Chapter 5 #2
The other transmigrator, I thought. Or someone connected to them. The coin. The explosives. Now this.
The game was bigger than I'd realized. And Cassian Thorne was caught in the middle of it, same as me.
He turned to face me, holstering his pistol. "That report. Take it. Read it. If you still want to kill me after, I'll be at the palace. But if you find what I think you'll find—" he reached out, slowly, and pressed the parchment into my free hand, "—then we need to talk. Properly. As equals."
I looked down at the folded paper, then up at his face. At the water dripping from his chin. At the way he held himself—still royal, still proud, but with something new in his eyes. Something that looked almost like respect.
"Equals," I repeated. "You think a prince and a dead traitor can be equals?"
"I think," he said, stepping closer, close enough that I could see the flecks of grey in his blue eyes, "that you're the first person in three months who hasn't lied to my face. And that makes you more valuable than every noble in that ballroom combined."
He reached up. I tensed, dagger ready. But his hand didn't go for a weapon. It went to my face, his thumb brushing a streak of river mud from my cheekbone. The touch was feather-light. Intimate. Completely inappropriate for a prince and a fugitive.
"You have her eyes," he whispered. "But you don't have her soul. Iraia Voss was... gentle. She believed in honor. In duty. In the crown." His thumb traced my jaw. "You're harder. Colder. You move like my worst nightmare and speak like my best interrogator." A ghost of a smile. "Who are you, really?"
I should have stepped back. Should have broken his nose right then, like the chapter title promised. Should have disappeared into the night and never looked back.
Instead, I leaned into his touch. Just for a second. Just long enough to let him think he had me.
Then I headbutted him.
My forehead connected with the bridge of his nose with a satisfying crunch. He staggered back, hands flying to his face, blood already streaming between his fingers.
"Fuck!" he snarled, the royal composure shattered.
"That's for calling me a rat," I said, wiping mud from my forehead. "And for the bounty on my head. And for making me ruin a perfectly good dress."
I turned and ran, leaping from the loading dock to the warehouse roof, then across the tiles with the sure-footed grace of a woman who'd spent her first life running across New Carthage rooftops.
"You're insane!" Cassian shouted after me, his voice muffled by his hands. "Completely, utterly, beautifully insane!"
I didn't look back. But I smiled.
The report was tucked into my bodice, safe and dry. The prince was bleeding in a dockyard, probably cursing my name to every god he knew. And somewhere in the city, a shooter with modern weapons was hunting us both.
Progress, I thought, dropping to a lower roof and then to the alley below. Messy, violent, complicated progress.
I reached the safehouse as dawn was breaking, slipping through the back entrance to find Jinx asleep at the table, a knife in her hand and a half-eaten apple on the map.
She woke instantly, eyes sharp. "You're late. And wet. And—" she squinted, "—is that blood?"
"Not mine." I peeled off the ruined dress, tossing it into the fireplace. It caught immediately, the silk burning with a smell like dying flowers. "Wake Torvald. Send word to the network. The game has changed."
Jinx was already moving, pulling on boots, grabbing her coat. "What happened?"
"The prince knows I'm alive. He gave me this." I unfolded the parchment, spreading it on the table. "It's a battle report. Full of lies, probably, but lies have patterns. And patterns—"
"—lead to truth," Jinx finished. She looked at the document, then at me. "And the blood?"
"Someone tried to kill us both. Modern weapon. Sniper." I met her eyes. "I think there's someone else from my world here, Jinx. Someone with syndicate connections. And they're playing a game I don't understand yet."
She nodded, small and fierce and unafraid. "Then we learn the rules. And we break them."
I smiled. My little apprentice.
"Get me dry clothes. And coffee. The kind that tastes like tar and keeps you awake for days." I sat at the table, the report in front of me, my mind already racing through possibilities. "And Jinx?"
"Yeah?"
"Put out feelers for any new players in the city. Anyone selling technology that doesn't belong here. Anyone with knowledge they shouldn't have."
I touched the coin in my pocket—the Delgado coin I'd found on the Blood Fields.
"I think the underworld just got bigger. And I think we're not the only ghosts in town."
She left on silent feet, and I was alone with the fire, the dawn, and a dead woman's memories.
I looked at the report. At the elegant script that had condemned a legion. At the signature of General Darius Thorne, bold and unapologetic.
Soon, I promised the memory of Iraia Voss. Soon, they'll all bleed for what they took from you.
But first, I had a prince to investigate.
A shooter to find.
And a kingdom to burn down from the inside.
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A/N:
The Lady King wasn't crowned yet.
But she'd just broken a prince's nose, stolen a royal document, and started a war she didn't know she was already winning.