Shan’s upper lip curled to reveal his teeth—a wolf-like snarl. In the moonlight, all silver seemed to drain from his eyes, leaving them dark and endless, windows on the void.
His name died in her throat.
With a single, shocking movement, Shan took hold of the man’s head and neatly snapped his neck. The crack jolted through Jeren’s body and she took a step back.
Shan looked like them. Like the Fell.
Changed, the Enchassa had said. No one could spend time in her “tender care” without coming back changed, if they came back at all. Her breath snagged in her chest as if she’d broken a rib. So much pain. Panic bleeding through her.
The other knife almost took her across the throat. She heard the grunt as the second assassin came at her and turned just in time. The blade sliced into her unmarked shoulder, bringing white hot pain with it.
Think, she ordered herself, move or you die.
Her body obeyed, instinct and training taking over from shock and fear. And then something else flooded through her—anger. How many assassins would he send? How many of his plots did she have to foil when all she wanted was to be left alone? How many lives?
The sect knife punched deep into his stomach and his face turned white, his eyes wide. Blue eyes. He had blue eyes, this man... this boy. Clean shaven, a soldier probably. With blue eyes.
Her magic surged, responding to the blood. She struggled briefly, but it swept through the boundaries she had placed on it. So much blood, covering him, draining from him. It called to her and she answered. Drawing his life force from him, empowering herself, claiming his energy as her own.
The light in those blue eyes dwindled and his features when slack. He slid off her blade, thudding to the ground at her feet.
The old Jeren would have wept, cried out, shaken, but she couldn’t move.
The old Jeren. That was a joke, wasn’t it?
The old Jeren would have died.
Magic shimmered through her body, making her tremble, making her want to sing for joy.
Shan rose, his vulpine movements a marked contrast to her stony demeanour.
“Alive would have been useful,” he said. He didn’t comment on her method. For that she felt a strange kind of gratitude.
She cast a scathing glance to the man he had killed. “I could say the same to you.”
“There wasn’t time.”
“No. There wasn’t.”
For a moment she thought he’d argue. She could read him now, could see the anger in his face, anger that the assassins had got so close, anger that she’d had to kill one herself.
Blood trickled down his cheek. She blinked, staring at it, glossy and bright against the marble of his skin. She wanted it, wanted the power it could give her, the energy that would flood through her if she but reached out.
If she would kill Shan.
Her anger slid away with that terrible thought. “Shan, you’re hurt.” Her voice shook. She reached out, but he caught her hand in his. His grip was so strong, like rock.
Running feet, shouts of alarm, the questions her people hurled at them, everything went unheard. Shan bowed his head, his brow furrowed.
“It’s just a scratch. He got in a lucky swipe, that’s all.”
She’d seen him hurt before. She’d seen him tortured, battered, in agony. But she’d never seen him vulnerable before.
He pulled her into his arms, carefully avoiding the gash burning into her shoulder. “I thought... for a moment I thought...”
It washed over her, terror, fear, the nightmare of losing him... Worse than her fears. “I know.” She had to whisper the words. Her body could manage no more.
When he looked up, his eyes were his own again. Had she imagined it?
Changed. He had been changed.
Please, god and goddess, she begged, let it have been my imagination.
“Jeren!” Vertigern came bustling through the camp, still pulling on his clothes. Elayne followed, fully armed, flawless. “Jeren, are you all right?”
She almost smiled, even though there was no humour left in her. She kissed Shan’s cheek and released him with regret.
“We’re fine. Someone see to the sentries. They may be still alive...”
But they weren’t. She knew that. Only luck had saved her. Luck and Shan.
Her own training.
And the darkness lurking within her magic.
Chapter Ten
When the bodies were laid out for burial they were left alone. No one planned to mourn assassins, even if they had failed in their attempt. Shan had counted on just that. He left the camp by the southern edge, circled around silently to re-enter from the north. Right at the edge, as far from Jeren as possible—as if they still might pose a threat to her—the bodies had been stripped of their few possessions, bound in burial cloth and left for the morning. If wild animals happened across them during the night, so be it. Who among Jeren’s people would care?
He unbound the cloth covering their faces, studying the features he had barely seen during the fight. The gnawing doubt grew worse. Shan rarely forgot a face and he’d seen this one already, before it had become that of an enemy. This man had stood before Jeren and sworn to serve her. He had joined her wolves months ago, back in Sheninglas. Lately he’d been mostly among Vertigern’s men. Albrim. That was his name. Or something like that.
The other man, Shan didn’t know at all, but he feared the same thing.
“Vertigern sent them after you,” said the Enchassa. He tried to push her from his mind, but couldn’t. Not anymore. He’d opened something inside himself to protect Jeren from these killers. And now he couldn’t close it off again. His mouth went dry. Best not to think about it. “Not Jeren, but you. He wants you out of the way.”
Shan lifted his head and looked northeast. The lights of River Holt made the sky glow gold on the horizon. In another day or so they might see it, proud atop the Alviron Falls, like an eagle poised, looking for prey.
Could Gilliad have planned so far ahead? To plant assassins months ago but only have them attack Jeren now as she approached his stronghold? It made no sense, not if he was allied to the Fellna as everything indicated. The Fellna wanted Jeren alive. They’d even marked her as Khain’s in order to secure her as his bride. And despite his threats, Gilliad probably didn’t want her dead either. True, his wife was with child, but that child was not yet born which meant Jeren was still his heir. Gilliad was insane. Not a fool.
She couldn’t have been the target.
These men had not come from Gilliad.
“You know you’re right, Shan. No one likes a threat. You heard them say it yourself. You’re too close to her.”
Vertigern. It had to be Vertigern. He’d decided to act at last. To remove Shan from his path as if Shan was all that stood between him and Jeren.
Shan wasn’t the only one close to Jeren though.
As her teacher and advisor, so was Indarin.
Indarin listened to her, his face unreadable. Jeren stammered through what she had seen in Shan’s eyes, all the while waiting for him to stand up and call her a liar. But Indarin didn’t move. That was the worst part of all.
He didn’t move. Didn’t say a word. He didn’t defend Shan.
“The Enchassa said he would be changed,” she said and flopped down beside him. “And he has been. When I looked at him, in that moment...” She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t force the words from her mouth. Her heart twisted inside.