The old man died quietly. Too quietly.
At least the Monarch hadn’t demanded this be a “loud” job. “Loud” jobs usually resulted in me walking with a limp for days after, because guards tended to try to protect their employers when I arrived to kill them. Even once they realized what my gray hood meant. Today, my only injury was an ache in my arm from where the old man had shoved me into a door frame before I had gutted him. The Monarch had, however, demanded it be obvious the old man had been killed by an assassin. I could not leave until someone realized the old man wasn’t dead because he had fallen and his his head.
How many times did I have to strike a body with a fireplace poker before someone noticed and came to investigate? He had even done me the courtesy of hitting his head against the corner of his desk when he had fallen. And still, no one came. Useless. His staff was useless.
My strikes had painted everything in the room with blood. Including myself. The blood on my clothes kept sticking to the skin underneath, and what was on my skin was turning itchy as it dried. And because no one was coming to see why the old man hadn’t come down for dinner yet, I couldn’t return to my room to raid my stash of medicines.
The man was not going to get any more dead than he already was. Maybe I should bang against the wall a couple of times.
“You should not have spoken out again the Monarch,” I muttered to the cooling body as I stalked to the door, hoping to hear footsteps. I did admire the old man’s bravery. He had publicly opposed one of the Monarch’s decrees. Brave, yet still a fatal choice.
Someone knocked on the door. It was about time. “My lord,” a voice asked. “Are you well?”
No. No, the old man was not.
What would make the most noise? Ah, the tiles around the hearth. I threw the poker and started running for the window as it clattered against the ceramic. The person outside the door shouted. It would have been better—better as in louder—to break the window with the poker, but a break was not guaranteed and the window swung open easily enough.
“The door is locked!” someone shouted in the hallway. Of course it was. Why would I leave the door unlocked while I was killing someone?
Hitting the window with my injured shoulder—oh, that hurt—I pushed open the glass and jumped up on the sill as keys jangled in the lock. My fingers caught the joins between the wall’s stones and I slipped out just before the door crashed open.
Skittering up the wall like a spider, I listened to the shouts and screams echoing from the room. Someone rushed to the window. The fool stuck out their head in a way that would have made it easy to remove that head if I was inclined, but of course they didn’t look up. I hung on the wall, not daring to move until they disappeared back inside.
My shoulder was screaming long before I pulled myself over the edge of the roof. A low snort drew me over the thatch to the winged horse straddling the ridgeline.
Duskwing’s beautiful pale brown coat and deeper brown mane and tail helped him fade into the shadows of the night. His wings reflected that coloring as he spread them, ready to leap into the air as soon as I was on his back. His ears swiveled and his head lifted to take in scents. We could not take off until he was certain we would not be seen. We would be dead if someone raised the alarm on us. Even if we escaped pursuers, the Monarch would execute us without concern. They did not tolerate ineptitude, especially from their own tools.
His dark eyes widened enough for me to see the whites before Dusk lowered himself to his knees for me to climb up. I must have looked terrible.
As I settled behind his wings, he trotted forward and leaped from the roof. I sagged. We just had to make it into the air. Maybe in other places, someone on a winged horse would be notable. Here in Zou Uthru, though, anyone who saw a lone flyer clad in dark clothing would assume a palace guard. Those who were allowed in the air above Zou Uthru belonged to the Monarch.
Below us, the bell began to toll as Dusk swooped away from the city and its lights. Hm. They had reported the death already?
We approached the Hall of Judgment from the island interior. The flight from the Belvedere to the Hall of Judgment should have been a short one, but to hide our path, we had to fly around the mountain. By the time Dusk started descending into the tiny courtyard deep within Judgment’s complex, my feet were so numb I felt like they would shatter when I dismounted.
Under us, the courtyard remained dark. All proceedings would have ended three hours before, whether those waiting on proceedings wanted them to or not. Closing with the harbor bell meant Judgment’s schedule was always behind, which practically guaranteed those who toiled in the harbor or the fish processors lost their petitions. You had to be present when your petition was called forth. Not being present—because the petition was supposed to have been heard the day before and you had to return to work—meant your case was dismissed.
Yet another way Zou Uthru conformed to the laws of the empire while never actually doing so.
I peered over Dusk’s shoulder as he descended, begging silently for a single lantern to show against the shadows of the courtyard. I huddled under the cloak I had left draped across Dusk’s back, teeth clenched to keep them from chattering. Every time I shifted, the old man’s dried blood pulled at my skin. I wanted fresh clothes and to bathe. I hadn’t eaten in hours, either.
But, no, the courtyard remained lightless. The wind created by Dusk’s descent snatched my swearing from my lips. I would be walking to the palace tonight. And who knew how long I would need to wait before the Monarch would appear to take the report.
I glanced at the palace. The lights were bright, which meant a party. I would be waiting on the Monarch for hours.
Dusk settled lightly on his hooves and held out his wings to let me slide off. He was not required to report in with me. The reports were mine alone. Which was fine. The fewer reminders the Monarch had of what Dusk meant to me, the better.
I opened the barrel of grain and forked out hay for Dusk while he fetched the page’s uniform I had to wear anytime I went up to the palace. As I stripped off my bloodied clothes, shivering even harder, Dusk tilted his head to eye the bright palace further up the mountain. “I could—“ he started, but I shook my head.
“You know we’ll get in trouble if you carry me up.” I finished wiping myself down with a cloth dampened in the icy water of the courtyard’s wall fountain, then took precious moments to warm my fingers under his mane. “I’ll return when I return.” At least the sturdy wool of the page’s uniform was warmer than the light tunic and trousers I had worn to infiltrate the old man’s house. And it should be warm inside the palace.
Then I opened a narrow door and jogged up the equally narrow stairs it revealed.
Officially, there were no entrances into the palace from Judgment. Unofficially, there were two: a wide, spiraling stair of laid stone, and this one. The spiral stair was the one used by Monarch and anyone who had their favor. This one was used by me and was barely more than a chute with footholds chipped into the mountain. Even with all the time I spent training, I was huffing when I reached the palace level.
I emerged into the servants’ passage of a rarely-used section of the palace. After a brief stop in one of the guest rooms to glance in a mirror so I could be sure no one would look at me and scream, “She killed someone!,” I crept into a different servants’ passage and made my way to the Monarch’s study.
The passages were far busier than they should have been at this time. People scurried past me, tension seeping from them like a fever sweat. I clutched my fake message in easy view and kept my face averted. Just another page scurrying back and forth.
The servants should have been congregated near the great hall, serving the evening meal. This corridor was usually near to silence at this time, with only alchemical light to provide some illumination for those doing the cleaning and banking the fires.
When the way was clear, I ducked into my little alcove behind the Monarch’s study and peered through the peep hole. I had expected to see no one. The Monarch would be sitting down to the meal now. I would be forgotten for hours. It was not unheard of for the Monarch to leave me here overnight, and force me to stand through the next day as well.
The Monarch was indeed not at their desk. Their daughter Bixrais was. Along with three of the deadliest alchemically augmented soldiers in Zou Uthru.
Faij was a bloodworker who could boil the blood of any person in her line of sight. Small, round, dark-skinned, and dark-haired, she had been ruling the alchemically augmented for as long as I had been alive. Well, ruling as much as the Monarch would allow. Or perhaps, ruling with the Monarch’s direction—I didn’t spend enough time with the augments to know. Which was more than acceptable to me.
Baib’s domain was metal. He was nearly as short as Faij, his chest and shoulders were almost three times as wide, and his bald head was so pale, he was almost blinding when he stood next to a lamp.
Neither of them worried me as much as Vnejiso.
A creak was my only warning before vines slithered out of the walls and floor. I launched for the door behind me, trying to slip away from the grasping tendrils. But there were so many.
Terror made the world go gray. I fought the vines, wishing for the blade I had left behind in Judgment. But I was never allowed to carry a weapon near the Monarch.
Not that a weapon would have done me much good against him.
One vine slipped around my ankle. Another grabbed at my opposite hand. And a third closed around my throat. I had trained to fight through a hold on my throat, but all of my moves were meant to fend off a solid body, not grasping, whippy vines. One pushed, another pulled, and I lost my balance. The vines jerked me through the panel that separated the alcove from the study, then dropped me in front of Vnejiso.