Chapter 16
Sixteen
“ H ow long?” I asked, looking out the window.
Terror scoffed then, as though I needed to hear the full extent of his absolute disdain for such idiocy, said, “That was a foolish question. How would I keep time?”
Shaking my head, I pulled out the sliced raw fish from the bowl and considered it. “I suppose I could send this back and have them cook it and then eat it myself?—”
“Nightly,” Terror groused. “Every night. A different partner, though. Rarely the same one.”
“And his guards go with him?”
Terror gave me another annoyed look, his head tilting sharply.
“Two men with swords, dressed in amber, follow him?” I asked.
“They only go when he travels out of the palace walls.” Terror snapped his beak, and I took the unsubtle hint, handing him one of the slices of fish.
Nohe’s schedule hadn’t left me any time to track Rute and his routines myself. Although it left me with a passable alibi, I was also unprepared, and I warred again with the idea of waiting until after the wedding ceremony. When it was all done, I would have more time but also more people watching me. I drummed fingers on the table, and in my distraction, Terror stole the rest of the fish.
“And he always comes back before dawn,” I said slowly. “Always?”
“How would I know?” Terror asked. “You are not paying me to miss out on my own sleep. He is always back when I wake.”
“Right,” I said. “I need to examine the layout myself.”
“When?” Terror asked. “Tonight?”
He sounded interested, and that made me suspicious. “Why?”
“If you die, do you think they’ll perform the rites in the northern way or in the southern way?” He cocked his head, and I could practically see him salivating over my corpse.
“I suppose they could feed my body to the sea serpents. They have them available after all.” Did the serpents in the lake even know how to eat people, or were they too used to the fatty animals from the farms?
Terror made a rough sound. “Tell them you want to be left out to view the storms in the southern way. Then I will have a chance to eat your liver.”
My lips pulled to the side. “Really.”
“The liver is quite delicious,” Terror said.
Blowing out a long breath, I said, “Tonight.”
“Good. I was growing tired of fish. Human liver sounds perfect.” Terror bobbed his head in satisfaction. “Yes. Human liver sounds perfect.”
“I would feel a lot more confident if you at least pretended you thought I’d succeed,” I said.
“I don’t think you will succeed.” Terror cocked his head. “But I’m entertained enough to watch you try.”
“Great,” I said. “Thank you for your support.”
That night, my confidence was better. I wore the same outfit I’d used to break into Empress Koque’s rooms and had a similar plan. The Mountain Thrown building that Rute lived in was the territory of House Sotonam, which meant that Count Sotonam and the rest of his house took up most of the building. It seemed as though Rute had lived there since childhood and had been given an upgraded room as his position had improved to royal heir.
The upgrade had apparently displaced Count Sotonam, which was part of the animosity between the two. However, it benefitted me because now Rute was on the top floor, meaning I wouldn’t have to search several levels to find his rooms. I had acquired most of the information from Terror, although the gossip had come from Tilo, the bathhouse attendant who was happy to gossip about the other royals for the low cost of a few coins.
It was also from Tilo that I found out the steward of the Mountain Thrown buildings didn’t let any female servants work in the House Sotonam buildings. After the gift of one of my coins, Tilo had leaned in, whispering, “Too many of the girls couldn’t work after Prince Rute’s attentions. He has at least three children besides the acknowledged one from his mistress. And the girls who didn’t end up with child still couldn’t work because…”
She trailed off, touching the corner of her lips in the imperial signal that the rest was implied. I was able to fill in the blanks.
“Is he any different with the men?” I asked.
Tilo shrugged. “No, but someone has to work in the prince’s rooms. The rumor is that now he has his favorite servants, and they’ll do anything to keep their good standing with him.”
As far as I could see, the servants would be the main problem. This wasn’t the abandoned quarters of the last empress. I would need to use all my skills to get in and out without losing my head or revealing myself.
After a long beat of hesitation, I took two weapons out of my luggage. One was a short blade that might have been ceremonial, if it hadn’t been sharp enough to slice off a finger. The dagger was paired with a longer blade, a sword we called a wolf’s claw. The sword was designed for close fighting, the sort of battle I’d expect with darkness and surprise on my side.
When both blades were strapped on, I tied a mask on my face, double-checking that the lumpy pillow under the blanket was the right shape. Then, I crawled out of my window and climbed up onto the roof. A dark shape fluttered down next to me, and I almost fell off the roof, catching myself at the last second.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered.
“Seeing if I get to eat human liver,” Terror responded, his voice loud. At my annoyed look, he cackled. “Well? Get on with it. I want to see how you plan to die tonight.”
I crept across the roof of Turtle House. I had two options for how to get to the Mountain Thrown buildings. Either I crossed the lake or the military buildings and the building where the wedding guests were staying. Both had risks, but the latter meant that I was exposed to more guards patrolling. The wedding guests were being watched closely, and someone was bound to notice a man dressed in dark clothing creeping over rooftops.
That was the sort of thing that guards were trained to watch out for when keeping an eye on potential threats to the emperor.
“I’m not going to die,” I said uncomfortably.
“So you say,” Terror said. He hopped along the roof as I tiptoed to the end of it. “I have my doubts.”
At the edge of the roof, I took the same handholds down to the ground, hiding in some bushes to make sure that no one had seen me. Then, I headed to the lake.
In the dark, the water was still as glass, reflecting the nearly full moon. If I had a choice, I would have waited until the new moon to do this, but the math didn’t work out. With Rute alive, things were complicated. Once he was gone, I could finish my task.
My task of… since when had it become hard to admit what I was here to do?
Creeping across the long pier to the center building, I remembered the way Tallu had said, “I would kill them,” as though he was talking about something else, about some one else. My mind thought about the person I’d have to kill after I framed Rute, and I thought, I will kill Tallu , and everything in me chilled.
Voices and light up ahead made me freeze. Guards were walking along the pier opposite me, and I didn’t have time to wonder if they were going to cross on this pier or take one of the perpendicular ones. If I waited, they’d be able to see me, no matter what I did. There was nowhere to hide. There was nowhere —my eyes caught on the water, and I didn’t give myself time to think.
I jumped over the side railing, holding on with both hands, and lowered myself into the water.
My feet hit the lake first, the supple leather holding up against the water. But the rude awakening was immediate when my legs clad only in fabric hit the water, the cold sending shivers like electric shocks up my thighs, making them jump. The voices were getting closer, and I used the last of my strength to ease myself into the lake, making sure not to splash as I dropped in, the water up to my neck as I grabbed onto one of the pillars holding the pier in place.
This was nothing. Once, Eona? had dared me, and I’d jumped into the bay because I’d been foolish and young. Every year after that, we’d marked the anniversary by jumping in together and then sprinting half-naked back to the palace and submerging ourselves in a warm bath. My heart felt like coal in my chest, my body still twitching with the cold.
Something slithered past my leg. I froze. It twisted around, brushing over my other leg. The powerful muscles slammed against my calf as it tested me.
Sea serpent.
I held my breath, going as still as I could. It twisted by me again, wrapping around once, and then slid away.
I started breathing again, a gasp of air that left me nearly lightheaded. Spots formed in my vision, and I shook my head. As I breathed, I tried to keep myself from panic.
It hadn’t realized I was food; my clothes probably felt too strange to this creature used to eating livestock. I was safe. I was safe.
The guards up ahead had reached the center pavilion. They weren’t moving, their lights casting shadows on the water.
I swore. They were going to stay there. Maybe they were taking a break or slacking off, or maybe it wasn’t guards at all but a late-night tryst.
New plan. I would swim back to shore, hope that none of the sea serpents took an interest, and?—
Someone screamed.
Not the sort of scream to emerge from a late-night tryst when all participants were enjoying some pleasure al fresco . There was a sound, a splash in the water, and I felt the current as something large and powerful rushed across the lake, snapping up whatever had been thrown in.
Closing my eyes, I kept my breathing as still as I could and let myself take only one extra-long breath. Then, I began moving, hand over hand, toward the pavilion. I kicked just enough with my legs to keep my momentum going but otherwise moved myself with my hands along the pier, keeping as close to the wood as I could.
It was slow going, and I felt the occasional movement in the water, the change in pressure as a creature swam around the pavilion. My blood was so loud in my ears that it took a moment for me to understand what they were saying.
“You thought! You thought you could hide from me!” Prince Rute yelled.
I kept moving, kept creeping closer, even when I felt a sea serpent against my leg, the curious curl of its tail as it tried to discover what I was.
The answer was inaudible. No one spoke for a moment, and then Rute said, “What did you say?”
Adrenaline masked the cold of the water, but I still knew that the longer I stayed in, the more difficult it would be to get out, the more my muscles would clench up at the cold, and the more likely that my thrashing attempt to rise would end up with me being digested in a sea serpent’s stomach.
And maybe the only person who would remember me fondly was Eona?, and the Imperium would start the wars again, and all my hard work training would be lost, and Yor?mu would come to the afterlife and drag me back by my ear and curse me for being so stupid.
I pulled myself up, using the balusters of the railing around the pavilion to get my eyes high enough to see. I tried to keep my feet still, but I had to kick slightly to keep myself from falling back down.
The bright light was blinding, but it took me only two seconds to understand what I was seeing, as though time had frozen and I was watching a painting.
Prince Rute stood above a prone servant in yellow, his hand extended out, held by two other servants, one pressing his whole body down, the other kneeling on his arm to keep it still. Rute held a sword I recognized as one of the Krustavian blades. Blood pooled under the servant’s torso, and his hand still bled sluggishly where Rute had taken off his pinkie finger.
“I’m going to take a finger off for each day that you ignored my orders.” Rute dragged the blade along the floor of the pavilion, and it cut through the wood. Krustau might only need one hit to kill you, but that didn’t mean that their blades were dull.
A dwarf of Krustau could cleave a mountain in two if given a long enough blade. Their blades were heavy and sharp, designed for men whose bones were made of stone with the muscles to carry them.
Rute raised the blade again and brought it down, slicing off another finger. He bent, picking it up. “You thought you could hide from me with the northern prince ? I am the only prince in this empire.”
He laughed, turning the other direction to throw the finger into the water. Sea serpents moved so fast they nearly tore me loose from my perch.
“And soon, it’s going to be my empire. I’m going to enjoy this. You’ll be my personal servant, and I’ll expect perfect service even with only two fingers. I’ll expect you next to me every day and night, every meal, every moment. You understand?” He turned back to the servant, nudging his head until it turned, and I had already known, but it was still too much to see. It was Piivu.
“I’m sorry, Prince Rute. Give me a chance to make amends. Please. I beg you. I beg you.” Piivu’s face was blotchy with tears, his expression carved into wrinkles of pain. He winced when Rute dragged the sword by his face.
“Or maybe I take your tongue? Or your nose?” Rute crouched down, his back to me, and whatever he whispered to Piivu had the servant struggling desperately.
My mind slowed as time had earlier, and I knew my next action. I had to go now. Rute’s rooms were empty, and these were likely his favored servants, meaning my chance of discovery would be less. I could plant the letters and encourage Tallu to search the rooms again. Rute would fall, and Tallu would have more of his relatives’ blood on his hands. The court would trust him less, and the Imperium would be that much closer to chaos.
But I could not make myself swim to shore. Not even knowing the sea serpents were going to get bored soon of small fingers and go looking for bigger prey.
Move , I told myself. And because I had been trained by clever, merciless Yor?mu—she had left me hanging outside a window in the frigid winter and then made me practice dagger skills with my muscles still tight and cold every day for a month, until she was satisfied that I could move even when it was physically hard, when all sense said I shouldn’t be able to.
A sea serpent curled around my leg, and I kicked up, planting both feet on the heavy muscle of its body and pushing myself up to the top of the railing and leaping over it, coming at Rute so fast that he didn’t even see me.
The water dripping from my clothes was the only noise I made, the splash of it startling the servants. They turned to see what had come out of the water, their eyes wide, but I was faster.
I drew my blades.
The servants scrambled back, terrified at the dark, wet creature who had launched itself out of the water. Piivu screamed again, his eyes wide, face pale, and he rolled, following the other servants.
Rute turned, his face twisted, and he brought up his Krustavian sword, but I slid underneath his guard, slicing at his leg with my narrow dagger as I slid past him. Assassination needed to be fast.
If it isn’t fast, then it’s not assassination. It’s torture. Yor?mu had drilled it into me until I said it in my sleep or whenever the cook made food I didn’t like for dinner.
Rute screamed, the short blade slicing through the tendons running up the back of his leg. He went down on one knee, and I was there, my sword at his throat. I pulled the wolf’s claw back, ready to take his head off, but something hit me from the side before the edge of my blade made contact.
I swore.
I’d counted on the servants being in shock for longer. The man on top of me was heavy and desperate. His eyes were wide.
He had the most to lose. He’d acted as Rute’s personal servant, hurting his fellows, doing truly terrible things. If Rute died, then the prince’s protection disappeared. His hands wrapped around my throat, and I didn’t have room to raise my sword, so I brought my dagger up, slamming it into his side.
I had trained for this. It slipped right between his ribs, puncturing a lung, and he gasped, blood bubbling up his throat, coming out of his mouth. Arching my back, I rocked until he fell forward, his balance thrown off by the pain and the momentum of my movements. Then I rolled out from under him, and he collapsed forward, his own body working against him as he tried to draw in breath.
The second servant circled me, having learned from the other’s mistake. His expression was cold, and I could see in his movements that he knew how to hurt someone. Rute hadn’t had to work hard to make this man into his collaborator in pain.
The way he held his knife showed me he was used to it; he knew it intimately.
He slid forward, the blade aimed at a spot in my stomach that would do enough damage to make my ending both painful and long. He was no assassin.
I was.
I moved forward, mimicking his movement with my own dagger, and he dodged straight into my blade. The sword cut halfway through his neck as his momentum carried him into it.
Unfortunately, I didn’t quite have the swing to get it all the way through, and it was still in his body when he fell. I cursed silently. I needed the blade.
Rute had stopped screaming and was up on his one good foot, his other leg propping him up, even as he put barely any weight on it. His eyes flashed.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “Did Tallu send you?”
I didn’t answer; I didn’t dare. I had recognized his voice, and he’d likely recognize mine.
“Answer me!” He lunged forward, the heavy Krustavian blade taking up more of his attention now that he didn’t have two good legs to rely on.
He swung it, and I didn’t have my sword to block him, so I fell backward, rolling under his swing. Fast. Faster than him.
I sank my blade into his arm, the flesh giving under the sharp dagger. When I pulled it free, blood flew out, spattering the ground. He slammed his injured arm into me, swinging it like a mace, and it cost him, his expression going wretched.
But the movement surprised me, sending me stumbling back, well in range of his sword again.
His blade swung like a freak wave in a storm, and I had seconds to move. If it touched me, I would be cut down. Maybe not killed immediately, but injured and unable to finish what I’d started. I leapt back, flipping over and landing on my hands before spinning back onto my feet.
I needed my own sword. My dagger would crack if I tried to use it to parry the Krustavian sword. Circling him, I watched as he dragged his limp leg behind him, trying to keep track of me.
When I came close to the servant with a sword buried in his neck, I gave myself a half second to try to pull it free, still keeping my eyes on Rute, and that was a mistake. As soon as he thought my attention was elsewhere, he lunged forward, swinging the sword in a downward diagonal slash that almost caught me. When I dodged back again, it hit the dead servant, the blade embedding itself in his thick torso.
I didn’t wait.
Leaping forward, I pressed my dagger against Rute’s neck, using my other hand to pull him back so his spine arched. I dragged the knife across and slit his throat.
Assassins are fast. The whole encounter, from start to finish, was likely less than three minutes. Two if I had been counting fast.
Rute’s body fell to his knees, his eyes wide as he gurgled, grasping for his throat, trying to keep the blood inside. It seeped through his fingers, and finally, he fell to the side, the pool of red around him seeping into the cracks between the wooden planks.
“Who are you?” Piivu asked.
He had crawled to the side of the pavilion, his hand wrapped in his yellow jacket, dyeing the fabric a muddy color. I could see the sweat on his face, the pallor that meant he was going into shock.
“Go tell the Dogs,” I said, keeping my voice low and quiet, rounding some of my vowels so my words had an approximation of a Krustavian accent. My mask guarded my face, but Piivu had been closer to me than anyone besides Tallu. “Tell him Krustau has taken our payment from the prince.”
He swallowed. “Are you here to hurt the emperor?”
Brave Piivu. I wanted to shake him. I growled, hoping I sounded like a dwarf. “Go. Dogs.”
Trembling, Piivu stood, his feet unsteady as he turned and ran.
If Piivu had ever seen anyone from Krustau, the ruse was over. I was too tall, and my voice didn’t hold the boom of lungs meant for singing through cavernous darkness. I didn’t have any time.
The dark water thrashed. The sea serpents were starving, and Rute’s blood had dripped down into the water. They wanted meat. They wanted flesh. They wouldn’t be satisfied until they got it.
Well, it would certainly cover that Rute had been killed by northern bone weapons plated in metal rather than true Krustavian blades. A genuine Krustavian blade would have sliced through his neck, severing his spine. Cleaning my dagger on Rute’s clothes, I dragged his limp corpse over to the water and tipped it in.
I’d only managed to get it halfway when the sea serpent reared up from the water, its gills spreading wide as it hissed. It looked pale white in the electric lighting, the open gills surrounding it like a corona. For a beat, we stared at each other, two lethal northern creatures far from home.
“Hello, sister,” I said.
The sea serpent considered me, then let loose a scream like metal scraping together, like a clash of gods. If it was words, I couldn’t make them out. They were so loud in my head all I heard was raw feeling, so thick and complicated I couldn’t decipher it. Her jaws opened wide, and she bit off Rute’s head in one clean line. The tug of it pulled the rest of the body into the water, and the serpent followed.
I went over to the two servants. After freeing my sword from the neck of one, I dragged them each across the pavilion and heaved them into the water. I heard shouting and footsteps, and if the guards were already here, then the Dogs were, and I still didn’t have time.
Grabbing the letters, I pulled them from the wax paper envelope I’d put them in to guard them against my sweat. Hopefully, they’d survived the plunge in the water, but I didn’t have time to check, so I tossed them at the edge of the pool of Rute’s blood and picked up the heavy Krustavian sword, plunging it into them.
The sword embedded itself into the wood, slicing through the paper easily. I saw lights coming up two of the long piers, and I ran, leaping into the water on the opposite side of the pavilion from where I’d thrown the bodies into the water.
I had swum the length of the harbor of the Silver City. I had swum in the open ocean. I had swum the distance between my canoe and the whaling ship the last time I’d fed men to sea serpents. This was nothing.
Diving deep, I swam until my lungs screamed from lack of oxygen, until I couldn’t bear it, then allowed myself to float to the surface. There were a dozen yellow-clad guards on the pavilion, shouting at each other, and I saw three men dressed in grays among them—Piivu had found the Emperor’s Dogs.
“There!” one of them shouted, holding a light out in my direction. And if they saw me I was dead, and so was the Northern Kingdom.
A loud, screeching ball of black feathers attacked the man holding a light. He screamed, batting at Terror, dropping his light into the water. As Terror flapped between the guards and Dogs, I swam desperately for shore.
I had to get back to my rooms before the rest of the palace could be alerted. I had to get back before Asahi decided to check on me and make sure the Krustavian assassin wasn’t going after all the princes in the palace.
I didn’t have time for caution. The shutters on the lower levels of Turtle House were closed, so I ran straight through my private garden and climbed up the tree to my room. The door was closed, so no one had checked on me yet, but I heard yelling in the distance and grabbed the nightclothes I’d taken off to put on my darker clothes for sneaking.
Wiping at the windowsill, I squinted at the wood. No blood, thankfully, or at least none that was visible in the moonlight. When it was dry, I pulled off my mask and shirt, about to try to get into the nightclothes, but a soft squeak of the flooring outside my bedroom was the only warning I had that Asahi was about to check on me.
Hugging all the clothing to me, I dove under the blankets, pulling them up to my neck and squinting at the turning door handle. Asahi’s masked face poked in the doorway. He exhaled a long breath, then crossed the room to close the window, and I prayed as hard as I ever had to the great northern bear that I hadn’t missed anything.
He pulled the shutters closed and then shut the door. I heard the creak of flooring again as Asahi took up position outside my door.
When it settled into silence, I allowed myself to relax. Sitting up, I pressed both hands over my face. Well.
Rute was dead. Now, I just needed to kill Tallu, no matter how much it squeezed my heart to do it.