[22] Hassan's Rumpus Room

Shannon lay on her side like a glob of semisolid lead half-sunken into the feather mattress. Moonlight streamed acutely through a series of paned windows. In this world, at night, in the higher tiers of the castle, no sound existed at all. Even after the days Shannon spent here, the silence crept against her hard and spiny. Home, there was always something humming, writhing, rushing, even if the sound was quiet, even if you became so accustomed to it you never heard it. The sound of the machine at work. Here there was no sound at all.

At least, until Mallory started snoring.

Not soft, ladylike snores either. Huge honking inhalations followed by blasts of hot breath that stirred the hairs on the back of Shannon's neck. So much for the queen's fair face. Impossible conditions for sleep!

Sneaking away in the middle of the night, a technique Shannon employed a few times in her life—mainly in college, when she always had a dorm down the hall awaiting her—would not prove possible here. Mallory's arm gripped Shannon's body like she were a stuffed animal, and compared to the queen Shannon was as strong as one. Worse yet, in sleep Mallory snaked a shin over Shannon's leg. The force necessary to break the hold would certainly wake her, so essentially, Shannon was pinned.

Seriously? Holding someone like this while sleeping was a romance novel cliché, nothing more. There couldn't be a more uncomfortable bedtime arrangement, and although many a dopey ex-boyfriend tried, Shannon hadn't met one who didn't let go and roll over after a few miserable minutes of bone and body heat.

Her Majesty, however, seemed perfectly content to continue clinging. "I trust only what is mine," "I am the only one in this castle strong enough to keep you safe," yes-yes Mallory dear, and that was all very hot and Shannon very much appreciated the way you shoved her down against the sheets while fingerfucking her, but once playtime ended one had to return to work and Shannon had lots of work to do. She at least needed a restful night's sleep or the whole point of this little dalliance—improving her focus and concentration—was lost.

Mallory snuggled closer to Shannon's back and honked another snore into her ear.

So did this make Shannon bi now? Whatever. Whatever worked, and this conveniently solved Shannon's issue with no need for contraceptives. Potential political ramifications, though, that could turn troublesome. Mallory claimed her maidservants "belonged to her," which may or may not be true, but either way it was a well-traveled castle and one duke or another must have eyes and ears—rumor would circle sooner or later. Shannon's status as heroine and the queen's status as queen would mitigate any stupid superstitious stone-the-sodomites shtick (did lesbianism count as sodomy? Probably not), but Meretryce or at least Mordac would be more than willing to play the card if it ever became convenient or they thought they could get away with it.

Ideally, Shannon should play both sides. If Mallory's possessiveness continued beyond the realm of dreams, then Shannon had essentially wormed into her confidence. It'd be possible to leverage this position to secure the permissions the sewage plan needed. After all, while the dukes were powerful, from the things they said at the roundtable conference the queen possessed veto power and, unlike many other smaller goings-on, would probably be assed enough to use it against a massive public works project initiated by her bitterest enemies at court. If Shannon curried favor with Mallory, though, it would signal to the dukes that the relationship was beneficial to their interests, and ensure they kept it mum.

Maintaining good relations with both parties would be tricky long-term. But Shannon had the advantage of human history on her side. The modern world was superior to the medieval by every observable metric. In politics, there were usually winners and losers, but that was only true in a world forced to wait for the gradual onward trek of progress. Advancements in health, agriculture, and trade universally benefitted everyone. And what Shannon personally wanted was irrelevant to their profits, so they had no reason not to assist her with her goal as long as she assisted them with theirs.

Yeah, using her body this way was somewhat sluttish, but this was a world where the machine didn't hum. She needed any advantage, unless she wanted to be like she was at the monastery, dogging Jay's heels and shouting unheard into the sky. Speaking of Jay, she should probably keep an eye on him to ensure he didn't do something totally idiotic, although she figured he would default to the same behavior as at home: keeping to his room, talking to nobody, doing nothing. Just in case, Shannon would have Gonzago or someone spy on him.

Oh, right. And DeWint had Ollie. Shannon forgot to go to his office like she said. Well, there was always tomorrow—

A shaft of moonlight darkened.

This sudden change caused Shannon's eyes to divert to the now-black window. What she saw froze her rigid. Something was there. Something was at the window, a figure, a black shape, and her heart pounded in her chest until she realized—oh, that spider girl. Right, right. She'd mentioned something about coming back at night, and spiders could easily climb even the sheer walls of the castle, right. Fairly inconvenient timing, but whatever. Not sure why she wanted to talk to Shannon anyway.

The latch on the window unlatched. The window slowly, silently swung open. Shannon's heart continued to beat, coming down off the sudden stressor. She wondered if she could hiss for the spider to go away without waking Mallory.

A leg slipped through the open window.

A human, non-spider leg.

Still silent. The leg came down, the body after, the figure a man whose face was covered by a dark cloth strung from cheek to cheek, only sharp eyes glinting. Glinting at her.

"Mallory," Shannon whispered breathlessly.

The man drew from his sheath a saber.

"Mallory!"

She seized the queen's arm and shook it as the man lunged.

—

Come visit me again later. That's what Viviendre said. Unspecific about when exactly was "later," but now it was night. Not that Jay knew he wanted to go back anyway.

Obviously, he thought about fifteen million times in the intervening period (which he spent pacing the serpentine corridors of the castle and the academy), Viviendre ensnared him with some magic. Obviously! Then he'd think, well here he is now, not having seen her or existed in the cloud of her perfume for the past however many hours, and nothing changed, did it? Well that meant nothing, no guarantee the magic was tied to direct exposure, especially if it originated instead from the relic.

Then he got a really insidious thought, one that wormed its way between the cracks, a thought driven mainly by being bored of the same circuitous arguments he proposed to himself all day, something injected solely to liven the discussion: What if he actually liked her?

What if he actually liked her and all this protestation and worrying about magic was his way of, once again, self-sabotaging. Like at the monastery. Jay didn't forget. At the monastery he was a hundred feet from his goal and suddenly wanted to turn back. Why? Because the archbishop was a plant. That wasn't the real reason of course.

No. Now that Perfidia was gone, he couldn't lean on excuses. He couldn't blame some cosmic Master. Did he like Viviendre? He asked himself that. Tried to ask it honestly. Why would he like her? He tried to conjure a rational explanation out of the aether, came up only with things like: She's crippled, she's inbred, she smells like saturated candy canes, she's crude, she's untrustworthy, and so on. Frankly it'd make more sense for him to like Lalum, who was half arachnid.

At home, Jay played fantasy RPGs. Western, eastern, real-time, turn-based, didn't matter. On a few occasions he'd gone online to join a community of fans for a particular game or sub-genre, thinking maybe there'd be something of interest. Every time he quickly left after realizing the community was comprised of people in love with the fictional women who inhabited those games. Utter aliens. The overt sexualization in some games only ever annoyed him, and until he met these people, he thought it must've annoyed everyone. Jay used the best characters, the ones with the strongest stats or the most useful abilities. If he "liked" a character, it was because that character carried the party on his or her back through one dungeon after another. The stories in those games were all essentially the same anyway, the characters repetitions of standard archetypes: Upstart youth, veteran knight, mentor wizard, the love interest, et cetera. Most times his eyes glazed during the lengthy streaks of dialogue and exposition.

But that wasn't always the case, was it. There was a time when he devoured those stories, wasn't there? There was a time when he'd use characters that made him laugh, or had a cool weapon, or said something interesting.

Which meant it wasn't impossible.

Jay kept fighting himself even as he walked with purpose toward Viviendre's room. He knew, irony being what it was, that whichever way he fell would be the wrong way, that if he went to Viviendre he was blundering into her trap, that if he stayed away he was trashing his own attempt at wringing some enjoyment from this world. Whether Viviendre were harmless or not, whether she were deceiving him or not, depended on whether he knocked on her door.

He knocked on her door.

No need to wonder whether Viviendre were present, since her attendant Jreige remained standing outside, stalwart and without giving Jay a glance.

Jay waited.

Maybe he should knock again—then he heard the clack. Clack. Clack. And the door opened.

"Remarkable," Viviendre said. "The great hero Jay Waringcrane of the Cleveland Browns shitty football team. To what do I owe the honor?"

"Yeah, yeah," Jay said.

"Ah! Well! If you insist, I suppose I must allow you inside. I cannot possibly reject a hero's direct request, can I?"

Gripping the door for support, she made as deep an ironic bow as she could, which was not very deep, although she made up for it with a grandiose flourish of her hand.

"Milady," said Jreige, the moment Jay took his first step.

"Jreige—I told you—"

"Yes, milady, I am aware. I shall not attempt to prevent you from doing what you wish to do. I only remind you that there are certain matters I am obligated to report to your brother—"

"Yes, yes! But fear not, my tireless nanny. I said before I intend nothing uncouth and I seek to keep that promise. Isn't that right, hero?" Her eye shot up at him.

"I get the feeling I'm more likely to keep that promise than you," Jay said.

"See? There. The hero's a true hero, pure of heart and all that. So fuck off Jreige."

Jreige said nothing else and Jay entered Viviendre's bedchamber, which was furnished similarly to his own, but drowned in her trademark scent. Like always, it took a few moments to get used to the overpowering sweetness. He found himself wafting his hand over his nose.

"I mean it of course," Viviendre said. "Try anything unwarranted and I scream."

She kept saying that, but Jay wondered what polite society would say about her inviting a man to her private quarters late at night anyway. Then again, she probably didn't give a shit about polite society—and neither did Jay.

"So that guy outside is your brother's lackey," he said.

"Of course. Do you think I get my own lackeys?" She hobbled across the room to a small table, where she stopped to catch her breath. The two windows on the wall at her back, facing away from the moon, were sets of black squares curtained by lush red drapery that showed brightly even in the dusky, low light of the room, given off by only a couple of candles. "If I want something done I either have to ask DeWint or I must pay someone to do it."

Jay wasn't exactly sure where the best place to stand was, or if she wanted him to sit somewhere, or what. "Your brother's not going to get jealous of me, is he."

"If only that were a joke," Viviendre muttered darkly. "That's not the main reason he keeps an eye on me, though. He's new to the throne and his favor at court is little better than Queen Mallory's. Were he smart he'd marry me off to one of his political adversaries as soon as possible but unfortunately he's an absolute raving lunatic. He thinks any husband I have would automatically become a challenger to his title. He sees usurpers everywhere. It was essential I escape that court, or I'd end up dead or worse before long."

She finally reached her bed and sat down on the edge of it. The bed was so high, and she was so short, that her legs didn't reach the floor, kicking idly as she played with the head of her cane. Jay, still receiving no indication how close she wanted him, stood awkwardly in the orbit of the door.

"You're great at giving me reasons to stop seeing you."

"And you're great at still coming to see me despite them."

A pause. Jay wasn't sure if it were awkward or not.

"Hey," he said. "I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't—"

"I'm well aware, it's fine. If I faulted everyone who recoiled in disgust I'd be a rather lonely person indeed, fehfehfeh."

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Oh shut the fuck up."

"You're right, I apologize, I shouldn't have said something so self-deprecatory. I try not to. Truly."

Another pause. Once more Jay wondered: Why did he like her. Then he decided—fuck it. He moved forward, clearing the distance in a few terse steps, and sat on the bed next her. Her body tensed immediately, even without him touching her, and after a few seconds he realized he was tensed too, and made an effort to untense that didn't really work. Eventually, her feet started to slowly kick in an alternating pattern, the dull thud of a heel striking the bed followed by the hollow plunk of the peg.

"The more we talk about me the worse it looks, so how about you tell me about your terrible, off-putting self, hm?" she said. "I'm not the only person who left home, after all. At least my sibling hasn't chased me here trying to drag me back—yet. So speak!"

"There's little to say."

"Then why'd you come here, huh? Great hero?"

"To create paradise."

"Bullshit!"

"Yeah," he said, "maybe."

A sudden burst of laughter erupted out of her throat, real laughter, but she caught herself, coughed a choking reduction, and finished with the fehfehfeh of before. "Is that really all you've got to say!"

"I want to do something great," Jay said. "Something that matters. Something that changes the world." There. That felt more—authentic. He could say that was the truth and believe it.

Viviendre nodded. In the dark most of her face was shadow, either swallowed by her eyepatch or hidden under her long bangs. It reminded Jay of Sansaime. He remembered how Sansaime sobbed after Makepeace fucked her in the inn. Even though she was such a stoic personality normally. Would Viviendre sob? Would he have to comfort her?

"When change happens," Viviendre said, "it's violent. People die in droves. If change happened, a person like me would not survive it—fehfehfeh."

Jay remembered she mentioned something similar when talking about Shannon's speech. Of course, she was right. She couldn't walk faster than a meander. She started choking if she laughed too hard. On Earth, someone could live a long time even with a handicap like that, but here? Being royalty was probably the only reason she was alive. In the event of a war, an upheaval, a revolution, even a reorganization of the social order, what would happen to someone like her?

No wonder Jay kept phrasing it the way he did: I want to create paradise. Paradise implied a world where everyone was happy. Where suffering didn't exist. He remembered Flanz-le-Flore's shattered fingers, her melted face. He remembered Pluxie sinking into the swamp. Makepeace's mangled corpse, the bodies of the nuns lined out in the monastery courtyard. Even Olliebollen armless. And with all that he still hadn't changed a thing.

"I guess you'll just have to die," Jay said. At the same time, his hand slid to the side and touched hers.

Her hand touched back. Her fingers curled around his, and he blotted the feeling of Flanz-le-Flore's fingers from his mind, tried to overwrite that memory with this new one.

"Maybe if I had a hero to protect me..." Her other hand whipped out and snatched his hat off his head before he had a chance to react. Grinning, she placed the hat on her own head. It fit her horribly and leaned to the side and Jay felt bad for her because he knew the inside of that hat must be completely covered in dandruff, but that was a fact he didn't need to make known. Instead he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her toward him and leaned in and—kind of hovered close to her for a few seconds not knowing what to do and—she kissed him.

A quick, closed-mouth kiss. His first. He got the impression it was her first too, because she drew away and stifled a nervous, self-conscious giggle. He kissed her again, on the cheek. She tasted the way she smelled. His hand slid from her shoulder to her arm, she didn't pull away this time, she turned and kissed him on the lips again. He understood her or thought he did, all those comic or not-so-comic self-deprecatory comments, she was ashamed of herself, she wanted to be reassured, and so his hand shifted to her chest, although she wore so many layers and so much jewelry he wound up incapable of even somewhat feeling whatever was underneath.

"We can't—I meant it when I said nothing uncouth," she whispered. "No farther than this. Alright?"

That was more than alright. He wasn't especially interested in that anyway. But being here, being with her, someone he could talk to like this...

They kissed again. Her eye closed. His remained open. Which was how he saw the curtain on the side of the window shuffle and shift and the man emerge from behind it holding a sword.

Jay was sluggish registering the full implications behind this drastic, radical change in his environment, but when it clicked he acted instantly. A single rough hurl flung Viviendre out of the way as Jay hefted himself backward from the swing that glanced against the edge of the bed. He reached for his baseball bat—but he didn't have it, it wasn't here, he'd stopped carrying it around once he reached the castle, what made him make that mistake?

He only had his hands and the other guy, a bent and sallow-eyed guy whose face covering did little to conceal a black beard bursting through the fabric, had a sword. Not even a dagger, but a full-length blade. Jay's eyes flittered to swallow up the surroundings, he seized off a tiny table the only suitable weapon in reach: a candlestick, one of the two flickering throughout the room. It had weight, a little length, but it only made the assassin chuckle lowly and Jay figured that was an appropriate response. It at least kept him from instantly rushing Jay with the sword, buying Jay a single second to think, to think, to think—but all he thought was that he didn't have Olliebollen either, he had nothing. A stab wound to the gut, however painful, was not instantly fatal. With Olliebollen he could've risked it, closing the distance enough to cave in the man's temple with the candlestick. Lacking fairy magic, his life would be in the hands of Whitecrosse's best surgeon, who was probably DeWint, so Jay would definitely die.

And that was all the time he got—one second. The time it took Viviendre to come to rest after crashing into the tiny table. The assassin lunged with the blade and Jay's sole instinct was to jump back.

The image in Jay's mind of an assassin was Sansaime. This man was not her. Instead of swift and graceful strokes every swing of his blade whooshed from one edge of his range to the other. Not that Jay knew anything about swordplay, but compared to Sansaime—who had claimed she wasn't an assassin anyway, only a hunter—he looked like an amateur. Jay's back hit the door, he had nowhere else to retreat, a slight force bounced him back, and as the assassin slowly recovered from his swing Jay knew he wouldn't get another chance. He didn't have time for a temple-caving windup. Instead he jabbed the candlestick forward like a rapier and forced the small flame into the man's face.

The assassin stumbled back hissing and Jay would've liked to string that into another attack but the man started whipping his sword back and forth blindly as he bounced off the edge of the bed. Diving into that would be suicide. At the same time, the door behind him opened and he whirled around in a panic.

Jreige stood in the doorway. Of course: he heard the commotion, came to check on his lady. By the time Jay became cognizant of this fact, though, he'd already shoved the candle into Jreige's face. Luckily, all the previously flailing caused the flame to go out, so Jreige only needed to step back to avoid the sizzling wick.

"Pah!" Jreige wrenched the candlestick from Jay's hand and tossed it to the floor. "I knew you were a lout. What have you done to Princess Viviendre!"

He saw the assassin thrashing in the background over Jay's shoulder. One hand shot to the blade on his hip while the other shoved Jay aside. Further down the corridor footsteps suddenly clambered into a run; as Jreige's blade emerged halfway from its sheath he paused, glanced to where the footsteps were coming from, and said: "Merde—!"

Instantly a curved sword impaled Jreige through the chest. A crooked and wart-faced man rammed into him moments later, then hurled him to the side before brandishing his bloodied blade at Jay. A second assassin. Despite everything, Jay's eyes remained riveted to Jreige's limp body, a sinking sense of hopelessness accompanying the image. If he had Olliebollen. If he had his bat. The second assassin stepped through the door casually, while Jay backed up until his leg struck the bed, constantly shifting his glance back at the first assassin recovering from the burn Jay gave him. Pathetic. These guys seemed no better at fighting than Charm and Charisma, and yet Jay felt optionless. He let his guard down. He became vulnerable. Instantly that weakness was punished, now here he was.

The assassin in the doorway pointed his blade at Jay. Not at Jay. Past him, at the other assassin. "Alright you. Quitcher sniveling. Let's get out afore—"

Viviendre, tangled on the ground amid toppled furniture, pointed her staff at the assassin in the doorway and said, "Divide."

The hunchbacked man went deathly still. His eyes went vacant. A red line ran down his middle, head to crotch. Then he split in half.

The two halves fell apart slowly, stringing between them lines of drooping entrail and dumping onto the floor a splurge of blood and innards. Jay flopped onto his ass on the bed and lifted his shoes to keep the viscera from splattering them. The limp, empty sides flopped afterward. Sound strangely muted. A deflated, bladder-like organ, precariously atop the pile of guts, slid off the apex and came to rest at the base.

"Oh! Ohhhhh God! Oh, oh!"

It was the other assassin, the one Jay burned. His hideous, pealing screeches were powerful enough to wrench Jay's eyes away from the mound of gore. Viviendre was slowly swinging her staff toward him, and he was already clawing at the window. One heave and it burst open—and instantly a large, black, eight-legged shape swung inside and latched onto him.

"What the fuck?!" Viviendre said, while Lalum's face reared up above the thrashing assassin's shoulder, the stitching around her mouth coming undone to reveal a gaping maw of jagged fangs that drove down into his skin.

Jay snapped out of his stupor when he saw Viviendre adjusting her staff's aim at Lalum. He stumbled over to her, saying: "Wait, stop—she's with me. The spider's with me. Don't hurt her."

Lalum disentangled from the assassin and scurried into the shadows of the corner, her mouth already knitting back together by the time the man struck the floor. Tremors wracked him, his eyes bulged, blood spurted from the gaping twin holes on his neck, he rolled over and expelled an orange glut of vomit. Jay's hand gripped Viviendre's shoulder while for ten, fifteen, twenty more seconds he continued to convulse, a minute, maybe more, time ticked away mutely, and finally in a pool of blood the man went still.

"You—I—" Viviendre spoke first, haltingly. "Shit. Shit, fuck, shit."

Webbing spanned Lalum's fingers: SORRY FOR DYSTERBING YOU.

"What the fuck just happened? Who the fuck is she Jay?"

"Lalum," Jay said, only able to speak in response to a simple and direct question, but that one word broke the spell. "She's—she's one of Astrophicus' nuns, but she helps me now. I can trust her." He glanced to the open door. Some sort of noise was brewing outside. "Lalum, get out of here before someone comes."

"Tell her to take that body with her," Viviendre said, "unless you want everyone wondering where the giant spider went that bit him."

"Good idea. Lalum."

Lalum did not need to be told. Keeping to the shadow, her legs scuttled. Web wound around the corpse. Without another word she disappeared out the window, carrying her victim behind her.

Of course that still left the much more brutally dispatched of the assassins. "What the fuck is that relic of yours," Jay asked.

The residual shock on Viviendre's face dribbled away. In the minimal remaining light cast by the room's final candle, she even managed half a smirk, coupled by tapping the clear bulb atop the staff to her eyepatch. "Oh, you like? It's the Staff of Solomon, of course."

Jay didn't know what to say. The noise outside was growing louder. Soon there'd be an entire horde of people cramming in, a host of questions he didn't feel like answering from a host of people he didn't want to see, but as the blood pumping in his veins slowly calmed, that rigmarole felt irrelevant, outside the scope of his attention.

The first people who rushed past the door didn't stop, however, even though Jreige's corpse was in their way in the corridor. They were shouting. Indistinct at first, gradually more clear, until words came together:

"Assassins in the queen's bedchamber! Assassins! The heroine's there too!"

Viviendre's hand touched Jay's. It poked, prodded, while Jay focused on what the people outside were screaming. Only once the first person stopped in the doorway of Viviendre's chamber and saw the gruesome mess inside did Jay even become aware of her affections; he drew his hand away sharply. When he looked at her face, everything inside him went cold.

—

In retrospect, when the dragon breathed its fire, Shannon remained remarkably composed. She recalled clutching the seat of the jeep staring dumbfounded as Wendell sidewinded deeper into the dark and the rain with his rifle, but when it came time to act, she managed to do so with clarity of thought. She cauterized Ollie's wound, after all, which certainly saved its life. What allowed her that detached sense of calm was the unreality of the situation. She refused to believe in the dragon. The dividing line between fantasy and the real world kept her reasonable.

Maybe it was that the man invading the bedroom with a sword dovetailed into a more real-world sense of peril. Or maybe after a few days in Whitecrosse Shannon had let that stark dividing line blur. Whatever the reason, she floundered now, panic, brutal and gripping, a panic winding its wires tight around her heart so she thought it might burst if the man didn't hack her to pieces first. Brute, animalistic terror, and her only capability was to scream for the woman gripping her in her arms.

That was enough.

As the blade came down the blanket whipped off her and the blade caught jaggedly into the hand-woven fabric, semi-serrated elements of edges glinting through but none close enough to touch her skin before Mallory heaved the rest of the blanket over the assassin's head, hurled him back with a toss, and sprung like a wild animal to pummel him with bare hands and feet.

Shannon, alone on the bed, scrambled until she upended over the other side and fell on her back. Through the space under the bed she watched the thrashing, flailing, blanket-entangled form of the assassin writhe under the palpable slams of the queen's boniest parts: knees, elbows, anything at her disposal. She was, of course, completely nude—like Shannon.

"After me?! You came after me?! Oh, thank you"—THUNK—"thank you"—CLUGGHH—"thank you!"—CHGGGGUCK—"for this opportunity!"

Shannon oozed back up the side of the bed. Sweat tingled cold all down her back. A ripping sound and the sword finally cut through the blanket, but Mallory rolled aside and focused her strikes on the lump that was the assassin's head as the blade waved aimlessly. The moonlight made the queen's skin shine pale and perfect and even as her head tilted back with a maniacal cackling smile and her blue eyes became something twisted and unearthly Shannon could not help thinking—her first coherent thought in a while—how gorgeous the queen was, in every way, from head to toe. Then she saw the second assassin climbing through the same window as the first and yelled:

"Watch out!"

The word managed to rasp out her throat despite sudden unfathomable dryness that turned her tongue to cotton. But it might as well have been silent because Mallory did not register it whatsoever. Lost in her reverie, she let the second assassin come down swinging in midair. Only at the last possible moment did she notice and sway to the side to let the blade pass into the lumpy blanket man under her. She then drove her open palm into the second assassin's nose.

Pain or lack of balance allowed the first to heave her off him. Her body danced back on its heels, a laugh rattled, she steadied herself and balled her hands into fists and even let both assassins regain their composure. The first tossed off the blanket, bleeding from his shoulder, and the second snorted blood from both nostrils.

"Slhowh herh dhownh," the second said nasally. "I ghot the sisterh."

The first shot him a look like he didn't care for that arrangement but then hurled his full attention onto the queen while the nosebleed guy bounded across the bed right at Shannon. Despite the fact that Shannon heard and even through his handicap comprehended every word he said, only once he started bouncing over the mattress did it cohere into a meaningful whole.

Why were they targeting her? She understood why the queen might be attacked, but why her, Shannon Waringcrane? What did she do?

And why did they call her "the sister"?!

That was all. She tried to run but she wasn't even standing. She tried to crawl and got tangled over herself and her chin hit the ground hard and she bit her lip hard enough for salt-iron blood to tinge her tongue. The assassin loomed over her, eyeing her directly, eyes laced with murderous intent, an intent to kill and specifically kill her and she could not come to terms with that intent.

Mallory appeared out of the periphery of her vision like a blur and the assassin's head sailed off his body. Blood, and then the head, and then the body toppled onto Shannon and she screamed—in disgust more than anything—as Mallory tossed the saber that the first assassin had been using casually over her shoulder. It pierced straight through the bed but she didn't give it another glance as she walked over and off the mattress, toward the first assassin, who writhed against a wall clutching a bent and broken arm.

"Your friend wished to die quickly," Mallory said. Shannon thought: She protects what's hers. "So you'll have to suffer for the both of you. Sorry!"

The man let out a gruesome roar and threw everything into a berserker charge. He swung his body as though his intent were to tackle Mallory out the window, which given their size and weight discrepancy may in fact have been his best possible option. It wasn't good enough. Without Shannon even really seeing how Mallory did it, she had him on the ground, and got on top of him, her fists raining down and down and down again.

By the time the door opened and one of Mallory's knights emerged in full armor to ask what happened, the man on the ground was a mess of blood and bone. Two and then four maidservants squeezed past the knight and hurried to the queen, who snapped her fingers at Shannon to redirect their attention, and then Shannon was buffeted by a flurry of hands that seized and lifted her arms and legs and search of wounds.

Exhaling, Mallory rose. Her body swayed in the moonlight, shining red with blood. Her head tilted back and her arms fanned out and she absorbed a deep, deep breath. Then she turned her gleaming blue eyes toward Shannon and the rest of them.

"Call every noble to the throne room. Fetch me my sword. We shall determine who made this attempt on my life before sunrise."