(Chapter 7: Bruises, cont.)

  Ean winced. “Well… not exactly.”

  Leo looked over, brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  Ean didn’t want to admit it, but he was already discovered. He might as well tell the full story, even though he wasn’t quite sure how to explain it. He started with a question. “Why do you think no one tries to kill a shadow-walker after we assassinate someone?”

  “I imagine you’re better trained than most assassins,” Leo said.

  “Well, yes,” Ean agreed. “Not many people can best a shadow-walker in a fight. But there are easier ways of killing someone. Poison, for example. Why do you think no one tries that?”

  “Shadow-walkers are a guild, right? You must protect each other.”

  Ean nodded. “When someone wants to hire us, they petition the Umbrus Jury. Seven shadow-walkers hear the plea and consider the evidence presented. Sometimes the job is approved, sometimes it requires further investigation, and sometimes the job is declined. If a shadow-walker were ever targeted for completing a sanctioned job, then every shadow-walker that sat on the jury would be oath-bound to retaliate. That’s why it’s rare that anyone kills a shadow-walker out of vengeance. To do so means death, and sometimes, even more than that. We can get a little vicious when one of our own is attacked. Houses get burnt. Lands get razed. Things like that.”

  “And the contract on my head?”

  Ean’s stomach twisted. He swallowed hard and confessed, “Your contract wasn’t sanctioned by the jury. The case was rejected.”

  “Then why did you take it?” Leo asked, a painful amount of confusion in his voice. “Did you want to kill me?”

  Ean quickly shook his head. “No.”

  Leo stopped so abruptly that Ean took two steps past him before noticing. He backtracked to him.

  “No bullshit,” Leo said. “Isn’t that what you told me back at the barn? Don’t try to spin this. You took my contract, even though it wasn’t approved, ergo you wanted to kill me. I deserve to know why.”

  Again, he wasn’t angry. It would have been easier if he was angry. Instead, he had that kicked-puppy look about him again. Ean turned on his heel and started walking, not to get away from the question, but to give him something else to focus on besides the guilt. Leo jogged to catch up.

  “It’s not you as a person,” Ean told him, even though it was a weak excuse. “It’s what the job would have meant for me. I would have graduated.”

  “You’re an apprentice?” Leo asked, obviously surprised.

  Ean jerked his head in affirmation. “A shadow-walker trainee gets ten years of schooling. After that, the trainee can take the final trials, or go on to an apprenticeship for three years. I’m nearly done with my apprenticeship. I’ll have to take the trials soon.”

  “What are the trials?”

  “A bunch of things,” Ean said, waving off the specifics. “I can do it all, except catch an arrow.”

  “I thought all shadow-walkers could catch arrows.”

  “Which is why I’m still an apprentice.” Ean reached up to rub a hand over his face. “During the trials, an arrow will be fired at my heart. If I don’t catch it…,” he trailed off with a shrug and Leo’s eyes went wide. “The petitioner that came to us was from a noble family. When your case wasn’t approved, she asked me to take it anyway. She said that if I did, she’d sponsor me and I wouldn’t have to take the trials.”

  “So if you killed me, you would live,” Leo said, drawing the wrong conclusion.

  It would be easy to let him keep that assumption. Ean knew enough of the Prince to know he would accept that reasoning. But he didn’t want to lie anymore.

  “Trainees aren’t forced to take the trials,” Ean admitted quietly. “I could have abdicated.”

  Leo’s mouth pinched at the corners. “So, killing me was a way to cheat yourself to graduation.”

  Ean nodded.

  Leo was silent for a moment, then he shook his head and gave a hollow laugh. “How nice it must be, to care so little for the lives of others that you’ll kill whoever you need to get ahead.”

  His censure stung, more than Ean thought it would. “I didn’t have another option,” he argued. “I’ve been training for years—”

  “Obviously not hard enough,” Leo interjected.

  “I have no other skills—”

  “Are you incapable of learning?”

  “I was raised to be a shadow-walker,” Ean insisted. “I want to be a shadow-walker.”

  “That does not give you the right to take a life!” Leo snapped, his voice stern in a way that Ean hadn’t heard before. “I deserve to live, not to be struck down to serve as a stepping-stone for your career.”

  Any argument Ean had died at his words. Leo was right. Of course, he was right. Ean had known that killing him was wrong since the moment he’d heard the Countess’s plea. It was simply more convenient for him to believe otherwise. Guilt rose up, but instead of feeling like he was drowning in it, it felt like he was swimming—and he’d just glimpsed the shore.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Ean looked over at the Prince, prepared to admit he was wrong, maybe even prepared to apologize, but there was no hurt on Leo’s face anymore. It had been replaced with disgust, like Ean was something abhorrent.

  The guilt turned back into anger. Ean jerked his finger at Leo, accusingly. “I wouldn’t have taken the case if you hadn’t written that damn letter!”

  “What?”

  “The letter to the Countess. She showed me. You took full responsibility for the deaths of those men.”

  Leo’s face blanched. He licked his lips before responding. “I wrote that letter so the Writmarks wouldn’t have to pay the death price. Devon was in command and seven of his men died. His family would have had to pay that debt on top of losing their son, so I offered it instead.”

  It was a scripted answer, one that Ean didn’t believe, not fully. “You said that you regretted your actions. You all but blamed yourself for the battle. What was I supposed to think when I read it?”

  “You weren’t supposed to read it at all!” Leo snapped. “It was private. It was to his mother! It was—” his breath hitched, cutting him off, and Ean was horrified to realize there were tears in Leo’s eyes. The Prince stopped on the path, turning to hide his face as he composed himself. Ean paused beside him, feeling even worse than before.

  “Yes,” Leo said finally. He pulled in a breath and turned to Ean, his confession spilling out of his mouth. “Yes, I blame myself for Devon’s death, and the deaths of the other soldiers. I could have ordered the troop back, but I didn’t. It was Devon’s command, and I didn’t want to pull rank. I was afraid his pride would be wounded, and he wouldn’t forgive me, or his men would lose their respect for him. I told myself that it wasn’t my place to say anything, that I wasn’t the ranking officer. But I was wrong.” His face twisted, and Ean knew that expression. Leo’s next words were bitter with regret. “I’m always the ranking officer.”

  Up ahead, the rest of the party had stopped. From the corner of his eye, Ean could see Asali take a step towards them. Roarke waved her back.

  “I wrote that letter,” Leo continued, “and I paid the death price, for Devon as well. I have learned from it. I’ve learned that it’s better to lose a friend to an argument than to death.” His eyes met Ean’s and there was anger in them now. “And thanks to you, I’ve learned that even if you do the honorable thing, someone still might try to kill you for it. So, tell me, shadow-walker, now that you know the full story, do I deserve to die?” He held out his hands, the way Ean had back at the brook when he’d offered to let Leo hit him.

  Shame burned Ean’s cheeks. He couldn’t look at him, he couldn’t look at any of them. He knew that this was the time, if there ever was one, to apologize. He opened his mouth, but the words stuck in his throat. It wasn’t that Ean didn’t regret his actions, because he did. It wasn’t that he didn’t know he was wrong because, dark stars, he knew it. It was just… if the offer was given again, Ean didn’t trust himself not to take it. Leo was right; he was a selfish being.

  Ean dragged his gaze to the Prince’s face. “Your actions do you justice.”

  It was a paltry offering to someone he’d nearly murdered, but Leo seemed surprised he’d given that much. His eyes searched Ean’s, and then he nodded. He started walking again, and Ean fell in step beside him. Silence stretched. It wasn’t a comfortable silence, but the weight had been removed. Chadwick finally called Leo to take point, an excuse to call him away. Ean kept his place in the back for the rest of the day’s journey, and when they finally made camp that evening, there were fewer suspicious looks his way.

  The temperature dropped quickly that night. As they’d left the tents behind with the horses, Chadwick built up the fire and everyone pulled their bedrolls in close. Ean ended up next to Asali. She had an irritable look about her, which made him wonder if she was still pissed at him, but then he saw her glance Leo’s way. The Prince was sitting on his pack and Flora had taken a spot on the ground beside his feet, brushing up against his leg.

  Asali threw another log on the fire, a bit rougher than necessary, and a flurry of sparks flew up. Flora tipped her head back to watch them. Leo bent down to her angle and then pointed upwards. “That’s Nautilus.”

  Ean looked up as well. He could never pick out the constellations on his own.

  “Where?” Flora asked, shifting so that she was fully leaning against Leo.

  Asali made a sound of disgust that only Ean heard. She rolled over on her bedroll and pulled her blanket over her head. Ean stayed up and listened as Leo pointed out more constellations, the Warrior, Helios, the Tree and the Bear. Leo didn’t just know the constellations; he knew the legends as well. He was a passable storyteller, keeping the plotlines linear, not having to backtrack to add in forgotten information. His recall was impressive, but it was clear he didn’t believe the stories he was reciting, so they sounded more like a lecture. Ean’s mother used to say that belief was the most important ingredient in telling a story. He drifted off to the legend of the Swan and the Prince, and once again, he wasn’t woken to take a watch.

  *   *   *

  Thwock!

  Ean shot up from his bedroll, twisting his wrists to release his knives. His eyes darted around the camp, looking for danger. It was close to dawn. Leo, Chadwick, and Flora were still sleeping around the fire. Roarke was on watch, unalarmed, sipping tea. He jerked his head to the right.

  “Asali’s practicing.”

  Ean let out a breath, re-sheathed his knives, and scrubbed a hand over his face. He heard the twang of Asali’s bowstring followed by another thwock of an arrow driving into a tree trunk. He got up and wandered over to watch. Asali’s jaw was set. Her shoulders were tensed.

  His mind hadn’t fully woken up, so he asked her, “Jealous?”

  The next arrow went by his ear. He reached up to see if he could catch it and cut his finger across the fletching.

  “Bad at shadow-walking?” she retorted.

  Ean glared at her and stuck his finger in his mouth. “You seem really pissed at Flora.”

  “You think I’m pissed at Flora?” She lined up another shot across his shoulder. He tried to catch it again and completely missed. He swore; she laughed.

  “Are you angry with Leo then?” he asked.

  “How long have you been trying to kill him?” she retorted.

  Ean shrugged. “It was all of twenty minutes from start to finish.”

  “Were you hired by Westenvale?” She lined up another arrow, this time aiming at his chest.

  “Fuck’s sake, I’m not graduated yet!” He ducked behind a tree and the arrow thudded into the bark.

  “Leo hasn’t committed any crimes,” Asali said.

  Ean peeked from behind the tree to look at her. He shrugged; she was right. She shook her head and loosed another arrow. This one flew so close to his face that he held his breath as it passed. The fletching tickled his cheek. She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I don’t trust you, shadow-walker.”

  “You don’t have to,” Ean agreed. “Now fire one over my right shoulder. Sometimes I’m better with my left hand.”

  She did as instructed but loosed the arrow so quickly he didn’t have time to bring his hand up. She laughed, smug and pleased with herself. Ean swore at her and headed back to camp.

  He was in a sour mood as they traveled that morning, but he doubted anyone cared. When they stopped for the night, they could just make out the lights of the northern village.