Chapter 1
One
Captain Jade Ni’ihm wasn’t in the habit of going against orders, but she had vital information her commander didn’t. Unfortunately, she feared she was already too late.
She slid her knife in the seal of the ground-floor window, unlatching it and swinging it outward.
About fifteen seconds remained before the guard on patrol came back around and had this window again in his line of sight, so she had to move quickly.
Jade listened for three heartbeats before flinging a leg over the windowsill and into the room.
No sound came from the other side of the thick curtain, though she’d have preferred to visually clear the room before ducking inside.
Finding the edge of the curtain, Jade peeked out and confirmed that, aside from ghosts, she was indeed alone. She pulled the window to a soft close behind her and stepped around the curtain.
Plush burgundy carpets and ornate furnishings provided a sense of luxury to the room. Fully stocked bookshelves lined the walls of the nobleman’s library, not a single tome out of place. Flames roared in the fireplace—odd, considering it was nearly midsummer.
A body slumped in a leather chair on the opposite side of the room. The fire provided the room’s only light, casting flickering shadows across the corpse. An open book lay on the man’s lap, his hand slack against the pages.
Jade strode across the room, her footsteps featherlight and soundless. Count Aubergine’s head tipped back against the top of his chair. His open eyes stared at nothing, cold and glassy. Regret consumed Jade. She should’ve moved faster. What good was inside information if she was too late?
She had been commanded to stay outside, to survey the grounds for a potential threat, to not engage.
The military had obtained information that Count Aubergine might be the next victim in a string of murders.
Jade’s assignment was to scope out the estate for clues that might lead to the unidentified killer.
Aubergine had previously been alerted to the development but had insisted he didn’t need added security from the military, maintaining that his guards were sufficient protection.
And if Aubergine chose to refuse the service, the military would utilize its resources elsewhere. So, technically, Jade was trespassing.
But Jade knew something the rest of them didn’t, so she’d chosen to go against her orders.
She managed to convince the two troopers sent with her as backup to stay behind while she moved closer to investigate.
It would all work out in the end if she caught the killer and possibly saved Aubergine’s life.
Instead, all she found was the count’s lifeless body, with the killer nowhere in sight.
Perhaps if the military didn’t move slowly and valued action more than their precious protocol, this night might have gone differently.
The higher in the ranks she rose, the fewer people would be able to give her orders and the freer she’d be to run missions as she saw fit. But how could she prove herself if she continued to be stymied by protocol and the commands of those who thought they knew better?
Jade crept through the room toward the body, her eyes peeled for anything out of place.
Her expertise lay in espionage, and at a mere twenty-four years old, Jade had risen through the ranks of the military’s intelligence division faster than anyone in recent history.
Her skills spoke for themselves, especially in the last six months during the Conflict of Succession, after the king had unexpectedly fallen ill, paralyzed and unable to speak.
As the protectors of the ill king and the true line of succession, the military’s primary focus in the feud was on the members of the royal family and even unrelated aristocrats who vied for the throne.
Jade had provided the military with invaluable information, following the contenders for the throne and exposing some of their plans and alliances.
But even the best were not perfect. She’d been trailing the killer responsible for these murders—all people associated with the feud—since the military connected the deaths a couple of months prior and put her on the case. Still, the killer had eluded her, only to leave more victims in their wake.
Words from the slip of paper she’d burned that morning floated again in her mind’s eye. The reason she’d disobeyed orders and snuck inside.
She’d received another tip the day before. She’d known Aubergine would be killed tonight.
An unidentified informant had been sending her tips in regard to The Claim, the name by which the military referred to the Conflict of Succession.
She knew nothing about him—not even why he was helping her—but he had never steered her wrong in the nearly six months he had been sending her information.
Jade had yet to reveal the origin of her invaluable information to her commanding officer. And she wasn’t sure she would. Not when she was well on her way to her next promotion, and not when she knew nothing more about the information’s source than the words on the folded papers she received.
The flickering firelight caught Jade’s attention again and piqued her curiosity. Why had Count Aubergine lit a fire on such a sweltering night? The room was stuffy and cloying, and Jade longed for the slightly less humid air outside.
Her informant had given her the chance to prove her skills on several occasions now, resulting in two promotions in the time of The Claim. Unheard of for someone of her years and experience.
But how much of that was her own ability, and how much was because of the leads?
Pushing the thoughts of her informant out of her mind, Jade refocused her attention on the room and its only other occupant.
Count Aubergine had been supporting Lady Arabella of Fellsrin, the daughter of Reynauld Venemer, Prince of Marran in the line of Fellsrin.
Though her father was the king’s brother and true heir to the throne of Marran, Arabella sought to bypass her father for the throne.
Her controversial take on reversing the law that sentenced all magic-wielders to death had drawn much interest, including that of Count Aubergine.
No blood stained the man’s clothes, no jagged wound marred his body. To the untrained eye, there was no indication of an unnatural demise. But Jade knew better. With a gloved hand, she picked up a glass within the man’s reach on a table beside the chair.
This murderer, this unknown assailant, had a penchant for poison. And not just any poison.
Rienevoir.
A tasteless, odorless concoction from the combination of the toxins of firra root and morsbane. The plants were native to two entirely different parts of the continent and only cultivated together for the purpose of creating the poison.
Jade swirled the contents of the glass, the dark red liquid the closest thing to blood at the scene of the crime.
It would take an incredibly high concentration of the poison to cause such a quick death.
A cough would set in first, then convulsions, paralysis, and, ultimately, death.
Jade refrained from bringing the glass closer to her face, the potential toxin already uncomfortably close.
Of course, she could neither taste nor smell the poison in the drink, so there was no way to know for certain it contained the death drug, but that didn’t mean it was without tells.
She returned the glass and switched on the electric lamp situated on the table—found increasingly more frequently in the kingdom and especially in the homes of the elite—then took in the victim.
Unseeing eyes stared past her at the ceiling.
She leaned in closer, noticing the slightest tinge of green coloring the whites of his eyes.
Curious, Jade retrieved a pen from the table and used it to push back the man’s lips to reveal his gums. They were tinted the same hue.
It was subtle, and many simply attributed it to the lack of life within the deceased, but those trained in the usage of poisons interpreted the color cast differently.
She kneeled before the man, craning her neck to examine the book underneath his limp hand. Grabbing another book from the table, she pushed his hand out of the way to reveal the words on the page.
Nevermore shall the warmth of the sun bathe my skin.
Nevermore shall the call of birds reach my ears.
Nevermore shall the perfume of roses grace my nose.
I take my leave, forever gone from this place.
Nevermore to return.
Jade nearly rolled her eyes but decided against it out of respect for the dead. For as ruthless as the killer was, they were also unapologetically showy.
But the book on the man’s lap indicated that the murderer had lingered after the poison had taken effect. They must have laced the drink and then hidden somewhere nearby, just waiting for the nobleman to succumb.
Sweat formed along Jade’s brow, and she brushed it away with the back of her hand, but it stirred a thought in her mind.
Aubergine had no sweat blooming on his skin.
Jade angled her head over his, peering closely to arrive at a definite conclusion.
Even in the stifling room, no perspiration beaded along his hairline.
He was dead before the fire was started.
The killer had lit the fire.
Jade rose and turned to the fireplace, alarm bells ringing in her mind. What had been so important for the killer to remain and then light the fire?
She glided soundlessly to the large stone hearth and examined everything about it.
The excessive heat clawed at Jade, sucking air from the room and from Jade’s lungs.
The thin black mask covering the bottom half of her face, which protected her identity as an intelligence agent, only made things worse, and she wanted to tear away the high collar of her jacket.