Page 63 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

The locket with Sabine’s portrait is clutched so tightly in my fist my knuckles are white. I shove it into my pocket, where it clinks against a coin.

I pause, taking out the Golath dime that Rian gave me when I became First Sword. For a moment, I run the pad of my thumb over it, thinking of happier times.

But then, someone shouts.

Within, oh, two seconds…the entire castle is in chaos.

Bodyguards thunder down hallways in a search for me, but it’s almost laughably easy to avoid them. I hear their footsteps from halfway across the castle as they crash up stairs and race down hallways with swords drawn, ready to separate my head from my shoulders.

But they’ll have to catch me first.

As a set of four guards descend from Wisdom Tower,where they ransacked my room, I pull back into a spare guest bedroom. They tromp by me like clattering tin cans in their armor. Once they’ve passed, I slip out in the opposite direction to the senior servants’ quarters on the fifth floor.

When I rap my knuckles against the last door on the left, I hear the sheets rustling inside as someone groggily flails his hand against the slumbering person beside him.

A male voice says, “If you get it, my radiant jewel, I’ll bury my face between your knees for a full hour tonight.”

“Oh, please,” a woman’s voice groans, “I’d be bored after five minutes.”

After a long-suffering sigh and the rustle of a dressing gown, the door is swept open, and a surprised face takes in the bloody mess that isme.

Ferra’s face is scrubbed of makeup, and for once, her long hair is her natural ash-brown shade. I’ve grown so used to seeing her use her godkiss to give herself lilac locks or electric coral lips that I blink hard, startled by how young she really is.

I tip my head carefully, all too aware that massive blood loss from a head wound won’t end well. “Lady Ferra.”

Her initial surprise quickly gives way to feminine annoyance as she folds her silk-clad arms across her chest, her nails flashing like talons as she drums them against her upper arms.

“Wolf Bowborn? What are you doing here? All I need, the second man within a minute to prove he’s utterly useless without a woman.” She sighs as she looks over her shoulder at the lump on the other side of her bed.

Folke has the sharp instincts of a soldier, but after our night in the burned-out house, he apparently also gained the thirst of a drunk. The smells of booze and sex roll offhim, but at least it’s only Ferra’s scent on his cock, and not some stranger’s from the brothel.

“Folke, I believe this dolt is here for you.” Ferra tosses a pillow onto the lump, and Folke grumbles from an impending hangover.

“Actually—” I snatch a satin scarf that’s drooped over a nearby chair and use it to mop up the blood streaking down the right side of my face, “—I might need you, too, Ferra.”

Outside, the Valor Bell begins clanging a relentless alarm. I wince. “It’s, ah, urgent.”

“Oh, you stupid man.” She puffs out a blast of air. “What have you done?”

“Probably best if you don’t know.”

The alarm bell makes Folke shoot upright with both hands clamped against his ears. “Gods in hell, it feels like that bell is clattering inside my skull!”

Guards’ boots sound one floor below, headed for the stairs, and I clench my jaw and push into Ferra’s room, ripping the sheet off Folke’s half-naked body. “Up. Now. I need to be out of this castleyesterday.”

His hands fall away from his ears, and when he sees the look on my face that says I’m serious, he miraculously sobers up. Suddenly sharp, he swings his feet onto the floor. “Ferra, close the door.”

She doesn’t hesitate, and shoves a chairback under the knob for good measure.

“Get dressed, my jewel.” Folke throws her a gown from her wardrobe, then finds his shirt hanging over the bedrail and tugs it over his head. Footsteps clatter up the nearby stairs loud enough for him to grimace.

“I guess there’s no going out that way,” he murmurs.

He throws open the single window, looks down, thenpulls a coil of rope out from under the bed. One end is already secured in a bowline knot to the nearest of the bed’s heavy oak legs.

“You had an escape system at the ready in Ferra’s room?” I ask.

He snorts as he shoves me toward the window. “I’ve spent enough time in the Sin Streets to know that these regal hallways are just as deadly—and no woman of mine is going to be a sitting duck.”

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