Page 2 of Nightingale

Vrea made a quick call and darted left, taking the unknownhallway before she could get caught by the soldier who barreled after her. She didn’t pay any heed to the decorations on the wall, her knives banging against her hips as she ran. As a child, she’d always been fast. Fast enough that her brothers were jealous of her progress when it came to her long strides. When the summer days were hot and there was nothing better to do, she and her brothers would race around the wild plains-cat track to see who would win.

Teminos won occasionally due to his height but Vrea won due to her speed. When the youngest, Malik wasn’t glued to their mother’s hip, he was chasing after them with giggles and screeches as he too tried to run the long track. Usually they left Eamin in the dust. The second eldest, Alpheus would sometimes join, others watching from the stands as he cheered on whichever of them was his favourite for the day.

Those days in the sweltering sun came in handy now as she raced for her life. If anyone caught her, she could always drag a knife across her own throat before they could torture any information out of her. There were poisons in her bag that she could swallow before they could have the pleasure of killing her themselves. She refused to be held captive, refused to let them use her against Niroula and its Queen.

Vrea wasn’t afraid to die.

Death had never been the final thing that most saw it as but just another adventure.

If today was the day she died, then so be it.

She turned down the corridor, grunting as she almost came face to face with a brick wall. Her boots skidded before she could slam into it, her hand catching the floor before she twisted and darted for the side opening. More guards stomped after her, their steps slamming on the stone like terrifying thunder.

Vrea hated storms.

She could never sleep during them.

She checked back over her shoulder to gauge her distance from the closest sentry, who was a good six feet behind her.

“What do we have here?” A low voice called out from an opened door, shutting it behind him as Vrea halted. She spun around, already withdrawing her daggers before seeing who it was. His frozen features only made her want to pounce.

Castil Moordian stood before her, a hint of shock on his long face before it vanished as he peered up and saw the guards chasing after her. They paused, scrambling to organise themselves before one of the heirs.

Vrea didn’t wait.

She threw herself at the Prince, swiping and slashing so that at least something would come of this trip. He was ready for her, swiftly avoiding any of her hits. His hair whipped around him like a curtain of silk, white blinding her as she tried to cut him. Just to make him bleed as a consolation prize for inevitably being caught. He didn’t so much as touch his sword that remained on his hip, the scabbard flailing against his tall legs as he darted out of her path.

She let out a scream of frustration before throwing herself at him, her knives lost in the fight because she refused to go without one. Hands grabbed at her, pinning her under him as Castil straddled her and held her wrists to the cold tiles below.

“You really shouldn’t have come back, Vre.” He muttered down at her, his cold eyes glinting with something like regret.

Regret that he hadn’t killed her the first time.

“I should have poisonedyoursoup.” She spat up at him, writhing like a wild sand-serpent under him. “I didn’t come here to kill you but I should have.”

“You did promise to after all.” He whispered like a lover. “I’m surprised that this trip wasn’t about killing me. If I wasn’t your intended target, who was?”

Vrea flailed in his arms, trying desperately to free herself. “I’m not telling you.”

“I’ll have to presume Rian, then. Since his room is in the direction you burst in from.” He sighed, leaned back and let his guards come forward. They picked her off the floor like she weighed nothing and she still tried to claw their eyes out.

She yelled foul names at them, cursed Castil beyond any other insult she’d used before, and fought the entire way down to the dungeon. In the end, it wasn’t enough to prevent them from taking her items and throwing her in the cold, damp cell underneath Hawksmoor Keep.

It was there, that Vrea Greenvass waited to die.

One

Vrea Greenvass had been bred for war.

It wasn’t a talent, it wasn’t something that she thrived on or in which she earned a place for herself. No, it was the sheer cause of her birth and the sole purpose of her life. She’d been told from day one that the reason for her existence had been to take down the Moordians, who wished for everything that did not belong to them. The rival Kingdom pushed their metal-tipped toes over the borders and tested their limitations. The Kingdom had already stolen three of her siblings from her family.

Her youngest sister, Tessa, was gone with a swift stab of an assassin’s blade in the middle of the night five years ago before the girl had even turned eight. Her younger brother, Cyril, succumbed to a battle wound caused by the favourite Prince of Carylim.

Rian.

An arrogant male who knew no bounds when it came to his pride, his boldness, and his importance, which was self-imposed. Not that any of his brothers or sisters were any better, but he’d been the one to wound Cyril, a horrible cut that he’d succumbed to. His older brother, the White Knight of Carylim himself, had taken out Idris, the oldest Greenvass heir.

He hadn’t lasted another week.

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