Page 20 of Warrior Princess Assassin (Braided Fate #1)

Chapter Ten

The Princess

M y heart is a wild thrum in my chest. I feel like I can hear every beat. Bile keeps threatening to escape my stomach, and I’m desperately trying to keep it down. I follow Asher through the king’s rooms numbly, wondering how we reached this point.

He killed someone.

He killed someone.

I feel terribly naive, because it shouldn’t be surprising.

It’s not as if he hasn’t been clear about his occupation for years now.

It’s not as if I haven’t seen violence and treachery before, either.

But Asher stood in my chambers and tried to warn me, and I didn’t listen.

He showed me what he was capable of, and I ignored it.

Maddox Kyronan is surrounded by guards. So am I.

The thought of an assassin sneaking past our defenses to kill anyone seemed impossible.

But he did. Of course he did.

Worse: I helped him do it.

Oh, I’m such a fool. To think I cavalierly begged him to figure out a way to bring the king with us. Like we’d just lead him out of here, the way we used to sneak off to the stables. Like this would be the kind of grand adventure I’ve been longing for.

Asher killed one of the Incendrian soldiers. This...this is an end I didn’t foresee.

See if you can get him alone, he said to me. See if you can get him to disarm again. I know a way out of the royal guest suites.

I thought he was worried about the king attacking me when I tried to explain.

I thought he was prepared to act if it went badly.

I just didn’t realize Asher would do..

. this . I can’t quite think straight—and I lost a minute to pure shock when he dropped from the rafters.

There’s a part of me that wants to shout for Captain Zale and the rest of the soldiers.

There’s a part of me that wants to shout for my brother .

But there’s no relief here. We’d hang. Or we’d be handed over to Maddox Kyronan himself, because he’d be within rights to claim justice.

My eyes burn and my breath hitches, and I force myself to swallow it down. I have no right to cry. Ky just watched one of his men die, and now he’s bound and gagged, being forced toward the back of the guest quarters.

I remember the moment he saw my bruised fingers. The sudden flare of protectiveness in his gaze.

He’s not trying to kill me. I know he’s not.

I just needed a few more minutes to figure out how to ask him.

Asher drags the king into the washroom, the hobbled boots making each step shuffle. His eyes are cold, every muscle on his frame tense. I heard what Asher said when he convinced Ky to rise to his feet, and after what he did to the first soldier, I’m terrified that he truly meant every word.

In the washroom, there’s a small window above the water pump, but it’s nowhere near big enough for us to crawl through—especially with Ky bound as he is.

The walls are paneled with wood, and I’m startled when Asher uses his dagger to pry one open, revealing a pitch-dark gap in the wall, with a wide bricked hole in the floor.

“I’ll take him first,” he says to me, his soft voice tight and clipped. “We need to be fast. Pull the panel closed behind you and follow us. I’ll wait at the bottom.”

“What?” I gasp.

But he’s already looking at Ky. “Jump, Your Majesty,” he says. “It’s not far.”

The king glares back at him, and he doesn’t move.

I remember listening to his gentle accent, watching the smile break across his face when he told me to call him Ky. I couldn’t imagine how someone like that could be responsible for all the rumors spoken about him.

But now I can. The king’s eyes promise vengeance. Furious, painful, deliberate retaliation. He doesn’t seem afraid. He seems like he’s waiting .

If that look proves anything, it’s that this man wouldn’t hire an assassin. He’d break me with his own two hands.

Asher isn’t cowed, though. He steps forward with the dagger. “You can land on your feet, or I can push you. Jump. ”

The king’s eyes flash with fury, but he jumps. Whatever he lands in makes a wet, squelching sound. Then the smell reaches us, and I realize what we’re about to jump into.

Asher’s eyes flash to mine, and he’s become so intimidating that I step back before I can stop myself.

He blinks in surprise, a tiny frown line appearing between his brows. For a flash, he’s not a terrifying assassin kidnapping the king of a rival nation; he’s Asher, my gentle childhood friend, the man I welcomed into my room in the dead of night.

“Jory?” he whispers.

I swallow, and my throat is so tight that it hurts. “You killed his soldier.”

“No. I—” He breaks off when we hear the king take a step in the muck down below, and Asher looks aggrieved. “Remember to pull the panel,” he murmurs. And he jumps into darkness, too.

Then I’m alone in the washroom, my breathing a roar in my ears.

I’m tempted to pull the panel closed in front of me, trapping them down there together.

I could check on the fallen soldier—or more likely, I could collapse in a pile of sobs right here.

I imagine the Incendrian soldiers finding me in the washroom, leaning against the wall, choking on my heartbeat.

“What king?” I’d say. “There was a king here?”

A near-hysterical laugh bubbles up from my throat. This is insane.

Before I can think too closely about what we’re doing, I step into the small space and pull the panel closed. Then I hold my breath, tuck up my skirts, and jump.

I expect it to be horrible, but it’s worse.

That hysterical laugh nearly turns into a sob.

It’s almost pitch-dark down here, and the smell is an assault to every fiber of my being.

My eyes burn. I remember Asher vowing that I have no idea what life is like outside the palace, and I hate that this is my first taste of it.

Surely being hung can’t be worse than this.

I refuse to drop my skirts. I’ve never been more grateful for the suede boots I chose to wear, instead of the satin slippers Charlotte usually sets out.

“Breathe through your mouth,” Asher says. “Put your hand on my shoulder, Jor. I’ll lead us out.”

For the first time in my life, I don’t want to touch him.

I also don’t want to stay here, and the thought of losing track of him in the darkness is just as terrifying as everything else. I put a hand on his shoulder.

As we walk, our feet squish with every step.

We find so many turns that I can’t imagine how Asher learned them all.

But it’s not long before I learn why he insisted that we be silent: we can hear voices from above.

Sometimes there are spots where the floorboards are worn and light peeks through.

I listen for cries of alarm, some sign that someone has realized the king is missing.

But there’s nothing. My chest clenches.

Well, of course there’s nothing. Asher leapt onto his back within minutes of my arrival. We leapt into this sewer a few minutes later. I have no idea how long his men will wait before checking, but I doubt it’s going to be soon.

The worst part is that I don’t know what outcome to wish for.

I keep my hand on Asher’s shoulder, and I keep walking.

The odor never dissipates. Eventually the noise of the palace fades away, leaving us in silence.

I expect to come to an exit point, but we don’t.

It seems that we walk for miles . The only sound is my tense breathing and the wet slap of our feet through things I don’t want to think about.

But then, almost without my being aware of it, the smell abates.

Or...it changes . Instead of the bizarre cloying warmth of the tunnel, the air turns sharp and cold.

Light fills the space up ahead, and I can finally see them both more clearly.

Well, I can see Ky. Asher’s hood is still drawn up, his features lost in shadow.

“Stop,” says Asher. “Hold him. I’ll see if it’s safe.” He takes my hand off his shoulder and puts it on the king’s arm.

Hold him. I want to let him go.

No, that’s stupid. Ky would surely kill us both.

The rage hasn’t left his gaze, and now that his eyes have shifted to me, I want to wither from the intense fury there.

He left his bracers and blades back in his quarters, but he’s still wearing a breastplate and greaves.

I saw the hidden knives strapped to his wrists when he first disarmed, and I’m sure he has more weapons hidden.

If he gets free now, I doubt I’d have an opportunity to draw breath.

In the faint light, I can see the scrapes and bruising from where Asher choked him and pressed him into the floor. His jaw is hard and sharp, the rope gagging him so tightly that it’s leaving marks, too.

The betrayal in his gaze is the hardest to look at.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and his eyes seem to darken. He doesn’t believe I’m sorry at all. It makes me rush on. “Please—you must understand. I need to explain. We had to get out of the palace. I didn’t know Asher would—”

But then Asher is back. “It’s clear,” he says. “Come on.”

The tunnel empties into a stream in the middle of the woods.

I have no idea where we are, but the air is silent and undisturbed.

We have to wade through a few inches of flowing water until we step up a snowy bank—a bit of a relief because it washes our boots clean, but also a bit of torture because the icy water slips past my laces to freeze my toes.

The cold is almost violent, the morning sunlight doing nothing to ease the bitterness of the wind slipping between the trees.

I was relieved about the snow, but Asher looks down at our muddy footprints and frowns, then glances up at the sky. “We need to walk through the brush,” he says. “We’re only about a mile from the palace, and it’ll be harder to follow.”

A mile . That’s somehow closer and farther than I expected. Wind whips around us, stinging my eyes.

Asher gives the king’s arm a tug. “Come on.”