Just before he shut his eyes again, the window creaked open, and a man hopped in. He wore his hair long, and in one hand, he carried a dagger in a reverse grip. Fresh blood dripped from the weapon’s tip.
Calder was so shocked that, for a moment, he refused to believe what he was seeing. Not that it was so unusual for someone to try and kill him—that was happening more and more, these days—but that the would-be assassin had come exactly when he woke up.
What were the odds? Seconds earlier or later, and he would have seen nothing. Heard nothing. This man would have cut him in half.
Calder gave up questioning his good fortune as his fight instincts kicked in. The killer turned to him, striding confidently over to the bed, flipping his knife in one hand. As he got closer, Calder realized he was humming a jaunty tune.
I have one shot, Calder thought. He didn’t have time to waste struggling out of bed or fighting against his pain; he had to reach his weapon, and he had to do it in one movement. That was his only chance of survival.
When he’d gathered enough strength, he clenched his jaw against the pain and rolled off the bed.
His assailant caught him and tossed him back. “Whoops, there you go. Up up up.”
The man didn’t seem at all surprised or thrown off by Calder’s escape attempt; in fact, he seemed not to care at all. He pressed lightly on Calder’s chest with one hand, but no matter how Calder struggled, he couldn’t raise his chest an inch. He tried to gather the breath for a scream, but the attacker pushed the air from his lungs. The attacker winked at him and raised the knife.
And a shadow slit his throat with a bronze blade.
Calder had never realized it before, having never seen an assassination from quite this close, but slicing a man’s throat open took quite a bit of strength. The shadow ripped through his neck like a butcher slicing meat, and warm blood showered Calder’s face. And most of the rest of his body too, he supposed. Not that he was in any condition to complain.
He scraped the blood from his eyes, ignoring the pain from his injuries and the insistent hammer-blows of his headache, desperate to see.
When his eyes cleared, he was in for a surprise: the man was still on his feet. His throat was split almost to the spine, but he held it together with one hand. The other smashed back against the black-clad figure behind him.
The killer with the bronze blade flew backward with the force of a cannonball, smashing a crater-sized dent into the wall and falling limply to the floor. Frowning as though the whole mess irritated him, the man with the slit throat collapsed a moment later.
Leaving a blood-soaked Calder alone in his bedroom with two corpses.
“What just happened?” His voice came out in a croak, and of course no one answered him. Gingerly, favoring his newly stressed wounds, he reached out for his cutlass. Whoever had brought him here was also considerate enough to leave his weapon within reach, so he was able to tug the hilt out of its sheath without much trouble.
A second later, he poked at his attacker’s body with the tip of his sword. No movement. Surely he should be dead, given the amount of blood he’d lost, but Calder would have never expected him to continue standing with his head halfway severed. No point in taking chances.
Calder poked him again, harder this time, and almost shrieked as the other body groaned and lifted a hand to its head.
Not just one person who survived a blow that should have killed them, but two. He should take up gambling; clearly the laws of probability were meaningless around him.
The shadow pulled off the black cloth that had surrounded its head, revealing a mess of blond hair. Meia looked up at him, orange eyes flashing with reflected light. “Champions,” she said, with a grimace of distaste. “I’m sorry. I should have been more thorough.”
“I would have thought a slit throat was thorough enough.” A Champion. His body chilled as he realized how close he’d come to death. If Meia hadn’t been there…if it had been someone other than Meia, the Consultant who could fight Urzaia…
This was far too many coincidences for one day.
Meia hauled herself to her feet. “I’ve never met anyone that could survive that. But let’s be sure, shall we?” She crept over to the man’s body, pulling needles from her pouch.
A poisoned needle went into both thighs and both wrists before she sliced the tendons on the back of each ankle. Calder prided himself on a strong stomach, but he looked away. He’d seen enough for one night.
When she was done, she walked over to the door and opened it a crack, peering out. “The hallway is unguarded. That’s a pity. He killed eight Guards, two Watchmen, and one Magister that I’m aware of.”
Eleven people, killed just to reach a twelfth. This was all too much for Calder to take in at one time. He struggled out of bloody sheets, hobbling over to the wardrobe. He was practically naked in front of Meia, wearing only a pair of shorts, but he couldn’t possibly have cared any less.
“I was going to ask how he got in, but I guess that explains it.” His hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t open the wardrobe—fear, pain, exhaustion, and the rush of danger combined so that he was surprised his limbs didn’t shake themselves off completely.
Meia moved to the window, closed and bolted it, and then returned to the door. “It’s a good thing it was a Champion, in a way. They don’t concern themselves with stealth, they just kill a straight line to their target. As soon as I noticed him, I followed. I would never have seen a Gardener.”
And she wouldn’t have stopped one either, he was sure, but that did bring up an interesting question. “How did you notice him? Where were you?”
She spared him a glance, saw that he was frozen in front of the wardrobe, and reached over to pull the door open for him. “I grew up in the palace for years. I could stay here for the rest of my life, and no one would see me if I didn’t want them to.”
Which didn’t exactly answer his question, but it was likely the closest he would get. Calder removed the servant’s uniform, the one that had been waiting for him earlier, and quickly pulled it on. His skin was tacky with blood, so these clothes would be ruined, but he didn’t care. He felt too vulnerable without anything on.
This will be the third set of clothes I’ve destroyed since I arrived here. An idle thought, but almost enough to make him laugh.
“That explains how you were nearby, but you actually saw an intruder and saved my life. That’s not your job.” In fact, he wouldn’t have been surprised if her job was the exact opposite.
She frowned at him. “Right now, my job is to keep the Optasia out of the hands of the Elders. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”
“Trust me, I don’t want Elder tentacles on the throne any more than you do.”
Meia turned back to survey the hallway through the cracked door. “Then we’re on the same side.”
As Calder finished buttoning up his red-and-gold jacket, he considered Meia. Over the last month or so, since he’d found out that Consultant assassins were after his life, he’d thought of the Consultant’s Guild as heartless, bloodthirsty monsters who were only pretending to serve their clients.
Now, he was reminded of the Consultants as he’d always heard of them. The most loyal Guild in the Empire; the only one that had always, through the past two thousand years, had the Emperor’s complete trust. Everyone knew a Consultant would guide you and help you, and would remain utterly dedicated to your cause…for the duration of their contract.