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“Ah,” she says with a knowing nod. “You really think we haven’t kept tabs on you all this time?

You thought you could escape into the Banished Land and we would be done with you?

We never forget one of our own, my dear.

You know that. We don’t let our daughters become so easily corrupted, especially by Freelanders.

It’s taken time, of course, to build a case against you.

For us to realize what you had become a bloody thief.

Stealing dragon eggs, the most punishable, blasphemous offense that ever was, especially for you.

You of all people should have known better.

Spreading magic throughout the syndikats.

It wasn’t until our spies in the Dark City were able to home in on you that we were finally able to bring our case to the Black Guard and have you dealt with. ”

She pauses and I feel like I’m drowning under her words.

“It wasn’t Sjef Ruunon or the Dalgaards who had your aunt killed.” A smile. “It was me.”

My knees are about to give out, shock rolling through my body.

I had suspected it could have been the Black Guard that came after us, but I never thought that the Harbringer was the one behind it.

Now, of course, it’s all too obvious.

I let myself believe I was worth nothing to them, that once I was in the Banished Land they would forget me. There was always another daughter to take my place.

I swallow the dust in my throat. “You let Ellestra go when she escaped the convent,” I say, my voice hoarse. “Why bother with me?”

“Because your aunt isn’t you,” she says.

She tilts her head, though my gaze drops to the bolt-thrower in her hand, still aimed at me.

Her grip seems more relaxed. Perhaps I have a chance to get her before she gets me.

I start calculating how fast I can throw this sword and if it can wound her first.

“Your aunt doesn’t have your blood,” she adds, her words more measured now. She frowns. “You don’t know, do you? She never told you.”

This is a ruse! She’s luring you into a sense of security! Don’t play into it!

“Tell me what?” I can’t help but ask, licking my lips. Curious until the day I die.

Which might just be today.

“You never thought you were different?” she says, raising a gray brow. “You never questioned things about yourself?”

I can’t even form the words.

“We called you the Daughter of Pain because of your grief inside, your anger, and the monthly pains in your desolate womb,” she says, her eyes piercing into me.

“And for the truth inside you’d not yet realized.

Oh, no wonder you’re here, trying to exact some sort of revenge.

You’re lashing out because you want to blame someone for being lied to all your life.

You want to blame someone for all the things your parents never told you.

The truth about your mother. The truth about what you are. ”

“And what am I?” I whisper.

“A false idol,” she says. “One that should have been struck down long ago.”

At those words, everything goes into slow motion.

She pulls the trigger.

I throw my sword.

The arrow hits the sword in midair, halfway between us. The impact deflects the arrow to the side of my head; it redirects the sword to the bedpost, where it lodges into the wood with a crack.

I start running for the Harbringer, pulling my other sword out, coming at her like lightning as she reloads the bolt-thrower.

I leap into the air, robes flying, my sword poised and ready to plunge into the old crone’s heart.

And then I hit something.

Hard.

Fly backward until I’m on the carpet.

Stare up at the Harbringer as she aims her bolt thrower at me, a crackle of shimmering light between us before it disappears.

A ward.

She has a magicked ward for protection, the very thing the rest of Esland would be killed for.

“You think Magni wouldn’t protect his best disciples?” she says, the arrow aimed at my head.

Her finger twitches on the trigger.

I’m about to die.

It squeezes.

This.

Is.

It.

I love you , I can’t help but think, projecting my thoughts at Andor. At Lemi. At my family.

But the room brightens from behind the Harbringer, the air changing, popping my ears.

There’s a snarl.

And before the Harbringer can pull the trigger, she turns around to see a large black shape leaping up at her, knocking her to the ground.

“Lemi!” I cry out.

Lemi ignores me and bites the Harbringer’s neck, tearing into the skin, tearing out her throat in a bloody mess before she has a chance to scream. He wolfs down her jugular, jaws snapping, and looks at me briefly, enough to wag his tail, before he goes back for another strike.

He bites the Harbringer’s face and I finally look away.

I stumble to my feet, picking up the bolt-thrower that has slid across the room, the arrow still unfired.

I carefully unhook the arrow, tuck it where the lock-picker is, then slide the device into my boot before I pull my sword from the bedpost.

I glance down at Lemi, who has left a bloody mess. The Harbringer’s face is an unrecognizable pulp.

He notices me looking and stops, about to come over to lick me, but I hold his bloody mouth back. “How in damnation did you do that, Lemi?” I ask him, scratching him behind the ears. “I thought you couldn’t shift where you hadn’t been before?”

He just wags his tail in response. I guess I had only assumed that.

I’ve never been so glad to be wrong.

“Good dog,” I tell him, kissing the top of his head. “Now how are we going to get out of here?”

He looks up at me with liquid eyes and while I’m staring down at him, so grateful for my best friend, a movement catches the corner of my eye.

The Harbringer twitches.

Then sits upright.