Chapter 1:

  A Bad Decision

  Evening fell over Balucia in shades of gold and scarlet. From the window, Ean could hear the city preparing for the night’s activities. Shopkeepers closed their stores; parents called their children in from the streets. Taverns opened their doors and strands of music drifted out. A lyre and a lute played from the inn down the road, familiar chords in an unfamiliar pattern. It was a simple arrangement, but melodic. On another night, Ean might have ventured out to listen, maybe even learned a song or two—but not tonight. He had work to do.

  He finished sheathing his knives. The sheaths were made from stiffened black leather, making for a silent draw, unlike the ringing of a sword pulled from a metal scabbard. The hilts were wrapped in black leather as well. Against the dark cloth of his uniform, they were nearly invisible. The uniform wasn’t a true black. On closer inspection, it revealed itself to be a blend of blues, greens, and browns so dark and deep that they disappeared against the night sky or into the evening shadows. He pulled on the balaclava, spun from the same fabric, then reached for the pot of kohl. He turned to the mirror to smudge it over the pale skin that showed around his eyes and caught his teacher’s face in the reflection. Felix’s skin was brown, dark enough that he didn’t need kohl on a night mission. His eyes were pinched at the corners.

  “Is there nothing I can say that would persuade you to give this up?” Felix asked.

  Ean turned and met his gaze. “Tell me, honestly and truly, that I’ll be able to catch an arrow in two months.”

  Felix hesitated, which was answer enough. His teacher knew the truth: Ean wasn’t ready for the trials. He needed another year, maybe even two, but the rules of graduation were firm. A shadow-walker trainee was given ten years of schooling and three years of apprenticeship, then they took the trials. No extensions. This job was Ean’s only chance at graduating. He turned back to the mirror to finish applying the kohl.

  “We’ll find a way to delay the trials,” Felix said, almost desperately. “I’ll register you as injured, or I’ll accept a job out in the wilds, and we’ll take our time traveling. I’ll practice with you, every day.”

  “We’ve been practicing,” Ean snapped, frustration staining his words. “For two years. I’m not getting any better.”

  It was hard for him to admit it. Everything else had come so easily, everything except that damned arrow. He grabbed his gloves and yanked them on. Felix stepped forward, reaching out with his right hand and the silver hook that took the place of his left.

  “Ean,” he said.

  Ean paused at the fear in his teacher’s voice. Felix was a hard man to scare. Ean was nervous himself—of course, he was, but he was prepared. He reached out to grasp his teacher’s hand and hook.

  “I was in that palace for a month,” he said, offering reassurance even as his stomach twisted with anxiety. “I know my way around. And you spent three days planning this with me. I can do it.”

  “This job,” Felix started.

  Ean pulled away, not wanting to hear another lecture, but Felix’s hand snapped out, too fast to avoid. His fingers tightened around his wrist like a shackle.

  “I will not say I disapprove, for you know this already,” Felix said, his voice low and somber. “And I know that I cannot dissuade you. You are too stubborn for that. But this job… this job will have consequences. Powerful men are setting their pieces upon the board. If you join this game, I am afraid that some great hand will snatch you up and place you where I cannot follow.”

  Ean frowned at his teacher’s words. This wasn’t some clandestine operation or political plot. It was just another job. A prominent job, certainly, and dangerous, but the risk was the same as every other: death in the line of the duty.

  “I’ll be back by morning,” he promised. “We’ll return to Haven as soon as I’m done. I’m not going anywhere else.”

  Felix dropped his wrist and looked away. His face creased into a frown; he swallowed hard, like he was pushing down more words of caution.

  Realization struck. Ean let out a huff of air and stepped into his gaze. “Felix, if this is about me graduating… you have been my teacher for these past twelve years. That won’t change after tonight. Even though I won’t be your apprentice anymore, we’ll still travel together, take jobs together, like we planned.” He reached out to tug his teacher’s graying hair. “I’ll still do your braids for you.”

  He thought the jest would make Felix laugh—his teacher knew how much Ean hated doing the braids, both his own and Felix’s—but Felix didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile. He met Ean’s gaze, his eyes dark and insistent.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Don’t do this. Please.”

  “It’s the only way to graduate,” Ean said, looking away. “You know that.”

  “You can abdicate,” Felix said.

  Ean jerked back. The words stung like a slap to the face. “What?”

  “You’re young, and smart, and strong. You can find another future.”

  “How can you say that?” Ean demanded. “How can you—after everything—after—” He stumbled over his words, trying to express the absolute betrayal washing over him. Give up shadow-walking? Give up twelve years of training? The mere thought of it was abhorrent.

  Hurt turned to anger, hot and powerful. Ean jabbed a finger at his teacher. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  “Ean—”

  But Ean was done listening. He ran for the open window and jumped out.

  Their room at the shadow-walker guild hall was on the second floor. It was easy enough to tuck and roll as he hit the street below. He didn’t look back to see if Felix was watching him leave. He scaled the wall of the shop across the street and dashed across the roof.

  There was freedom in roof-running, freedom in letting his body exhilarate in the strength, speed, and balance that had been drilled into it over the past twelve years. He sprinted across peaked roof-tops and flipped over narrow alleyways. He leapt his way up large tenement houses and hurled himself from heights that would have made any onlookers gasp, but there were no onlookers. His uniform kept him invisible, and he landed softer than a cat.

  Balucia was a good city for roof-running. It was built tightly, with plenty of jumpable roadways and climbable towers, but Ean found no joy in it tonight. His feet moved without conscious thought as Felix’s request echoed in his ears. Abdicate from the shadow-walkers. Leave the profession.

  Why would Felix ask that of him? Did he think Ean wasn’t capable? Had he lost faith in him?

  A loose shingle gave way under his foot. Ean turned the slip into a somersault, rolling out of it without breaking his stride.

  Maybe Felix was having a hard time letting go. It would be Ean’s first assassination without his assistance, after all. Or perhaps it was the job itself that scared him. Not many shadow-walkers, much less apprentices, would attempt to assassinate the Crown Prince of Eastmere.

  The royal palace loomed above him, built on the hill that made up the northern side of Viator Bay. The pale gray stone reflected the brilliant hues of the sunset. Ean paused on the tower of the library, the closest building to the castle gate, and waited for dark. Shadows stretched. Lanterns were lit. The scarlet sky gave way to violet and indigo and those gave way to night.

  It was time.

  Ean swung down from the tower and skirted along the edge of the castle wall. There was a section, halfway between the servants’ entrance and stable gate, where the guards skimped on their patrol. He’d discovered that during his first week of reconnaissance. He climbed that section now, his hands and feet finding purchases that even a mountain goat would refuse. He paused for a moment at the top, lying motionless on the battlement, trusting that his shadow-walker’s uniform would render him invisible. He turned his head, searching for any guards. As expected, the area was clear. Ean rolled off the wall and dropped silently into the outer garden. From there, he dashed into the first-floor kitchens.

  Reconnaissance inside the palace had been difficult. He’d remained hidden during the day, lying in the rafters or tucked into alcoves, completely still, scarcely daring to breathe. He’d only moved at night, taking the opportunity to relieve himself and steal food from the kitchens. Then he had scoped out his next hiding place, each move taking him further and further into the palace. It’d been a slow process, but one that had carried him all the way into the royal family’s private chambers.

  Ean slipped through the kitchens and out into the second courtyard that housed the trellis gardens. He moved quicker under the cover of the hanging vines. He was getting close now, and at that thought, his heart started to pound, faster than it usually did when he was on a mission. The racing heartbeat came with a prickle of sweat and a sudden twist of his stomach. He had to stop for a moment, taking refuge under a canopy of moon blossoms. He swallowed back the bitter taste in his mouth.

  The Prince wouldn’t be his first kill. That had been the mayor of Shreveport, a red-faced, portly man who had enjoyed beating his servants half-to-death. When one servant had died after such a beating, the others had pooled their funds to hire a shadow-walker. Sell-swords and mercenaries demanded five gold for a kill. With the brute squad that had protected the mayor, they would have set the price at fifty. Felix had agreed to take the job for six silvers. Ean had been in his apprenticeship at that time and allowed to travel with him. Felix had occupied the brute squad outside, and Ean had snuck in and slit the mayor’s throat. He’d felt some guilt, some panic afterwards, but that had abated when they’d cleared out the house and discovered the servants being held in the cellar. They’d been in the slow, torturous process of starving to death—a common punishment from the mayor. Two were already dead. Another gorged himself to death after being released.

  After the mayor, there had been the cobbler in the neighboring village. He was a belligerent fellow who liked getting into fights at the tavern, but he hadn’t swung with his fists; he’d swung with his hammer. Two men had died under his blows, another had been blinded. His wife had fled after he’d broken her arm in a rage. The town had no lawmen to mete out justice. They’d paid five sacks of grain and Ean had killed him while he was asleep in bed. That had been their request; the townspeople had fonder memories of him. After that was the Lord of Highbank, a man who had liked to prey on young children, sometimes buying them from destitute parents, sometimes snatching them off the street. Ean had killed him at his dinner table, in front of his fancy guests, for a bushel of apples.

  Prince Leonid, or Leo as his friends called him, was not a sadist. He was not a bully or a child-molester. But the petitioner that had come to Haven, the Countess of Writmark, blamed him for the deaths of eight men while on a training exercise near the border of Westenvale. One of them had been Devon Wiltshire, her only son.

  Ean pulled in a bracing breath. Eight men. Surely that was enough. Surely that demanded justice.