roar that pummeled her ears and drove her to the carpet. She knew the knife was strapped to her thigh, but she couldn’t find the handle. As the assassin loomed over her, she looked up, expecting to feel the painful bite of claws.
A flash of intense light blinded her, followed by a burst of heat over her face and arms like the blaze from an oven. A bitter stench filled her nose. Josey blinked away spots of residual brilliance to find the assassin was gone. A dense cloud of smoke hovered in its place. Coughing and waving to disperse the haze, she stood up. In the next box, Duke Mormaer and the old woman were gone. Instead, Hirsch stood in their place, both hands extended toward her. Thin trails of smoke rose from his open palms.
Josey released her skirt and crawled to the railing. Hubert hung by one hand; the other still held his sword. Blood dribbled from a cut across his forehead, but he was alive. Josey laughed in spite of herself and the situation. It had been Mormaer’s suggestion for her to pretend to send away Master Hirsch in public. After pretending to leave with Captain Drathan, the adept disguised himself and accompanied the duke to the performance. It had worked to perfection.
Josey reached down to help Hubert. The floor of the theater was in chaos as people shoved to get to the exits. As she got hold of his wrist, a scraping noise from behind sent a shiver down her spine. Josey turned her head to look behind her. The assassin clung to the roof of the adjacent box section. It looked more monster than man, with a hulking physique and long, veiny limbs. Green flames danced along its hunched shoulders and down its back, but the fiercest fire burned within its cavernous eye sockets as they turned toward her. Gathering its legs, the assassin leapt across the distance and landed on the side of the imperial box. Its claws shredded the lacquered privacy screen.
Though it wrenched at her heart, Josey let go of Hubert. Sobbing, she pulled up her skirt and grabbed for the knife, even though she suspected it would be futile against this thing that had withstood swords and mystical fire and yet refused to die. With a roar, the assassin pushed into the box. The stench of its breath, like putrid rotting meat, made her cringe. The knife in Josey’s hand quivered as the assassin stood over her. Blood dripped from its claws. She braced herself, refusing to look away. She had gambled the lives of her soldiers and her friend. The least she could do was face her end like an empress.
A blur of bright steel sprang up beside Josey. As she tumbled to the floor, Hubert appeared and threw himself in front of her. The slim tip of his sword pierced the assassin’s side. Its fiery eyes gaped wide, whether in pain or shock Josey could not tell, but the monster leapt back with superhuman agility, dragging Hubert with it. She heard a crackling noise an instant before she was blinded by a second blast of scintillating light.
Josey got up on her knees, wiping her eyes. Through a blurry fog she spotted a huge hole in the side of the imperial box. The edges of the hole smoldered. At first she didn’t see Hubert, but then he pushed up off the floor under the wreckage of the partially collapsed ceiling.
“Are you all right?” they each asked at the same time.
He brushed a hand down the front of his evening jacket, the fine gabardine now caked in dust and stone chips. “I believe my attire has been vanquished.”
“I’m sorry, Hubert.” Tears formed in her eyes as she considered what had almost happened because of her. “Please forgive me.”
He smiled as he straightened his lapels. “It is always interesting to serve you, Majesty. And it is my great honor.”
Footsteps echoed in the corridor behind the box. Josey steeled herself for anything, while Hubert looked around for his sword.
Hirsch leaned through the curtained archway. “Everyone still in one piece?”
“Thanks to your magery, Master Adept,” Josey answered. “Is it dead?”
Hirsch shook his head as he went over to the railing. “I merely drove it off.”
Josey’s heart sank. They had gone through all of this and had nothing to show for it. Out in the hallway, she could see the legs of her bodyguards sprawled on the floor. Their blood soaked through the short red carpet and pooled between them. I’m not worthy of such devotion.
Hubert had gone over to stand beside Hirsch. “Perhaps it’s not dead, but you managed to hurt it.”
Josey joined them. Past the charred partition, streaks of soot and luminescent green slime spread across the wall of the theater, and then ended as if their source had vanished into the air. Hirsch bent over the shattered railing and came back up holding a long splinter of wood. On the tip was smeared a glob of the greenish black stuff.
“Is that-?” Hubert started to ask.
“Yes,” Hirsch replied. “I may be able to track the beast with this, if the material isn’t too badly tainted.” To Hubert he said, “Come with me while the spoor is still fresh, and bring every soldier you can spare.”
“How-?” Hubert tried to ask, but the adept was gone.
Josey pushed her lord chancellor toward the archway. “Go with him. Take Captain Drathan and the guards.”
“I won’t leave you defenseless.”
A tall figure moved into the archway. “I will remain with the empress,” Mormaer said.
Josey considered the offer. Hirsch needed help. Whatever the assassin was, she feared the adept would have his hands full if he managed to catch it.
“Thank you, Duke Mormaer.” Josey nodded to Hubert. “Attend Master Hirsch. Don’t let anything-”
“I’m going!” Hubert pressed past the duke and ran down the corridor.
The theater was amazingly quiet in the aftermath of the attack. Below, the audience, orchestra, and players had fled. Josey’s hands shook as she clutched the railing. I could have died here tonight. Now what? I could be attacked again, on the way back to the palace, or while sleeping in my bed. Sleep? She huffed at the thought. Though she was exhausted down to her bones, she wouldn’t be able to sleep as long as the assassin remained free.
“Majesty,” Mormaer said. “My guards and I shall accompany you to the palace.”
Josey turned. Alone in the dim lighting with him, she was keenly aware of how large he was. If he wanted, he could push her over the side and claim it was an accident. Yet when she looked into his eyes she saw a hint of… understanding? Certainly not compassion.
“It was a good plan,” she said.
Mormaer’s expression did not change except for a tightening around the eyes, but any warmth she thought she had seen in his gaze froze over.
“We should go, Majesty.”
Josey bit her bottom lip as she walked past him, angry at herself. She had said the wrong thing, as usual. But Duke Mormaer was so damned inscrutable; she never knew what to say around him.
A squad of armsmen in Mormaer’s black livery stood in the corridor. Two of her bodyguards lay at their feet in pools of blood. Josey paused to pay her respects to these men who had died in her defense. Their eyes stared up at the ceiling.
“Duke Mormaer, my cloak, please.”
When he fetched it, she laid it gently over the faces of her bodyguards. Dark spots appeared in the fabric where their blood soaked through.
It was only as she turned away to follow Mormaer, his men falling in behind them, that Josey noticed a detail about her bodyguards. Neither had sported any claw gouges or throat punctures. Instead, each had died from a straight cut across the throat, as neat as if done by a chirurgeon’s blade.
A chill ran through Josey. If not the assassin, then who killed them?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
C aim palmed the hilts of his knives as he headed up the street. The conversation with the old woman had only increased his desire to leave the city. But first he wanted to make sure Liana and Keegan were all right. He realized it was insane, that they were safe with their uncle, but this place-the atmosphere, the tension, the unfriendly shadows-made him anxious just the same.
