
“We have somewhere to be,” he growled through clenched teeth. He opened the door and held it wide with a foot so he could pull her through. No matter how firmly she put down her feet, she wouldn’t have been able to resist. He was too strong.
Her protests were verbal, instead. “But we could help!”
“No.”
“You’ve been teaching me to fight.”
“I said no,” he snapped.
Thea caught the edge of the doorway as he tried to drag her outside. She anchored her feet against the frame and hauled back until she tore her arm free of his grasp. Had she not been clutching the doorway with all her might, she might have fallen.
He turned to stare at her in surprise.
She leveled her eyes with his and rubbed her arm. His fingers left a red mark behind, betraying how urgent he found the situation. “We have to do something.”
For a long moment, he held her gaze. Then, inexplicably, he cracked a smile. “Leave the bags.”
She hadn’t thought he would change his mind. One after another, she slid them off her shoulder, depositing all their belongings and the basket of sewing supplies just inside the door.
Gil looked past her to the innkeeper who had grown ashen. “Barricade the door. This won’t take long.” With a flick of his wrists, daggers appeared in his hands.
Thea followed him into the street. With his token left behind, she knew he was sincere. She drew her knife and oriented herself to the sound of voices. Men she’d seen about the village the night before clustered near the smoldering remains of the night’s fire. They wore armor, though sparsely, and the weapons they carried were not befitting of any sort of guard. Simple villagers, then; those who had risen to the call to protect their homes.
Gil approached them, though he was already pointing a dagger toward the southern foothills. “There are fourteen on the slope. That will be the main attacking force. Others will come from the sides.”
A man at the head of the group turned to squint toward the hills. “Fourteen?”
Thea couldn’t count them, either, though she saw the muddled shapes of people descending toward the village. “How can you see them?”
“Moreover, who are you?” the man asked. He hefted an axe in his hands that was better suited to cutting through wood than men. It was an obvious threat, but Gil ignored it.
“Travelers who arrived yesterday.” He nodded Thea’s way. “We encountered a number of brigands in the mountains and she wishes for us to help.”
The man scoffed. “Ranorsh women don’t fight.”
Gil smirked. “Which is why I married a Kentorian. There.” He pointed west and the whole group followed the gesture. “Thea, assist with them.”
She drew her dagger. “What about you?”
“I shall disable the others. What these men do with them afterward is none of our concern. And then,” he paused and raised his eyebrows, “we will depart for Danesse?”
“Yes,” she promised.
“Very well.” He flowed toward the oncoming raiders with his green cloak fluttering at his back.
“Blasted fool,” the armored man grumbled. “Your husband’s off to get himself killed.”
Thea suspected he would be all right. “You’re welcome to assist him,” she suggested as she brushed the pad of her thumb across her knife’s edge. It rasped across her skin, sharper than her best scissors had ever been.
He grunted. “We’re safer in numbers, and you’re safer inside. Your knife is pretty, miss, but we can’t spare anyone to protect you.”
Part of her wished she could say she didn’t need protection, but she wasn’t sure. That was why Gil had left her with the villagers, wasn’t it? So there were more people around to aid her while she fought? She tried to appear confident as she pointed out motion to the east. “I’ll be no trouble, but they might.”
The armored man swore. Another group advanced from that direction and Thea added them to her mental tally. Fourteen for Gil. Seven from the east, eight from the west. To the north, where the sheep roamed, the fields were clear.
“So many,” someone else whispered. “Have Kentoria’s guards gone slack? Letting so many through?”
“We’ve never needed Kentoria to protect us,” the armored man growled. “We don’t need them now. Go hole up with your family if that’s what you want. Those of us with spines will chase them off!”
A shout went up from the eastern group of bandits, a discordant show of bravado that struck Thea as forced. It didn’t mask the sound of clashing weapons or the panicked cries that came from the south. She gripped her dagger and dared not look, but she knew what those sounds meant.
That Gil struck first had already given them the upper hand.
“Let’s go!” the armored man roared as he thrust his axe toward the sky. A few energized shouts rose in answer.
When they went east, Thea went with them. She didn’t understand their movement or reasoning, but she supposed combat strategies came from experience. It was their village, one they’d defended their whole lives, though the doubt and distress she’d heard in the one man’s voice at the numbers made her wonder how great their chances were. The group she moved alongside was a dozen or so men, plus herself; they outnumbered the smaller bandit groups, but only as long as they met them individually.
The armored man led the rush and lunged into the raiding party with a bellow. His axe smashed into the enemy leader and Thea flinched. She’d never seen real violence before the throne room. She was unprepared for it now.
The village men positioned themselves around her. Whether it was deliberate or by instinct, she didn’t know, but she slid forward to take on a raider by herself with a silent vow that she wouldn’t weigh them down.
Her presence was a boon. The raiding party gaped at sight of her, her illusion-dark hair flowing like a banner in the wind as she dove forward and stabbed for a man’s gut. The blade glanced off his armor, but the strike knocked the wind out of him and he stumbled. A villager finished the job.
A new worry streaked through her as the first raider collapsed. Gil’s lessons had focused solely on how to kill. What if she didn’t want to?
“So,” the village band’s leader roared over the clash, “Kentorian women do fight!”
The exclamation bolstered her and she responded by diving in to slash her dagger across a bandit’s thigh. The man howled as he went down. There, she’d disabled one. She didn’t have to kill anyone. She didn’t have to be like Gil.
And yet he did not kill, either.
Each strike that landed without doing more than causing injury gave her a new appreciation for everything he’d done. The guards in the palace and the ferry, the brigands in the mountains—he’d managed to fend them off without landing a single fatal blow. All it would take was one slip, one strike with imperfect timing. She pulled many too soon, leaving her opponents without any injury at all, but the village men were right there to defend her after every mistake. She was smaller, faster, but also without armor and at higher risk. She darted out to strike like a snake, then retreated behind the wall of their weapons and stronger bodies. They worked out a rhythm before the last man went down.
Before he did, the second wave hit.
The group from the west came at their backs as Thea landed her last strike and someone else drove the bandit to the ground. They turned too late for a perfect defense and the village men scattered like a fan, leaving Thea exposed.
She dove forward, toward the nearest raider, and slashed at his thigh. It was the fastest way she’d found to disable them, a strike they weren’t expecting. But this man wore more armor, and her blade bounced off and stole her balance.
As she reeled, a club came for her head.
A hand snapped out to catch it a moment before the green cloak swirled past her cheek. Gil wrenched the club from the bandit’s hand and surged forward with his knife. He struck hard and fast, and more times than necessary. The raider collapsed, screaming, and Gil started to follow.
“Don’t!” Thea cried. She caught his arm before he could stab again.
He froze.
“Don’t forget,” she breathed.
He slid back and let the village men descend on the man to do what they would.
Step by step, Thea reeled him backwards. His muscles were coiled tight beneath her hands, powerful and tense, yet he yielded to her touch as if hers were a grip like iron. His breath came hard and heavy, but he did not strike her as winded. He was too steady, too controlled, poised like an angry beast ready to fight.
Ah. She softened her touch and stroked his arm as she removed him from the fight, stepping backwards over groaning bandits left struggling on the ground. It was anger that boiled through him, present in every fiber of his being. A rage he could hardly contain. She’d seen that stance in him before, though she hadn’t recognized it then. She’d been too distracted, too frightened, focused on nothing but the nightmare unfolding before her as he slaughtered the king.
As the last raider went down, some of the tension slipped from him and he turned to search her face. “Are you hurt?”
Thea shook her head. “The men on the slope?”
“Disabled.” Not killed. He glanced toward the villagers to be sure they’d heard. A handful of them split off in that direction.
The determination in their step gave her pause. “Will they kill them?”
“It is their right to do so. The people of this outpost may defend themselves how they please.” He tilted his head toward the inn they’d come from, then started off that way. “You need only focus on what we’re doing, and right now, we are going to Danesse.”
“What? Right now?” Thea stumbled over somebody’s arm as she followed. The man groaned. “Sorry,” she muttered.
“That was the agreement, was it not?”
“Well, yes.” She just hadn’t expected it so soon. She started to return her dagger to its sheath, then paused in the middle of the road. It was dirty.
Gil walked only a few paces farther before he stopped. “We will go upstairs. Clean our things and ourselves. Then we will continue out of the city.”
It was all so anticlimactic that she didn’t know what to say. She turned her dagger point down and bowed her head as she followed him to the inn’s front door.
It did not budge when he tried to push it open.
“You did tell them to barricade,” Thea murmured.
“Indeed.” He knocked instead and cleared his throat. “Your men live and your raiders are dealt with.”
A rustle and scrape on the other side made them both lean closer to the door. “Identify yourself. Who’s out there, and how do we know?”
Gil blinked. Had he not considered that? “The traveler in green,” he replied, fingering the edge of the cloak. It bore several dark spatters Thea knew were not mud. “I believe I will need a change of clothing. I trust nobody moved the bags my wife left beside the door?”
A low murmur of discussion followed, then a few grunts and thumps as whatever blocked the way was moved. The innkeeper opened the door a crack and peered out at them, his face less ashen but his hair more disheveled. “By the One,” he muttered as he looked them up and down.
Thea tried to smile. “Water and a washbasin would be much appreciated.”
“No doubt,” the man mused. “Come inside. I’ll send it up to your room.”
Gil offered his arm as the door opened and Thea took it with a subdued smile. Just inside the doorway, their bags and the sewing basket still sat.
They scooped up everything and someone—the innkeeper’s wife, Thea assumed—shuffled up the stairs ahead of them to deliver a basin and towels. “Warm water will be right up,” the woman said as she left it all on the tiny table near their room’s door.
“Cold water too, please,” Thea said. “It’s better for washing out stains.”
“Of course, Miss.” The woman bobbed her head and disappeared into the hall.
Gil deposited their bags on the bed, then inspected his clothing. The black of his shirt and pants hid much, but with how spattered his cloak was, Thea had no doubt the rest of him was covered in blood.
“I don’t suppose that shirt is close to being done?” he asked.
“It is. I need to try it on you and mark where the buttons should go, but I should be able to finish fast. If you let me.” She found herself grateful only her hands were sullied. The only other garment she had was the dress Gil had helped her cut in two.
“Good.” He started to remove his cloak, then thought better of it and stopped. He removed his boots first, something that could come off without revealing his true face.
Thea waited by the basin until the innkeeper’s wife returned with two earthenware pitchers. One steamed pleasantly and she took both with a murmured thank-you. She started with the warm water as the woman excused herself and closed the door. A sliver of soap waited in the bottom of the basin. Thea moved it before she poured the warm water into the bowl.
While she scrubbed her hands and arms, the soft rustle of fabric reached her ears and a warm blush colored her cheeks. She would not look while Gil was changing. She wouldn’t even think about him. She picked every bit of dirt from underneath and around her nails, then rinsed and dried her hands. “All yours,” she announced when it had grown sufficiently quiet.
“Good. Mark this, please, and see if you can finish it while I wash my things.” Gil wore the finished trousers and half-finished shirt, she saw when she turned. He held the front closed, but the illusion was already effective. The dirty cloak lay on the floor and his appearance remained as it had been; that of an exceptionally ordinary man.
She made herself smile as she crossed to the sewing basket to take her glass-headed sewing pins. They’d be more visible against the fabric than the pale chalk had been. The faint markings had made her nervous, but the shirt fit well. It hung loose to his hips, granting plenty of space for him to tuck it in beneath his belt. The sleeves were loose, too, but fitted at the cuffs, and the collar folded in a fashion similar to the coat collars she’d seen about the village. It was a good style, a quality blend between what was popular in Samara and what she’d observed of Ranor. Something new, with plenty of opportunity to be successful. The idea of designing a new trend was appealing.
“I’ll be quick,” she said as she straightened the meeting of the two halves of the shirt’s front. She pinned the layers together first, then marked placement for buttons at regular intervals. Long hours of practice had given her an accurate eye, but she’d still double-check with her measuring tape before she attached anything. “Just the loops to make and buttons to sew on. Here, there will be buttons on the cuffs, too.”
Gil raised his arm obligingly so she could mark where they needed to go.
She adjusted the placement of them on the first sleeve several times before she was satisfied. “While you’re stuck here, I must ask something.”
“I doubt that’s true, but you’re welcome to take advantage of the delay,” he replied playfully.
She gave his arm a gentle swat before she moved to the other sleeve. “You had no interest in helping the village defense. Why did you change your mind?”
He hesitated.
“I know you probably don’t care if these people live or die,” she added. “And I know you’ve probably seen this before. They seemed to have practice and the bells mean they’re used to this sort of thing, but you were ready to leave. Then you stayed. Not only stayed, but you smiled about it.”
His arm turned, ever so slightly, giving her better access to the unfinished cuff. “There are two reasons. One is that I feel partly to blame. I’ve been through Post—this village—many times in my life. You’re right in that they deal with this on a somewhat regular basis, but the majority of the rangers who ferret brigands out of the hills are Kentorian. I fear these sort of attacks may grow more common in the coming weeks.”
“Why?” She slid in the last pin to mark button placement, but did not let go of his sleeve.
“Because Kentoria’s forces will be occupied. Looking for us. Me.” He offered a rueful smile.
“Oh.” She hadn’t considered that, but it made sense. “And the other reason?”
His smile changed, softening at the edges as thoughtfulness touched his eyes. “Because I ordered you to leave, and you told me no.”
Thea’s brow furrowed and she raised her gaze to his.
“You resisted with everything in you,” he said. “You didn’t crumble or back down. I… enjoyed that.”
In her moment of stubbornness, the fact she was defying him never crossed her mind. She searched his eyes, struggling to find an explanation for her behavior before she realized he expected none. Her attention slid to the pins and she cleared her throat. “I’ll have this done within an hour.” She removed the few pins that held the front closed, leaving those that marked button placement, and pushed the unfinished shirt back over his shoulders.
For a moment, she regretted her decision. Silvery scars peppered his bare skin, pale against his warm complexion. She halted with his shirt halfway down his arms, studying the marks. There were too many to count. None of it was surprising. He was an assassin; risk came with every job he took. A jagged mark just above his heart caught her eye and she swallowed back the wave of sadness it brought. “Oh, Gil.” She raised her head.
His eyes locked with hers and his breath hitched. Fire burned in his eyes with an intensity she’d never seen, a blaze that threatened to burn through her illusions and swallow her whole.
She didn’t dare move, trapped in his gaze, unable—unwilling—to tear herself away.
“You make it difficult,” he whispered, “for me to be a better person.” Then he drew back, peeled the shirt from his arms on his own and pushed it into her hands.
Tension left her in a rush and she sucked in a breath.
He moved past her to wash his arms, shaking his head.
Thea didn’t know what to say. She rearranged the shirt in her hands and made herself sit. The sewing basket was right there, still open, waiting for her to finish her work, but her fingers were sluggish and clumsy as she gathered what she needed to finish the job.
Gil scrubbed his hands and then ran his fingers through his hair. The illusion rippled around them, the strands shimmering between brown and the dark ashen blond that was their natural shade. “I am not deserving of such attention.”
All of a sudden, she couldn’t see the thread between her fingers. Distraction blurred everything and she blinked hard to clear her mind and eyes. “I don’t think you get to decide that.”
“I am being honest, Thea. Whatever you think of me now, I have not always been… this.” He leaned against the table for a moment before he gave his head another shake and scooped his discarded clothing from the floor.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, though she thought she did.
“Then I will be blunt, and you may rue me for it. There has been no shortage of women in my life, and I have not always been as discerning as I now try to be. When a man is offered anything, you’ll find very few refuse it.”
She had known. And she wasn’t surprised. He was eloquent, charming, a gentleman in ways that surprised her. Recollection of the way he’d stood before her during the festival’s dance, his mouth so tantalizingly close, sprang to her thoughts with such force it made her blush. What sort of woman would refuse? Light knew she wouldn’t have. She squeezed her eyes closed. “If you think to spare my virtue, then you’re too late. The last man who thought to become my husband was not so considerate as you.”
Gil turned, but said nothing.
The thread was still twisted around her forefinger and thumb. She made herself roll it into a knot and licked her lips. If blunt honesty was how he preferred to communicate, so be it. “My father sought a marriage for me as a means to save his business. A powerful nobleman’s second son, a marriage for wealth and security. They offered a high bride price and my father ordered me to secure it by any means necessary. I was not to anger or refuse my betrothed in any way.”
His brows drew low, a deep furrow between them. “You should bear no such burden.”
She snorted. “But I did, and I did it poorly. My betrothed and his family made sure my father knew as much when they canceled our union a mere week before the wedding.”
“You should command better than a transactional marriage.”
“Is that not what this is?” She motioned between them. “A transaction? A means for us to get where we need to go, a trade of stability for an illusion?” Her fingers curled in the unfinished shirt in her lap.
Gil’s expression grew pinched.
She didn’t know why she’d asked. It was a sham, all of it. Nothing more than her first arranged marriage had been.
Yet even as she scolded herself for the confusing emotions that gripped her chest like a vise, the thread between her fingers grew blurry again, this time with tears. She fought them back as she attached button after button, chasing magic down her fingertips and into each stitch so she could be done. Closures, for silence. For hiding. For security. Secrets.
He finished scrubbing stains from his things and hung them across the table to dry as the last closure was finished.
Thea blinked hard as she cut the last thread and thrust the shirt toward him at arm’s length. “Here. My end of the bargain is complete.”
Gil regarded it in silence, then crossed the room to draw the shirt from her fingertips. “Thea.”
She refused to look at him, refused to let him see her weakness and emotion as hot tears spilled from her eyes.
He didn’t let her hide. Slowly, he sank to kneel before her. His warm hands cradled her face, his thumbs wiping each tear from her cheeks.
Her breath caught in her chest and she choked back a sob. Gil pressed a thumb to her lips as if to still it as the fingers of his other hand tangled in her hair. He drew her closer, until she could no longer bear to look at the ordinary illusion she’d forged. She closed her eyes, envisioning him as he really was—his handsome face, his smoke-gray eyes, the hints of red in his beard that caught the morning sun—and when his lips finally claimed hers, she surrendered so readily that everything else fell away.
Relief and elation exploded in her chest, a whirlwind of fluttering feelings she’d fought down for so long. So desperately, she’d wanted this; the heat of his hands against her skin, the tender brush of his mouth on hers, the taste of his lips as he took what she’d so fiercely wished for him to want.
But fear, dismay, and heartbreak surged right along with her joy. He was a killer, a monster, a man who should have terrified her to her core. Yet when he finally broke away, she couldn’t help the rush of butterflies as he rested his brow against hers.
“You are worth far more than any bride price,” he whispered. “And you deserve far better than me.”
Slowly, he released her, and when he stood, the shields she so often saw him use to bury emotion were back. “Pack your things.”
Her heart sank, but she nodded as he drew on his new shirt. Her mental image of him as he was warred with her eyes, but the illusion won, stronger and better than anything she’d ever designed. He was a plain man, as unremarkable as his name, and it was too late for anything to change.
Gil had his mission, and they had their deal.
It didn’t matter how they felt.
Their marriage was still a lie.
