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Chapters (76)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. PART I
  6. ONE
  7. TWO
  8. THREE
  9. FOUR
  10. FIVE
  11. SIX
  12. SEVEN
  13. EIGHT
  14. NINE
  15. PART II
  16. TEN
  17. ELEVEN
  18. TWELVE
  19. THIRTEEN
  20. FOURTEEN
  21. FIFTEEN
  22. SIXTEEN
  23. SEVENTEEN
  24. EIGHTEEN
  25. NINETEEN
  26. PART III
  27. TWENTY
  28. TWENTY-ONE
  29. TWENTY-TWO
  30. TWENTY-THREE
  31. TWENTY-FOUR
  32. TWENTY-FIVE
  33. TWENTY-SIX
  34. INTERLUDE
  35. PART IV
  36. TWENTY-SEVEN
  37. TWENTY-EIGHT
  38. TWENTY-NINE
  39. THIRTY
  40. THIRTY-ONE
  41. THIRTY-TWO
  42. THIRTY-THREE
  43. THIRTY-FOUR
  44. INTERLUDE
  45. PART V
  46. THIRTY-FIVE
  47. THIRTY-SIX
  48. THIRTY-SEVEN
  49. THIRTY-EIGHT
  50. PART VI
  51. THIRTY-NINE
  52. FORTY
  53. FORTY-ONE
  54. FORTY-TWO
  55. FORTY-THREE
  56. FORTY-FOUR
  57. FORTY-FIVE
  58. INTERLUDE
  59. PART VII
  60. FORTY-SIX
  61. FORTY-SEVEN
  62. FORTY-EIGHT
  63. FORTY-NINE
  64. FIFTY
  65. FIFTY-ONE
  66. FIFTY-TWO
  67. PART VIII
  68. FIFTY-THREE
  69. FIFTY-FOUR
  70. FIFTY-FIVE
  71. FIFTY-SIX
  72. EPILOGUE
  73. AUTHOR’S NOTE
  74. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  75. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  76. Newsletter Sign-up

They were hours behind the outlaws, and Guy was responsible for every second of that gap. Each of his men blamed themselves, of course, which only added to Guy’s guilt. They had been ambushed twicefold—physically by the gang of thieves, and diplomatically by the Sheriff’s order to stay their blades. Guy couldn’t fault his men for panicking in such circumstances, but he himself should have been above that. His duty was first to each of them, and he failed. They had ridden half an hour, nerves on fire, before letting the company regroup. It was half an hour more before they came to the heavy conclusion that Jon Bassett was not coming. No one had seen him leave the castle.

Guy had abandoned one of his men.

It was guilt compounded upon guilt, turned into something there was no word for. He already felt to blame for his once-protégé’s fall from grace. Guy had raised the young man up too quickly, with too long a leash. That summer day when the servant girl Arable had revealed Jon Bassett as a conspirator against his fellow Guardsmen, Guy’s heart had both broken and shifted. He had trusted Bassett with the knowledge of how they recruited men from the gaols, and Bassett had betrayed that trust by telling others. They had planned to beat one of the gerolds bloody, as a warning, even though the gerolds had done nothing. Bassett openly admitted it when Guy confronted him, as if it were an obvious answer to their problems. That opinion was Guy’s shame.

He should have taught Bassett better. He should have protected him.

That guilt was the reason he kept Bassett in the Captain’s Regiment, rather than demote him to the Common Guard. His prospects for leadership were over, and that should have been punishment enough. But the world, apparently, was not satisfied.

By the time they returned to Thieves Den, there was nothing but muddy trails to follow. Reginold and Bolt bickered over whether the thieves were crafty enough to mislead them with false tracks, while Eric triple-checked his findings. Eric had been a crown ranger once, rescued from a life of boredom into Guy’s regiment, exactly for situations such as this. But a mouth full of blood seemed to distract his tracker’s instincts.