Princeps’ Fury

There were running footsteps. Then a hissing sound-a knife’s blade cutting the air as it was thrown, Amara judged. Falco let out a scream of agony and, from the sound of it, stumbled and fell. There was the sound of quick, light footsteps, then a gurgling sigh.

Amara moved forward until she could see the woman clearly.

She wasn’t pretty, precisely, but she was fit, her features strong and appealing. She wasn’t particularly tall, but her stance was confident, her motions brisk and sure, blending into a sense of competence that permeated her entire presence. She wore leather flying trousers and a dark blouse. The latter was silk, and it was torn, revealing a swath of smooth skin. Her eyes were the color of rich earth after a rain. Blood speckled her face.

A large man’s body lay on the tunnel floor, his head twisted at a grotesque angle, his tongue protruding from between motionless lips: Ranius. A second man lay prone at her feet. He wasn’t dead yet, technically, though the blood pumping from his slit throat into a pool on the stone floor was beginning to slow. A small throwing knife protruded from the hollow of one of his knees, precisely centered, sunk to the hilt.

The woman crouched down over him and smoothed the man’s hair with her hand. “I’m sorry, Falco,” she said quietly. “I can’t let you give me away. I’m sorry you had to be afraid for so long. But your life ended weeks ago.”

The man on the floor let out a small moan that ended in a little rattle. There was a terrible finality to the sound.

The woman bowed her head for a moment, then took her hand from the man’s hair and spoke, her tone a quiet eulogy. “There are worse things to be than a coward. It was cleaner than anything they’d have given you.”

She then began cleaning the bloody knife in her hand on his clothing. Once that was done, she jerked the throwing knife from the corpse’s leg and cleaned it as well. She rose, her motions still brisk-then froze.

Amara hadn’t made a sound or moved, but the woman shifted her grip on her knife and turned to face back down the tunnel, toward her, her body moving into a ready crouch, one hand held out in front of her, the little weapon lifted and ready to be thrown. Her eyes were narrowed, questing up and down the hall, her head tilted slightly, one ear a little forward, and her nostrils were wide as if questing for a scent.

Amara felt a second of sharp amusement. In any tunnels other than those leading to slave pens, she supposed her odor, anything but charming after weeks in the field, might well have given her away.

She put a hand on her husband’s chest to warn him back, and took two steps forward, letting her feet strike the stone, slowly lowering the veil around her as she did.

The woman froze for a moment, then her eyes widened in recognition. “Countess Amara?”

“Hello, Rook,” Amara said quietly. She stepped forward, lifting her empty hands, and faced the former head of the late High Lord Kalarus’s Bloodcrows, the mistress of his personal assassins. Rook’s defection and subsequent cooperation with the Crown had been responsible, as much as anything else, for Kalarus’s downfall.

But what is she doing here?

After a moment, Amara asked, “Are you going to throw that knife?”

Rook lowered the weapon at once, rising out of her crouch a bit more slowly, letting out a long, steady exhalation. Then she slipped the weapon away and averted her eyes. “Don’t talk to me.”

“It’s all right,” Amara said slowly. “I’m a Cursor. I understand what you did. I know you aren’t the enemy.”

Rook let out a low, bitter croaking sound that might have been intended as a laugh. Then she lifted her chin, still without looking at Amara, and tugged the collar of her torn blouse back from her throat.

A simple steel band gleamed there, a familiar slaver’s device.

A discipline collar.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Countess,” Rook said quietly. “I am.”

CHAPTER 28

Isana met the tribal chiefs of the Icemen two days later, at the same place she had spoken with Big Shoulders.

“This is ridiculous,” Lady Placida said, pacing back and forth in the new snow. She was huddled beneath layered cloaks and shivering. “Honestly, Isana. Over the centuries, don’t you think someone would have noticed if the Icemen were watercrafters?”

“Don’t let the cold make you cross,” Isana said, struggling to ignore it herself. There was a certain amount watercrafting could do to mitigate the cold, by keeping blood flowing steadily throughout her own limbs, and by convincing the snow and ice not to be quite as chilling to her flesh as it might be otherwise. Combined with a good cloak, it was enough to make her comfortable, but just barely. She doubted Aria had ever had need to practice the combination of techniques before, and despite the fact that her skills were almost certainly greater than Isana’s own, the High Lady was the one being forced to pace back and forth.