Page 38 of The Rising Wave

A small woman burst through the tent flaps. She was fast, running a few steps and then jumping onto a chest, using it to launch herself into the air, a curved blade in her hand. She brought it down at an angle to slice at Luc's neck, and Luc reached for his sword and arced his arm upward, cutting her hand as she brought it down.

The woman screamed as she fell, and Massi was on her as soon as she landed, a knee in her back and a knife to her throat.

With a gasp, the woman twisted up, pressing her neck against Massi's blade, impaling herself on it, and then fell down, blood gushing from her wound.

Massi turned to stare at him, shock on her face. “Did you—?”

Luc knelt beside the woman, but she was already unconscious and after a few moments, dead.

“How did you do that?” Dak asked, voice low.

“Do what?” Luc got to his feet, his gaze on the assassin, but at Dak's silence, he lifted his head, found all three were staring at him.

“I didn't even realize she was in the tent until you were cutting her hand.” Dak shook his head.

“The way you grabbed your sword . . .” Rev swallowed. “I've never seen you move like that.”

Luc frowned. “What are you talking about?”

But long after they'd taken the body away and he'd made a bed for himself in Dak's tent, he wondered.

He undressed, took Ava's handkerchief from his waistband and laid it on his pillow, as he'd done every night since he'd left her. When he lay down, he rubbed at the arrow wound on his chest.

A wound that was no longer there.

Chapter 11

Ava reached for the missive Velda held out to her, the document impressively beribboned, with beautiful beaded tassels.

“Another demand, I expect.” Velda folded her arms and stood over her as Ava delicately loosened the knot and then unfurled the parchment.

Ava read it, then looked up. “It is.”

Velda didn't sayI told you so, although she had indeed told Ava so.

Her polite letter to the Grimwalt court, letting them know the circumstances of her parents' deaths, including who was responsible, and her own escape, had not been the end of the matter.

Increasingly demanding letters for her to appear began arriving, some now no more than a few days apart.

Ava set the letter down and took up her sewing.

“It's looking good,” Velda said, eyeing it with a professional's attention.

“It will have to be.” Ava tied off the last stitch and laid the man’s shirt out.

It was, even if she said so herself, magnificent.

She had hand stitched it from the softest cotton, and then used blues and greens to embroider feathers over it.

Because Herron reminded her of a strutting, vain bird.

There was not a single black stitch in the work. She wanted to give him no reason to hesitate to put it on.

“Why did my mother tell me only black silk worked?” She tilted her head as she looked up at Velda.

“Your grandmother never understood why she clung to that. Yes, your grandmother preferred to work black silk, it was her signature, and perhaps your mother confusedpreferredwithhad to.” Velda shrugged. “Your grandmother never worked pieces like this, though. Secret pieces for the unsuspecting. When she worked an item, it was deliberately. Made to order, or as a gift. Whoever wore what she had made did so as a statement. And unless they said what working your grandmother had used, no one knew what protection they had. But people knew there was some magic involved.”

“Would she have approved of this?” Ava asked. She didn’t just mean the shirt. She meant the deceit of it.

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