Elia tumbled over the top of the wall and crashed into a pile of straw. She sat dazed, blinking at everything around her. Straw sat heaped against plants in all shapes and sizes, sheltering them from the chilly air.
She’d fallen into a garden.
Another wall stood between the garden space and the entry courtyard where the gate guards had to be. The tall wooden gate bore no windows and it was barricaded from the garden side.
Idiots, she thought as she pushed herself up. They’d given the assassin an easy way to remain hidden. For an instant, she considered crossing the garden to unbar the gate and throw it wide, but she discarded the idea as swiftly as it came. There was no time. The shadow that was Banne moved up the wall so swiftly, Elia might have thought her a spider.
Instead of the gate, Elia ran for the rope that dangled against the keep’s wall. She didn’t know how to climb, but Romaric would have gone for the guards. The only way she could make a difference was to find some way to delay the assassin. She seized the rope in both hands and planted a foot against the wall.
Banne disappeared through a window and Elia feared the rope might fall, but the hook had anchored somewhere far above the tiny opening through which the woman had gone. How she made it into the palace didn’t matter, Elia supposed. Once she was in, speed and stealth was what counted, and she’d be long gone from the window by the time the rope was discovered.
Discovered by anyone else, anyway. Elia gripped the rope tight and began a slow ascent.
The stones in the wall were uneven and might have made good handholds on their own, but climbing with a rope was easier. Elia glanced down after only a few feet, grateful for the straw heaped around garden plantings at the base of the wall. If she fell, at least there would be something to catch her.
Assuming she didn’t just die.
She gulped back her fear and continued upward. The rope grated against the soft palms of her hands and her body burned with exertion, but her heart thundered in her chest like the hooves of the horses she’d left behind, carrying her onward. She’d gone too far to stop.
Angry voices rose from the direction of the gate. Romaric had reached the guards, then. She prayed whatever he did to convince them was effective, and that they avoided the garden.
No sooner than the thought crossed her mind, a shout rose from below.
“Breach!” the guard shouted. “Get the bowmen!”
“Not likely,” Elia muttered between ragged breaths. She didn’t look back, but she heard the rattle of armor and the thump of footsteps.
Then she was at the window, and she tumbled through with a gasp. She’d expected a bedroom of some sort. Instead, the window opened into a hallway lined with dozens more shuttered windows just like it.
Elia shoved herself to her feet and dusted off her hands, though her skinned palms stung.
Banne was nowhere in sight.
“The king,” she told herself as she worked to catch her breath. She had to find the king. If she could locate him, give him the letter, alert him to the assassin’s presence…
A shrill whistle split the air. A signal for the guards. Elia clapped her hands to her ears with a wince, but hurried forward. It was daytime; a king should be in his receiving hall, or whatever they called it in Nylmeres, and that would be downstairs.
“Stairs.” She dropped her hands and ran to the end of the hall. Surely there would be a flight of stairs nearby that was easy to access.
She rounded the corner and shrieked as a dagger hurtled toward her head.
It flew past, slicing a curl from the unshorn side of her hair, and thudded into the wall.
Before her, Banne straightened. “You’re a determined girl. I’ll give you that.”
Instead of replying, Elia spun to seize the dagger’s hilt. Yanking it from the plaster took more strength than she expected, and she had to jerk several times before it came free.
The assassin burst into laughter.
A flush of embarrassment rose into Elia’s cheeks, but she widened her stance and held the blade ready. “I won’t let you kill the king.”
“You think you have a choice?” Banne smirked, but instead of sweeping forward to attack, she spun on her toe and all but flew down the stairs.
Elia leaped after her, taking the steps two at a time, clutching the dagger tight in her hand. She couldn’t fight, likely couldn’t keep up, but anything she did to distract the assassin could only help.
A guard whistle sounded again, but she didn’t know if it came from outside or deeper in the castle keep. Hurry, she silently begged, not knowing if she meant it for the guards or as a prayer to the Light. She jumped the last four stairs and surged forward to drive her dagger through the assassin’s cloak and slam it into the wall.
Banne jerked to a halt and choked, but her hand shot to the clasp at her throat. She shed the cloak and left it behind.
Somehow, Elia had seen that going better. She scrambled over the discarded fabric and threw herself after the assassin. She caught Banne around the waist and they hit the floor hard.
The woman twisted like a snake in Elia’s arms, bringing a knee up into her chin so hard that stars burst in her vision like mage-made fireworks, snapping with the crack of her teeth colliding. She tightened her grasp, unwilling to let the assassin go. Banne snarled and curled to strike the side of her head with an elbow. Pain burst in her temple and prickled across her scalp, but she held fast, willing her arms to stay strong. She clenched her jaw and lifted her head.
A knife flashed in Banne’s hand. Elia’s stomach dropped and she braced for the knife’s bite.
Instead, a blur of shadow tore the woman from her grasp and slammed her into the wall.
“Don’t touch her,” Cass snarled.
Banne swung at him, but he caught her hand and twisted the knife from her grip.
Elia’s heart leaped and she tried to rise, but he rounded on her next, driving the blade through her skirt to pin her to the floor.
The assassin writhed to escape, but he seized her by the throat and drove her to the floor before he brought the white knuckles of his fist to her face.
Elia flinched and looked away, but her fingertips slipped around the knife.
Before Cass could land a second punch, Banne caught his wrist and twisted—not to injure, but to gain leverage to wiggle out of his grasp.
The knife was stuck fast. Elia yanked hard, but it stayed put as Banne slipped free and sprang in her direction. She yelped and raised her arms, ready to defend herself, but Cass caught the assassin by the arm. He dragged her close and backhanded her across the face, then twisted her arm and flipped her to the floor.
She didn’t stay down. The moment she hit the ground, she swung a leg sideways to sweep his legs out from under him. He didn’t fall, but he staggered, and that was enough for her to get free of his grasp and draw a knife from her boot.
Belatedly, Elia realized Cass was unarmed.
She dove for the knife that pinned her skirt, wrapped both hands around it, and planted both feet on the floor. The knife came loose from the floorboards when she shoved herself up and she stumbled backwards just as Banne took the first swipe. Cass ducked aside, but her knife skimmed his shoulder, slicing through cloth and leaving crimson in its wake.
“Here!” Elia darted forward, holding her knife by the blade so she could present it hilt first.
He snatched it from her grasp and swung just in time to deflect another stab. It threw Banne off balance and he planted a hand on her head as he kicked one foot out from under her, thrusting her head downward at the same time to send her sprawling.
She rolled instead and sprang up to run, but he snagged her sleeve and drove a shoulder into her back. They crashed into the far wall.
“Who sent you?” Cass demanded.
The assassin responded with a vicious grin. “If you don’t know already, you never will.”
He drew her back an inch and then slammed her head into the wall, but her body rippled like a cascading ribbon and she fell below his grasp to ram an elbow into his stomach. He stumbled back a step and she retreated backwards, but Elia planted herself in the woman’s path and caught her by the arms from behind.
It was like trying to hold on to an eel. Banne kicked off the wall and flipped over her head. Elia sank into the pressure instead of fighting it and fell to her knees to throw the assassin off balance. She landed awkwardly but recovered, using their still-linked arms to drive Elia to the wall. Her arm twisted up and outward, forcing Elia to let go.
Banne flipped the knife in her hand and Elia’s eyes widened.
She’d trapped herself.
The knife came down hard and slammed into Cass’s shoulder as he threw himself between them. He kicked Banne back and a startled gasp tore free of the assassin’s throat. She crumpled to the floor and Cass fell with her, his hand still wrapped around the dagger he’d lodged between her ribs.
Elia stared with wide eyes as he pressed his fingers to the woman’s throat. They stayed there for a long time before he eased back to sit on the floor with a grunt, one hand clutching his shoulder. It was only then that she saw the severity of it, the front of his pale gray shirt soaked with red.
“Cass,” she gasped as she hurried to his side and knelt to help.
He shoved her back. “This is the second time I’ve taken a knife for you.” The words hissed through his clenched teeth and his eyes burned with an anger unlike anything she’d ever seen. “Don’t make me regret it more than I already do.”
The words stung and she drew back.
“Here! We found them!” a voice called from the end of the hall.
A contingent of guards rushed toward them, too late to do anything of value. Elia wondered at their inefficiency, but now was not the time.
“He’s hurt,” she said, stepping aside to make room.
Instead of moving to help Cass, most of them clustered around her. Only one man knelt beside Cass to check the severity of his injury.
Cass let him. “Seize her.”
A shock of cold shot through her, but the guards were fast to react. They took her by the arms and held her fast.
“Sir?” one asked, only seeking an explanation after orders were complete.
“A Kentorian spy,” Cass said, pausing with a wince as the guard made him move his hand from the wound in his shoulder. “She came in with the assassin.”
“What?” Elia squeaked. “No, you don’t understand!”
“Take her downstairs,” he ordered.
“I came to help,” she protested as the guards pulled her toward the stairway. “I came to deliver a message for the king, to try and help stop this.”
“Yet this happened anyway, didn’t it?” one of the guards said.
Her chest tightened, fear and despair clutching at her until she couldn’t breathe. “Cass, please!”
He didn’t so much as lift his head as they pulled her around the corner and out of sight.
For a second time, they were parted, and her heart shattered all over again.
