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“Vallan’s master, yes.” Skar nodded, and I thought I noticed a tinge of sadness in the set of his jaw.

“Liolen Sesk, the Gilded Liege, interfolk Minister of Commerce, located in the rainbow Commerce Ward, southwestern district of Olhav.”

“A flamboyant one, they are. Ostentatious, filthy, and filthy rich.”

“Valenthia Yurlyth, the Sacred Slave, Sister of the Damned, Minister of Faith, located in the green Faith Ward in the southeastern district.”

“Good. Though zealous and mad, her cunning is matched, in my opinion, only by Mistress Mortis and our final target . . .”

“Aramastun Wyvox,” I said. “The Night Judge. Minister of Judgment, located in the central Judgment Ward, tinted red.”

“Ominous, is it not?” Skartovius walked with his arms clasped behind his back, like an aged tutor.

He nodded severely, gaze downcast. “Of all the Five Ministries, it is the Judgment Ward which holds the most power. Though Overlord Aramastun’s vote only holds a single tally, as all the others’ votes do, he is the de facto leader of Olhav’s government.

Good work, little temptress. Commit these names to memory.

When we are ready, these are the five who must fall. ”

Months into our business, another attack came.

I had been complacent after so long between ambushes. The last one came in Nuhav with Garroway. Nothing untoward had transpired in Olhav since then. I had been kept away from scrying eyes.

That changed on a breezy night near the silver mines.

I was not going far: from the Chained Sisters’ Hall in the north, visiting with Jinneth and Keffa, to the North Mines at the base of the Peaks.

I had become so lax in my risk assessment I even neglected to have an escort for the evening.

I didn’t have to go far, after all, and I’d done the trek now dozens of times.

Such was my arrogance and foolishness.

Halfway down the mountain pass, the assassins struck. I would never learn what they wanted.

Like the first time, they came as two.

It was a sound of tumbling gravel. A misstep sent a landslide of dust and stone sliding down from the tiered ledge above me on the pass, just overhead. It alerted me I was being followed. My gaze swung heavenward as I drew my sword in the night—

And a black blur descended from the sky, silhouetted by the purple night above him. The glint of the vampire’s bared fangs and the reflection of moonlight against his steel blade betrayed his movement.

I backpedaled in reflex to the edge of the walkway, batting the bloody’s dagger away with a quick flick of my wrist. I had nowhere to go but front and back, like a fencer. Sidestepping left would send me sprawling down the cliffside at least a hundred feet down. To the right lay a sheer rock face.

I could hear the soft padding of a new assassin’s footsteps behind me, running up the winding path to sandwich me between them.

Fuck, I thought as I parried the first assassin again, sending him hopping back in a severe crouch while he waited for his accomplice. Now I die because I was stupid enough not to take an escort from the Chained Sisters.

I expected to feel the lancing agony of a blade in my spine, futilely spinning to fend off my new attacker—

As a massive blur filled my vision from the darkness below, a black cloak billowing in the night. He seemed to emerge from nowhere in the empty space off the edge of the walkway, floating still in the sky for a fateful second.

Before his feet even landed on the walkway, a silver arc lashed directly over my head and I ducked—

As the assassin jumping at me from behind was cleaved in half.

His torso arced over me, momentum sending his upper half flopping past the edge of the walkway to the darkness below in a waterfall of blood and bone.

His legs remained standing behind me, spurting a geyser of red into the air before collapsing.

Vallan Stellos took up every inch of space behind me, his massive, bloody war-axe clutched in both hands.

The assassin in front of me watched with horror, red eyes bulging before lunging at me.

Vallan moved unsettlingly fast, whipping his axe—which was as long as I was tall—past my face by mere inches.

The curved blade caught the enemy before he could correct his charge, dismembering his lunging arm at the shoulder.

The bounty hunter screamed and watched his sword and arm flail down into the nether.

Putting a hand to his cavernous wound, he turned to flee—

Vallan hurled his axe through the air, embedding the blade deep in the vampire’s spine. The assassin stiffened, the haft of Vallan’s axe jutting from his back, and he began to wobble at the precipice of the cliff.

Vall glided past me with deft athleticism, grabbed hold of his axe handle, and ripped it out of the vampire’s back with a gruesome crack of bone and ripping flesh.

Then he wheeled, swinging his axe around, and beheaded the vampire in a single motion, adding a kick to the bounty hunter’s ass for good measure to send him sprawling a hundred of feet below.

All was still after that. I blinked in utter shock. “I-I’m assuming vampires can’t heal from being beheaded or cut in half?” Through my thundering heart, those dazed words were all I could muster.

Vallan grunted and came to my side, notching his axe diagonally across his back. “I apologize for my tardiness. I was seconds late.”

“Seconds late? How did you know I was here?”

I noticed stiffness to his gait, his lips wincing behind his beard. “It was a test, silverblood, and my fault for putting you through that. My fault you did not have an escort down the mountain.”

“What in all the True are you talking about, Vall?”

I was still shaken, jittery. His words made no sense.

He stopped to look down into my eyes. “My latent power has shown itself. It began as nightmares of you dying in front of my eyes. Then I realized I could stop you from dying, the longer the dreams went on. When I saw these two hunters on the cliffside coming after you in my dream last night, well . . .”

My mouth fell open. “You’re shitting me.”

He shook his head severely. “I believe your blood has enabled me to know when you are in harm, Sephania. It seems to be, erm, foresight of some kind.”

“But you’re the practical one who doesn’t subscribe to alchemy and magic.”

“Quite fucked, isn’t it?” He let out a strange sound, somewhere between a laugh and a groan. “I thought Skartovius was your imminent protector, or surely Garroway for how much he dotes on you.”

“Turns out you’re the biggest bodyguard of all.”

He snorted. “Emphasis on biggest.”

I laughed, my voice tinged with hysteria from my near-death experience. “This is incredible.”

His face betrayed no humor, no relief—just naked truth and a hint of concern. “I also believe it is time, and I think Skar will agree. We’ve been at this for months.”

“Time? Time for what?”

“For us to thrust you out of the dark. To introduce you to the people of our cause.”