Shattered Assassin (8 page)

It was nearing dark when they started back. “Captain is gonna kill us,” Heath muttered.

Kazia looked up at the sky. Deep black clouds were closing in; they would be lucky if they made it home before the storm hit. “If you promise not to tell a soul, I’ll race you to the edge of the forest.”

Both of them looked at her like she had grown another head. Princesses did not run. Especially sickly, weak princesses. “I—?” Benjamin looked at Heath, pale green eyes wide.

Kazia interrupted, “Do you promise?”

“Of course, your Highness, but—”

“Then…” Kazia grabbed up her skirts and took off running as fast as her legs would carry her, “Go!” It took both her startled guards several seconds before they realized what had happened, and then she heard their laughter as they chased after her. She lengthened her stride, relishing the freedom, the cold wind blowing through her hair. Her braid came loose, the ribbon falling to the ground behind her, and she giggled like she’d lost her mind as she heard their footsteps pounding closer. Nakomi leaped along at their side, unsure what was going on but excited, nonetheless. “You know — it’s against the law — to pass the prin—princess!” she gasped as they drew even with her.

“You cheat!” Heath howled and she giggled harder, so that she could barely breathe by the time they reached the forest’s edge and slowed to a stop.

“Well. For a little thing you’re faster than you look,” Benjamin said, his eyes sparkling. She grinned as she panted. Above, thunder rumbled.

“Let’s get moving.” Heath took her arm and they hurried through the village.

They were almost across the village when a little girl with dirty blonde hair and a gray dress stopped them. She held up a hand while she stood in the middle of the dusty road, the other pudgy fist on her hip. Heath and Benjamin both stepped closer to Kazia, looking warily around the houses for a trap.

“Are you an angel?” The girl tipped a dirty little face up to Kazia.

Kazia smiled, stooping down so they were face to face. “No, I’m not an angel.”

“You’re beautiful like an angel. And your skin is white like an angel.”

Kazia started to laugh, but the little girl’s impish grin turned to terror and her eyes got big and round.

“Yes, she looks like an angel, but she has the common sense of a goat.”

Kazia stood and turned, a little too quickly, and half-fell over before Heath caught her and uprighted her. Luke was storming down the center of the village path, his face as dark and angry as the incoming clouds above. “You two are relieved of your duties. Pack up and go home immediately.”

Benjamin and Heath both paled simultaneously. Snapping their heels together, they saluted him. “Yes sir.”

“Oh no they aren’t!” Kazia snapped. She rose to her full height — all five feet six of her, and glared right back at Luke.

“You have no say in whom I relieve of their duties in my unit,
your Highness
.” He snarled the last word and Kazia wanted to flinch. But she did not.

Inside, her heart was screaming
please don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me
, but she hid it well. “You forget,
Captain
, who you answer to — the one who wears the crown.” Luke’s jaw dropped in disbelief, and Heath and Benjamin both froze in their tracks. “They protected me and they did it well. There is absolutely no reason for you to reprimand them.”

“They disobeyed a direct order.” Luke crossed his arms over his chest, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Yes, by obeying my direct order, which takes precedence over yours, does it not?” she growled. Nakomi, now at her side, bared her teeth. Luke stared, first at Kazia and then at Nakomi, and then back at Kazia in bewilderment. Kazia sucked in a breath, trying to level her voice. No need to let Nakomi eat the captain of her guard right here in front of the adorable little girl. “They were only doing what I asked. If you’re going to be angry at someone, be angry at me, but leave them alone.”

“If I may speak, Captain?” Benjamin asked, stepping up to her side. Luke glared at him, but he spoke anyway. “She was protecting you, sir. She was afraid you were too tired and wanted you to get your rest.”

Luke’s eyes softened and he looked back at Kazia. “Is this true?”

“Of course it’s true, you idiot. Why else do you think I didn’t wake you?” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared back.

He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “We’ve been scouring the estate looking for you. I thought I’d lost—” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“You thought what?” Kazia asked quietly.

“I thought I’d failed in my duties as Captain of the Royal Guard,” he snapped, the gentleness in his eyes hidden, but barely. Kazia could still see it.

A fat raindrop smacked the ground between them, and the sky opened up. They were drenched in seconds. “Your Highness, wait here and I’ll get the carriage!” Luke yelled over the storm, but Kazia shook her head.

“Come, Nakomi!” She patted her thigh for Nakomi and took off running. She slipped in the mud but kept her footing, and her guards soon flanked her, Luke running on the right, grabbing her elbow every time she nearly fell, thanks to her blasted kidskin slippers. Her own hands were tangled in her skirts, trying to keep them above her feet.

By the time they reached the estate gates, Crystali and Jeffery’s valet both waited with shades, protecting them from the onslaught as they sprinted up the drive. Kazia collapsed on the steps under the portico, just out of the rain, breathing rapidly and seeing red spots every time she tried to focus. “Kazia? Are you okay?”

“Yes, Captain. I’m fine. Just winded,” she gasped. The longer she sat there the colder she got, and before she could summon the will to stand again, she was shivering violently.

“I’ll draw you a warm bath,” Crystali said, hurrying away. Luke helped Kazia to her feet and escorted her inside.

“Good heavens! Look at the mess you’ve made on my rugs!” Kristina screamed as they walked in.

“We were caught in the storm.” Kazia glanced down. Most of the mud had been washed off on the steps outside, and only rain water soaked her rugs, but Kristina looked ready to faint.

“You must excuse me.” In a whirl of silk skirts, she swept from the room, fanning herself the entire way. As soon as everyone else had left them alone, Luke took her arm and steered her toward her room. “If you ever pull a stunt like this again…”

“What stunt was that, Captain?” She yawned, suddenly very, very tired. And so cold.

“I had no idea where you were.”

“You were sleeping. You weren’t supposed to know where I was.” She stopped outside her door, tipping her head back in order to meet his gaze. “You have to have faith in me, Captain. I’m not going to take careless chances. I’m not stupid and I don’t have a death wish.” He opened his mouth to object but she shook her head. “Good night, Captain.”

Before he could get another word in, she escaped into her room and shut the door behind her. Her heart hurt. Every time she spoke to him, her heart hurt. She desperately wanted to make it stop, but she didn’t know how. So instead, she stripped out of her wet clothes and scrubbed her hair with a towel, trying to wring out the blond curls before she piled it on top of her head, out of the way. The bath Crystali promised waited by the fire, and she sank into the steaming water, finally warm enough to stop shivering. Just before she fell asleep and drowned herself, she escaped from the bath and got dressed, curling up in her armchair. She closed her eyes and relived her race through the forest.

For those moments, she was free.

Outside, the storm raged, thunder roiling so loud she could barely hear Luke yelling in the hallway.

CHAPTER SEVEN

_F
INALLY,
FINALLY,
IT WAS TIME
to move. The storm made the assassin uncomfortable, but the noise it made couldn’t have come at a better time. She stuck her blades in the coils of her hair, surveying the rest of her weapons. Which one would make the least mess? She didn’t relish the thought of being covered in blood. Wind and rain raged around her, making the limbs of her tree knock against the windows of the estate. If she believed in ghosts, she would say the dead had come back to exact their own revenge. But she didn’t believe in ghosts, and the only one who could be trusted to exact anything was her. A dark, cruel smile lit up her pale features.

She moved like a wraith through the shadows of the big house. Near the Princess’s door, several guards stood watch and she was glad that wasn’t her target. There would be no getting past the Captain of the Guard.

Even now he stood resolutely, his eyes scanning the dark hallway for threats. She moved past that floor and up one more, sliding through the darkness as the shadows claimed her as their own.

Lady Kristina had only one guard, but he wasn’t standing at his post. Instead, he was entertaining his mistress inside her room. The assassin frowned, disgusted. Lord Jeffery had been gone mere hours. She paused at the door, weighing her options. The guard inside certainly complicated matters. Disgusting as he was, she didn’t wish him harm — he was an innocent with no blood on his hands to pay for. With no other option, she stepped back into the shadows and waited, pulling a blade from her hair to use on her fingernails.

Fortunately, it wasn’t a long wait. She had just finished cleaning under the nails of her left hand when the door cracked open. The guard risked a glance up and down the hall before he scampered away like vermin, letting the door swing shut behind him. The assassin’s small foot shot out, catching it before it clicked shut.

Lady Kristina was so sure she was safe in this big expensive estate, so sure that the only threat was the one she posed — to the Princess.

She was so, so very wrong.

“Come, Nakomi.”

Kazia drew her blade across her hand, waiting as blood swelled and pooled in her palm. Then she smeared it across her chest and stomach, like her mother’s wounds. She trailed blood from her eyes and the corners of her mouth, drawing from the image of her mother’s lifeless body that hadn’t left Kazia’s mind since that night. Not even for a second. Kristina wanted ghosts? Kazia could give her ghosts. Nakomi slunk through the shadows after her as she edged the door open and slid inside, turning the lock with a small click. Slowly, oh so slowly, tore the pins from her hair and dropped them on the hard floors.
Clink clink clink.

“Boyd? Is that you? I asked you to leave.” Lady Kristina’s arrogance grated on Kazia’s ears and made her teeth ache. She moaned, low but just loud enough that Lady Kristina paused in the next room.

“Who’s there?” she whispered, holding her candle high. Kazia slid back into the shadows, welcoming them as they folded around her, keeping her invisible. The light at Kristina’s hand rattled. She screamed as thunder exploded outside her window, and another bolt of lightning lit up the room. But the roar of the storm was too loud; no one heard her. Kazia left the shadows, floating between the light and darkness, until she reached the doorway to the bedroom’s inner chambers. Kristina sat on her canopied bed, the quilt pulled up tight around her neck. “Who’s there?” she demanded, but her voice shook as much as the candle in her hand.

“It’s time for you to pay for your sins, Kristina.” Kazia left the shadows and stepped fully into the flickering light. Kristina opened her mouth in a silent scream, scrambling backward. She tumbled from the bed as Kazia reached up, pulling the blade free from her hair.

“You — no, no, you’re dead! Kazia saw it with her own eyes!”

You always said I was my mother’s exact image, Aunt. But I’m not her.

“At the hand of your son. At your order.” Kazia dipped her head in acknowledgement. “And he will pay.” She stepped closer.

“He isn’t here! He’s in Abeta, under the protection of Prince Randolf!” Kristina wailed, scrabbling backward on her hands and feet like a giant crab. “He’s the one who killed them! He should pay, not me!”

“You pay for your own freedom with your son’s blood?” Kazia’s blade caught the candle light, glinting dangerously.

Kristina screamed as the thunder rattled the windows. “No, no please!”

Kazia took another step, and Kristina stumbled to her feet, pressing herself against the floor length window. Lightning lit up the sky and Kristina screamed again as Kazia darted forward, blending with the shadows and the light until she stood just before Kristina, the blade against her throat. “One swift movement…” she whispered.

Kristina’s hand scrabbled like a rat at the lock at the window. As the assassin flicked her wrist, drawing blood, Kristina freed the lock. “No!” Kazia shrieked. But too late. She was robbed of her target as Kristina threw herself backward into the storm. Her screams were drowned by the thunder; Kazia could do nothing but watch in silent frustration as Kristina fell three stories, hitting the ground as lightning flashed around her. She didn’t move again.

The assassin tucked her blade away in her thick blond hair, melting into the shadows as she made her escape.