Rosslyn and Carolien entered the embassy and immediately made a beeline for Lord Baranack’s receiving chamber, the largest room in the embassy.

They needed to get ahold of him and either restrain or kill the treacherous ambassador before they proceeded with their escape plan.

But the receiving chamber was empty.

The two proceeded together to each room in the building that Lord Baranack was likely to frequent, before they finally gave up. For better or worse, he was not in the embassy.

“Where in Stalenton did he go?” Carolien asked, her tone slightly frustrated.

“It does not matter right now,” Rosslyn said firmly.

Carolien looked at her, gritted her teeth, and then simply nodded.

“If he returns, we subdue or kill him as quickly as we can,” Rosslyn said. “If he does not return before we leave, for whatever reason, it was simply fate that he survived this trip.”

“Fine,” Carolien said.

The two split up and each covered half of the building, quickly gathering the soldiers who had accompanied their convoy here.

Time was of the essence now.

Six carriages worth of soldiers amounted to a small platoon’s worth of people. More than two dozen soldiers that Rosslyn and Carolien would have to sneak out of Stalenton.

As they gathered the whole group into Lord Baranack’s receiving chamber, Rosslyn began to explain the situation.

“We do not have time for a long discussion, but Lord Baranack is a traitor who has been working for the Empire…”

—

Baranack sucked in a breath as quietly as he could from behind the hidden door into the embassy.

How did she find out? There was no way the King knew, or he would never have sent his wife and his heir with me. He swallowed, keenly aware of Agarov frowning beside him.

“What do we do?” Baranack mouthed.

“Let them finish discussing their plans,” Agarov whispered in response.

The two stood in silence, listening as Princess Rosslyn detailed an escape plan

I could have been in there, Baranack thought apprehensively. If I had walked more quickly. If I had actually known the way back and not required Agarov’s guidance. The plan was for me to try and talk them into going outside. Thank goodness I did not try to find my way back alone!

It was apparent from the tenor of conversation about him that he would have probably died if he had returned just minutes earlier than he and Agarov actually arrived. For the first time, the potential consequences of his betrayal felt horribly real.

Steady, he reminded himself. They are more likely to die than you right now. Remember that. We are still in the Empire. We have the advantage here.

Baranack swallowed, then realized the room on the other side of the door had fallen silent. He raised his hands in a defensive posture, trying to make himself ready to fight in case he and the assassin had somehow been discovered in their positions behind the wall.

“They are about to leave,” Agarov whispered. “We should go. We will have to use another exit, of course. My counterpart will have to be informed. The tactics of our situation have changed. The Princess and Queen will be accompanied by dozens of soldiers.”

Baranack nodded, eager to get away from the embassy.

He followed Agarov down into the tunnel once again, taking a different path than they had on their previous journey into the darkness. The trip was much shorter this time. Agarov stopped in front of an iron ladder that was planted in the wall.

“Above is the house where the leader of the Iron Blood should be camped out with his best killers,” he said. “Do you want to come up with me and meet them?” There was a challenging tone in his voice, as if he thought Baranack lacked the courage to meet these hardened killers.

“Of course,” Baranack replied brusquely. “We serve the same master. Why would I not want to meet them?”

Agarov gave him a smile that sent a shiver down Baranack’s spine. “Indeed.”

The assassin led the way up the ladder, and Baranack reluctantly followed him.

When they reached the top, Agarov gave a complicated knock on a door above them. A signal of some sort.

Then the door opened, and Baranack found himself staring up into the coldest pair of eyes he had ever seen. The gray irises reminded him of cold steel. As he looked up at the figure, Baranack saw that despite the icy eyes, the man had a strangely pale, almost babyish face. The odd combination made the first impression even more unsettling.

“Hello Agarov,” the man behind the eyes said in an eerily soft voice. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?”

As he spoke, Agarov was pulling himself up into the building, and Baranack quickly followed him.

“We have had an unfortunate change in circumstances, Mihaly. The embassy you and your colleagues are watching—the occupants are somehow aware of our friend here and his treachery.” He tilted his head at Baranack, who was just sticking his head up into the room with them.

Baranack responded by waving nervously. He could see all of the assassins in the room now, though it was a dimly lit space. A dozen figures in various postures. Two stood looking through a window toward what Baranack imagined was the embassy, though he could not see it from where he was.

The others mostly sat or lay in various positions of repose. The only one close enough for him to see clearly was Mihaly, but Baranack could already discern at least one trait the assassins all had in common. Their heads were shaved. Even the women. As he stared, he saw that Mihaly was not simply bald, but had also removed his eyebrows and any facial hair he might once have possessed.

The strange face and lack of any hair made him look like something unnatural, some sort of monster that had donned a humanoid face.

“Do we have any idea how this will alter their behavior?” Mihaly asked, keeping one eye on Baranack as he spoke to Agarov.

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“Yes, they intend to go over the wall at sundown and flee back toward Claustria,” Agarov said. “I suggest we abandon the assassination altogether. The Princess will be surrounded by dozens of trained soldiers.”

“Just a few dozen trained soldiers?” Mihaly replied. He stroked his chin with strangely long fingers. Baranack could see the space where Mihaly’s eyebrow should be as the skin shifted in a skeptical expression. “Surely you do not doubt my team’s capacity to handle ordinary soldiers?”

“I am simply aware that is not your specialty,” Agarov replied diplomatically. “Nor is it any assassin’s specialty, frankly. The art of assassination is a dagger in the night. Poison in a goblet. Death that the enemy never sees coming, that comes in the time and manner of our choosing. But of course you know all of this already.”

“True,” Mihaly said, smiling coldly. “We know. We learned well. Everything our teacher had to share, until we began refining the craft ourselves.”

Baranack felt tension building between the two men and wondered how he might ease it. He did not like the odds of emerging from this room alive if a fight broke out among the assassins.

“I suppose the Emperor will settle this matter for us,” Agarov said. “Since this is a mission of some delicacy.”

To Baranack’s relief, Mihaly nodded. “We should go immediately. There is little time before sundown.”

The two assassins gave Baranack a look, and he instantly understood. He lowered himself from the door sill and began climbing back down the ladder.

—

“Go now,” Rosslyn whispered fiercely.

The first group of soldiers stepped out onto the street, chatting merrily as if nothing unusual was going on. Just a group of friends out walking, moving vaguely in the direction of the city’s edge. Their armor was hidden under layers of clothing, and they looked as inconspicuous as they could.

The patrol of the city watch was distant enough now, Rosslyn believed, that even if her soldiers stood out like sore thumbs, they should not be spotted by anyone who would dare to interfere with them.

Yes, she thought. This will work. It has to.

Another group of soldiers followed after the first. The plan was to sandwich Rosslyn and Carolien in the middle of the groups of soldiers. The first group was to reach the crossing point, confirm there were no witnesses to raise the city’s alarm, and kill any guards as necessary to ensure that the area remained secure. They would cross to the outside of Stalenton and hide in the nearest cover they could find to be prepared to provide support when the next group crossed.

With Rosslyn and Carolien in the middle, between two groups of soldiers on each side of the wall, their escort would be ideally positioned to defend them against attacks on either or both sides as they crossed.

Quickly, the second group was lost from sight. Then it was Rosslyn and Carolien’s turn, along with the only two female soldiers who had accompanied them to Stalenton, to walk toward the section of the city wall they had selected.

The sun was already well below the horizon by the time Rosslyn and her stepmother left. The last rays of daylight cast an orange glow over the whole city, and Rosslyn’s mind tried to convince her for a moment that the city was on fire—or perhaps that she and her companions were descending into the bowels of the underworld.

But that idea is silly, she immediately reminded herself, shaking her head at the slightly superstitious thought. This is far from the descent. That was days ago. This is the escape!

The city streets were quiet as twilight came on. The human population seemed to have a curfew, or such was Rosslyn’s interpretation of the eerie isolation she felt. It was a good thing, for now.

No one outside to see them. No watchers that she could see in the windows. Even if someone did think they saw something amiss, they might wait until morning to go out and report on the Claustrians’ movements to their demon leaders.

One day, I will return to liberate this city, Rosslyn promised herself. There was something unholy about this stillness. The silence that almost resembled the tempo of a dead place.

It was impossible to ignore it as they walked through layer after layer of Stalenton, making it through each of the inner circles of the city until they were in the outermost section.

At last, Rosslyn, Carolien, and the two soldiers with them reached the wall. The first two groups had crossed already, but Rosslyn could see the grapple they had used and the rope that extended down from it.

So it did work, she thought.

“I should go first,” Carolien said. “In case they ran into some trouble.”

Rosslyn shook her head and gently took the rope from Carolien’s hands. I appreciate your protection, stepmother, but I know I can handle myself in a fight better than you can.

She pushed Mana into the soles of her feet and began walking up the side of the wall.

—

“What did the Emperor say?” asked Baranack. This time he had been left out of the meeting, and he did not particularly mind. He could hear the muffled contours of a hushed but heated disagreement between the assassins through the door where the conversation was taking place.

The room must have been quite tense, and Baranack realized he was perhaps not made for the level of strain that seemed to be typical in the Empire’s typical order of business.

At least as a regional governor, I will not have to be in the room with the Emperor for many conversations, he thought. That would be the status quo after Claustria fell. And for now, he would simply have to endure.

“We are going ahead with the mission,” Agarov replied uncomfortably, a pink hue creeping into his normally extremely pale skin.

“The Emperor was pleased that the Princess decided for some reason to escape Stalenton,” Mihaly said, beaming. “He ordered us to lay an ambush for her somewhere outside of the city. If the Princess is killed nearer the edge of the Empire’s territory, no argument that they were guests here, serving a diplomatic mission, will be tenable. The Empire should escape all diplomatic consequences.”

“Assuming the mission is executed successfully,” Agarov added. “If you fail to kill the Princess, or you leave one trace of your presence behind with the bodies—”

Mihaly’s broad, creepy smile vanished, and he looked genuinely angry for the first time since Baranack had met the man.

“We are the Iron Blood,” Mihaly snapped. “We leave no trace. Not a drop of blood, nor a single hair.” He ran his long fingers over the bald top of his head and then nodded to himself, seeming to calm down at the feeling of his own hand touching his smooth skin. “And we will be going now. Thank you for your contribution, Agarov. We will be sure to remember you when we receive the Emperor’s thanks.”

Baranack felt a tremendous tension ripple through the air from Agarov at that jibe, but Mihaly was walking away already, and Agarov’s fury seemed to calm almost as soon as it rose.

“What now?” Baranack asked him. “Are you going to help them out?”

Agarov sighed.

“No. The Emperor was very clear. If the assassins are all human, we have more deniability. He is still cautious of the possibility of failure. Now, all we can do is wait—and hope those fools accomplish their mission.”

But he sounded almost as though he was rooting for the opposite.

—

As Rosslyn reached the top of the wall, she placed the rope between her thighs, took hold of the wall’s edge with her hands, and poked her head up over the side cautiously.

She looked to her left. Nothing.

Then she looked to the right. The bodies of two guards slumped in a half-seated position, leaning against a merlon and each other. The one closer to Rosslyn looked like his head had been twisted around until it was almost backwards.

She frowned. I know it was probably necessary, but those were two human beings. It is a shame to kill those who should be our allies. Those who were our allies in generations past…

She pulled herself all the way up to the top of the wall. Then she gave the rope two sharp jerks behind her, the signal for Carolien to begin ascending.

Rosslyn looked over the wall’s edge to the exterior of the city. All she could see out there was darkness.

Is this too easy? she wondered. Lord Baranack never returned to the embassy, and the soldiers who came before me only had two guards to deal with. Is the Empire’s defense truly this thin? If so, we probably could have snuck into the city at any time.

Rosslyn sighed. Even if there was some trap ahead of them, there was no safety to be had in turning back. There was only one way for them to go: forward.