Gray locked the door after Killian and shoved the dresser against it as a barricade, his arms shaking with fatigue.

‘Don’t make me cut you, Musgrave,’ came Killian’s soft voice. He was barely audible. He was out in the corridor, he was walking, striding, making the floorboards creak underneath the carpet. ‘I need you in my service.’

Musgrave answered, but Gray couldn't make it out over his pulse pounding in his ears.

Out in the corridor, there was a muted series of thuds and yells.

Someone banged on the door.

It cut off.

Gray edged towards the dresser, gripping the sides.

Behind him, someone snorted. Gray started.

It was Frostvine.

Frostvine.

She snored gently, still fast asleep.

Gray’s stomach lurched. She was utterly defenceless if anyone came in the room.

Hobbling over, Gray dragged Frostvine off the bed.

She was a dead weight and Gray’s strength was tapped out. Frostvine’s long hair caught under her shoulders. Her complicated robes and sashes and ties twisted as he tried to roll her under the bed. She wore jewellery and gems everywhere Gray wanted to grip to drag.

One of her many hair slides, encrusted with pearls and with a wicked long stem, fell out of her silvery hair.

Gray tucked it up his sleeve, because that thing was as close to a knife he was going to find - because, surely, if anyone came in to tear Gray apart to sell his hair, tears, blood, whatever, then they’d do the same to Frostvine, too, in a heartbeat.

With some effort, Gray got Frostvine hidden underneath the bed.

Gray hesitated, eyeing the small, dark space.

And then, forced himself to squeeze next to her, slick with sweat, his heart pounding, and desperately tried not to focus on the airlessness.

He stared hard at the ethereal profile of Frostvine, at the curl of her thick lashes over her high cheekbones, the curve of her lips, the dimple in her chin, as he listened to the brutal thuds, yells, and then the following disturbing silence.

Waves of fatigues washed through Gray. They were so irrepressible that it swept over the adrenaline that had flooded his blood, that was pounding in his chest, and he dropped out of consciousness, once, twice -

Someone was in the room.

They’d come in, and he hadn’t heard them, he must’ve blacked out as they’d forced the door open, past the dresser.

There were no footsteps.

No pad against the carpet.

But, the floorboards creaked. So slight and subtle underneath the thick carpet.

Agonisingly slow.

They were crossing the room.

No - they were canvasing it. They were checking, searching.

Gray stopped breathing. He could hear the whisper of movement from the person’s clothes. The softest crack of a joint. The slide of a hand over a surface.

His lungs burned. He got the hair slide ready in his fist. Carefully, silently, he reached his arm across Frostvine, ignoring the faint buzz of magic from being so close to her - a sensation so much more gentle, more peaceful than the goosebumps of Longwark and the prickle of Sorena, Frostvine’s magic was kind of sensation he wished he could hold and keep - and he held himself ready.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

The floorboards creaked.

And stopped, at the foot of the bed.

They were visible through the sliver of a gap between the bed curtain and the carpet.

Whoever it was, they weren’t a soldier.

Nor a northerner.

Northerners wore boots prioritised for stop-start movement. To dodge, lunge, and run during axe training and tournaments. The treads of northern boots were made for traction. For snow and ice during the long winters. Thick, loud.

This person wore old fashioned boots covered in glittering grey dust. The soles were cracked from age. Thin. Slippery. Flexible as a dancer’s slipper. And utterly silent. The leather was crumbling.

The hair slide dug into Gray’s palm, he was gripping it so tight. He braced his arm over Frostvine, his muscles strained, sweat coating his skin like oil.

He waited.

They shifted, in the crack of sunlight. The breeze from their movement ruffled the bed curtain.

Gray’d never seen boots fashioned like this, styled like this, except for in the old portraits Barin hoarded in the back room of the tavern-

The door crashed open.

Someone had smashed through it like it was a pile of children’s building blocks.

Gray startled, glancing behind him, clutching Frostvine close.

Hands reached under the bed. Twisted in his sweater. Said hands dragged Gray out unceremoniously, hard enough that Frostvine came, too, robes and hair sprawling, clasped in Gray’s white-knuckled grip.

The carpet burned against Gray’s exposed skin, through the thin layers of his clothes. He blinked in the sting of full daylight, in the rush of fresh air.

Gray barely registered Killian - still dragging him, looming over him, imposing and cold as steel, dripping gore, uniform blackened with debris - as Gray struggled to right himself, to see the person who’d stood at the end of the bed.

But the space right where they’d stood was empty.

Gone.

They couldn’t have moved that fast, they couldn’t have hidden themselves so completely. But the room was empty. Still.

‘Someone’s here,’ Gray said.

‘I know,’ Killian said, his voice impossibly tight, coiled. ‘I told you not to let anyone in.’

It didn’t occur to Gray to set Killian straight, not with his heart pounding in his chest like it was, not with the threat of someone hiding in the room. Someone who’d moved so fast that they’d evaded Killian.

Killian strode across the room, checking, checking, rifling through the curtains, throwing open wardrobe doors. His hair, slick with sweat and dirt, clung to his forehead. He stopped just short of the closed bathroom door. Flexed his scarred fists at his sides, veins bulging with strain.

Kicked the bathroom door open.

Edged in. Disappeared from view.

Gray waited, all his senses on fire.

‘Who?’ Killian strode back out. His hand clenched the hilt of his sword, steady, simmering a threat that he was at the very edge of his patience. ‘Who did you let in?’

Gray shook his head. He gripped the hair slide tight in his hand, nudging aside the drapings hanging down from the bed head with his bad foot.

They were empty.

Peered cautiously behind Killian’s clothes chest.

Nothing.

‘There’s no one here,’ said Killian.

Gray stood in shocked silence as Killian checked Frostvine and settled her back on the bed. He stood over her like a looming storm, streaked with blood and smeared with grime, his movements precise with restrained power. His gaze took her in, narrowed and dark, his jaw a sharp line.

Unwilling to take his eyes off the room for a minute, Gray strained his ears, distracted by the complete silence coming from the corridors, the floors below, outside.

There was no movement.

The chaos was gone.

And it sounded like every living soul was gone, too.

‘What did you do?’ said Gray.

‘What are you talking about?’ said Killian.

‘Why’s it so quiet?’

Killian clicked his tongue. ‘Not your concern, kid.’

Killian brusquely checked Gray, checking the bandage on his arm, his ankle, his head, checking his neck and throat.

Killian’s hands were sticky. Gray repressed a shiver.

‘What’s wrong with your breathing?’ Killian said sharply. ‘You succumbing to magic fatigue? You need more spark powder?’

Unwilling to test Killian right now by saying hell no to more of that stinging powder, right after he’d - what, killed a bunch of people? Hurt them? - Gray shook his head. Tried to make his breathing less slow and deep. Less like he was about to fall into a coma.

‘I’m getting some,’ said Killian. He clicked his fingers at the table by the window. ‘You. Sit.’

When Gray hesitated Killian steered him towards the table with a sharp jab. ‘Sit down, kid.’ He strode towards his supplies near the window. ‘I need answers-’

Killian stopped.

He was right where the person had stood at the end of the bed, staring down at the floor.

Chewing the inside of his lip, Gray hobbled forward curiously.

There was glittering grey dust, coating the carpet, so delicately and so easy to miss.

With a sharp glance at Gray, Killian crouched and rubbed his bloodstained fingertips over the dust. The muscles in his neck locked.