Chapters (46)
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
“Don’t underestimate your servants, Tristam. They’re capable of more than you think. My predecessors as Defense Minister were too busy waving their swords at Parna and Edlan to notice the threats right around them. If they hadn’t been so quick to discount the abilities of the poor, they might have acted against the Guild before they grew strong enough to breach our walls.” They circled back to Nels. “Show us the rest of the building,” said Malikel.
They visited the other storerooms, but none had been touched. Tristam began to see why Malikel would be worried. The raid had been accomplished with unnerving precision. The burglars had known exactly what they were looking for. And even more disturbing was the fact that they’d left no signs of how they had broken in. That, combined with Malikel’s suspicions about the Guild…Tristam had to fight the urge to look over his shoulder.
After they covered the ground floor, Nels led them to the unused upper floors. A few smears in one hallway’s dust pattern caught Tristam’s eye—not quite footprints, but the dust wasn’t as smooth as in the other corridors.
“Sir Malikel,” Tristam called. He picked his way down the edge of the hallway, careful not to disturb the dust. It led to a small room, meant to be a lookout point perhaps, with three narrow windows opening high above the street. Holding his breath at the musty smell, Tristam crossed to the windows and peered out. The drop was dizzying. He spent a few moments watching the tiny people below before returning his gaze to the windowsill. They were dusty, but one slot was much cleaner than the others.
“Someone was up here.” Tristam moved aside to let his commander take a look.
“It looks like it, but how did he get up here? It’s too high for a grappling hook, and there are no buildings nearby.”
Tristam looked through the window again. The buildings across the road were much too low to offer a way up, and there were no obvious rooftops to either side. An arrow trailing a rope, perhaps? But the armory’s façade was solid stone, with no place for an arrow to lodge.
“I don’t know,” Tristam said. “But if someone had indeed climbed through this window, he could have opened the front door for the others.”
“Perhaps,” said Malikel. “Stay up here, Tristam, and take a closer look at this room. Let me know if you find anything else.”
Ten
T E N
Kyra pressed her back against the wall, palms flat on the cold stone of the alcove, ears trained toward the footsteps down the hall. This section was tricky. The door she needed was in the middle of an open hallway. Once she was out there, she’d have no cover while she picked the lock.