The dagger plunged deep into the marquis's stomach--a handspan too low, so Eli torqued the hilt to angle the blade thrust and into his heart and--

The guards reacted uncannily fast.

A plated fist crashed into Eli's temple, and he reeled backward as the other guard stepped between him and the marquis and slashed with her dagger, too close to draw her sword.

The first guard shouted for the physician as the marquis collapsed, blood seeping from his wound, and Eli blocked the second guard's slash with his forearm. The first guard guarded the gasping, dying marquis while the second guard's dagger sliced through Eli's flesh and bit into his bone.

He broke her nose with the heel of his other hand and the courtier--the scrawny peacock named Clarence--grabbed his left leg before he could run.

While Eli wasted precious seconds stomping him the second guard--with the broken nose--tackled him to the ground and stabbed him again. He bucked her off despite the weight of her armor, then stood into crouch to leap for the window and the first guard impaled him with his sword from behind.

The point appeared from Eli's chest, smearked with only a few streaks of blood, which despite the pain and terror somehow surprised him. Then he felt a boot between his shoulder blades, pushing him onto his face as the guard withdrew his sword.

"Is-is he dead?" the other courtier gasped.

"He is now," the guard said, and skewered Eli from behind again, through the chest.

Pain clawed at Eli and fluid filled his lungs. He didn't let himself whimper, he didn't let himself wheeze. He didn't let himself feel a hint of victory, even though he'd killed the marquis: no human could survive that wound, not for long.

He barely breathed as his own blood pooled on the floor around his neck ...

"Get back!" the physician yelled. "Give me room! Back--you, keep everyone back!"

"Close the gates," the guard with the broken nose snapped. "Search the grounds for accomplices. Secure the marchioness, the childen--go!"

The sparks dimmed.

The numbness spread.

Eli sprawled motionless on the floor--playing dead but also terrifyingly close to actually dying. There were wounds so severe that he couldn't heal them, and these were close. His mind turned sluggish as activity buzzed around him. The physician knelt at the marquis's body. Voices shouted outside. More guards jogged in, and a handful of servants or courtiers or nobles or--

"No, no!" a woman said, in a choked voice. "Please, Angel ..."

"GIVE ME ROOM!" the physician bellowed.

One of Eli's sparks dimmed and the other wobbled. He was losing consciousness. But through the shadows, he saw the guards at the entrance, keeping the crowd away. And he watched as the physician--Quiricas--lay his hands on the marquis's mortal wound.

Then the spark felt a kind of pressure, a kind of power ...

No.

No. The physician was a mage. A mage who followed the Path of the Palm, and he was healing the marquis from the brink of death. Or at least trying to...

The mage focused. He trembled and prayed. The pressure grew in the air and Eli counted the guards. He needed to finish this--right now.

Through the numbness of his healing, he gathered every scrap of his strength ... and couldn't move. Instead, he heard one guard say, "Get that out of here" and then saw another standing above him. Dragging him by the ankles into an empty alcove, leaving a wide smear of blood on the floor and ...

Darkness.

----------------------------------------

"He'll live, thank the Dreamers," a man said, in a low voice. "His lordship will live. The Chained Angel herself is watching over the marquis."

"Praise her," another man said. "Any sign of accomplices? Trouble in the streets?"

"Nothing. The militia's still talking to the informants but so far we've found nowt. Except we know this was well-planned. Long planned."

"Yeah?"

"They planted a ratstinking assassin in the mountains, wearing our gear. They knew we'd fetch him home. They knew the Marquis is--or was--in the habit of speaking to wounded soldiers personally. They smuggled a dagger into the clinic. Came a hair's breadth of succeeding, too."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"The dagger, huh. That's an uncommon style."

"We're tracking it down."

"Interrogate whoever found him in the mountain. Everyone who talked to him. We need details. When the captain's done in the city, he'll check the body for marks."

"You reckon the rat's branded to the Ushers?"

"No idea. Worth checking."

"Should've been a godsdamned warning sign," the first man muttered. "Him in perfect physical shape, after that long in the mountains."

"Well he ain't anymore."

The men's laughter sounded hollow in the main room of the clinic.

"Hush, the both of you!" a woman hissed. "We didn't clear the clinic so you could fuss his lordship with your nonsense! Out! The both of you, stand guard outside."

The men shuffled away and Eli felt strong enough to reach for the sparks with his mind. He wasn't, quite. He almost fainted. But he forced himself to remain awake and sent the sparks scouting.

They saw mostly shadows. It was evening. The main room was empty, but lamplight shone beneath a door into one of the proper treatment areas. That's where the physician mage would be treating the Marquis. Under heavy guard, no doubt.

Of course, Eli couldn't fight his way past that teenaged courtier at the moment. Halo, he couldn't even stand.

He sent the sparks to the window, then peeking outside. Patrols. Soldiers. No escape. And even worse: the instant anyone looked at his 'corpse,' well ... they'd made him one for real.

He spent five minutes rising onto his knees in the empty alcove. His tunic was sticky with blood. The floor wasn't any better. Okay. He needed to think this though--but most he needed to move. So he took hold of the first plan that rose in his mind and prayed it was enough.

He stripped off his tunic. Naked again.

Leaving the alcove--watching through the sparks--he dragged the tunic toward the window, the one he'd climbed through the previous nights. He left a nice assortment of smears, and didn't even faint, though he almost collapsed three times.

A blade to the heart wouldn't bother a true-born troll, but one more twist would've killed Eli outright.

He wiped his feet on a clean patch of tunic, trying to scrape the blood from his skin. Didn't matter much, though: there was plenty splattered around the room. His and the marquis's both, with--

A wave of dizziness almost dropped him.

He breathed until he felt okay--well, he felt like a three-legged donkey, but like a sober three-legged donkey--then he crept through the main room to the cistern, terrified by the glow of the glass lanterns on the walls. He'd never felt that exposed before. He cringed in the expectation of a sudden shout, a sudden alarm.

He reached the cistern in silence.

The top looked like a well: a stone circle surrounding a hole, with a downspout leading through the wall, to carry water in from the gutters. A bucket dangled from a rope and pulley, and the stone lip of the cistern had been carved into a chain pattern.

Eli wasn't much for praying but at the sight he silently begged the Chained Angel for a little help. He wasn't convinced she'd approve of him, but no harm in asking. Because if anyone looked in from the front door or the treatment room, it was all over.

Then he climbed over.

Which took too long. The stone wall was only hip height but his legs weren't moving right.

Still, he managed to heft himself over. On the inside, the stones of the cistern wall were uneven enough to offer a proper grip. In full health, he could've lowered himself as easy as a squirrel down an oak tree, but he wasn't in full health. He was, if not back in Death's antechamber, at least standing outside Death's garden gate with one hand on the latch.

So he paused there and sent a spark into the gloom below. The darkness was nothing to him. The spark showed him that the cistern was narrow at the top then flared outward before curving inward again. Bulbous, like a skinny-necked, round-bottomed flask. Or a bottom-heavy woman, though it'd been so long since he'd touched a woman that--

He shook himself from the reverie, his mind losing focus. He needed to concentrate. Okay. Below him, the water, praise the Angel, gleamed darkly beneath the point where the cistern turned inward.

Which meant he could rest on a dryish surface instead of drowning. Always a good thing. Except he didn't know how to get down there without dropping and splashing.

And his grip was already weakening.

Gritting his teeth, he sent his sparks upward from the cistern. There, at the very limit of his range ... a lantern. He batted at the glass housing with both sparks. He felt the smooth warm glass, and the slightest resistance.

He needed to overturn the glass, so it'd shatter on the floor. Then he'd use the noise to cover his splash into the water.

Except the lantern didn't move. He concentrated on the sparks, and remembered the weight of the mountain. The pressure. He poured that into the sparks and smacked them against the glass again and--

Still nothing.

They were too weak, too insubstantial, at least at the outside of his range.

So he called them back, and plunged them into the cistern beneath him. Measuring the distance between his bare feet and the ground. Not far. A yard?

The drop didn't bother him, but the splash might kill him. He didn't have a choice, though. He couldn't hold on much longer. Maybe if he swung inward, he could grab one of the stones that stuck out farthest. Brace himself a little. Break his fall, then try to catch the lower section of wall--the diagonal floor--with his toes.

Claws would come in so handy.

Handy. Ha, claws coming in handy, like--

He shook himself again, dragged his mind back on track.

Then he inhaled slowly, filling his lungs. He pictured himself dropping, catching the stone with both hands, jamming his toes into a crack in the wall. Clinging there for a moment before easing himself down.

If he hadn't been repeatedly--near-fatally--stabbed, he could've pulled that off, but right now? He didn't rate his chances. So he clung there, his fingers curled and burning. Giving himself time to heal. And to gather his courage. As much time as he could buy himself before he--

Footsteps!

Boots crossed the main room of the clinic. Eli sent a spark to investigate and caught a glimpse of soldiers entering the alcove where they'd dragged him. Where they'd left his 'body.'

He heard a shout when they discovered him gone. More boots. More shouts, then the clanging of an alarm bell.

And when that beautiful noise reached him, he dropped.