Chapter 2
Five Broken Blades: Chapter Two
Euyn
City of Outton, Fallow
I’m being hunted.
I laugh quietly into my beard at this cruel twist of fate as I weave on light feet through the Outton marketplace. I was once a prized hunter—the best in Yusan, according to the king. And now here I am, in the badlands, in Fallow, and I am the prey.
I dart to the side, using timbers for cover to not give anyone a clean line of sight. I’ve spent the last three years trying to avoid someone collecting the twenty-thousand-gold-mun bounty on my head. At least this senseless warren called a market helps.
Outton market looks like it was hastily put together overnight, with timbers and whatever fabric they could salvage off a ship, and then the next morning they decided to leave it that way for a hundred years.
I wonder if the markets in Yusan are the same—grimy and slapdash.
I never stepped foot in one because we always had servants to shop for us.
Servants to do anything we desired, actually.
But that isn’t the life I have anymore. It’s just the one I can’t forget.
I pass a stall of tanned hides being sold by a gruff-looking fellow behind the counter. He nods to me, and I nod back. I’ve seen him before, but I don’t know his name. I haven’t asked lest he ask for mine.
When it’s clear I won’t be purchasing anything today, he ignores me and continues scanning for light fingers, a blade in his hand. Without a king, justice is meted out individually in Fallow.
The feeling of being watched prickles my skin. I toss a quick glance over my left shoulder to see if I’m being followed. Nothing.
I continue past noisy chickens and aromatic spices.
The scents of clove and cardamom are overwhelming as my boots shuffle along the dusty earth.
I pretend to consider dried dates as I look over my right shoulder.
Still nothing. Nothing but the ordinary scene.
It’s all tired women in rough spun dresses carrying wares on their heads and bearded men looking for goods or for a good fight.
Children are rare here, and the ones I have seen are dirty little pickpockets.
But I’m not worried about my purse today. I’m worried about my neck.
My heart pounds in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as the earth around me.
But it’s not the sun. It’s that I’m a target outside in broad daylight like this.
I want to blend in with the peasantry, but I’ve yet to master that trick.
I walk with a hood covering my black hair and dusty sand encrusting my tunic and trousers, just like everyone else, but there’s something about me that refuses to be common.
Two women stare up as I pass. I turn to see if there’s a threat, scanning the rooftops of the baked-clay buildings, but they were just looking at me.
Because my features, my manners are too fine, my head too tall.
Three years stuck in Fallow, and I still don’t walk hunched over the way they do.
My shoulders refuse to slump from burden.
When I try to fake it, the pretty little innkeeper always squints and asks if I’m “deep in my cups”—their term for drunk.
I should’ve stayed at the inn until dusk, when I can blend better.
I’m safe there—as safe as I can be. I’ve checked every corner, plotted every escape route.
There’s a rope ladder stashed in the drapes in case I need a fast exit out of my second-story room.
It’s hotter on the higher floor, but a ground-floor window might provide access to me while I sleep.
Not that I sleep much. My eyes are ringed with proof of that.
When I do pass out, it’s with a poisoned dagger under my pillow and my crossbow hidden under the bed.
There’s a sword in the washroom. Loaded traps wait over the door and windows.
I don’t leave, especially during the day, if I can avoid it.
But I couldn’t ignore the red envelope at my door this morning.
Prince Euyn Hali Baejkin
The Stables, one bell
I have an offer for you
Prince Euyn. Prince. Euyn.
My eyes stuck on those words, and my stomach turned, spoiling my meager breakfast of cold sausage and stale biscuit.
Someone knows who I am. And no one should know because Prince Euyn died from exposure three years ago.
When powerful men try to kill you, it’s best to let them think they succeeded. I go by the name of Donal now.
I crush the envelope in my pocket. I’ve been found. But by whom?
It’s occurred to me more than once in the last six bells that this could be an ambush.
I scan the crowd again, searching for the all blacks of royal assassins.
Maybe it would be a gift from my dear big brother to finally put an end to this limbo.
To kill me like a man. But the problem is, I want to live—or at least I refuse to die.
And King Joon wouldn’t directly order my execution—he didn’t last time, relying on the elements to kill me instead.
So what is this?
Who sent this? I’m paranoid, but logically I know it’s not palace assassins—they don’t send calling cards. They like to slit your throat before you can scream.
Madness. It’s madness to follow this invitation. My body aches to turn around. To go back. But there’s only one direction I can go for answers: forward.
My boots kick up dust as I leave the sprawling market.
Dust gets in everything here. There’s no point in trying to keep tidy.
What I wouldn’t give for the perfumed baths of Qali Palace; the spotless, cold marble corridors; or even the shade trees of the royal garden, where the servants spray a cooling mist in the summer and fan us with feathers.
But I’m stuck with sun, dry serpents, and desert vultures circling overhead.
I check for tracks even though there are too many people going in and out of the market for them to be of much use. But our soldier boots leave distinct impressions, so I scan the road anyway.
The heat is oppressive as I cross to the stables, and I adjust my hood as I look back one more time.
Nothing. Nothing but hazy air and commoners shopping.
But nothing doesn’t mean you’re safe—it just means you haven’t spotted the danger yet.
I’ve hunted every creature in Yusan, and few saw me coming.
I’m almost inside the stables when I see it: another red envelope. And then I notice the hand holding it. And I know it’s too late for me.