That thought broke something inside her, releasing the tears she’d held back. As she hurried down the bright street, shoving through crowds at the marketplace, she couldn’t stop the wrenching agony.
My men will hunt you down.
She pressed a hand to her chest where the blade had made its mark, feeling the warm blood stick to her shirt. The months of standing by Eirik’s side flashed through her mind. Every time they fought, they made up, passionately. Nothing had come easy for them. Their connection built slowly, like a trickling stream that opened up into a rushing river.
And now…they’d spread out into the fathomless sea with an unsurmountable distance between them.
“I need you,” she whispered. “Now.”
Like her people in Bela, Ara’s magic allowed her one power. She could speak to people at great distances. It had no use in hand to hand combat, but it made her the perfect spy, relaying her messages to the queen directly rather than sending information on journeys across the sea.
And now? It brought her closer to the one ally she had left.
TWO
NEVER TRUST A warlord.
That was the advice Ara’s brothers gave her before she accepted this mission. Their father died of illness, leaving her brothers his estate in Gaule, the army she’d once led as their general.
Because she wasn’t one of them. She never had been. Unlike their mother, her own mother wasn’t of Gaule. She came from Bela, the land of magic, and had the ancient power in her blood, transferring it to Ara and marking her for persecution by the people of Gaule.
All that was in the past, but did one ever truly escape their old lives? Would she ever stop missing the safety her father created for her as a child?
Cana was the opposite of safe, but the queen had told her if she stuck to her mission, she’d survive the savage land. No one could know what she was.
Cana’s unforgiving warriors would stop at nothing to destroy their enemies. They couldn’t be trusted to keep their allegiances, but their skill, that was never in doubt.
Never trust a warlord.
Wasn’t that what she’d done? She’d told herself that by keeping her secrets from Eirik, she was safe from him.
Now, as the pieces of her scattered along the dusty road at her back, she knew safety for what it was: an illusion, a lie.
The searing heat of the sun beat down on the stones underneath her feet. She wiped sweat, or maybe tears, from her face as she wound her way through the small town that served as the capital of the plains province of Cana.
Cana had no king. Instead, the land was carved and divided between the six warlords who controlled the assassin academies.
In a way, it was a much more primitive land than the surrounding kingdoms. They did not build large palaces or great cities.
Instead, small towns of stone and wood dotted the landscape all the way to the mountains.
Ara ducked out of the way as the tavern door slammed open, and the petite Astrid stepped through, broom in hand. Astrid was the only woman in Cana who didn’t look to Ara and her peculiar silver hair with scorn and suspicion.
But this wasn’t the day for idle chatter, so she stepped into the alleyway between the tavern and butcher shop. It ran the length of the buildings before pouring out onto a mostly deserted street behind the town center.
Ara glanced both ways before pressing herself up against the building and sliding down to sit on the ground, pulling her knees into her chest as her back shook.
She didn’t know how long she sat there before another voice entered her sanctuary.
“This doesn’t look like the Ara I know.”
She lifted her face to find Edmund Kent staring down at her, and something in her chest eased. “I screwed up.”
He gave her a slow smile and sat next to her. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
Her shoulders dropped, and she buried her face in her hands. “I’ve been so alone here, Edmund.”
Until the delegation arrived from Bela a week ago, she’d been on her own in Cana with no allies, no one who’d have her back if it came to a fight. Such was the life of a spy.
And then Edmund appeared like an angel out of her darkness. He led a delegation comprising of both Belaens and Madrans who wished to broker a peace treaty for all the Six Kingdoms. It was the wish of the queen of Bela as