Page 6 of An Honored Vow

I held a hand to Gwyn’s cheek. It was soft and unmarred, unlike her belly. I didn’t want her skin marked any more than it already was. “Hold your post.” I turned to Fyrel. “No matter what. You’re our eyes. Our lives are fully in your hands.”

Fyrel straightened and placed her hand over her face and then her chest. “Yes, Mistress.”

I raised a brow.

“I mean, Keera.”

Gwyn pulled me into a quick embrace. “Don’t spare any of them,” she whispered. There was a wicked undercurrent to her words, dangerous like the sea on the brink of a storm. It unsettled me how easily the young girl who shook in anticipation of the presents I might bring her now spoke of death. The war had changed her so much. Who would she be at the end of this? If she even survived.

I squeezed her back and nodded.

We slipped under the cover of darkness and stalked along the eastern alleys of the city. Elaran and Gerarda crept behind me, knees bent, darting from shadow to shadow along the empty alleyways.

I held out my hand as we came to a wide street. It was deserted apart from three stragglers who had yet to return to their homes from the pubs and pleasure houses.

Gerarda reached for her sleeping darts, but I stayed her hand. Unconscious bodies would be too easy to spot; we needed a better distraction.

I let my chest fill with the whirlwind magic that came from my lungs and took control of the air around us just enough to create an inconspicuous breeze. With a wave of my hand, the hat flew off the middle man’s head and rolled down the street in the opposite direction of our path.

They all chased after it, drunk with ale and laughter, as the three of us crossed the street unseen. Silstra was unusually quiet. It was not one of the larger cities in the kingdom, but there were always people meandering through the streets late into the night.

A sound echoed in the alley, and we all went still.

Elaran pulled the smooth gold pin from her hair. It was sharper than a knife on either end and perfectly balanced. Her fingers tightened around its middle as she pointed to a barrel at the end of theway. She crept along the wall, hidden in shadow, making no sound. I understood why Hildegard had chosen her to spy on Curringham and the other lords for years. She was perfect.

Elaran lifted her tiny spear to strike but froze.

Gerarda nocked an arrow, assuming Elaran had been hit.

But she just stuck the gold rod back into her bountiful curls. She turned, and a small rodent-like creature scurried down the alley behind her. Its tail glowed bright red before it disappeared between a crack in the wooden building.

“Orchard mouse.” Gerarda sighed, her shoulders relaxing. They had reappeared across Elverath, continuously searching for their favorite snack—winvra—but the magical berries had not replenished as quickly as the mice had returned.

I signaled to keep moving forward. Elaran and Gerarda fell in step behind me as we came to the house that Victoria had been using to hide and feed Halflings. What had once been a house in shambles, with its decrepit roof and rot in the walls, was now a total ruin. Burnt wood covered the ground.

The building had abutted the same house that Damien had thrown Maerhal into. Whether the purple flames had ignited the refuge or Victoria had done it with intent, I didn’t know. Dynara’s message had been short.

Get there soonwas all it had said apart from the instructions on where to find them.

Thankfully Victoria’s hideaway had been moved. Tarvelle had seen to it that all the safe houses in Silstra were changed after the last was burned in purple fire. He had done it out of suspicion of me, and ultimately that suspicion had cost him his life. Damien had used his obvious distaste for my past as the perfect scapegoat to hide his true mole among our ranks.

Collin.

He had injected Collin with the same kind of elixir he had put into me. But where Damien had only forged a connection between our minds through dreams, he had given himself full control over Collin’s dreamscape. Wearing the face of Killian in Collin’s dreams, Damien had gathered all the information he needed to keep watch over his brother’s rebellion in the west and use it to his advantage.

Like the locations of our safe houses. I gripped my blade. Even though Damien’s soldiers had been scattered in the chaos of recent weeks, I had to be prepared for the possibility that Damien was using these Halflings as a trap.

We were all still stuck in his game.

“It should be around the next bend,” Gerarda whispered, pointing to the decrepit temple at the end of the alley.

I ran to the end of the lane and froze. The glamour hiding the safehouse blew away on the evening breeze.

Where a long wooden beam had fallen through the rafters and onto the ground now sat a hole.

Not a hole, but an entrance. Five steps were crudely carved into the dirt leading to a thick stone door. It stood upright, the top of it at ground level, hiding the dugout underneath. Elaran and I walked down the steep steps, both of us stretching our legs and using our hands to climb down. I grazed the divots in the stone door; the hammer that had forged it was quick and imprecise.

My magic stirred, raising the hairs on my neck.

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