The Queen's Assassin (Queen's Secret #1) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,23
desperate need of a friend right now.
Then, the spark of an idea comes to me. Maybe, if I help him, if I prove myself worthy, he’ll train me himself. I won’t even need to join the Guild if he can teach me what he knows. My mother and aunts will be angry, at least at first, but once they see how well I do and on my own, they’ll be proud.
The cart approaches. It’s about to be directly in front of me, and in that moment I decide.
I push through the crowd, elbowing people aside. One woman jabs me back and curses, but I just rush to the side of the cart and grab on to the wood slats. Caledon and I make eye contact, but he looks away quickly, probably thinking that I’m about to spit at him like the rest.
I have to think fast. I wish I had time for a note, but obviously that’s not an option. I reach into my bag and root around for something. A jar of salve won’t do—he’ll have nowhere to put it.
At the bottom of my bag I come upon crushed flowers wrapped inside a handkerchief. My mother gave it to me during her last visit a few years ago, when I turned fourteen, but it will have to do. I shake the dried flowers into the bag and thrust the handkerchief through the bars. “Take it.”
Caledon glances down at the handkerchief, then scoots back and opens his hands, which are tied behind his back. His fingers close around the fabric before he slides it up his sleeve. “You’re not alone,” I add impulsively, letting go of the bars just as the guard looks in my direction. I’m not sure what I’m going to do or how I’m going to do it, but I have to help him.
I back away, holding my hood across the bottom of my face, and slip through the back of the crowd. I walk a few yards, following the road, then stand on the front step of the Brass Crab to watch the cart move on. Caledon stares at me as it goes, eyebrows knit together in confusion. I can’t tell for sure whether he knows I’m the girl from the abbey.
His gaze roots me to the spot, and the world around me drifts away into the background; there’s only the road ahead, and Caledon. We remain this way—watching each other—for a long, long time, until the cart finally disappears over the hill.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Caledon
THE JOURNEY TO DEERSIA IS grueling—and painfully slow. The brittle cart bumps relentlessly over deeply rutted roads as it winds its way into the foothills of the border mountains. Before they’ve even reached the halfway point, Cal’s legs are already sore and bruised, his arms and shoulders ache from being held behind his back, his wrists chafe raw against the rough restraints.
For the first part of the trip he resists the urge to fight or flee. Even if it wouldn’t be difficult to escape from the tightly (but poorly, he notes) knotted ropes and overtake the guard and the driver, he cannot. He has been given an assignment and he must see it out.
The two men don’t speak to him. They hardly speak to each other, either, and when they do, it’s about nothing useful—just boasts about women, gambling, more women. So Cal has plenty of time to consider what happened with the strange girl in town. Who is she? Why did she give him . . . ? What did she give him? He struggles to grasp it in his fingers again. Just a scrap of cloth? Or is it a message from the Guild? He tries not to curse aloud; he’s pushed whatever it is even farther up his sleeve.
Is she his replacement? Could the Guild have already chosen the new assassin? He feels a burst of irritation at the thought. He hadn’t considered the possibility of someone taking his position so soon. And then immediately: No, he is not so easily replaced. More likely she was simply a messenger. Finally, he manages to get ahold of the edge and yanks the fabric down into a ball in his hand. He doesn’t want the guards to see that he has it. He squeezes it but doesn’t feel anything