KYRA LEANED BACK INTO the crook of the tree trunk, her long hair catching on the bark as she settled in. Darkness surrounded her and stars peeked through the silhouette of the upper branches of the tree.
Before laying out her bedroll, she’d placed potion wards in a perimeter around the tree to alert her to anyone approaching. Making a concealment charm from scratch would have been too much work for a one-night stay.
She knew it didn’t offer much protection, but it felt good to have a large tree against her back. The pig certainly wasn’t going to be much use in a fight.
The pig.
It was the most ridiculous thing in the entire world: Kyra, would-be assassin and master potioner, had resorted to hunting down her prey—her best friend the princess—with a piglet.
But she had no choice. The princess had to die.
Didn’t she?
A twist of doubt swirled through Kyra. What if she was wrong?
The pig tucked itself up next to her, grunting contentedly. Kyra had fed it a chunk of her stale bread as she’d laid out her bedroll, then taken a handful for herself before wrapping it up. Another mouth to feed. Kyra had a hard enough time getting food for herself!
She pushed the pig away, along with her doubts about her mission. It had been a long day and she felt bruised inside by her encounter with Ned and Hal. Gently, she lifted the necklace out of her shirt—and gasped.
It glowed in the dark. Like a tiny oblong moon dangling from a chain.
Well! That might be useful.
She reached into her satchel, pulled out the soft velvet of her potions bag, and picked through a handful of the glass vials, the necklace lighting up the tiny print on the labels. There was the cloaking potion in its special misting bottle; her signature sleeping potion, Doze, which she used to tip her needles; a tracking potion—which was almost completely useless; and a couple of glamours for use as disguises. Each went back into the bag with a gentle clink.
Aha. The potion she was looking for: 07 211, otherwise known as Peccant Pentothal. One of the strongest poisons in the world.
Perfect for taking out the princess.
Kyra carefully shook the vial of phosphorescent blue liquid next to her ear. A little under half full. She slipped the bottle back into the bag and tied it closed. Questions rumbled through her head.
But she wasn’t going to find any answers tonight. Tonight she just needed to get some sleep. A thorough bath wouldn’t hurt either, but she couldn’t do anything about that at the moment.
Kyra slipped the necklace back under her shirt to hide the light. There were people hunting for her, after all. No need to draw their attention.
She slumped farther down into her bedroll, pushing thoughts of being hunted and the dark creatures of the world to the back of her mind. Kyra wasn’t just tired. She was completely exhausted. The pig wormed its way back over and was resting against her leg.
Kyra discovered she was actually too tired to push it away.
At least it didn’t smell.
Kyra woke up the next morning with the feeling that something was wrong. She was stiff and cold and there was a weight on her chest that didn’t belong there. It felt warm and…alive. Her eyes flew open, expecting to see that a soul-sucking succubus had somehow made it through her defenses.
But it was just a tiny pig.
The pig. Right.
Kyra rubbed her eyes and sat up, dislodging the pig as she did so.
She grabbed her pack and opened the top.
Her spare clothes were identical to the ones she was wearing. Her standard black outfit was practical and low-key. Perfect for the road. The spare set had several good wears before needing a wash.
But underthings were a whole different story. She was down to one last clean pair.
Worse, this last pair of clean underthings was a complete joke. Not only were they the most ridiculous, feminine, beribboned bit of foolishness that ever existed, but they’d been a gift from Princess Ariana.
Ariana had specially commissioned them for Kyra’s sixteenth birthday the fall before, and she’d embroidered them herself. In none-too-neat stitching, the word KITTY—Ariana’s nickname for Kyra—was written across the left bosom of the waist-length shift. On the right was a horrible image of a cat. It appeared to be winking. Or suffering some sort of nervous facial tic. And the lower half was almost worse—cut off high on the thigh and festooned with ruffles all across the bottom.
By the time Ariana turned fifteen, it was undeniably clear that she was no longer ill. She bloomed with health, and her temper had taken a sharp turn for the better. Ariana had grown to be a large-boned gangly teen with a splash of freckles across her face, her neat ringlets replaced by a wild mane of frizz that suited her perfectly. A girl who didn’t eat her tea biscuits daintily, but instead crushed them up into crumbs to feed the birds on her parapet.
It wasn’t ladylike. So the queen brought in a group of well-bred girls to be her ladies-in-waiting and insisted Ari learn a feminine craft.
Ariana chose embroidery.
The princess made the most of it, but she fit into her sewing circle about as easily as a hunting dog. Ariana was no lap puppy, and Kyra could never suppress a grin at the sight of tomboyish Ari with her ladies—the polished fine-boned girls of the kingdom with their pretty silk dresses and artfully arranged hair.
As different (and often shocking) as Ariana was, Kyra could tell that most of the ladies-in-waiting were fond of the princess. It was difficult not to get caught up in her infectious laughter.
And how she had laughed when Kyra opened her birthday gift on the first of November, shortly after Kyra had announced her engagement.
Kyra could feel the look of horror crossing her face and had quickly popped the top back on the box. Lowering her voice, she’d whispered, “Ariana! You must be stopped. I’m serious. Someone needs to lock you away with the other crazy people.”
Ariana wiped tears of glee off her cheeks. “You know you love it, and he’s going to love it even more.” She erupted with another gale of laughter.
Kyra put her hand over Ariana’s. “It’s weird—we’d both sworn we’d never do anything so stupid as get married, but, Ari, it feels right. It really does. And it isn’t going to be for ages, really—not till next year.”
The light still sparkled in the princess’s eyes, but she looked unusually serious when she replied. “Just because I’m not going to ever get married doesn’t mean that you can’t. We’ll still be best friends, right?”
“Right.”
They’d been so, so wrong.
How had this underwear ended up in her pack?
Kyra’s subconscious must have been out to punish her.
Granted, she’d been in a bit of a rush, what with all the soldiers in the realm hunting her down. She had a vague memory of grabbing a drawer and dumping its entire contents into her pack.
Kyra dressed quickly, thankful when the undergarments disappeared under her clothes.
She set the pig on its feet and shouldered her pack. “Okay, it’s time. Do your thing, pig.”
The pig didn’t move. It looked up at her.
What was the problem? Did she need special words or something?
The pig kept its eyes on her. It looked like it was smiling. If pigs could smile.
For the love of all that was good in the world, it wasn’t expecting breakfast, was it? Kyra liked food as much as the next person, but this was a hunt. Who had time for breakfast?
Kyra lifted the flap on the side pocket of her pack and pulled out a wedge of cheese. “Here.” She threw it to the pig.
Scarfing up the cheese, the pig started down the trail.
The pig certainly looked like it knew where it was going. Now that it had finished breakfast, it rushed through the forest, its pink nose to the ground, oinking excitedly every so often.
Until they came to a river. The pig paced back and forth, looking up at Kyra.
She stood on the sloping bank and looked out over the rushing water.
“Great. You’ve led us to a RIVER, pig. This isn’t helpful.”
The pig oinked back at her.
Maybe seven or eight hours from now a river would be useful, but Kyra was far from ready to stop for the day to do her laundry.
She sat down on the riverbank under the drooping branches of a willow tree and tried to configure her mental map. They’d gone northwest from Arlo’s and walked several miles since they’d gotten up that morning. This had to be the Iota River.
There was a major bridge to the east that crossed the Iota. It was only about fifteen miles away, but it was off the pig’s chosen track. West, the river ran for miles before petering out into swamps and bogs.
They were going to have to cross the old-fashioned way—by getting wet.
At this point the Iota was only about ten yards across and shallow-looking. Kyra could even make out the river bottom through the water.
Definitely crossable—for Kyra, anyway. As she sat staring off into the water, the pig had curled itself around her shoe.
She sighed and looked down at it. “Pigs can’t swim, can they?”
Kyra considered throwing it in to see if it could, but shook her head. If this pig really could do what it was supposed to, it was too valuable to risk.
“Ugh. You are such a pain.”
Kyra stripped off her clothing, feeling like she was taking off a layer of armor. Her clothes had been treated with potions to repel liquids, but water still got trapped between the fabric and her skin. She’d end up having to take them off to get dry anyway.
Maybe it would have been worth a little discomfort. She was completely exposed standing on the riverbank in her undergarments, the grass prickly beneath her bare feet.
Why did she have to be wearing these underthings?
A breeze set the ribbons trembling. Kyra briskly rubbed her hands over her arms to warm them up and reached down to pull out the knife she had tucked into her ankle garter. She grasped one ribbon and put the blade to the base of it.
And paused.
Another puff of wind set the ribbons dancing.
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t chop the ribbons off Ariana’s silly gift.
Kyra sighed and arranged her clothing into a nest, the material soft beneath her fingers. She wrapped her cloth shoes in her tunic and pants, keeping her weapons holsters on the outside so she could reach them if need be.
The pig crawled right into the center of the bundle and looked up expectantly.
“Oh, I’m sure you just love this. You’re supposed to be the worker, here. I shouldn’t have to carry you around.”
But there was no avoiding it. Picking up the pig and nest, she held them in front of her and stepped into the water. Icy.
The water got deeper until it was just below her waist and tugging at the hem of her long Kitty underwear. If it got much deeper, her things and the pig would get wet. She was going to have to balance her knapsack and the nest of pig on top of her head.
She carefully lifted the whole bundle up, still keeping her fingers protectively wrapped around her weapons.
How had she come to this? How had she ended up a hungry, friendless fugitive in the middle of a frigid river wearing completely ridiculous lacy underthings?
With a pig balanced on top of her head?
At least there was no one around.
Just as she thought that, a piercing whistle cut through her thoughts.
No. Way.
Kyra froze, her hands seizing the pig, and looked in the direction of the whistle.
A young man—he couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than she was—stood across the shore on the sandy bank, watching her appreciatively. He was dressed in rough traveling clothes, and his brown hair was rumpled like he’d just woken up.
Kyra scanned him—he didn’t appear to have any weapons, his stance was open and relaxed, and he didn’t bear any insignia of the militia.
“This certainly isn’t something you see every day,” the young man said in an accented voice. He settled himself against a big boulder three feet from the river’s edge and crossed his arms as though sitting back to enjoy a show. Even from where she was, Kyra could tell he was good-looking. He held himself in that confident way good-looking guys have.
Kyra had had quite enough of handsome men to last her a lifetime.
She started walking again, moving slowly forward through the cold water—she couldn’t let this jerk keep her from crossing the river. And she certainly wasn’t turning back.
“This isn’t something you should be seeing at all,” she said loudly over the rushing sound of the river. “Whoever you are, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.”
“And miss this?” The boy appeared to be considering her request, his head cocked to the side as he watched. “No,” he continued, “I think I’ll stay. Besides, what if you slip and fall? I’ll be right here to help you.”
He wasn’t a threat, just an annoyance. A big annoyance, but Kyra was going to have to ignore him.
Somewhat difficult to do. The current was getting stronger. Instead of crossing quickly, as she would have liked, she had to step slowly and make sure each foot had a solid hold before moving the other one.
She chanced a glance up and saw something that made her heart stop.
Just behind the young man was a wolf. It watched them with glittering eyes.
The pig noticed the wolf a second later.
And went crazy.
It squealed and twisted itself around in the clothing atop Kyra’s head. She tried to hold it tighter, but the pig was thrashing about so furiously it was impossible for her to get a good grip.
Kyra recoiled as one of the pig’s hooves poked her in the eye.
Next thing she knew, she was under the freezing water and the pig was gone.
Swept away with all of her weapons.