Page 72 of Death of the Glass Angel
“He makes a damn good stew.” Felsin joked, riding alongside Janus. “Fate is not a script.” He said idly. “So Alfaris says, but everything I’ve glimpsed comes true.”
“And, it’s never clearer than that?”
“No.”
Janus ground her jaw. She would never hurt Talon. Surely fate would not come to pass?
But she had not meant to harm Eros, either. . .
Felsin leaned closer, staring over her shoulder. “What did he say? A trunk split in two?”
Sitting upright, Janus scanned the trees dotting the mountainsides. An hour passed them by as evening approached. Though her vigil had been waning, Janus shot to attention as a tall pine appeared amidst the mountains, its trunk split in twain and its two halves bent apart, charred black.
Pausing, Janus looked west. Thick forest waited off the road. Yanking Taniyn’s reins, she galloped off the path.
“My lady-” Kalid jolted in his saddle.
“This way.” Janus rode off before her men could protest. Felsin’s horse bounded past them, sprinting after her.
A mile. Janus watched the thin pines fly by as Taniyn ran through the wilderness, counting the distance. She pulled Taniyn to a stop a few minutes into the ride and scanned the trees, dismounting to get a better look.
Her boot slammed into something hidden in the underbrush, and Janus backed up. Felsin grabbed her, pulling her behind him protectively as she stared at the strange lump.
No, not a lump. A body.
One of Janus’s guards rushed forward, flipping the corpse over. Blood coated his front where his throat had been slit and chest punctured, but Janus recognized the thin hair and unremarkable face.
This was the assassin the city had been searching for. The one who had escaped.
18
Janus/Talon
I suspect you’ve done something you weren’t meant to. You lie as if deception’s your second language, but I’ve known you too long to be fooled. What did you do to that girl? The one with the red hair?
-Private letter from Sir Penna to Gemellus Instigo
The road back to the city had flown by in a blur. Guards had swarmed her until the palace courtyard, where Janus had managed to convince them to give her space. Kalid would disapprove of her using the opportunity to train for battle.
With the assassin dead, all leads had died. Janus would have to learn to defend herself; whoever wanted her dead would strike again, and she didn’t mean to die yet.
“Alright.” Janus shook her limbs, loosening them. “Hit me.”
Folding his arms, Felsin approached Janus, pressing her back to the courtyard wall. “The key to survival is perception. Listening for movements in the earth, watching the world around you. Not all assassins will appear as shadows with knives.”
Movements in the earth? Easy for an earthborn cefra to say. Janus glanced at the moss-covered dirt, tapping it with her foot.
“We’ll start with something simple.” Felsin skimmed over the courtyard. “I’m going to make a section of this garden tremble slightly. Tell me where.”
Gemellus had employed a lesson like this: he’d ask Janus to seek out tiny details in her environment while focusing on something else entirely. They had. . . not gone well.
Staring at Felsin, Janus attempted to focus, to listen. Gemellus’ worries had seemed unwarranted back then, as had Evander’s. Now that a knife had grazed her throat, Janus finally took the lesson to heart.
There, behind a table, a rock trembled slightly. Gentle reverberations snaked through the earth, barely brushing her feet. Janus nodded behind the table, and Felsin smiled.
“Good.” Felsin continued. “Now, do I seem like I’m about to attack you?”
Janus studied the man before her, his arms folded tightly, a slight frown on his face. If there was anything to read in his body language or facial expression, Janus missed it. She had never been good at this.
