Chapter Twenty-Five #2
I wiggled my way out from behind the plant and over the railing.
I had barely made it two feet from the railing when Ezrielle stepped onto the balcony.
I held my breath, not daring to move, not daring to make the slightest of sounds.
The barest turn of her head, and she would see me.
She strolled to the edge of the balcony dressed in a sheer nightgown, the wind tousling her curly brown locks.
I didn’t look directly at her. I watched from the corner of my eye.
People could sense when they were being stared at, just like they could sense another’s presence.
Fire raced through every muscle in my body, heat and pain flooding the muscles underneath my skin.
I bit my lip but it wasn’t great enough to distract from the strain on my body.
I couldn’t hold this for long. My fingers slipped, losing their grip on the stone, my hands shaking.
A knock came from the inner door and Ezrielle turned around in a flash of cloth, storming back into the room without noticing me hovering in the shadows.
I reached up, dragging myself farther away, but my fingers were stiff, cramping. Sideways was harder than moving straight up. I needed a break, and I needed a break now. My eyes flitted up to a balcony a little higher than the others.
I hoped his rooms matched the blueprints.
I worked my way upward, trying to tamp down my panic.
As soon as I reached the railing, I hauled myself over it and onto the balcony, rolling onto my back.
I was a good scaler, but only because I had hated it so much I had forced myself to practice until I could scale a building flawlessly.
Desmond was the master among the three of us.
I closed my eyes, drawing in several ragged breaths and questioning my life choices. After training to be an assassin for five years, I wasn’t a very good one. I had vowed to only make one kill, didn’t like to climb, and wasn’t overly skilled with poisons.
But you can give any archer a run for their money. Desmond’s voice echoed in my head. And you’re the most valuable undercover spy anyone could hope to hire.
I pushed myself off the ground. I also could hardly do anything without curling into a ball and panicking if anyone touched me in the wrong way, sending flashbacks flooding through my mind.
Valeris’s balcony doors were closed, but not locked. He might not even be in there. My hands curled around the doorknob, afraid to open it. What if he wasn’t alone? I shooed the thought away. That was no concern of mine.
The door creaked as I pushed it open, and I slipped my head through the crack to survey the layout of his quarters.
His extravagant quarters. The canopy bed was dripping in what looked like the softest linens in the world, and maps and tapestries covered the walls.
I moved farther into the room, silently shutting the door behind me.
My feet sank into the plush rug, far nicer than anything I had stepped on in my life.
A fire burned in the hearth, indicating someone had occupied the room not long ago, if they weren’t still occupying it.
The room branched off into two others, and the outer door lay against the far wall.
I hesitated, questioning whether to slip out his door, but guards lined the halls outside the royal apartments.
Valeris strode out of one of the separate rooms, running a towel over his wet hair. We both yelped in surprise, jumping back. He threw the towel at me, and I batted it out of the air.
“Everything okay in there?”
The outer door swung open, and I dove out of sight beside the bed.
I looked up at a stunned Valeris—who was wearing nothing but trousers.
“I’m fine, Howland,” he said, clambering for an excuse. “I just— I stubbed my toe.”
I frowned, hoping it wasn’t a code phrase, but after a moment of deliberation the door shut once again, leaving us alone.
Valeris glared at me. “What are you doing here?”
I rose to my feet, throwing a wary glance at the door.
“I—I—” I turned slightly away, not sure why I found it so disrespectful to see the prince in a state of undress when I was planning to kill his father.
A bit of red tinged his skin as he pulled a shirt over his head.
He’s embarrassed.
He motioned to one of the adjoining rooms, shutting the door behind us to keep out any listening ears.
“How did you get in here?” he growled, but then his eyes caught sight of my bag of chalk. “Did you climb all the way up here?”
I crossed my tired arms, glaring up at him. “I considered knocking on your sister’s door and asking to join the meeting, but for some reason, I didn’t think that would go over well.”
My words piqued his interest. “What did you find out?”
I watched his demeanor transform back into calm. Into control. I had caught him off guard, but he knew how to quickly adjust other people’s perception of him.
“She was meeting with the chancellor.”
He tilted his head. “The chancellor? You’re sure?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t see his face, but that’s what she called him. She talked about gathering more support, that she needed to give them hope, that they would need a leader after the change and she wanted them to trust her. They didn’t say any specifics. Just vague explanations.”
A wave of understanding washed across Valeris’s face. “I think I know what she’s referring to. Did they say anything else?”
“She mentioned she didn’t want her brothers to have any part of it in the end.”
Valeris scowled. “Nothing else was mentioned?”
I shook my head. “That’s all I heard.”
“Well, that’s enough to get us started.” He glanced again at the bag of chalk swinging at my side. “Where did you learn to climb like that?”
I quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me the prince never sneaked out of his rooms at night?”
“I don’t need to sneak around with my family. They’re fine with airing everything out in public, but you didn’t answer my question.”
“It’s not a learn from where, but who. My brother taught me. He had more reasons to sneak out than I did.”
“Ah,” Valeris said. “And how are your brother and his outlaw girlfriend faring now that she’s no longer in a prison cell?”
I shrugged. “Fine, as far as I can tell.”
He squinted at me, and his emerald-green eyes had a way of peering into my soul. “I believe you were also supposed to have more information about my brother’s murder as well.”
I inspected one of my fingernails. I needed to get on that. It was the main reason we had struck up our original shaky alliance in the first place.
“I haven’t found what I’m looking for yet,” I said. “You keep ruining my evening plans.”
“And I’ll keep ruining them until your end of the bargain is fulfilled.”
I took a step toward him, and his throat bobbed as he looked down at me. “In all honesty, it sounds a little bit more like blackmail than a bargain.”
“I dislike the term blackmail,” he said. “It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth; however, I think alliance would be a better term than bargain.”
I rolled my eyes. “Because this is of such mutual benefit to me.”
He leaned forward, and I tensed. A shiver traced down my spine as he whispered in my ear. “Shall I escort you down to the dungeons, then?”
He pulled back, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. The soap from the bath lingered on him, smelling strongly of cedar wood. My body recoiled at being this close to him, but despite wanting to slam his face into the floor, I strangely also felt drawn to him.
I gave him a sickly sweet smile. “As long as my cell has a view of the outer wall. I wouldn’t want to miss you falling to your death scaling it to spy on your sister.”
His smirk vanished.