wrath.
Katriel waited quietly in the shadows, listening to the wind whistling through the dark rafters overhead. She didn’t like this place. Too often business required one to pass through the lonely hallways where the only sounds were the echoing of your own footsteps.
It had been one week since she and the other rebel agents had arrived, sneaked in one by one to take their places among the servants. Katriel had been brought in with the washerwomen, a replacement for an older woman who had taken ill and been forced to move back to her home village. The guards hadn’t given her a second glance, and why would they? Katriel had been here before.
Prior to finding her way into the Prince’s company, she’d spent almost a year insinuating herself among the rebel sympathizers, slowly making herself indispensable to them. She had seduced a guardsman into introducing her to Arl Byron as a trusted contact, and that had been all she needed. The guardsman disappeared easily enough afterwards.
Now she had returned. After a week of quietly leaving notes in prearranged locations, she noticed that the other rebel agents had disappeared. So too had the sympathizers, those simple folk she had worked with for so many months. She quickly quashed the pang of regret she felt in their behalf.
She could take no chances. In the courts of the Empire, there were no innocents—there were only fools and those who took advantage of fools, as the saying went. Those who had any power were forced to play the same game as the rest of the aristocracy. Whether one was a bored provincial magistrate’s wife or a fashionable count living in a glorious manse in the capital city, one used others to get ahead. Others must be made to look worse so you looked better, gossip and intrigue being the weapons of choice to carve out your niche. It was a blood sport, and all who partook enjoyed it as such or quickly got left behind.
In all her years there, she had never met a player who did not deserve their fate. Smiles hid daggers and even the poorest servants connived to attach themselves to the fastest and strongest horse.
Yet this was not Orlais, was it? Here it was quite different. Here the people knew little more than hardship, but they looked each other in the eye. It had taken a long time for her to become used to that.
And then there was Maric. Katriel found herself smiling as she thought of her blond, grinning fool of a prince. He would not have lasted five minutes in the courts of Val Royeaux. If she had known it was going to be so simple to draw him into her confidence, she needn’t have tried so hard. How very earnest he was!
And yet how very much like his country he was, as well. Completely without artifice. She had kept expecting to find some vile secret hidden within him, some taint floating just beneath that gleaming surface, and yet there was nothing. She told herself it was that he lacked depth, but when he had looked into her eyes that first night, even she had found it difficult to maintain her composure. The Master who had trained her all those years as a bard would have been ashamed.
Still, it would be a shame to see the man dragged off to a dungeon. His smiles would vanish into those dark depths and never return, and that was because men like Meghren knew that the game existed everywhere—even here in Ferelden.
The wind howled in the rafters once more, and a pigeon was startled into sudden flight. Its flapping wings high overhead almost masked the distant sounds of footsteps on the stone.
Katriel turned and watched the hooded figure approach, fingering the dagger hidden inside her surcoat. A young lordling had once mocked the small blade when she drew it on him—he had stopped laughing when its razor-sharp edge had opened his throat before he’d a chance to lay another finger on her. She had little doubt that this was the mysterious contact she had been feeding information to since her arrival, but there was always reason to be cautious.
The hooded figure stopped a few feet away, bowing slightly from the waist as a sign of respect. She nodded to him but said nothing. His robes were filthy, and she couldn’t judge if they covered armor or not. He reached up and pulled back his hood, revealing a swarthy-skinned Rivaini face with sharp features, one Katriel had not seen among the fortress denizens. A hidden agent, then? Certainly there were many places to hide in West Hill.
“You are Katriel,” he stated, his accent clipped and foreign.
“And you are Severan’s man.”
He glowered at her. “You should not mention our benefactor’s name so casually, elf.”
“And you should remember who it is that has delivered this fortress to you.” She arched a curious brow. “I’m assuming that you’ve dealt with all my fellow agents by now?”
He nodded curtly. “We waited until last night, as per your instructions.”
“I wanted to wait until we received the last message from the army.” She reached into her surcoat and pulled out a rolled-up parchment. Though she held it out to the Rivaini, he did not move to take it. “They have been marching in small groups in the hills and will be in place by this morning. They will attack as soon as the gates are opened, as I promised.”
“They are opening now.” He smiled coldly. “There is a great force hiding beyond the western ridge, ready to strike. They will be crushed. Severan will be pleased, and sends word you shall be rewarded as he promised.”
“There is one problem.” She tapped the parchment thoughtfully against her forehead. “Prince Maric is not riding with the army. There is a camp to the south of West Hill where he will be staying during the battle, an arrangement he made to—”
“We know this,” the Rivaini interrupted, his voice sharp and impatient. “It is being taken care of.”
Katriel paused, frowning. “Taken care of? What do you mean? I was hired to deliver the Prince to King Meghren personally. I can hardly do that if—”
“It is taken care of,” the man snapped irritably. “The rebel prince is no longer your concern. He must perish, and so he shall die as the battle begins.”
“What?” She took an angry step toward him. His black eyes followed her warily, but he did not flinch or retreat. “This is preposterous! I could have easily accomplished that my very first night with the Prince. What is the meaning of this?”
He shrugged. “What does it matter? The fool would have been executed eventually, surely. It is faster for him to die this way, no?” He sneered at her, his eyes knowing. “They say he is handsome. But you have done what you
