Chapter 52
ACEL
Acel stares down at the man known as the Nomad.
The Nomad.
When the name used to come up in meetings with the queen, whispered on the mouths of nosy courtiers and bitter on the tongues of the queen’s soldiers, Acel had pictured a different sort of man. Brutal. Vulgar.
But when Acel had first laid eyes on the Nomad, he had heard another word in his ear. Boy.
In life, the Nomad had hidden it well. The casual confidence. The way he commanded a room. The bulk. The knowing eyes—those were what did it, in Acel’s opinion. Those eyes knew more than even the most ancient among them.
In death, eyes closed, there is no hiding it. The Nomad is a boy. Ten years Acel’s junior, at the least. He is a boy, and he is dead.
Acel does not know whether to mourn him.
When the Nomad had asked him to sneak into Peter’s tent and steal the pan flute, he had not argued.
He had argued a bit when the Nomad, after acquiring the flute, had told Acel to leave.
The alarm had already sounded, and though Acel expected the Nomad would go after Tink, he thought the Nomad’s pride in thinking he could do it on his own would end up with Tink hurt.
So Acel had searched the carnival and ended up back here.
When he had arrived inside the tent, the events had been a simple calculation in his mind, honed for such things from his decade of service to his queen.
The Nomad had betrayed them. It wasn’t so much the sword jutting from Tink’s abdomen—the Nomad was the dagger and poison type—but the look on her face.
The way her golden brows had knit together. The sorrow in her eyes.
The thrust of her dagger into the Nomad’s side.
Acel had rushed for her, but there had been a flash of light. Acel was better trained than to blink, but it hadn’t mattered. The light was soon gone, and so was Tink.
Now Acel has nothing, except for the Nomad’s corpse at his feet.
It occurs to him, somewhat wryly, that this is not particularly valueless.
The Nomad is the most wanted criminal in the world.
Acel could drag him back to his queen. He would be rewarded.
Not enough to buy a royal medallion, but a noble one, perhaps.
Still not enough to buy back the respect in his queen’s eyes.
Not enough to buy a chance with the princess.
Still, a nice bounty.
Acel stares down at the Nomad and sighs. He knows that if the situation were reversed, the Nomad would not hesitate to turn in Acel’s body for a reward. Acel can hear the Nomad’s voice in his head now. “It’s not as if he’s using it.”
If Acel knew for certain that the Nomad had betrayed them, he would not hesitate either. He would sell the Nomad’s body faster than Tink had thrust him through.
But Acel has been watching. Noticing.
It was his job, for quite some time. To notice. And habits are difficult to kick. The Nomad could only steal so many glances at Tink when he thought no one was looking, before someone actually did.
So no, Acel does not believe that the Nomad betrayed her. He does not need an explanation. An alternative to the events he witnessed unfold.
Acel takes the body and leaves.
No one stops him.
There is a package waiting for Acel when he returns home. There is also a significant amount of dust waiting, but that is more expected than the package.
Whether it is more invited than the package will depend.
Acel’s years as the queen’s bodyguard have trained him to be suspicious of unmarked packages. Then again, the Nomad and Tink blew up most of the world’s supply of faerie dust, so this package shouldn’t contain any explosives. Theoretically.
Who is Acel kidding? He is no longer important enough to be assassinated.
Sure, Acel made plenty of enemies when he was within the queen’s employ.
There are lots of criminals whose friends had been hunted down by Acel—and subsequently hanged—who would like to see him suffer.
But explosives are hardly ever an avenger’s weapon of choice.
Too quick of a death. The only time they’re utilized is if the avenger wants to blow up the family of an enemy.
And it’s not as if Acel has one of those.
Feeling his mood slip at the thought, Acel picks up the package and turns it over in his hand.
It’s heavier than he would have expected.
He brings it across the room and sets it on his dusty kitchen table.
He used to daydream about Princess Aditai perched in the chair across from him, waiting impatiently as he cooked her favorite dinner for her birthday.
He doesn’t bother fetching his letter opener. The dagger in his belt will do just fine.
When he slides it across the leather of the package, the slit reveals a golden shimmer.
Acel dumps the contents over, and a pile of gold coins slides over the table.
If Acel were the type to gasp, he would. But he is not the type to gasp, so instead, he blinks. Just once.
An explosive would have been less surprising.
Acel rummages through the coins, then brings one up to the light, examining its every detail.
Acel has spotted a fair amount of forgeries in his day, but this one even gleams the faintest sea-green when turned at a forty-five-degree angle away from the light, a detail even the best of forgers can’t seem to replicate.
He looks inside the package. Inside, is an envelope. Unmarked.
When he unseals it and out slips a letter, Acel can’t help but let out a low laugh.
Acel is still sitting at his kitchen table, glancing back and forth between the letter in his hand and the gold on the table, when a knock sounds at his door.
With the grace of a skilled assassin, he disposes the pile of coins into the package and stores it underneath a loose floorboard, almost laughing at how his life’s savings—a sum not to be mocked and also tucked underneath the floorboard—look like pennies in comparison to his new stash of riches.
Acel is a man trained for anything. But when he opens his door, his heart might as well be pierced through.
She stands there before him. In servants’ attire, of all things. Must have borrowed them from her lady’s maid. Her hood is pulled over her hair, but it doesn’t stop the rain from reaching her face, streaming down her perfect, smooth cheeks in rivulets.
Acel says nothing. Not because he doesn’t want to. But because, as always, her presence has stunned him into silence.
“You’re here,” says the princess. There’s no mistaking the surprise in her tone.
“You knocked,” is all Acel can think to say.
“Yes, well, I didn’t think you’d actually open,” says the princess. Acel recognizes the defensiveness in her tone, the way she gets when she’s embarrassed. “Well, are you going to continue to allow me to be pelted by the rain, or are you going to let me in?”
Acel considers the former, mostly because he already can’t bear the sight of her, the disappointment and hurt in her gaze as she stares at him as if he’s a complete stranger. What she must think of him for having left without explanation.
He lets her in.
Her cloak is sopping and leaves puddles on the floorboards. Acel will mop them up later. Right now, his gaze is transfixed on the princess.
“You’ve been holed up here the whole time, then?” says the princess, that last word tense as she plucks off her wet gloves.
“No,” says Acel.
“Well, that’s a relief. I would have hated to think you’d abandoned me for solitude.”
Acel swallows, and does the only thing he knows to do—folds his hands behind his back.
“Are you well?” he asks, his voice stiff.
A huff of air exits forcefully from the princess’s nostrils. “You’ve been away?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The princess does not correct him. Does not tell him to use her name. Someone may as well have slipped a blade through Acel’s chest.
Instead, she stares. Pensive.
“I’m to be wed by week’s end, you know.”
Acel does not gasp. He is not prone to such outward signs of emotion. It does not keep the air from being sucked out of his chest.
This is worse than the princess being wed. Her, being here, unattached and within his grasp. Acel is not one to drink, but he does not know how he will get through the wedding day otherwise.
“Who won your hand?” he asks.
“No one. Yet,” says the princess.
He hates how short she is with him. Of the two of them, he has always been the one of few words, happy to let her ramble on and on about her day, drinking in her every thought.
Acel waits.
The princess sighs. “You really have been gone, haven’t you?
” There’s something in her eyes that seems to make a calculation before she continues.
“The competition for my hand in marriage—I’m assuming you know about that since it was announced the night before you left. It’s to take place this week.”
“And do you have hopes for who will win?” Acel asks.
The princess taps her fingers in succession against the handle of her teacup. Lets out an exasperated huff. Then closes her eyes forcefully. Swallows. “There are ways of transferring coin from the royal treasury. Ways that would go unquestioned.”
Warmth spreads up Acel’s neck. Delight sings through his veins, but he reins it in. The Sister warned him that this would not end with the two of them together. That this road would lead to there being no more Princess of Irethden.
It hadn’t stopped him from considering it. Just for a flicker of a moment when she first mentioned the competition. He has the money required for the medallion, stowed underneath the floorboard.
It might kill him, but he speaks the truth anyway. His voice is dry. “I fear, just this once, I will have to deny you, Your Highness.”
“Just this once?” The love of his life says it so wryly. She does not cry. She is much too proud for that. Instead, she looks off to the side and takes a sip from her teacup. “I should not have come,” she says, pushing to stand.
“I wish you all the happiness in your marriage, Your Highness,” says Acel, and though the words are true, they feel like razorblades slicing through his lips.