The Queen's Assassin Read online

  Even so, I follow the duke to the private balcony outside his chambers, his hand on the small of my back, leading the way.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Caledon

  SOMEHOW THE DUCHESS MANAGES TO find Cal after he thought he’d escaped her.

  She comes up behind him while he’s getting a glass of wine and something to eat, covers his eyes with her hands, and lets out a high-pitched giggle. “There’s my little bunny rabbit,” she coos.

  “Oh, hello,” Cal says. Bunny rabbit? The duchess is getting bolder by the moment. Good. Perhaps he will finally learn something from her.

  This is what he should have been doing from the beginning, warming up the duchess, becoming her confidant. Why hadn’t he? He was distracted, he realizes now; he was too concerned with Shadow. No longer.

  “Shall we dance once more?” he offers.

  “Oh! Yes, let’s do that,” she says.

  It pains him to return to the dance floor, but it is the closest thing to intimacy in a public setting. The duchess is voluble and naïve, and he would like to know more about this mysterious duke and his business in the country.

  He sees a flash of Shadow’s dress across the ballroom and tries to ignore it.

  The duchess leans in to whisper in his ear. “The duke is away so often, it gets terribly lonely, and cold. Even in the summer months, the house is so large and drafty, the nights are simply frigid. I shiver, all alone.”

  “He leaves you often?” Cal asks.

  “Yes, and he goes so far away. He never pops back up unannounced, you know. No out-of-the-blue midnight arrivals back from Renovia, like some husbands like to do. Try to catch their wives at something naughty.” She giggles. The sound stabs him in the ear. But she’s finally said something interesting and so he twirls her back toward the center of the floor.

  “You poor thing. What is so important in Renovia that could keep the duke away from his lovely wife?” he asks.

  She tilts toward his ear; he gets a whiff of the alcohol on her breath. “My husband is a very important asset to the crown, bunny. He has many associations in Renovia.”

  “Is that so?” Cal says. “Friends? Family?”

  “You could call them friends, I suppose. The grand prince was one,” she says coyly. “A very good friend indeed.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Oh yes, Alast was here on a hunt not too long ago,” the duchess tells him.

  “The duke does enjoy the hunt,” says Cal politely. “He is so good at it.”

  The duchess laughs. “Oh! Nothing could be further from the truth! The duke loathes hunting. He’s terrible! But it is a useful hobby, I suppose.”

  “I see,” says Cal, who isn’t sure he does. Not yet.

  “Pity what happened to him, don’t you think? The poor man, assassinated in cold blood by a lowly blacksmith!” the duchess says, as if she read his mind.

  “Yes, a tragedy,” says Cal. “But I suppose now the duke doesn’t have to leave you for Renovia, since the grand prince has passed,” he says to the duchess.

  “Quite the contrary! He’s leaving tonight.”

  “Tonight! Why so soon?” he asks, watching Shadow disappear into the crowd again. “What exactly does His Grace do in Renovia? Manage the grand prince’s estate?”

  “I suppose you could say that,” the duchess says lightly.

  Cal furrows his eyebrows, feigning confusion.

  She goes on. “I will tell you a secret! He is leaving to make sure the insurrection continues as planned!”

  “Insurrection? Against the queen?”

  Duchess Girt laughs. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those Renovian sympathizers!”

  He arranges his face to hide his pounding heart. “Of course not! What is the duke planning?”

  “Oh, I can’t say, but perhaps I will give you a hint. By tomorrow there will be regime change.”

  Regime change? The assassination of the princess? Of the queen? Is that what this nitwit duchess is talking about? Does the duke plan on killing the queen and the princess while they are in Montrice?

  Cal feels a cold shock in his chest; he tries to ignore it and remain calm. “You don’t say,” he remarks, voice cracking a bit. Good thing she’s oblivious, the state she’s in.

  “I’m so pleased you understand my predicament, about my husband’s absences, I mean.”

  “Yes, I do. It’s clear to me now.”

  She presses closer to him. “Then you know it’s a terrible trial for me to stay all alone.”

  “I see that,” Cal says.

  “Anyway, let’s talk a little more on when you’ll join me when the duke is away,” says the duchess.

  Cal agrees, and continues to flirt with the duchess while his mind is elsewhere. The duke is leaving tonight, for Renovia, where if the Aphrasians are successful there will be regime change. Is the duke headed to take the Renovian throne while the queen and the princess are in Montrice? In any event, the plot against the princess is underway. He has to stop it. He has to find the duke.

  But first he has to go find Shadow.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Caledon

  CAL SWINGS THE DUCHESS BACK toward the edge of the dance floor, where an older gentleman stands alone. “My dear,” he says to the duchess. “I have monopolized your company too long.” Before she can protest, he leaves her and heads into the crowd to find Shadow.

  The rooms are so packed and the women’s hats and hairpieces are so monstrous that he can barely see beyond what’s right in front of him.

  There is no sign of Shadow or her blue dress anywhere, not in the large ballroom nor the small one, nor in any of the receiving chambers or hallways. Did she leave the party because he was dancing too close to the duchess? He shakes his head. Of course not. She wants to discover the plot against the princess as much as he does. So where is she?

  He conducts a few more rounds through the party but there is no sign of her. The sound of booming cannons signals the start of the fireworks, and he follows the crowd out to the balcony. He bumps into the earl that she was dancing with earlier, but he is alone.

  “Have you seen Lady Lila?” he asks.

  The earl looks mortified. “Did she tell you what happened?”

  “What happened?!” asks Cal, alarmed.

  “Oh, nothing, nothing! I only meant to help with her broken heel,” the earl says. “It was innocent!”

  Cal pats the man on the back. “Of course, of course. A broken heel, did you say? She must have gone back to her room to change.”

  “Yes, she went off that way,” the earl tells him as he points to the south wing of the house instead of the stairs.

  Cal narrows his eyes as he heads toward the south hallway. These are the duke’s private quarters. What is Shadow doing here? He is starting to really worry. If the duke is the conspirator, then no one is safe, not just the princess, but Shadow as well.

  He runs to the door that leads to the duke’s bedchamber and opens it. Nothing. No one. Just the bed, tapestries, and a roaring fire. Cal is about to leave when he sees movement out on the balcony.

  The duke has his back turned. He is wearing a gray evening suit with a black cape around his shoulders. Gray and black, the traditional colors of the Aphrasians, a code indicating his allegiances. Cal has been a fool, more concerned with romance than conspiracy.

  But now his mind works overtime. The duke is an Aphrasian conspirator. Grand Prince Alast was definitely in Montrice with the duke a few months before he was killed . . . so he was conspiring against the queen, his sister-in-law. The truth is a bitter pill, even though there is no alternative.

  Except Cal is thinking of the papers they found in the duke’s study. The bill of mortality. The deaths of the real duke and duchess. The letter from King Esban thanking the duke for hosting his brother. King Almon died h
ere during a hunt, and Grand Prince Alast visited the duke for a hunt before being killed himself.

  The duke loathes hunting but finds it a useful hobby . . .

  * * *

  CAL STORMS OUT TO the balcony and opens the patio doors, but the duke does not even turn around. Instead he removes a silver cigar case from his inside coat pocket and flips it open. “Ah, just the man I was looking for,” he says. The inky ring on his finger shines in the dark, and when it catches the moonlight, Cal notices that its stone is made from the same liquid glass as the fragment the aunts showed him and Shadow the other evening. Obsidian. The duke wears an obsidian ring.

  The duke addresses him, his back still turned. “So, Lord Holton, if that’s what you’re calling yourself these days, you have come to confront me at last?”

  “Your Grace?”

  The duke steps away from the railing and turns to face Cal.

  Cal can’t believe what he’s seeing. He blinks a few times. Alast? It’s the grand prince, the one he killed at Baer Abbey. Alive. But how? And why is he here?

  “What have you done with the duke?” It’s a ridiculous thing to say, but he does so without thinking.

  “I am the duke,” the man with Alast’s face says. “Or do you prefer this face?” he asks, and shifts again, so that it changes to that of the leader of the group of monks who ambushed them in the forest.

  The truth hits Cal like a flash of lightning. Grand Prince Alast was a guest of the Duke of Girt a month before he died. The duke killed him on a hunt and took his form. The grand prince was never a traitor; instead, he came too close to discovering the truth of the Aphrasians and died for it. But Alast was no longer useful after Cal killed “him” at Baer Abbey. So the duke went back to this form, the one that wears the face of the Duke of Girt.

  “Who are you? Who do you work for? The king?” Cal demands.

  “King Hansen?” the duke sneers. “The king is a shallow, stupid boy, nothing more.” Now the duke laughs. “Oh, my young assassin, you are very young indeed. The better question is, what am I?”

  “A shapeshifter,” says Cal. With the obsidian ring and the blood of his victims, the duke can take on any form he chooses.

  “At last we understand each other,” says the duke.

  Enough is enough. Cal must act now, while he still has a chance. Cal slips the dagger from his sleeve into his hand. But before he can strike, the duke shakes his head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  The duke motions to the far side of the balcony. Cal turns to see Shadow standing in the corner. She is bound by an invisible force, trapped by a collar she wears around her neck—one made of pure obsidian.

  “A wave of my fingers and the collar will slice right through her pretty neck. A pity, don’t you think? But then it also stops her from talking, which is an advantage if you ask me,” the duke drawls.

  Shadow’s eyes are wide with fear. She cannot move. He can almost hear her thoughts in his head. If only he could make out what she’s trying to tell him.

  “Let her go,” says Cal, his mind racing. All is not lost, not yet.

  What is Shadow trying to tell him? He can’t quite make out the words.

  The duke laughs. “It’s over, Holt. By tomorrow Renovia will be mine again. I tire of this conversation. Jander, take care of him.”

  Another, smaller figure comes into the light. The young, mute stable boy from Deersia. Jander walks closer to Cal, his mouth set in a grim line.

  He raises his blade, but instead of striking Cal, he turns quickly and slashes at the duke, cleaving the finger that wears the obsidian ring.

  The ring. Cal realizes now that was what Shadow was trying to tell him. Get the ring.

  Jander had heard her instead.

  The duke roars and sends Jander flying across the balcony, slamming the boy’s body against the wall so that Cal can hear bones break. The small body falls to the ground with a thud. But the duke’s hold is broken. Shadow wrenches the obsidian collar from her neck and collapses.

  Now the duke turns to her, raising his hand and sending a powerful force to obliterate her, just as he did Jander, but Shadow recovers and holds her hands high, sending the shock force back to the duke.

  “Cal!” she screams. “Now!”

  The duke staggers back but recovers quickly and raises his arms once more. Yet he is not quick enough. Cal doesn’t hesitate. He is fast and deadly and merciless. He has his dagger drawn. He stabs the duke once, twice, three times, straight through the heart.

  He is the Queen’s Assassin, the protector of Renovia, and his blade is swift and true. The duke falls to the ground, dead.

  Cal runs to check on Shadow, who shakes him off. “I’m all right. My aunts’ talisman slowed the duke down a little. But Jander—help Jander.”

  Jander lies prostrate on the floor. Cal puts his fingers to the boy’s neck. There is a pulse. “Stay with me, Jander.” He tries to keep him present. “Fight it.”

  But Cal knows that in truth, the boy is mortally wounded.

  “I have lived long enough,” Jander says. His voice is as raspy as an old man’s. His face begins to waver, change. He grabs Cal’s shirt. “Listen to me.”

  “I’m listening,” Cal tells him.

  “Duke Girt. Whatever he calls himself now.”

  “Yes?”

  “You have to burn his mortal flesh.”

  Cal nods. “Because he is a shapeshifter.”

  Jander shakes his head impatiently. “No. No . . . Caledon, he is more than that. You must burn his body with the fire of Deia. Or he’ll return. He always comes back.”

  Cal’s body goes strangely still. A chill runs up his back, and gooseflesh, along with an overwhelming vertigo. He wants to say something, anything, but nothing comes out of his mouth. The duke is not just a shapeshifter, but the return of the immortal demon, a monster of legend, a monster who has stalked Avantine for centuries.

  “Yes,” he promises. He will burn the duke’s body with the white fire of Deia. It is the only way. But right now he wants to keep Jander here, alive, with him, though he can tell the boy—is he really a boy?—is being pulled away toward Deia.

  “Who are you really?” Cal asks, then realizes that is the wrong question once more. “What are you?”

  “Cursed,” answers Jander sadly. “I was cursed by the king long ago. But if you burn his body I will be free.” He grabs Cal’s shirt and tries to pull himself up somewhat, into more of a sitting position. “Hurry. Take the body, burn it.” He starts coughing, hacking blood. Specks of red splatter on the glass doors.

  Shadow comes to kneel by them, puts a hand on Cal’s shoulder. They huddle together, Cal holding Jander’s body in his arms, when a scream pierces the air.

  Duchess Girt is standing at the doorway, shaking, mouth open in a now-silent shriek, along with a growing pack of onlookers vying for a glance at what’s happening outside.

  The duchess finds her voice and screams again, this time shoving people aside to get inside. As she goes, she yells, “They’ve killed the duke! Murderers! Lord and Lady Holton are assassins!”

  “Caledon!” Jander spits out. He grabs him one last time and yanks him close. “The scrolls! He has the scrolls.”

  It is the last thing Cal remembers before they are taken away.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Caledon

  ANOTHER CELL. ANOTHER DIRT FLOOR. The room spins, hazy; objects waver in and out of focus; voices are loud, then quiet and back again. Searing pain slices through his head. He reaches up to touch the source—he has a massive swollen lump on his head.

  Someone yanks him by the collar and drags him across the floor. He kicks and tries to pull the shirt away from his neck. They drop him. He coughs, spits, catches his breath. His head is throbbing. Everything hurts, everywhere. Did they beat him while he was passed out? More important, what
happened to the duke’s body? And Jander? And Shadow? Where is she?

  Two men lift him, one at each arm, and begin pulling him. He tries to walk. His legs feel numb, asleep; they collapse under him.

  Everything around him is a blur—there are shapes, people, doorways, loud clanging noises, what sounds like scraping objects across walls.

  A large door opens in front of him. Bright light blinds him—he squeezes his eyes shut against its onslaught. The guards stop abruptly and let him go. He opens his eyes, grabs on to a rail in front of him for support. Once his vision adjusts, he sees dozens of Montrician nobles around him, and in the middle of them, directly across from him, sits King Hansen.

  Cal is standing in a partitioned space with waist-high wood rails keeping him away from the rest of the people in the room. He’s in a court chamber. The only way out is the way he came in, and multiple guards stand behind him.

  More commotion behind him. Doors open again and other guards escort Shadow into the prisoner space alongside him. Shadow doesn’t say a word to him or look at him. He knows they can’t speak to each other but he wants her to at least look at him, so he can find some kind of comfort in her eyes. She keeps her face firmly forward.

  Duchess Girt stands up in the audience and begins shouting and pointing at them: “Lowborn murderers! Assassins!” Another woman goes to her side and quiets her. The duchess allows herself to be directed back to her seat, but she is careful to ensure that the entire room hears her mournful wails.

  Phony, Cal thinks. King Hansen watches her; even he looks impatient with the spectacle.

  “Please,” Shadow says to the room. “Let us explain—”

  “Silence!” the king roars. His lips twist into a snarl. “You trespassed in my country, gained entry under false pretenses, and murdered a man of noble birth who was a member of my court. What else is there to understand?”