Page 32 of The Warrior Priest (After the Rift #1)

Had that been her plan all along? Surely not. Surely I hadn’t been so dreadfully wrong about her these last months. I had believed her intentions for me were precisely as she claimed—she wanted to teach me everything she knew. Somewhere, at some point, that had changed.

Was it today? Or was it when she received Uncle Roderic’s letter in Upway?

Was that why she brought me to Tilting before I was fully ready? I’d come to realize that I wasn’t as skillful as she claimed. I was good, but not great. I had a lot to learn and required more rigorous training. Had she brought me to Tilting too soon so that I’d be easier to capture?

Did she even have a dying friend here at all?

Too many questions, and this was not the time and place to think them through. I had my own mission to complete.

I searched my uncle’s study and bedchamber but didn’t find the pendant. I left his house empty-handed, now certain he kept it on his person for safekeeping.

I returned to Rhys’s secret room and sat in the armchair. I stayed there a long time, thinking. It took a while for the fog of shock to clear and my mind to work properly, but once it did, I realized my first instinct must be correct.

I couldn’t trust Giselle.

The growl of my stomach reminded me I needed to eat.

I was about to leave when I spotted the book with the red cover on the table.

I looked at the symbol of the sun and moon, tracing the shapes with my fingertips.

The title— Cult and Culture in the Land of Zemaya —gave no clues as to why Giselle had been particular about stopping me from reading it.

I tucked it under my arm and headed out to a tavern I’d never frequented before.

I settled in to read as I ate a hearty stew, but had to finish the bowl quicker than I intended.

The other patrons, all men, wouldn’t leave me alone, and the final straw came when one offered me a pouch full of ells to be his mistress.

I stood, picked up the pouch, opened it and tipped the coins onto the table. “You insult me,” I said, tucking the book under my arm.

“You want more?” he asked, hopeful. “I have more.”

I rolled my eyes and pushed past him. I hurried home, in case he or one of the others followed me.

I’d been a fool to think I could frequent a tavern where I wasn’t known.

Giselle might be good at frightening men away with a mere glare, but I wasn’t.

It was another reminder that we were not alike. I wasn’t ready.

I would probably never be ready to be an assassin.

The knowledge didn’t concern me in the least.

It was dark when I reached the room. I lit a candle and placed it on the windowsill. I desperately wanted to know how Rhys fared after his punishment, and I needed to speak to him, too. He’d been right all along not to trust Giselle. I should have listened to him.

I settled into the armchair and read the book.

My eyes were growing weary, and I’d slumped down when I reached a chapter that made me sit up straight.

I angled the book to the candlelight and reread the paragraph mentioning the story about the talisman.

Just as my mother and our female ancestors claimed, the book stated that there was an old Zemayan legend about the sorcerer placing power into a talisman.

But the talisman wasn’t my pendant, and the power was not magical.

I closed the book and hugged it to my chest. I stared at nothing in particular until my eyes stung from exhaustion, then lay down on the pallet.

At some point, the candle had burned down and extinguished.

My good memory served me well as I recalled incidents from my past, going back to my earliest memories of happy times with my parents.

It was painful to think of them again. My childhood had been idyllic, and I’d loved them both dearly.

Their loss had been a wrench. My mother’s loss in particular had preceded the most frightening and lonely time of my life.

It was late. Rhys wasn’t coming. I desperately needed to talk to him, however, and I resolved to get word to him in the morning.

But it was Rhys who got word to me. When I returned from my breakfast at the market, I found a note from him under the door, stating that he needed to see me away from prying eyes and that the secret room was no longer a safe place.

He asked me to meet him at the ruined fort at noon then signed it with his signature of a bold, sharp R.

I quickly crossed to the balcony doors and stepped out. I peered down at the street below and watched as folk went about their business in the spring sunshine, not lingering in front of this rather ordinary building. If someone was watching it, they were well hidden.

The delightful smells of Mistress Blundle’s herbal concoctions filled my lungs as I breathed in deeply. With a wry smile and a glance in the direction of the temple of Merdu’s Guards, I made up my mind.

A little while later, I took the northern road out of Tilting.

The old fort was some distance out of the city and it took time to reach it.

Although built by the ancients to keep the Barbarian hordes out, the wild folk from the Margin had never ended up crossing the river into Glancia, so the fort had fallen into ruin hundreds of years ago.

Only sections of the stone walls were still in place, the rest having disappeared over time.

Long grass licked at the ruins’ foundations and yellow wildflowers swayed in the light breeze, their fragrance pungent after being recently crushed underfoot.

The high temple’s bell chimed in the distance as I arrived. I was right on time, but I wasn’t alone.

“Jac?” Giselle had been lazing on a large fallen stone worked into a smooth block when she suddenly sat up as I approached. Her horse grazed at the edge of the clearing, the reins loosely tethered to a tree stump. “What are you doing here?”

“I was summoned. Why are you here?”

“I received a note from Rhys asking to meet me.” She looked around and shrugged. “Why here?”

“Because it’s out of the way.” The fort was located on a disused track that had been abandoned along with the building many years ago.

It was a good place for a rendezvous. Carriages couldn’t navigate the rough track and the fort couldn’t be seen from the busier northern road.

No one would come here if they didn’t have to.

“Why does he want to meet us in an out-of-the-way place?” Giselle asked. “Jac, what’s going on?”

“Stop the games, Giselle. I know you wrote the note, not Rhys.”

She made a scoffing sound. “Me? That’s absurd. Why would I write myself a note? And you, for that matter?”

“You didn’t write yourself one, and you signed mine with Rhys’s signature.”

“Are you implying it wasn’t his signature? Was it forged?”

“It was forged, by you, and it was a very good forgery. I wouldn’t have guessed it was fake except for one thing.”

Curiosity got the better of her. She no longer denied having written the note. “What thing?”

“Whenever Rhys leaves me a note at our meeting place, he has never signed it. Not once. Why would he bother when no one else would leave me a note there? How did you know that’s where we met?”

Her gaze flicked to the track. “He’ll be on his way to rescue you.”

“I didn’t tell him or send for him,” I said.

“Rhys is indisposed at the moment. This is between you and me, Giselle, and it ends here. I know you’re working for my uncle.

I know you lured me here so you could capture me and take me to him.

Did he offer you more money this time to get you to change your mind?

Or did you in fact agree months ago after you received his letter in Upway? ”

“Ah, Jac. Sweet, innocent girl. Rhys has turned your head and got you believing I’m your enemy. I’m not. I’m your friend, your mentor. I swear on everything I hold dear that your uncle didn’t hire me to capture you.”

“Bollocks! For one thing, you hold nothing dear. For another, I know you met my uncle this morning. Don’t deny it. I smelled your scent in his study.”

“I don’t have a scent. I stopped using the orange blossom a while ago. I told you that. I don’t use anything made with a scent anymore.”

“Because you don’t want me to detect you. I know. But you didn’t realize that everyone has a unique scent. In fact, in a rather ironic twist, by not using the orange blossom soap anymore, I was able to get to know your true odor. I’m quite familiar with it after living with you for a while.”

She scoffed. “That’s absurd. No one can smell a person’s unique scent unless they sweat, and then it’s all the same.”

“Most people can’t detect a difference, but I can.” I removed the book from the waistband at the back of my trousers and tossed it to her.

She caught it deftly. “You stole my book!”

“I stole my uncle’s copy. It’s rather amusing to think if he’d just read all of the books he owned, he would have realized a long time ago that the talisman isn’t my pendant. The stone doesn’t hold any power. I do. The talisman is me.”

She showed no surprise, and didn’t deny it. She’d given up on the ruse altogether. She watched me carefully, as if she expected me to draw a weapon at any moment.

“Thanks to you, I’m better trained at fighting,” I said. “Adding that to my good memory and heightened senses, I’ll make a good assassin. When did you realize I was the talisman? Before you hired me? Or in Upway?”