Page 139 of A Dance of Shadows

I was hoping to startle and intimidate her into giving up a clue. A glance toward her conspirators—or her overseer, if she has one. A protest that reveals more than it hides. Even a guilty confession. The slow and steady approach to interrogation doesn’t appear to have turned up anything with her colleague.

It’s clear I’ve got the right person—and that she recognizes she’s caught. Her entire body goes rigid, her face tightening in turn. But she only looks at me.

“I will be on the right side!” she cries out, and yanks her sword from its hilt.

Gods above, she’s willing to stab me right here in front of everyone.

I throw myself backward with a stumble as my belly pushes me off-balance. The woman’s swing falters, her head jerking with a frantic blinking of confusion—did Lorenzo blind her with an illusion?

One of my guards is already leaping in to drag me farther away, while Kassun dives in with his own sword drawn. A yelp bursts from my lips, more out of fear for my attacker than for me. We won’t get any answers if she’s dead.

But Kassun’s sword is already plunging into her chest.

As the assassin sags forward, blood splatters the stone tiles. My other guard tugs me farther away, muttering curses under her breath. More of the soldiers surge forward to close in around their treacherous comrade.

With a thud of hurried feet, Marc bursts into their midst. “What in the realms is going on?” he demands. His gaze falls on me, and his mouth twists in anguish at whatever emotion he sees on my face.

Kassun steps back, hefting his bloody sword, his own expression fraught. “This soldier—Her Imperial Highness must have realized something was wrong—all she did was speak to her, and out came the sword. She’d have killed our empress.”

Marc crosses the last space between us with a rough breath and grasps my arm. “Are you all right? Did she hurt you at all?”

I start to shake my head and realize he might not be able to tell which question I’m answering. “I’m uninjured.” My gaze falls to the slumped guard. “Is she— Is there any way to heal her? We can’t know more about why she lunged at me without questioning her.”

One of the other soldiers has knelt next to his sprawled colleague, feeling the side of her neck for a pulse. He looks up at us with a frown. “She’s dead.”

Marc inhales sharply and spins toward the rest of the courtyard. “Axius! Where’s my fucking high commander?”

The grizzled military man pushes through the crowd to join us. He takes in the scene, and his broad frame tenses. “Your Imperial Eminences?—”

Marc doesn’t give him a chance to finish. His voice comes out hard as the tiles beneath our feet. “You were careless in your job once, and I gave you a second chance. I won’t make that mistake again. When we reach Vivencia, you can consider yourself relieved of duty, and I’ll be looking for a new imperial military advisor—one who won’t let assassins slip past his watch.”

He slides his arm right around me and guides me toward the waystation, ignoring the guards who trail after us. “Let’s get you somewhere quiet. The shock— Blast them all. Are you sure you’re all right?”

I inhale deeply to steady myself. Iwasa little shaken by the woman’s sudden violence. And what did she mean about being on the “right side”? Does she think I’m on the wrong side?

Sides ofwhat?

I don’t trust the man beside me enough to share my confusion with him. Instead, I simply say, “It was startling, but I was prepared for hostility. Just not quite that much. It’ll only take a few moments for my nerves to settle.”

As we pass through the waystation door, Marc lets out a rough sound. “You shouldn’t have been prepared, because you shouldn’t be confronting hostile parties on your own in the first place.”

He says nothing further on that subject until he’s ushered me into my small but comfortable bedroom on the second floor. A fire is already crackling in the hearth, its heat welcome even if the sight of the flames makes my pulse stutter momentarily.

Marc guides me over to the lush bedspread and sits down next to me. He brings his hand to the side of my face, his grayeyes more stormy with emotion than I’ve ever seen them. “What were you thinking, Aurelia? This is what we have guardsfor. If you suspect someone wishes you harm, you let the people who’ve trained for that job step in.”

He looks so distraught I can’t suppress a pang of guilt.

I take his other hand in mine. “I really am fine. I thought it’d be harder for her to lie if she was faced with the person she’d meant to hurt. Which I suppose did turn out to be true. I only underestimated her boldness.”

Marc sputters a chuckle. He strokes his thumb across my cheek, holding my gaze. “My fierce, unshakeable, pacifist empress. In all my life… I wasn’t expecting when we started…”

He trails off, his brow knitting. I’ve never heard him at such a loss of words before.

“I’m sorry I worried you,” I offer.

The apology earns me another chuckle, this one not quite as rough as the first. “I don’t know if I should ask you to stop amazing me, because I wouldn’t want you to be less amazing. I might simply wish it involved a minimum of life-threatening circumstances. I don’t know what I’d do…”

He pauses again with an audible swallow. My skin tingles as if an unseen energy has coursed through the air.

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