Page 99 of Pretense

“What?” Jalissa gripped his hand, ignoring the squishy warmth of the blood.

“The other two…I think…” Edmund’s eyes fluttered as he tried to focus on her, his voice weaker than it had been.

The guards lifted Edmund. He moaned and went limp in their grip.

Rheva kept her hand pressed to his forehead. Together, she and the guards headed in the direction of Ellonahshinel’s stairs.

Jalissa pushed to her feet, hurrying after them.

“Jalissa.” Weylind caught her arm, halting her.

She turned to face him, everything in her wanting to tug her arm free. “Edmund…”

“There is nothing you can do for him.” Weylind’s gaze was sharp, cutting through her. “I know why he is here. His brother said he would be coming. But what are you doing here? You were supposed to stay in Aldon where you would be safe.”

She looked away from him, unable to hold his gaze. Behind Weylind, the kitchen was nothing but a shell of black rubble while char marks seared the trunk of Ellonahshinel’s massive tree. But the fire itself was out, likely smothered by the combination of Weylind’s shield of growing magic and Rharreth’s ice.

They made it look easy, but it had taken great power on both their parts to hold such a shield against the heat of the growing conflagration and to put out the fire with ice. Who knew how far the magic-powered fire would have spread, if Weylind and Rharreth had not worked together to put it out?

“Jalissa.” Weylind gripped her shoulders, his stern voice commanding her to look at him. “If something had happened to me and Rheva, you would have needed to stay alive to be there for Ryfon and act as his regent until he was a hundred years old. Unless you want that duty to fall onto Farrendel’s shoulders?”

She flinched. She had not thought of that, when she had thrown herself into danger. She had only thought about protecting her family and fighting at Edmund’s side, even if that fighting was from the shadows. Then he had shattered her trust with the truth of how deep those shadows went.

Yet even now, he was being carried to the infirmary, gut shot, after saving Weylind’s life.

Everything in her chest was such a tangle. Anger for his betrayal. The choking bitterness over Melantha’s earlier betrayal. That annoying weed of love that would not go away as much as she tried to kill it.

What had he been trying to tell her? Better to focus on that than on her feelings or Weylind’s glare.

“I had to keep our family safe.” Jalissa tore herself free of Weylind’s grip, hands fisted at her sides. “Going with Edmund gave me the chance to help. We tracked the spies here, and as you can see, we were able to take them down. But there are still two spies out there somewhere.”

Since neither of them had made an appearance yet, did that mean they had gone to Lethorel instead of Estyra? Was that what Edmund had been trying to tell her?

It would have been a simple thing for two of the spies to stay on the train and continue to Lethorel while the other four got off at Estyra.

Why those two spies in particular? One of them must be the sharpshooter who had targeted Farrendel before. A surprise shot from a distance was the only way to have a hope of killing him.

But why send the female spy? Would they think Farrendel was less likely to fight back against a female instead of a male? Which was likely true, but Farrendel could keep her well back if he was suspicious.

The first time Jalissa had smelled the female spy’s perfume had been in the apartment where the sharpshooter had waited for his chance.

Or was it her chance?

They had always assumed the man had been the sharpshooter, since he had rented the rooms.

But what if he had merely been the expendable one who had been assigned the boring job of watching both Winstead Palace and the main street, getting a feel for Farrendel and Elspetha’s routine? Once he saw Elspetha leaving the palace alone and realized this was their chance, the woman sharpshooter was summoned from the Sentinel to take the shots.

The female spy had not worked at the Sentinel with the others. Maybe she had been sent from Mongavaria specifically for the mission to kill Farrendel. She was the trained assassin of the bunch.

Farrendel had been warned to look for a male sharpshooter. If he spotted both spies, he would focus on the man, thinking him the greater threat.

Weylind had kept speaking, giving her some lecture about being a princess and running off nearly alone, but she had tuned him out, the better to let him get out his grumpiness all at once.

But now she held up a hand, meeting his gaze again. “We need to warn Farrendel. The female Mongavarian spy is the sharpshooter. Or maybe both are sharpshooters, I do not know. But we need to warn Farrendel. I think the other two spies are headed for Lethorel.”

That snapped Weylind’s mouth shut. He gave a brisk nod. “I will send the message, though I will instruct my guards to continue to search for the last two spies here.”

Of course. They could not assume anything at this point.

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