Page 4 of Warrior Princess Assassin (Braided Fate #1)

Chapter Two

The Princess

M y ladies added two extra quilts and a fur to my bed when I finally retired, but I still can’t stop shivering.

I toss and turn, tucking the bedding around me more securely, then shift to face the door.

I’m sure Dane expects me to be prim and demure tomorrow, but at this rate, I’ll be awake all night.

When the king arrives, I’ll end up yawning through a curtsy, and Maddox Kyronan will set the tapestries ablaze because he’s so offended by my rudeness.

I’d laugh if it weren’t all so tragically possible.

Instead, I want to scream into my pillow.

If Asher were here, he’d lift my spirits.

He’d call Dane an uptight ass and threaten to poison his tea.

Maybe he’d hang one of my stockings from a nail high in the rafters, so I’d have to stifle a giggle in the morning while my ladies tried to figure out how it got up there.

We’d sit in the shadows and I’d beg him for gossip from the distant corners of Astranza that I never get to see.

He never stays too long, but sometimes the night will grow dark and quiet and he’ll linger.

We’ll share memories from our childhood, from before our mothers died and the world became too dark and lonely to think about.

Once I’m in Incendar, I’ll be completely alone.

My throat tightens, and I sniff back tears before they dare to form.

I wonder if I could figure out a way to send word to the Hunter’s Guild in the morning, to inquire about Asher and his whereabouts.

Dane could surely do it, but he’s the last person I would ask.

Officially, the Hunters never work for the Crown, because no one in the palace would ever admit to hiring them, but I know it’s been done.

When some nobleman or high-ranking soldier needs to be dealt with discreetly instead of publicly.

I asked Asher about it late last summer.

“Does Dane use your services?” I said primly.

“My services ?” he echoed. We were in the midst of a game of cards in the moonlight, and I saw his lip quirk up under the hood of his jacket. Ever in the shadows, even in the dead heat of summer. “Jory, I’m not polishing the silver. I’m hired to kill people.”

My heart always stutters a little at the casual way Asher talks about his occupation, but I pressed on. “Then does he hire you?”

The smile fell off his face. “Not me. I won’t take your family’s money.”

It was one of the last times I saw him. He often disappears for weeks, though I rarely know where he’s been.

An assassin wouldn’t be very successful if he broadcast his whereabouts.

But this is the longest he’s ever been gone, and it’s not as if Astranza is so very large.

When he was first exiled from the palace at sixteen, he was sold into indentured labor to pay his “debts to the Crown,” but even then he’d manage to slip away, finding his way back to me time and time again.

I toss myself sideways and face the window, willing Asher to appear.

He doesn’t. Not that he’d simply appear , anyway. He’d never be that obvious. I might see a flicker of shadow, or the draperies might flutter.

Tonight there’s nothing.

I heave an exasperated sigh and punch the pillow, then bury my face in it.

“Stars in darkness, Jory. What did that pillow ever do to you?”

I gasp and sit bolt upright. “Asher.”

“Careful.” He draws out the word slowly, and his low, quiet voice is like a caress. “I don’t think your ladies are asleep.”

He sounds close enough to touch, but I don’t see him anywhere. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. He’s quicker than lightning, and he can move through darkness like a ghost.

My heart is leaping in my chest, but I drop my voice to a whisper. “Where are you?”

“Up here.”

I look up, and there he is, perched on one of the dozen rafters that artfully stretch across the room.

The decorative beam seems too narrow to be comfortable for lounging, but somehow Asher manages.

He’s dressed all in black, from the soles of his boots to the strap of his pack.

Black leather, black canvas, black wool, black buckles.

Even his weapons are specially forged so they don’t reflect the light: there’s not a speck of gleaming steel anywhere.

The only brightness is Asher himself. He’s pushed back his hood far enough for me to see the shock of white-blond hair that hangs into his eyes, and the fair skin that rarely sees the sun.

His eyes are in shadow, but I know they’re a bright, vivid blue.

When we were children, the ladies at court would always comment that he’d grow out of that hair color, that his eyes would darken once he got out of childhood. They were wrong on both counts.

I wonder if any of the older ladies ever think of Asher, or if they cast him out of their minds as soon as he was exiled. They never offered him an ounce of pity or mercy when he desperately needed it, so I doubt it.

My jaw is set now, my joy at his presence replaced with protective anger over the boy he once was.

Asher pulls a cookie from somewhere and bites off a piece. “What’s with the look?”

I force my features to soften. “I’ve been so worried,” I say. “How did you get up there?”

“Jumped.”

“That can’t be comfortable.”

“It’s not.” He takes another bite of the cookie and shifts his weight, and then he simply falls off the beam.

My breath catches—but I should know better.

Of course he doesn’t fall . His knees hook the wood, letting him hang upside down right over my bed.

It would be comical if half his weapons spilled free, but he’d never be so careless.

The hood of his jacket hangs loose behind his head, but all of his gear stays tight and intact to his body.

Those blue eyes are always a bit gray in the dimness of my room, moonlight etching the curves of his face.

He’s so close that my eyes fall on the dark lines ink-branded on his left cheek.

I have no idea what they mean, but I don’t think it’s anything good.

When he showed up with the first one, the edges were still raw and red, but he refused to tell me what happened.

I’d never seen anything like it, so I asked one of my ladies if they knew what an inked line on a man’s cheek could mean.

Her eyes flicked around warily, and she whispered, “Judgment marks, Your Highness. From the slavers.”

“The slavers!” I exclaimed. We have no slaves in Astranza.

She winced. “That’s what the indentures call them.”

When Asher showed up with two, I asked what he’d done to deserve judgment.

He snorted. “I got caught.”

“By the slavers?” I said, and his eyes went dark, closed off.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. Then he disappeared for weeks.

By the time he had four, I learned to stop asking.

Now he has seven.

I quickly jerk my eyes back to his own, because he hates when I stare at them. “It’s been months,” I say. “Where were you?”

“North.” I don’t expect more of an answer than that, but he adds, “I had duties in Morinstead.” He takes another bite of the cookie. “There were complications.”

His voice is so bland that he could be talking about delivering a sack of grain, but I know better. I keep my voice equally bland, because nothing chases him away faster than digging for details. “Killing duties?”

“Yes.”

When he first told me he’d been accepted into the Hunter’s Guild, I knew what it meant.

I’m not that sheltered. But Asher read the horrified judgment on my face before I could say a word.

It was two years ago, just after he earned his freedom from indenture, and I will never forget the flare of betrayal in his eyes.

“So your brother and his soldiers can be killers on the battlefield,” he said, “but you save your contempt for me, just because I’m not in uniform?”

“That’s different .”

“It’s not. I’m still taking orders, still being trained for violence. Would you rather I go back to the slavers?”

“Of course not. But surely it wasn’t as bad as killing people—”

“It was worse .”

I’d never heard his voice like that—so tight, so angry. It drew me up short.

“How?” I whispered.

He stared back at me, and for an instant, anguish flickered in his gaze.

But then he blinked, and the emotion was gone.

“It doesn’t matter.” He gestured at the lines on his face.

“No one will hire a marked man for honest work. So, what now? I should starve so I don’t insult your delicate sensibilities, Princess Marjoriana? ”

“No one in Astranza starves , Asher—”

“Oh, you don’t think so? You have no idea what it’s like outside the palace.

None. ” He drew back, putting distance between us.

Then he knocked a vase off my dressing table, making the porcelain shatter on the stone floor.

He leapt for the rafters, disappearing into the night air, knowing I couldn’t call after him when the guards and my ladies came rushing in to see what caused such a racket.

Now I flick my gaze along his upside-down form while he takes another bite of cookie. He looks as lean and muscled as ever, and he’s hanging from his hooked ankles like he could do this all night.

“What kind of complications?” I say. “Were you injured?”

“Not really.”

That probably means yes , but I bat my lashes at him, teasing. “Did another woman catch your eye?”

He takes another bite, lifting one shoulder in an upside-down shrug. “Eh.”

I lose the smile. “ Eh! What does that mean?”

His eyebrows go up, and he grins. “Jealous?”

Yes. It’s like a hot flare through my chest, and I have no right to feel it.

I glare at him anyway. “You’re going to choke.”

“I think that’s quite literally impossible.”

“You’re dodging my question.”