He said nothing. He was going to make her say it.
She sighed. “Killing people. Hunting people. Being good at it.”
“You like being good at it,” he pointed out.
She didn’t argue. “It’s getting worse out there. And I still have no answers.”
“The missing women?”
“Who’s taking them? And where? And why?” Her fingers curled around his wrists. She imagined pulling him down into the safe, dark world under her bed and never letting him leave.
“You’re afraid we might be next,” he said.
“I’m afraid we could be. Anyone could be.”
“You’re right.” Remy lay down beside her, his eyes close and bright. “But all that matters right now is that you’re here, and so am I.”
Eliana held his hands to her heart and let him sing her into a fitful sleep.
? ? ?
The next job arrived several days later on Eliana’s doorstep.
Packaged in a brown paper parcel, it was marked with the address of the city’s most expensive tailor.
Eliana took the package and gave the messenger three silver coins. The pale-skinned man wore the plain brown tunic of an apprentice, and at first glance looked as ordinary as anyone. But Eliana knew at once that this man was no tailor’s apprentice.
She thanked him with a silent nod and returned to her bedroom. From her window, she watched him walk down the street, crowded with Garden Quarter shoppers.
He walked almost perfectly. But Eliana had learned to watch for a certain stiffness in the way adatrox moved—every so often, a tiny, unnatural tic accompanying shifts in direction. A slight dimness in the eyes, delayed movements of the mouth, the brow. The subtler parts of the face that told you what the person inside was thinking.
It was as though the Empire’s soldiers moved not by their own will, but by someone else’s.
She hoped she never found out why the adatrox could seem normal one moment—laughing, talking, yawning—and then, without warning, fall perfectly quiet and still. Statue still. A shadow falling over the face, clouding the eyes. It could last an instant or for hours.
Whatever the Empire did to its legions of soldiers, she hoped it had not been done to her father, wherever he was. If he was still alive.
She placed the parcel on her bed and paused for a moment, readying herself.
She often heard of potential jobs when visiting Remy at the bakery or while attending one of His Lordship’s parties with Harkan. She would allow some favored son or daughter of the Empire to kiss her in a curtained corner, whisper secrets to her. Then, later, she and Harkan would fall together into bed until they no longer felt so unclean.
But sometimes jobs came as messages, especially for Eliana.
These, she did not share with Harkan.
They often arrived folded between powdered fritters wrapped in thin paper, to remind Eliana of Remy—and how close he had been to this note and its messenger with the blank-slate eyes. She would read those orders with shaking hands.
Today, the job came tucked beneath folds of silk—a wine-colored whisper of a dress with long slits up each leg, shimmering as though it had been dipped in diamonds. The back was entirely bare, save for three thin, beaded strands. It was a flattering color for her, and the measurements seemed right. It would drape nicely over her body.
She swallowed past the sick knot in her chest. Lord Arkelion paid too close attention to her—and had for some time now. Eliana unfolded the message and read the encoded instructions three times over:
The Wolf rides on the full moon.
I want him alive.
Glory to the Empire.
Long live His Holy Majesty the Undying Emperor.
She stared at the exquisite penmanship.
Though the message bore Lord Arkelion’s seal, the writing was not his.
It was Rahzavel’s.
This writing, then, was a message within a message: Rahzavel was on his way to Orline. He was after the Wolf, and he wanted Eliana’s help.
She didn’t blame him.
Unlike Quill, the Wolf was not some Red Crown lackey. He was the right hand of the Prophet, lieutenant to the mysterious leader of Red Crown himself. The Wolf had evaded the Empire for years, and now he was here in her city.
Eliana’s eyes found the figure written across the bottom of the note in that same meticulous hand:
20,000 gold
Her heart raced.
A payment of 20,000 in Empire gold?
Money like that was a small fortune—and, coming from Rahzavel, the invitation Eliana had long feared: Deliver the Wolf. Take our money.
Join Invictus.
Serve the Emperor.
She had never told Harkan how she had, over the past two years, accepted even more jobs than he knew and saved as much as she could.
She had never told him just how deeply she had come to long for his fantasy of living in some quiet corner of Astavar with goats and fresh bread and tomato plants.
Instead she had saved and killed and hunted and saved. And now, with 20,000 gold in addition to her savings…
She heard the bell ring downstairs. Remy was home; his laughter lit up their house. How miraculous, that he could still laugh so easily.
Eliana threw the note into the fire and watched Rahzavel’s words burn. Once the note was ashes, she glanced out her window at the darkening sky. It was the first night of the full moon.
If Invictus wanted her, they could have her—but they would never touch her family.
She would deliver the Wolf as ordered.
She would accept her reward and ensure that Remy, Harkan, and her mother could safely leave the country.
And she would begin the hunt that very night.
5
Rielle
“Fleet-footed fire, blaze not with fury or abandon
Burn steady and true, burn clean and burn bright”
—The Fire Rite
As first uttered by Saint Marzana the Brilliant, patron saint of Kirvaya and firebrands
Rielle saw the seven false arbiters converging on Audric, their swords gleaming. Borsvall men.
Other racers veered out of the way as they continued through the pass, eyes fixed on the course and the coin waiting at the end.
Audric looked over his shoulder, the enemy soldiers forming a V behind him. One carried a sword that drew long spirals of blackness from the air—a shadowcaster, flinging darkness ahead of him and clouding Audric in fog.
Rielle saw these things, and she saw none of them.
There was only Audric. Never mind the betrothal, never mind Ludivine, and damn the entire royal court to the Deep.
He was hers, and these men wanted to kill him.
A knife-sharp rage crested within her.
How dare they?
She snapped Maliya’s reins and let out a sharp cry. The mare took her racing after them.
There was no way even Audric could defeat them all, not unarmed—and Rielle knew he was unarmed today. When she had suggested he keep at least his secondary, less powerful castings hidden somewhere on his person, he had protested. Weapons are against the rules, Rielle. Even my daggers. You know that.
If he had Illumenor, his sword, there would be no question. But Audric could not bring down sunlight without his castings. Not even the saints had been able to do that.
No one could, Rielle knew, but her.
In an instant, years of lessons teaching her to stifle every instinct she possessed fell away. A locked door wedged shut in her heart flew open.
She flung out her hand as though she could stop the assassins with her fury alone. A blast of heat flooded her body. Her fingertips were ten points of fire.
Flames erupted on either side of her, shooting toward the pass in twin blazing paths.
The world shook. A hot hiss rent the air in two. She ducked flying clods of earth. Maliya lurched beneath her, let out a shrill cry. Rielle barely managed to keep her seat.
She heard a shout of panic and looked back the way she had come. The blackened land behind her looked as if it had been raked open by monstrous claws. Other racers were bringing their horses up short, steering them away from the shredded ground.
Beneath Rielle, Maliya’s glistening sides heaved. She was pushing her horse too hard. They should not be running so quickly.