Chapter 17 – The Night Before the Royal Assassins
Ten days left.
The arrowhead came out at dusk.
They laid me on the same black stone slab where the circle had once mended my arm. The chamber beneath the old keep still smelled of frostroot and old blood. Torches guttered in iron sconces; the standing stones watched with their carved stags, silent and ancient.
Maeve herself did the cutting this time (no songs, no light show). Just a silver knife heated in the brazier until it glowed dull red, a bowl of boiled wine and myrrh, and Evelyn's hand crushing mine so hard I felt bones grind.
I bit down on the leather strap they gave me. The taste was already familiar.
Maeve's blind eyes fixed on the wound. "Hold her," she said simply.
Two northern guards pinned my legs. Evelyn never let go of my hand.
The knife went in.
There was no warning, no gentle probing. Maeve cut straight to the barbed head lodged against the bone of my shoulder. When the silver blade scraped metal, she twisted.
I screamed into the leather.
Blood gushed hot and black, steaming in the cold air. Maeve hooked the barb with a small iron clamp and pulled.
The world went white.
I felt the head come free (wet, tearing, final). Fresh blood poured, but slower now, arterial spurts tamed.
Maeve dropped the barbed steel into a bowl with a clink that echoed like a death knell.
Evelyn never looked away. Not once.
Afterward they packed the wound with frostroot moss (thick green clumps that hissed when they touched raw flesh) and bound it tight with linen soaked in honey and goldenseal. The pain settled into a dull, constant roar, but the bleeding slowed to a seep.
I was sitting up, shirt half-on, sweat cooling on my skin and blood crusting at the corners of my mouth, when Evelyn finally spoke.
"You are never riding out with me again."
Her voice was quiet. Deadly quiet.
I met her eyes. "Try and stop me."
She stepped so close her forehead almost touched mine and spoke against my lips, breath trembling.
"I will chain you to this bed with runed iron if I have to. I will not watch you bleed for anyone again. Not even for me."
I lifted my good hand (slowly, carefully) and brushed a loose strand of hair from her face.
"Evelyn," I said softly, "I took that arrow because the story wanted Lilia dead and you painted as the monster who killed her. I took it because if the saintess dies now, half the kingdom rallies behind Cedric tomorrow with righteous fury. I took it because I can live with a hole in my shoulder a lot longer than I can live in a world where you are hated."
Her breath hitched.
"You still should have let it hit her."
"No," I whispered. "Because then I would have lost you. And that is not a price I'm willing to pay."
She stared at me for a long, trembling moment (crimson eyes wet, jaw clenched so tight I saw the muscle jump).
Then she kissed me (slow, careful, like I was made of glass and fire both). When she pulled back, her eyes were fierce.
"Ten days," she said. "Ten days and this ends. One way or another."
I nodded.
Outside the infirmary window, the northern sky burned with green and purple auroras (the old sign of coming blood).
We had perhaps twenty minutes of quiet.
Then the door opened (not burst, opened) and Captain Garrick stepped in first, snow still clinging to his cloak, face grim. Behind him came Rowena and a young runner no older than fifteen, cheeks wind-burned, clutching a dead raven in gloved hands.
Garrick spoke first, voice low.
"Your Grace. We have a problem."
He took the raven from the boy and laid it on the table beside the bloody bowl. Its wing was broken; gold-tipped feathers marked it as royal. The message capsule on its leg had already been cracked open.
Rowena unrolled the tiny strip of parchment and held it so Evelyn could read.
Tonight. Eastern wall. Storm cover.
Take the duchess alive.
The maid – dead or alive.
No mistakes.
Cedric's seal was pressed deep into the wax, almost cracked from pressure.
Evelyn's fingers went white on the parchment.
Garrick continued, "Young Tomas was on watch at the east signal tower. Spotted the bird coming in low against the storm (too low for one of ours). Brought it down with a sling-stone before it reached the royal camp. We've had the eastern wall triple-guarded since the parley, but this confirms they're coming tonight."
Rowena's eyes flicked to my fresh bandages, then to Evelyn.
"The queen's storm-mages are already singing," she said. "Wind's rising. Snow thick enough to hide a thousand men. They'll try the old smuggler's stair below the broken tower."
Evelyn's smile could have frozen the sun.
"Then let them come," she said. "We've been waiting."
She looked at me.
"Bed rest?" I asked innocently, already reaching for my sword belt with my good arm.
"Get your swords," she answered.
I stood (slowly, world tilting for a heartbeat, pain a bright white line down my shoulder and chest) and buckled on my twin blades with one hand and pure spite.
Ten days left.
But tonight, the Royal Blades were going to learn what happened when you sent wolves to hunt a stag and her shadow in the heart of a northern storm.
We walked out together into the howling dark (Evelyn's hand locked around my good one, the raven's message crumpled in her fist like a death warrant).
And the fortress held its breath.