Page 17 of Warrior Princess Assassin (Braided Fate #1)

Chapter Eight

The Assassin

J ory is staring at me desperately, wetting her lips like this is a new puzzle she has to solve. “Asher,” she says firmly. “You cannot kill the king—”

I slap a gloved hand over her mouth again, then cast a glance at her chamber doors. “Maybe you could say that a little more quietly.”

She hesitates, then nods, so I let her go.

I reach into my jacket and withdraw the tightly folded orders that I hid from Hammish and Rachel when I dunked my hand in the bucket. “You need to see this,” I say as I unroll them. “I’ve been ordered to kill you both. If I fail, another Hunter will be sent. Soon.”

She inhales like she’s going to keep arguing, but her eyes must lock onto something on the parchment, because she finally snatches both pieces out of my hands to read. Her eyes scan the paper and stop on Maddox Kyronan’s name, then flick back up to the royal seal at the top.

“This has to be fake,” she says. “It has to be. You heard Dane yourself. He’ll do anything to ensure this alliance. He’s not going to have the king killed now —”

“Or he laid a trap where the king has no access to fire just so he could have him killed. Read the next one.”

She huffs a breath as if we’re children again and I’m being stubborn, but she flips to the next piece of parchment and reads.

A line appears between her eyebrows when she reaches her own name.

“Look at the bottom,” I say. “It was paid with Incendrian silver. And the order was received this morning.”

“This doesn’t make any sense.”

The only thing that doesn’t make sense is the fact that she’s not wrapping herself up in a cloak and sneaking through the servant passageways.

“These are fake,” she says. “Someone is tricking you.” Jory thrusts the crumpled parchment at me with finality. “Ky wants this alliance, too.”

I was in the middle of wondering if I should just drag her over the windowsill, but my thoughts trip and stall when she calls him Ky .

I don’t care. I don’t.

I can’t .

My expression must shift anyway, because spots of pink appear on her cheeks. She squares her shoulders and stares up at me boldly. “I talked to him, Asher. He wants to protect his people. He didn’t do this.”

I take a tight breath through my teeth and cast a glance at her door. We surely only have moments before one of her maids returns. “Two hours ago, you were terrified of him.”

“That was before he came to speak with me privately.”

I have no idea how she can be so bold and so naive at the same time.

Actually, I do know, because I was the exact same way when I was first exiled from the palace. I earned the first stripe on my face because of it.

I stare down at her. “He spoke to you for ten minutes, and you suddenly believe he wants peace and light and happiness? The man is responsible for cutting through entire regiments on the battlefield. He sets enemy soldiers on fire and watches them burn. So would you please consider that Ky could have engineered a situation where an assassin could dispatch you without conflict?”

She blanches a bit when I mention the king’s atrocities, but then her eyes narrow. “Why would he need an assassin at all?” she demands. “We were alone! He could have killed me with his own two hands!”

The door clicks, and I snatch the parchment out of her fingers and leap for the rafters.

I don’t have the favor of nighttime now, and even though the hearth and sconces are dark, the room is full of sunlight.

I dig my fingernails into the wooden beams and climb as high as I can before going still in the shadows alongside a wooden beam braced against the wall.

I’m mostly hidden, but I’m not invisible.

Those pieces of parchment are half-crumpled in my hand because I had no time to tuck them away.

I’m frozen in place, pressing that hand into the beam to keep it still.

Nothing draws the eye like a hint of movement.

My heart might be pounding, but I barely allow myself to breathe.

Especially since Dane has stepped into the room.

He stops directly below me. I could drop right on top of him if I wanted to.

I wish his name was on one of those parchments.

When he speaks, his voice is cold. “What did Maddox Kyronan say?” he demands. But then he stops short, and I realize Jory is staring back at him, wide-eyed. “What?” he says. “What did he do?”

I doubt he’s concerned about her well-being, but it’s clear Jory is still rattled by my presence. I hold my breath, worried she’s going to glance in my direction and give me away. I’ll have a dozen men trying to fill my back with arrows a second later.

But Jory squares her shoulders. “It’s nothing, Dane,” she says, her tone level and strong. “Your precious alliance is not in danger.”

I let out a slow breath. Good girl.

“Then what did he want?” Dane says.

Jory moves away, returning to her dressing table. She sits on a velvet stool and picks up a hairpin, tucking an errant curl into place. “He wanted to make sure I was privy to everything Astranza was agreeing to. He said he would have his captain bring me a copy of your contracts.”

“For what purpose?”

She tucks another curl. “So I could strike any terms I find unsatisfactory.” She reaches for a tiny pot of pink cream and dabs some on her left cheek. “Up to and including the whole agreement.”

Dane storms forward, his arm outstretched like he’s going to grab her, and rage fills my chest, just like any time I’m this close to him.

I was never fond of Prince Dane, not even when I lived here.

He’s always been arrogant and disdainful, and as the child of a servant—even a high-ranking servant—I rarely earned his attention.

True hatred for Dane didn’t set in until the moment I was dragged out of the palace in chains. I shift my weight, ready to leap down to stop him.

But Jory doesn’t flinch. She’s glaring at him in the mirror. “The king also told me that if you lay a hand on me again, he’ll consider it an act of war.”

Thunder has rolled across Dane’s expression, but he stops short.

Jory simply dabs more cream onto her other cheek. The tension is so thick it’s practically holding me in place. An entire minute ticks by.

Which brings us an entire minute closer to another Hunter coming to kill her.

Jory finally breaks the silence. “Dane, if you’re done standing there, I would rather like to finish getting ready.” She reaches for another pot of cream, rose-red this time. “I believe you have to make some preparations yourself?”

“Fine,” he grates out. “I’ll send in your ladies.”

Jory dabs the darker cream on her lips. “No. Please tell Charlotte that I would prefer some time to myself. I’ll need some privacy to review the contracts once they arrive.”

Dane doesn’t even answer. He’s already slamming through the door.

Once he’s gone, she looks up, scanning the beams until she finds me tucked against the wall, fifteen feet above.

“Come back down,” she calls softly.

I shake my head and glance at the door. “Not yet.”

She makes a frustrated sound and rises from the little stool. Her cheeks are more pink now from the cream, her lips more vibrant. I remember what she looked like as a girl, and she was always pretty in an understated way—the way children born to privilege often are.

In adulthood, however, her beauty has depth.

I think of the way my heart leapt when I watched her emerge from her chambers in the maid’s uniform. The way she went to meet him .

“Did you hear what he said?” she whispers. “Why would Dane care about the alliance if he wanted to kill the king?”

“Maybe he’s making sure everything proceeds as normal until a killer has time to work.

” I hold up the parchment, which is crumpled from my rough treatment along the beam.

“The Guildmaster knows the king and the crown prince—he would have verified these orders himself. This one can’t be a fake.

” I pause and shift between them. “I sincerely doubt the other one is either.”

“Why would they both issue these orders at the same time?”

“I don’t know that they did. I just received them this morning—and it was after Maddox Kyronan arrived.

” I tap the parchment and read off a line below his name.

“ Payment of three hundred coins received in Incendrian silver. So he absolutely could have sent one of his people to the Guild to arrange it. He and his men didn’t arrive together.

One of them could have done it before arriving in the palace. ”

She considers that—but I’m right, and she knows it.

I glance at the door again, but I haven’t heard a sound. I’m still not ready to risk dropping to the ground. “Jory,” I say. “ Please . Pack a few things and go. I can help you—”

“Asher! I am not throwing away this alliance because you showed up with these orders! Simply go back and tell them no .”

It’s my turn to make a frustrated sound.

I finally uncurl from where I’m hidden and spring from beam to beam until I land in front of her.

“You think I can tell them no ? I could be executed just for keeping these orders! Just for telling you! And even if I refused, what exactly do you think would happen? They’ll give back the payment and say the Hunter didn’t feel like it ? ”

Her cheeks are flushed now, her breathing rapid. “Why did you even accept it at all?”

“I didn’t know you were the target until I opened it!

You don’t know how lucky you are that it was given to me .

” As soon as I say that, I realize how true it is.

If I hadn’t strolled through the gathering room this morning, Jory might be facing another Hunter—or not facing him at all, as the case may be.

“You must run,” I say firmly. “If you and the king aren’t dead by midday, they will send another Hunter to finish the job—and then there will be nothing I can do to save you.

We are oath bound to track our prey until the job is done.

Your brother wants the king of Incendar dead—so he will be.

The king wants you dead—so you will be.”

“Then I’ll tell the guards, Asher! I’ll tell Dane—”

I step forward, spin her around, and trap her arms before she can even inhale. I use enough force that I have her body pinned against my chest, unable to struggle. A blade is already in my hand, and I touch the metal of the dagger hilt against her chin. She squeals and her chin lifts an inch.

I can feel her heart pounding through her corset, through the buckles of my jacket, through the leather of my glove where it sits against her throat. Her breathing hitches once, a sound full of fear, and I almost let her go. This is a side of myself that I’ve never wanted her to see.

But she needs to be afraid. She needs to understand.

She wrenches at my grip, but I hold fast. My mouth is close to her ear now, the floral scent of her hair filling my nose.

“Another assassin wouldn’t wait,” I say, keeping my voice low. “Your throat would already be cut, your blood on the floor.”

Her breathing shakes again, and her fear swells in the air between us. Her entire frame is rigid, tight against me.

Good. I hate it, but good .

I let her go, and she falls away from me, gripping the edge of her dressing table, her breath heaving.

“Do you understand now?” I demand.

She doesn’t nod. Instead, she whirls and punches me square in the face.

The strike snaps my head to the side, because I really didn’t see it coming. I might even taste blood. I have to fall back a step so I don’t fall down.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” she says, her voice ragged.

“You weren’t listening!” Stars in darkness, that was a good strike.

I had no idea she could hit like that. When I touch a hand to my lip, it stings like fire, and my fingertips come away with blood.

I don’t know if I should be impressed or angry, but this definitely feels like a time for both. “ Fuck .”

“You put a knife to my throat!” She rubs at her neck, then checks her fingers as if expecting to find her own blood.

“It was just the hilt,” I growl. “I wanted to show you, not hurt you.”

She stares at me, her chest still heaving a bit. Her eyes are dark and full of censure, but I don’t care. I dab a drop of blood away from my lip. After a moment, Jory sighs and pulls a small handkerchief from the bodice of her dress, then reaches for my face.

I jerk back without meaning to. It’s an automatic motion, but she freezes. Her hand hangs there, outstretched, but then her eyebrows flicker into a frown.

She’s looked at me like that before, and I hate it.

I draw up the hood of my coat and look away.

“We’re wasting too much time,” I say. “Lead a horse into the woods, then mount and head north. There’s an inn about five miles from here, called Three Fishes.

It’s off the main road. I’ll take care of the king and follow in a few—”

“Asher.” She tucks the handkerchief away and faces me with her shoulders squared—exactly the way she faces down her brother. “I’m not running, and you can’t kill him.”

She’s so brave—but this is infuriating. And heartbreaking.

I give a ragged sigh and fold up the slips of parchment, then set them on her dressing table.

“I’ll leave you with the proof. Hide them where they’ll be found so Incendar has some evidence that you aren’t responsible.

” I scowl. “But you didn’t believe me, so who knows what they will think. ” I leap for the rafters again.

“Where are you going?”

“I can’t stay. I’ve been given a deadline. If you change your mind, I’ll meet you at the inn.” I swing high, gripping tight to each beam.

“Asher.” Her voice catches me just before I reach the highest window. “I believe you. I’ll go.”

My heart leaps.

Then she says, “But you can’t kill the king.”

“I can. Without his fire magic, he’s just another soldier.” I snap the latch beside the ledge. Cold air swirls into the space, tugging at my hood. “And it doesn’t matter. If I don’t kill him, someone else will.”

“I know,” she says. “But you said that if I needed help, I could send word. You said you’d do whatever needed doing .”

I look down at her. She has no idea what I’m risking here. “That’s exactly what I am doing, Jor.”

“No. That’s why you’re not going to kill him.

Astranza needs the king and his magic—and Incendar might be to blame, but I don’t believe he is.

” Her voice isn’t small anymore. It’s strong and brave and clear, reminding me that she might be naive about the world outside these walls—but she’s still a princess, and she’s got a solid grip on my heart.

“If we need to run,” she says, “we’re going to take him with us.”