The assassin wasn’t deterred by his movement. And they weren’t dressed for the job—black, yes, but it looked like they were wearing a gown? Surely that was just a trick of the light.
The shadowed figure crept closer. No shine of a blade, but there were other ways to kill someone. Raffe tightened his grip on the dagger hilt beneath his pillow. He’d find out who sent them before he killed them. At this point, he thought of mostly everyone as a potential enemy, but it’d be useful to know which ones weren’t cowards.
When the figure got close enough to see the slit of his eyes, Raffe closed them. A deep, grounding breath through his nose, recalling the few things he’d retained from his year training with his tor. Warm breath ghosted over his cheek as the figure bent close.
Raffe sat up with a snarl, slicing the dagger through the air to stop right at the base of their throat.
“Kings and shadows, Raffe!” A bell-like laugh. Familiar. “You’re quicker than I thought!”
His eyes narrowed, adjusting to the dim, to the coyly smiling figure at the end of his dagger. “Kayu?”
Okada Kayu, Third Daughter of the Niohni Emperor. Moonlight glinted off her teeth as she grinned, reaching up to pull back her hood. Long, pin-straight black hair cascaded down her shoulders, and Kayu gave it an impatient shake. “I’ll be honest, I’m impressed.” Exaggeratedly pushing away the edge of Raffe’s blade with a finger, she sidestepped to his table, scavenged up a match, and lit the half-melted taper. The flare of light shadowed her eyes as she turned to him with crossed arms. “When I got within inches and you were still asleep, I figured you’d be a goner.”
“So you were trying to kill me?”
“Of course not. I just wanted to know if I could.”
“That isn’t the comfort you think it is.”
“I wanted to try something I read about today. The Krahls of Elkyrath used to train their guards to walk almost silently by using this technique where they put all their weight on their heels. You see, you’d think it was the toe, like how we tiptoe when we want to be quiet, but that mostly just makes you prone to falling over—”
“You weren’t silent. I woke up.”
“Well, the Krahl of Elkyrath didn’t train me.”
Raffe ran a hand down his face. Ostensibly, Kayu was in Valleyda in order to use the library, making her the latest in a string of bookish women who’d made themselves thorns in his ass. Both Valedren twins, and now an Okada. He attracted a type into his orbit, apparently.
Kayu had arrived three days ago with no retinue and very little in the way of possessions. The letter she held, signed by Isla—and wasn’t that a swift punch to the sternum—said that the Niohni princess was welcome to come stay in Valleyda for as long as she liked, that the court would be thrilled to host her while she studied navigation.
It was very similar to the letter Raffe had received when he was fourteen and headed here to learn about trade routes.
Arriving at the beginning of fall meant Kayu couldn’t take up a true course of study with any Valleydan tutors until the season passed, since nearly everyone went to their own holdings to prepare for the rapidly approaching cold. But she didn’t seem to mind.
Across from him, Kayu licked the pad of her finger and passed it idly through the candle-flame. Despite her nonchalant manner, she held herself rigidly, like she was less comfortable being in a man’s room in the middle of the night than she wanted him to believe.
Raffe’s eyes narrowed against the flickering light. “Elkyrathan assassination tactics aren’t what I would think a student of navigation would spend time reading about.”
“I’m well-rounded.”
“It’s certainly something that might interest a person plotting to take over a throne, though.”
Some of the tension in Kayu’s frame seemed to ebb, almost like his honesty was refreshing. Her heart-shaped face gave nothing away, though, her dark eyes trained on the candle and her finger passing through it. “You still don’t believe me, then.”
“That your family sending you here to study while the Queen is ill has nothing to do with you being next in line for the Valleydan throne? No. I don’t.”
She stiffened a bit, but her voice was flippant. “Please. You think Valleyda is worth starting a war? I’ve been to funerals livelier than this court.” A shrug as she began twisting a strand of hair around her finger. “And I didn’t know the Queen was ill. Last I heard, she was meddling in the Order, changing things that hadn’t been changed in centuries. Seemed fairly healthy, to be doing all that.”
It’d been a mistake to mention Neve. It made his chest feel hollowed out and full of a simmering anger all at the same time.
“She’ll recover soon, I’m sure,” Kayu continued. “Then maybe there will be a ball. I love balls. It’s been ages since I went dancing.”
“Maybe you could go home and convince your father to throw one.”
Her finger froze, wound in black hair to the knuckle. Any mention of Kayu’s father went over like a bucket of ice on a winter morning. “My father is more likely to throw me in the ocean than throw me a ball.” She released her hair, looked away. “And I don’t know how many times I’ll have to tell you that both of my older sisters are married, one to a noblewoman in Elkyrath and one to our father’s treasurer, and thus unavailable for the position of Queen.”
“You aren’t married.” Any Queen succeeding to the Valleydan throne had to be either unmarried or married to someone from within the Valleydan court. Kayu was a third cousin of Red and Neve, some complicated matter involving a great aunt who remarried and bore children late in life to a Niohni noble. The line of succession was a tangled one, but it ended with Kayu, unmarried, and therefore eligible to become the next Queen of Valleyda.
Her full lips pulled to the side, an expression he couldn’t read. “No, I’m not married.” A pause, then she flipped her hand dismissively. “But I’m also unavailable, believe me. And I do not want it.”
The undesirability of Valleydan queenship was really the only thing saving them, since no one knew that the Second Daughter tithe was now moot. Raffe thought it would behoove him to keep that secret as long as he could.
Still, the arrival of a candidate for the crown within days of Neve disappearing into the Shadowlands was enough to give him pause, undesirable queenship or no.
Raffe wondered, not for the first time, if it was too late to really show an interest in the wine-shipping business.
The barest hint of sunlight filtered into the sky beyond the window, night’s fist opening into fingers of dawn. He was fully awake now; trying to sleep again would be pointless. Scowling, Raffe got up, bunching his sheet around his waist as he crossed to the wardrobe. “Is there a reason you’re sneaking in here in the wee hours of the morning other than seeing if you could kill me? Which I’m still not happy about, by the way. I could’ve killed you.”