Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The other six should have arrived by now. We need the reinforcements to stack the odds and turn this into something survivable. I stand at the window in my room watching the street below.
The evening light casts long shadows across the courtyard. Guards patrol in pairs and children chase each other down the street. Everything looks normal.
But it’s not.
I’ve been standing here for the better part of an hour, watching the road that leads to the eastern gate. I’m waiting for six figures in dark cloaks to appear. We need them to balance the scales. Their presence will make this impossible situation slightly less suicidal.
They’re not coming.
I know it in my bones before Kitty appears in the doorway without knocking. Her face tells me everything before she opens her mouth.
“They’re not coming,” she says, confirming what I already knew.
My hands curl into fists against the windowsill. The wood creaks under my grip. “You’re certain?”
“I checked every drop point in the city. The warehouse by the docks, the abandoned mill, the wine cellar beneath the Willow Bear.” She steps into the room and closes the door behind her. “I even went to the safe houses outside the walls. Nothing. No messages, no supplies, no Grimsbane.”
A sharp, ugly disbelief flashes through me before anger follows it.
“The guild made their assessment, Wolf.” She exhales slowly, like she’s been carrying the answer the whole walk here. “They’re not wasting resources on a lost cause.”
The Guild of Assassins doesn’t bet on losing sides. It’s a business, not a charity. Lord Clayborne’s gold bought him two contracts—mine and Kitty’s. That’s all he gets. The guild won’t throw good assassins after bad odds.
I turn away from the window to face her properly. “So we’re on our own.”
Kitty crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back against the door. She knew this was coming. My friend probably knew it the moment she heard about the Archon challenge. But she still chose to stay and help me anyway.
“The Wiolants will choose Damnation. You know they will. They’ll destroy Lord Clayborne’s house completely. Burn the estate, kill everyone inside, salt the earth where it stands.” She watches my face carefully. “Everyone dies. The children. The servants. Garrett.”
My fingers drum once against the windowsill.
She pushes off the door and walks further into the room. “The guild has already written off this contract. We’re alone in this.”
The room goes silent except for the distant sounds of the city preparing for the night festivities of Merafall. Festival music drifts up from the main square. Somewhere a bell chimes the hour.
It will be sunset in two hours. The Queen’s deadline at noon tomorrow. Perhaps she will come tonight and Garrett will be nothing but ash and memory. His house will be struck from every record, his name forbidden to speak.
I make the decision quickly. “We will kill the Queen first.”
Kitty’s head snaps up. “What? You can’t be serious.”
“We kill her before she can choose Damnation.” I turn to look at her directly, letting her see that I mean every word. “Can it be done?”
For a long moment she just stares at me. Then the shock breaks apart and reveals the assassin underneath.
“The Wiolant compound has twenty-seven Grimsbane on rotation protecting the royal family,” she says slowly. “Plus their regular guard complement. Some of them are veterans from the border wars with Darvan.”
“Twenty-seven,” I repeat numbly.
Twenty-seven of my own guild members, protecting the person I need dead.
“Suicide odds,” Kitty agrees. But she hasn’t said no. She’s still calculating and thinking it through. “But I know their rotation schedule from my conversations with Shade.”
My eyebrows raise slightly. “Shade told you the Queen’s security rotation?”
“Not directly. But he complains about the work constantly. The third watch is short-handed, he said. They rotate positions near sundown and there’s always a gap in coverage.
” She moves to my desk. “There’s a narrow window, maybe fifteen minutes, where the coverage thins while they switch positions.
The regular guards are easy enough to slip past if you know what you’re doing. ”
“Show me the entry points,” I say.
Kitty nods then reaches inside her jacket and produces a folded piece of parchment. She spreads it across my desk, smoothing out the creases carefully.
The Wiolant compound, sketched in meticulous detail. Guard posts marked in red ink dot the perimeter, while patrol routes traced in blue wind through the gardens and courtyards.
“The moment I heard about the Archon challenge, I knew it might come to this.” Her finger traces along the eastern wall.
“Here. The garden entrance. Two regular guards stationed at the gate, replaced during shift change at sunset. We go over the wall just north of their position, through the tree line. The Queen walks the gardens most evenings around this time. Shade mentioned she’s predictable about it. ”
I study the map, memorizing every detail and the entry point over the eastern wall. The target location marked with a small X near an ornamental fountain. Three different escape routes marked in green ink leading to different parts of the city.
“You’ve thought this through,” I observe.
“I always think things through.” She rolls her shoulders, working out tension. “The question is whether you’re actually willing to do this. Killing a queen might start a war.”
To save Garrett’s life?
I don’t hesitate. “Yes, I’m certain.”
“It won’t just be his life you’re saving. You’ll be putting him on the throne.” She watches me carefully. “King Garrett. Is that what you want?”
I think about Garrett’s face when his father announced the challenge. The exhaustion hidden beneath his calm. His dreams of running away from all of this.
“What I want doesn’t matter.” I shake my head. “Keeping him alive matters.”
Kitty studies me for another long moment, then nods.
“Weapons?” I ask.
“Daggers only. We can’t afford noise or anything that might alert the other Grimsbane stationed nearby.” She begins rolling up the map. “Poison on the blades. Something fast-acting so the Queen dies quickly.”
“What about Shade?” The question has been sitting in my throat since she started explaining the plan. “He’s protecting her. He might be close.”
Kitty's hands go still on the map. “I know.”
“If he sees us—”
“Then we hope he doesn’t.” She finishes rolling the parchment and tucks it back inside her jacket. “Shade is on interior detail this week. He will be in the throne room and private quarters. The gardens are handled by regular guards and other Grimsbanes. We should be clear.”
Should be. Not will be.
“I’ll meet you at the east market,” she continues. “One hour before sunset. We need to move fast and quiet.”
She moves toward the door, then turns back to look at me.
“This is your third strike. If Garrett dies and we fail, they won’t just kill us. The guild will make examples of us,” she says flatly.
“I know,” I mutter quietly. If we run we’ll be hunted for the rest of our lives. Every Grimsbane in Tiamat will have our names on the kill list. We’ll never be able to go back.
Kitty loosens a long breath. “The crypts will look like mercy compared to what they’ll do to us.”
I know that too.
“He must be worth it,” she says quietly. “Garrett. He must be worth giving up everything.”
I think about Garrett’s hands on my injured leg. His laugh in the pond and the way he looked at me in his study this morning.
“He is,” I say.
Kitty nods once, sharp and decisive. “One hour before sunset. Don’t be late.”
Then she slips out of the room as quietly as she entered. The door clicks shut behind her, leaving me alone with the weight of what we’re about to do.
I turn back to the window. The sun is starting to sink toward the horizon now, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold. In less than two hours, I’ll either save Garrett’s life or damn us both.
My hand finds the wolf carving in my vest pocket. The small wooden figure Garrett left at the Kvatosh shrine all those weeks ago. The one I took and kept like a fool. My fingers trace the rough edges.
I should go to him and tell him what I’m planning. Maybe I should say goodbye properly in case this goes wrong.
But if I see him now, I might lose my nerve. I might confess everything, the plan and fuck even my feelings for him, all of it. Garrett would try to stop me and forbid it.
Better he never knows. Better he thinks I’m off coordinating with Grimsbanes who will never arrive.
I pull out the wolf carving and set it on the windowsill. If I don’t come back, maybe someone will find it. Maybe Garrett will understand what it meant that I kept it all this time.
One hour before sunset.
I have preparations to make.
Kitty and I crouch in the shadows across the street from the Wiolant compound, watching the guard rotation.
The cobblestones beneath us are still warm from the day’s sun, radiating heat through the thin soles of my boots. I can feel the rough texture of the stone wall at my back, centuries-old mortar crumbling slightly under my fingertips.
I count the seconds in my head.
One. Two. Three.
The rhythm is steady, mechanical. It’s the same count I’ve used on a hundred different jobs. This internal clock has kept me alive this long.
Four. Five. Six.
I watch the guards’ movements, noting the exact moment when they shift their weight or turn their heads. The third watch has been on duty for eleven hours. Their shoulders sag with exhaustion. One of them keeps rubbing his eyes. The other stifles a yawn so wide I can see it from across the street.
Long shifts make people careless and careless people make mistakes. Mistakes are exactly what Kitty and I need.
They’re tired and sloppy.
Right on schedule, two regular guards step away from the garden entrance. They’re laughing about something, not paying attention to the perimeter. The sound carries across the quiet street carelessly.