Chapter 2 Nes #2
If he was hurt, she’d—she’d what? She only had the small dagger in her boot. She didn’t know how to fight. All she knew was how to cheat. A coil behind her rib cage, a second heart beside her own, stretched and yawned. She put it back to sleep on instinct.
It didn’t matter if she was no good in a fight. She was still another person at his side.
She swung herself over the window ledge and climbed, nearly sliding, down.
Following the cry, she ran up the street until the dirt beneath her feet gave way to bumpy cobblestone.
There, just ahead, were three figures on the ground.
She recognized Mikaud among them, his blond hair a beacon in the dark. A fourth body hovered over him.
“Get away!” she screamed. Her voice rang shrill, leaking with desperation, and she hated herself for the sound. But the other person paused, lifted their head.
Nes stumbled to a halt several paces shy of the group. She couldn’t see Mikaud’s attacker, not with the way their hood hung low over their eyes. But she could see their hands. Thin fingers clutched tight in a fist.
She drew her dagger. “Get away from him,” she growled.
Beneath his attacker, Mikaud drew a sharp, shuddering breath. The figure over him snapped their focus back to Mikaud. They opened their fist, something small falling to the ground, before raising their hand.
A strong tang of magic—a scent of sweet and tart winter berries—filled her nostrils and dribbled down the back of her throat. It was strong enough to choke on. Nes inhaled deep. Behind that tang was something more. Something thin and bloody.
No.
The attacker’s hand came down quickly, and the three figures on the ground lurched, their heads falling back, their necks exposed to the sky.
A single line was drawn across each of their throats by invisible hands, stopping only at the end of the third man’s neck.
As one, all three figures fell slack against the cobblestones.
The killer ran.
Dagger useless in her hand, Nes rushed forward. She fell to the ground beside Mikaud. Her hands trembled as she reached for him.
“No, no, no,” she hissed. Traitorous emotions controlled the words flying off her tongue. “Wake up. Come on, get up, you stupidly benevolent man. You have to help me.” She caught the sob in her throat before it escaped. “You have to tell me where to find my father.”
Mikaud didn’t stir. Her fingers skimmed his cheeks, his lips. Lips that had scolded her. Lips that had kissed her. Lips she’d kissed. They were still now. Dead.
The second sob was too much for her to swallow. It escaped, soft and abrupt, a plea the dead would not answer. Slow tears followed, and she hurried to smear them across her cheeks.
This was why she shouldn’t have let herself get attached.
She knew the hollow heartbreak of having someone you loved ripped away from you.
This city thrived on taking away the things you loved.
She saw it happen every damned day. She knew better, and yet she’d still let herself get attached to Mikaud.
This was his fault. He shouldn’t have been so likable, so kind to her. He shouldn’t have listened or smiled or flirted back.
A third sob threatened to slip past her barriers. No. She shoved the lump in her throat down, gasping as she fought to regain control of her emotions. She was vulnerable out here in the open.
She had to leave him. She could not stay here.
All three of the dead wore the standard red-and-black uniform of the King’s Guard. Three guards dead. Right at the city entrance—unheard of.
The cuts were clean. A single identical slash across each throat.
Even the blood leaking from the bodies ran in the same direction, thin trails sprouting in smooth branches down the sides of their necks.
It ran into the cracks between the stones, the dry dirt soaking it up so only a sheen of a stain was left.
Her fingers still gripped the back of Mikaud’s neck, tips pressing into skin.
Skin that wasn’t the soft, smooth plane she remembered.
Gently, she lifted his head. In the dark, she could barely make out the lines of blood running over the skin at the back of his neck.
The lines were precise in a way that drew her attention.
If there was one thing she’d learned living in the Ditch, it was that wounds were not pretty.
Even cuts from the sharpest blade were not as pristine as these were.
Light began to fill the sky, the sun peeking into the streets. Something small and shiny near Mikaud’s head caught Nes’s eye. She picked it up, rolling the coin between her fingers.
The coin was silver, not gold as gadots were, and while at first glance the etchings seemed identical, they, in fact, were not.
When she looked closer, she saw the face of King Harkett looked to his right instead of the left.
The same with Sir Kendrik—Harkett’s Crown advisor—on the flip side. She’d never seen such a coin before.
“You saw it, too.”
The voice was soft, confusion making the cadence high.
Nes startled, pocketing the strange coin. A young girl, no older than six, emerged from the shadows hugging the Walled Prison. Her cheeks were as smudged with dirt and grime as her bare feet, and between her hands she held an empty bucket—on her way to the nearest canal for water.
“Their necks,” the girl said. “They just opened. As if—as if…”
Nes stared at the slit across Mikaud’s throat—her own throat filling fast—and finished the sentence for the girl. “As if by magic.”
The girl took a hesitant step forward, her eyes never leaving the bodies. “Was that the Witch?”
The morning bells rang, crisp and clear across the city. Six chimes to wake the world, but none could bring Mikaud back to life. None would revive her last chance to free her father.
Nes thought of the hand she’d seen and the cuts the one motion had caused. She’d seen magical reactions, but this…
Her words were honest as she answered. “I don’t know what that was.”