Chapter Three

Raffe

When an assassin finally came, Raffe was ready.

He’d been ready. Ever since that night at the edge of the Wilderwood—the night Neve disappeared—he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. It was a miracle it’d taken this long, really.

A week ago, he’d trekked to the village with Kiri slung over his back. He’d expected to run into trouble there—villagers awakened by the cosmic showdown happening at the border of the Wilderwood, a forest made a man brawling with one wreathed in shadow, ready to lash out in fear. But everyone, mysteriously, was asleep. Maybe through magic, maybe because people who chose to live so close to the Wilderwood had trained themselves not to notice strangeness, but the god-battle at the edge of the trees had apparently come and gone without comment.

Thankfully, Valleyda’s northernmost village also played fast and loose with the law. Raffe had managed to find someone who didn’t think twice about helping him cross the Florish border with a clearly injured woman, who raised barely an eyebrow when he paid for her passage to the Rylt in solid gold coins. It wasn’t cheap, despite its brevity. Sailing westward to the cluster of islands that made the Rylt was three days’ journey, usually, but he’d found a sailor who said he could make it in two. Raffe had paid enough for Kiri to have food, but not much more than that, and given the captain a story about how she was his distant aunt, raving mad. He wondered if the captain had believed him. At any rate, he’d believed his gold.

Once he returned to the capital, it’d been fairly easy to make the rest of Kiri’s Order follow their High Priestess across the sea. A letter to the Ryltish Temple accompanied the rest of the priestesses on their voyage, and though the price of such a thing made his stomach and his purse ache, it was worth it to have them gone. Easy, too, had been the lying, both to the Temple and the court—Queen Neverah was so impressed with the piety in the Rylt, she’d sent Valleyda’s own Order so they could learn from each other.

Raffe just had to trust that all the Valleydan priestesses he’d sent away were smart enough to keep their mouths shut about everything that had happened, and that any raving on Kiri’s part could be chalked up to her injuries. Thus far, luck had held. But he was canny enough not to trust that it would forever.

More than once, Raffe thought that he should’ve just killed them. Killed Kiri, killed the priestesses. But he wasn’t that bloodthirsty. Not yet.

Though it’s probably what Neve would’ve done.

Neve. Arick. He’d pushed away the grief and frustration and a whole host of other unpleasant emotions surrounding them, keeping his feelings at arm’s length through force of will—and wine when that failed. He’d remembered yesterday that Arick’s birthday was soon, his mind serving the information up seemingly at random, and though he’d drained an entire bottle afterward, he hadn’t truly grieved. He had no time. No energy. When this was all resolved, when he finally had Neve back, then they could grieve together.

Though even the context of together was an odd one for him.

He loved Neve. He had since they were children. But the shape of that love was more difficult to pin down than its mere reality—its edges and contours, how exactly it was supposed to fit in his chest. He loved Neve, but did he know her? He’d thought so, before. Before Red and the forest, before the trees in the Shrine, before he’d seen her pull in darkness and sink into the earth.

After seeing what she was capable of, what she was willing to do, he wasn’t so sure he knew her at all.

All of these myriad thoughts were far from his mind now, however, as the assassin he’d expected ever since he arrived back at the capital finally crept into his room.

Raffe lay shirtless in his bed, eyes slit against the dark as he watched a figure moving through the shadows. He’d been dreaming before the assassin broke his light sleep. An odd one: a huge, white tree, the trunk swirled in gold and black.

The dregs of the dream still clung to the corners of his mind as he tracked the assassin through the room, peering through his lashes from nearly closed eyes. Raffe kept his breaths long and even, his limbs loose. When he slipped his hand under the pillow, where he kept a short dagger, he made it look like he was just shifting in his sleep.

The assassin wasn’t deterred by his movement. And they weren’t dressed for the job—black, yes, but it looked like they were wearing a gown? Surely that was just a trick of the light.

The shadowed figure crept closer. No shine of a blade, but there were other ways to kill someone. Raffe tightened his grip on the dagger hilt beneath his pillow. He’d find out who sent them before he killed them. At this point, he thought of mostly everyone as a potential enemy, but it’d be useful to know which ones weren’t cowards.

When the figure got close enough to see the slit of his eyes, Raffe closed them. A deep, grounding breath through his nose, recalling the few things he’d retained from his year training with his tor. Warm breath ghosted over his cheek as the figure bent close.

Raffe sat up with a snarl, slicing the dagger through the air to stop right at the base of their throat.

“Kings and shadows, Raffe!” A bell-like laugh. Familiar. “You’re quicker than I thought!”

His eyes narrowed, adjusting to the dim, to the coyly smiling figure at the end of his dagger. “Kayu?”

Okada Kayu, Third Daughter of the Niohni Emperor. Moonlight glinted off her teeth as she grinned, reaching up to pull back her hood. Long, pin-straight black hair cascaded down her shoulders, and Kayu gave it an impatient shake. “I’ll be honest, I’m impressed.” Exaggeratedly pushing away the edge of Raffe’s blade with a finger, she sidestepped to his table, scavenged up a match, and lit the half-melted taper. The flare of light shadowed her eyes as she turned to him with crossed arms. “When I got within inches and you were still asleep, I figured you’d be a goner.”

“So you were trying to kill me?”

“Of course not. I just wanted to know if I could.”

“That isn’t the comfort you think it is.”

“I wanted to try something I read about today. The Krahls of Elkyrath used to train their guards to walk almost silently by using this technique where they put all their weight on their heels. You see, you’d think it was the toe, like how we tiptoe when we want to be quiet, but that mostly just makes you prone to falling over—”

“You weren’t silent. I woke up.”

“Well, the Krahl of Elkyrath didn’t train me.”

Raffe ran a hand down his face. Ostensibly, Kayu was in Valleyda in order to use the library, making her the latest in a string of bookish women who’d made themselves thorns in his ass. Both Valedren twins, and now an Okada. He attracted a type into his orbit, apparently.

Kayu had arrived three days ago with no retinue and very little in the way of possessions. The letter she held, signed by Isla—and wasn’t that a swift punch to the sternum—said that the Niohni princess was welcome to come stay in Valleyda for as long as she liked, that the court would be thrilled to host her while she studied navigation.

It was very similar to the letter Raffe had received when he was fourteen and headed here to learn about trade routes.

Arriving at the beginning of fall meant Kayu couldn’t take up a true course of study with any Valleydan tutors until the season passed, since nearly everyone went to their own holdings to prepare for the rapidly approaching cold. But she didn’t seem to mind.

Across from him, Kayu licked the pad of her finger and passed it idly through the candle-flame. Despite her nonchalant manner, she held herself rigidly, like she was less comfortable being in a man’s room in the middle of the night than she wanted him to believe.

Raffe’s eyes narrowed against the flickering light. “Elkyrathan assassination tactics aren’t what I would think a student of navigation would spend time reading about.”

“I’m well-rounded.”

“It’s certainly something that might interest a person plotting to take over a throne, though.”

Some of the tension in Kayu’s frame seemed to ebb, almost like his honesty was refreshing. Her heart-shaped face gave nothing away, though, her dark eyes trained on the candle and her finger passing through it. “You still don’t believe me, then.”

“That your family sending you here to study while the Queen is ill has nothing to do with you being next in line for the Valleydan throne? No. I don’t.”

She stiffened a bit, but her voice was flippant. “Please. You think Valleyda is worth starting a war? I’ve been to funerals livelier than this court.” A shrug as she began twisting a strand of hair around her finger. “And I didn’t know the Queen was ill. Last I heard, she was meddling in the Order, changing things that hadn’t been changed in centuries. Seemed fairly healthy, to be doing all that.”

It’d been a mistake to mention Neve. It made his chest feel hollowed out and full of a simmering anger all at the same time.

“She’ll recover soon, I’m sure,” Kayu continued. “Then maybe there will be a ball. I love balls. It’s been ages since I went dancing.”

“Maybe you could go home and convince your father to throw one.”

Her finger froze, wound in black hair to the knuckle. Any mention of Kayu’s father went over like a bucket of ice on a winter morning. “My father is more likely to throw me in the ocean than throw me a ball.” She released her hair, looked away. “And I don’t know how many times I’ll have to tell you that both of my older sisters are married, one to a noblewoman in Elkyrath and one to our father’s treasurer, and thus unavailable for the position of Queen.”

“You aren’t married.” Any Queen succeeding to the Valleydan throne had to be either unmarried or married to someone from within the Valleydan court. Kayu was a third cousin of Red and Neve, some complicated matter involving a great aunt who remarried and bore children late in life to a Niohni noble. The line of succession was a tangled one, but it ended with Kayu, unmarried, and therefore eligible to become the next Queen of Valleyda.

Her full lips pulled to the side, an expression he couldn’t read. “No, I’m not married.” A pause, then she flipped her hand dismissively. “But I’m also unavailable, believe me. And I do not want it.”

The undesirability of Valleydan queenship was really the only thing saving them, since no one knew that the Second Daughter tithe was now moot. Raffe thought it would behoove him to keep that secret as long as he could.

Still, the arrival of a candidate for the crown within days of Neve disappearing into the Shadowlands was enough to give him pause, undesirable queenship or no.

Raffe wondered, not for the first time, if it was too late to really show an interest in the wine-shipping business.

The barest hint of sunlight filtered into the sky beyond the window, night’s fist opening into fingers of dawn. He was fully awake now; trying to sleep again would be pointless. Scowling, Raffe got up, bunching his sheet around his waist as he crossed to the wardrobe. “Is there a reason you’re sneaking in here in the wee hours of the morning other than seeing if you could kill me? Which I’m still not happy about, by the way. I could’ve killed you.”

“Take it as a testament to your nobility that I knew you wouldn’t.” Kayu sat in the wooden chair against the wall and propped her chin on her fist. “You are achingly noble, Raffe. Right on the edge of where attractive becomes exasperating.”

“Fortunately, I don’t particularly care about being attractive.” He opened the wardrobe so the wide doors hid him from her view.

“Not to anyone but the Queen, right?”

He froze, fingers clenched around a pair of trousers. Only a moment passed before he pulled them on, the movement as nonchalant as he could make it. “What makes you say that?”

“I have two eyes, for one thing. And you, Raffe, walk around like a man carrying the weight of the whole world. Who else would you carry it for?”

Raffe yanked on a shirt with more force than was needed, nearly loosening a seam.

When he closed the wardrobe, Kayu sat back in his chair like the princess she was, this time elegantly crossing her legs at the ankles. The candlelight gilded her long, straight hair, so black it was nearly blue. “I can’t wait to see her, once she recovers,” she said. “I desperately want to meet the distant cousin who has you so in her thrall.”

The word thrall made his jaw set tight. “She’s recuperating in Floriane, and I doubt she’ll be back before you’re gone. The sacrifice of her sister greatly impacted her health.”

That, at least, wasn’t a lie.

“Floriane?” A flash of white in the dim; Kayu pulled a tightly folded sheet of paper from a pocket hidden in her skirt. “Strange, then, that a letter for you concerning her would come from the Rylt.”

The Rylt. Kiri.

Shit, she worked fast.

Not worth playing coy, not that he was good at it, anyway. Raffe stalked across the room, held his hand out imperiously. Kayu passed him the letter with a smile. “I can tell you what it says, if you want. It’s very simple. I was almost disappointed; I’d been reading up on common ciphers yesterday and thought I might have a chance to try one out.”

“You are exhausting.” He scanned the letter quickly, gaze snagging on the signature at the bottom before he managed to actually read any of the body. It was Kiri, all right.

Shit shit shit. “How did you get this?”

It took her a moment to answer, and when he looked up, there was a quick flash of apprehension in her eyes. Then it was gone, ephemeral enough to have been his imagination.

“When I saw a messenger headed to your room with a letter, I let him know I could take it to you.” Kayu flashed a smile. “I might have implied that our meeting so early was for carnal reasons.”

“Wonderful,” Raffe muttered, turning his attention to the letter.

So much for hoping the former High Priestess would be incapacitated, that her injuries might render her insensate. Kiri wrote politely enough, skirting just around the edge of a revelation without actually delving into one. She thanked him for safe passage, and for sending her sisters, at great personal cost, I’m sure. She said that their accommodations in the Rylt proved most fortunate, a choice of words that made gooseflesh rise along the back of his neck.

It’s easier to hear, across the sea, away from the cursed forest’s clatter, Kiri wrote. And many a wayward sister has turned to the cause.

Nonsense. He wanted to dismiss it as nonsense. But he couldn’t, not quite.

The letter hinted that more money might be needed for the Valleydan priestesses to find peace, a transparent attempt at a bribe—so benign a threat within the scope of everything else that he nearly choked back a laugh.

And then, at the end—the Queen is well, you’ll be happy to hear. She must find her key, take the proper steps. The stars write stories with many paths, but the Heart Tree is at the end of all of them.

So she was still mad. Excellent. Stupendous, even.

Raffe folded the letter and tucked it into his doublet, working hard to keep a scowl off his face. “The High Priestess and her Order have gone to the Rylt to pray for the Queen. Since prayers are better heard when made in larger groups.” He pulled that out of his ass; Raffe had little use for religion and barely knew the basics. But he used the courtly voice he usually reserved for when his parents came to visit, which hopefully gave his bullshit some weight. “Clearly, the pressure is getting to the High Priestess.”

“Clearly.” There was something flat and hard in Kayu’s voice. “But why is she writing to you?”

“The Queen has entrusted me with keeping things in order until she recovers.”

Kayu’s eyes narrowed. “She entrusted you, a Meducian, instead of any of the Valleydan nobles?”

“You don’t know this court.” Raffe shook his head. “No one here is clamoring for a cursed throne.”

Kayu huffed a rueful laugh. “See? The rule of a cold, mostly poor country that might require one to sacrifice a child isn’t a highly desired commodity. Not by me, or by anyone else.”

Relief softened Raffe’s rigid spine.

A moment of quiet, but one that felt heavy, weighted with the action of what might come next. Raffe turned back to the wardrobe, pulled a doublet from within its depths, threaded his arms through. Waiting to see what she would do now, this shadow-damned woman who seemed determined to muck everything up.

Still sitting primly on his chair, Kayu nodded, as if she’d come to some conclusion.

With the same grace she did everything, she rose, her black skirts sweeping over the floor as she walked toward him. Raffe was tall, and Kayu was short. Still, when she looked up at him, she did not look cowed.

“If you’re going to pull this off,” she said quietly, “you’re going to need money.”

It was so unexpected, his mouth gaped for a moment.

She went on, taking advantage of his surprise, her manner slipping from flippant, bookish princess to something steelier. “Passage to the Rylt is expensive, and it sounds like Kiri isn’t satisfied with whatever amount you sent her off with. You’ll need money for winter food shipments—I know Valleyda has to import most of it, and if any other countries think they can raise prices in the Queen’s absence, it will be more expensive than it already is. Not to mention the recent reductions in prayer-taxes.” She paused. “The Queen’s physicians are expensive, too, I’m sure.”

It was a test, and the split second of silence afterward said he’d failed it. Kayu nodded. “I didn’t think so. Where is she, then?”

“Floriane.”

“Come on, Raffe.”

He pressed his lips flat.

Kayu rolled her eyes. “Fine, don’t tell me.” She gave that one up more easily than he expected. “She’s alive, though.”

“She’s alive. And she’s coming back.”

It was meant to be defiant, but Kayu just nodded, like he’d confirmed something she already knew.

“Your silence.” It came out a sneer. “I’m sure that’s expensive, too.”

Angular brows drew together over her eyes. “You don’t have to buy that.”

Confusion struck him speechless.

She shrugged, looked away. “I meant what I said, about you being achingly noble. Nobility gets people eaten alive, especially people in foreign kingdoms with missing queens. I truly want to help you, Raffe.” The rueful flicker of a smile. “This isn’t the kind of thing you can do on your own.”

His mouth desperately wanted to gape again. He clenched his jaw to keep it from happening.

Kayu patted his chest where he’d slid Kiri’s letter between linen shirt and doublet. “Think about it.” She glided away toward the door and slipped out. It closed quietly behind her.

Raffe stared at it for a moment, rubbing a hand nervously over his close-shorn hair. “Five shadow-damned Kings on five shitting horses.”