Page 136 of Burn

My fingers unhitched the staff whilst my other hand choked the dagger. Cautioning forward, I stalked my prey’s movements. It wasn’t her. Oh nay, I was fluent in the princess’s motions, and these didn’t match.

When another swatch of air hit my chest, I seized in place. With a fiendish curl of my lips, I counted. Then I windmilled the staff over my shoulder and blocked the incoming hammer that struck from behind. The impact caused the figure to grunt and stumble. Ducking another swipe, I twisted, juggled the staff mid-rotation, and intercepted additional blows.

More of the pack flooded the hall, steel and iron resounding. Mayhap nine of them, none making a sound other than panting and grumbling with exertion.

From the margin, Aire flew into the passage and brandished his swords. Wielding them like a set of tornadoes, the knight sliced through his opponents.

At the opposite end, Jeryn gutted into the attackers with a methodical, systematic technique that proved no less ruthless. Like an afterthought, he diced through several figures at once, blood gushing from their arteries and spraying the window. At one point, I caught a flash of his knife skewering someone’s throat and popping out from the other side.

Two more shitheads joined my adversary. With a deadly hiss, I exploded into motion, whirling and slingshotting past them whilst crackling their limbs with my staff, then streaking my dagger across their stomachs. Spinning back the way I’d come, I swept the first attacker’s hammer from their grip and rammed it into their skull.

Bone crunched. Bodies collapsed.

A team of voices howled with agony and something akin to righteous sacrifice. Rather than stealth, they fought with brawn and anger. Pity for them, though vaguely it didn’t sit right with me.

By the time we were done with them, ten corpses littered the floor. Crimson drenched my chest as well as Jeryn’s fur and Aire’s hauberk. Some of our guests were missing a few body parts, compliments of Winter.

I knelt, trying to identify the men and women’s lifeless features. Tragically, the meager light drizzling from the window denied me that luxury. My fingers stole out to feel the texture of a man’s cloak when Aire’s murmur snatched my attention.

“There’s more of them,” the knight heaved. “I sense a residue in their wake.” He pointed down what appeared to be an abutting channel. “They passed through there recently. The east wing.”

“That makes zero sense,” Jeryn sneered, punctuating the last word by wiping his blood-soaked knife across his shirt and then aiming it in the corresponding direction. “Your trajectory leads to the throne room, the assembly halls, and the nobility apartments.”

Despite himself, Aire bristled. “With all due respect, I know where the hell it leads, Sire.”

“Then you would also know it’s an idiotic choice. Anyone going there would hit a sequence of dead ends, plus a few trivial exits leading to a fucking vegetable garden.”

“Fair enough, Your Highness. Except you’re assuming the trespassers won’t use the restricted passages in that vicinity.”

“Which are among the most heavily guarded, irrespective of a blackout,” the prince argued.

Aire lifted his virtuous chin. “East is the faithful way.”

“Fuck the faithful way,” Jeryn griped, disgusted by the mere concept. “North is the logical way.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I sighed, jamming my blade into its case. “Infiltrate the east wing,” I commanded to Aire before turning my lethal glower on the iceberg to my right. “And you can infest the north for all I give a shit. I’m for the south wing.”

The knight and prince split, their outlines dissolving into the black. Aire knew these outlets, whereas I only guessed how the fuck Jeryn had figured it out. Though with Winter’s reputation for being a walking encyclopedia, I wasn’t about to question his trivia prowess. Routinely, this world gave the prince’s malevolent brain credit for knowing more facts than any human on the continent.

Ergo, he was right. No trespassers would intentionally head to an area where the secret channels had the greatest number of guards apart from the Royal wing. Not if they wanted to quit the castle with a gagged—if not murdered—princess in tow.

Still, Aire’s intuition wasn’t unfounded. Not if there was a remote chance they already had Briar.

As for Winter’s rational direction, it likely had to do with the servants’ quarters in the north wing being the least patrolled area. Therefore, the easiest way out.

But one thing I had on them was this: Intimate knowledge of my princess.

I’d know if she was near. Her scent, her breath, and her heartbeat would alert me. Until then, I burrowed into her mind, attuning myself to how she thought. If I’d found her once before, deep in the wilds of this kingdom, I could find my thorn in this castle.

Stalking along the perimeter, I melted into the shadows. The bitter tang of blood coated my teeth, a glob of it having struck my mouth. Wiping my sleeve over my lips, I pursued the darkness, the silence and emptiness like a crypt.

Turning a corner, my boot slipped on an object—some type of cloth. Hunching over, I kept my eyes on the darkness ahead whilst snatching the item off the ground.

My fingers traced its slender shape, identifying the frayed texture of cotton. Bringing it to my nose, I inhaled the essence of tart apples. My pulse ceased, fear and fury converging. I hardly needed light to see what I held, for it would be thin and dyed the color of scarlet, a precious relic that belonged to her.

It was a ribbon.

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