Fox’s Tongue and Kirin’s Bone

The royal wing swarmed with guards. A hornet’s nest kicked, or a fey revel interrupted. There was no inconspicuous way to sneak off. And so Aaron found himself tucked in the corner nearest the princess’ door, trying to make himself small and unimportant between a bookcase and a vase, as the Captain of the Guard organized a full sweep of the castle from an arm’s length away.

“You’re bleeding,” Lochlann whispered once, and Aaron was surprised to find blood trickling down his chest from a slash over his collar bone, just above where the chain of his new necklace lay. He clamped a hand over it, putting pressure on the flow until it stopped. He didn’t remember getting cut. He felt that he should have, with the wound so close to his neck.

The younger prince was soon ushered into the room as well, barefoot and bewildered, still wrapped in the fine coat he’d worn to the night’s festivities.

“His room was clear,” a guard reported to the Captain, “as far as we could see, in any case. The kennel master is bringing up the terriers. We’ll sweep the floor again when they’re here.”

“Casualties so far?”

“Five, sir. These things know how to fight.”

Connor sat next to his sister on the couch, his hand finding hers. Seeing them together, Aaron remembered that they were twins, though the boy didn’t share her wine stain; his face was pale and unmarked. Probably paler tonight than it usually was. He’d grown a bit since he’d joined the militia, but he still looked painfully young. They both did, really.

The king came next. Aaron shrank farther into his corner. The man was surrounded by his own contingent of guards, of course, but the princes had arrived in the same manner; it was only the king who stood at the center of those armed men and made it look as if he were the one leading the group. The man’s very presence spoke of leadership. Even if his cheeks were as thin as Aaron’s, and even if the iron-shod staff he carried was clearly doubling as both weapon and walking stick. The Wasting King’s green eyes were sharp as cut emeralds as he took stock of the room.

And so they were all together: king, heir, and the twinned prince and princess. The king’s family was a small one. Time had not been kind to the O’Shea line.

The king and the elder prince soon joined the Captain of the Guard in the other room. They stood over the body of the assassin, and asked quiet questions of the guards who had been present at each of the two attacks. The younger prince stayed with his sister, their bodies pressed together in comforting silence on the couch.

“So you’re back?” Connor asked her, his voice low. She nodded. “Did they figure out where you were, or did you come out on your own?”

“On my own,” she answered. That was all the conversation the twins had in them, it seemed.

It did not take long before eyes began to linger on Aaron longer than he was strictly comfortable with. He stood even more still, a cold sweat beading on his brow, as if blending into the wall were a matter of sheer willpower. In the other room, Lieutenant Varghese showed them the woman’s dagger and its black and gold wrapping. All the assassins would have carried the same.

Aaron’s Death was still in the room. He’d saved the princess, but his Death was still in the room. Well. That was a wrong choice made, then.

He’d killed Gwen, and it had been the wrong choice, the kind of wrong that meant he couldn’t ever apologize to her.

Things finally began to settle as the reports came in, floor by floor and room by room. All clear. The king settled on the couch with his youngest children. The crown prince held himself a pace apart, his feet planted in a pose that spoke of his military background. During the spring, he served as a captain in humanity’s army, commanding a strike unit along the dragon border. The twins were thirteen; he was their elder by nine years. The only blood they shared was through their father.

Orin was watching him. Not a persistent gaze, but an assessment made by sharp green eyes that was finished before Aaron could even straighten himself up properly.

“I’m afraid, in all this, we have not been properly introduced,” the crown prince said.

“Step forward. You’ve done my family a great service tonight.” King Liam said, leaning his staff against the couch with his free hand. “What is your name?”

Aaron edged out of his corner, stopping a few respectful feet away without needing to be told. He straightened his spine, clasped his hands behind his back, and addressed a spot on the couch somewhat lower than the king’s own gaze.

“Aaron, sir, if it pleases Your Majesty.”

“Aaron,” the king repeated after him. “I hear you saved my daughter’s life.”

Maybe this wouldn’t go so badly, after all. Maybe his Death had just come to gawk, like Orin’s had a few weeks back.

“You have my gratitude,” the man said. “However, we have a few questions that must be addressed.”

Or maybe Death was here on business, after all.

“You knew my sister was about to be attacked. You acted before our guards perceived any threat.” Orin said. “How did you know?”

It took only the quickest glance at the king’s steady gaze to realize this verbal flanking had been premeditated. Ah. So that was what they’d been discussing so quietly, as they huddled around the assassin’s body. Another quick glance confirmed what he already knew: the Captain of the Guard had moved behind him, blocking his retreat both to the door and to his little corner. He’d liked that corner. Walls made for good friends when a man was outnumbered.

Behind his back, Aaron’s hand tightened around his wrist. He raised his gaze: not to the elder prince or the king, but to a spot on the wall above both of their heads.

“You knew of this attack. How?” Orin repeated, with winter’s own patience.

The spot on the wall was just a fleck. A discoloration in the stone.

The king had leaned back against the couch’s cushions, his face pale but his gaze intent. There sat a man who was used to leading the interrogations, when he was well.

“Are you or are you not a Kindly Soul?” the elder prince asked, steadily. “Were you or were you not hired to kill my sister? I would hope these to be simple questions, for Rose’s savior. Must we question you over bone?”

The princess was sitting between her father and her twin, her feet curled under her. He couldn’t see her face under her hood, and she was not moving aside from her breathing: too fast, too shallow. Her brother met Aaron’s eyes; he shared the same green stare as the rest of his family. Aaron snapped his gaze back to the wall.

“Or perhaps you had another target, so you sought to lower our guard?” Orin continued. “One in this room, perhaps? This will be your last chance for success. You will be disarmed. You will be taken to a cell. You will talk, and then you will die.”

Lochlann shifted as if to say something. Aaron saved the good lieutenant’s career by speaking first.

“My name is Aaron,” he said. He unclasped his hands from behind his back. Slowly, infinitesimally slowly, he lifted up the edge of his sweater until his dagger’s hilt showed. He hadn’t been disarmed yet, though he’d little doubt it was coming soon, no matter his own opinion on the issue. The held breaths in the room were the lull in a storm; the heartbeat before a fight. “I was hired by Mrs. Summers as a member of your staff. My wage is a half-silver a month.” With just the tips of his index finger and thumb, as delicately as gripping a snowflake, he pulled the dagger from its sheath. “I’ll admit it’s not the most money I’ve ever made, but it’s the best job I’ve ever had. This evening I have been to market for your morning meals, carried wood for your ovens, and seen the Princess Rose safe to her rooms. If that’s not enough for you, nothing I say will be.”

He set his dagger on the table next to his forgotten fox mask, taking care, with shaking hand, that it was neatly parallel with the table’s edge. Mrs. Summers would have approved.

He straightened back up, and met first the king’s eyes, then his elder son’s. He’d have liked to meet the princess’ gaze, but she was still hidden under her hood, though the angle of her head said she was watching.

“I’m unarmed,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back again, trying to still the tremor in his hands. It wasn’t like him to shake. He had a policy against it, in fact, one that had served him well. The wound on his collarbone had reopened again. It was just a scratch, but persistent. And ruining his new sweater. If he didn’t wash it soon, the stain would set.

His Death was wearing the same sweater, he noted.

“I’m sure we’ll find no other weapons on you,” the elder prince said, with a little half-smile.

A cold chill crept up Aaron’s back, followed by a rush of heat. “You’re a failure as a brother.”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you know what she did when she saw that woman? She screamed, and threw a water pitcher. Why doesn’t she know how to fight?”

That came out louder than Aaron had intended. His ears were ringing now. The prince was trying to say something, but Aaron saw no need to let him speak. He felt hot; far too hot.

“Why doesn’t she know how to fight? There have been rumors of everyone in your family being a target for assassination since long before I stepped foot through your gates. Why doesn’t she have a knife? I know five-year-olds who could have put up a smarter fight than she did. Why not a shiv in her boot? Put a little poison on it, and even the worst fighter in Lastrign would stand a fighting chance. Are you trying to get her killed?”

The heat changed to cold, in an instant. Poison. Poison was the best way to make sure a thing was done right. Why hadn’t he thought of that before?

The king gestured curtly. Lieutenant Varghese stepped forward and tried to get a grip on Aaron’s arms, tried to restrain him. Aaron leaned back against the man, nearly tipping them both over. The redcoat cursed in his ear. But Aaron hadn’t meant it as an attack: he was just so cold, suddenly, and the other man was warm.

“Take him to the cells, Lochlann,” the prince ordered. He addressed another redcoat, but the name he said slipped from Aaron’s mind as soon as the word was out. All his words seemed to be slipping sideways, a little like the rest of the room. “You there—the Lady is part of the search. Find her. Let her know we’ve one of them alive.” His dark green eyes settled on Aaron’s face. “He’ll talk.”

“Good luck with that,” Aaron said.

Lochlann had pulled his arms behind his back, but gave up the grip to brace his shoulders instead. It wasn’t enough: Aaron’s legs buckled, and then they were both sliding down, the lieutenant trying to support him the whole way. Aaron liked the man. He didn’t like the way the man’s hand was fluttering around him like that—feeling the pulse at his neck, feeling the cold sweat beading on his forehead—but at least it was a warm hand. A perfectly agreeable hand.

“He’s dying,” the good lieutenant said.

“What? How?”

“The assassin’s blade. It must have been poisoned.”

Of course it was. Best way to finish a job, that: the only thing more certain than a knife to the heart was a poisoned knife to the heart. Aaron appreciated Gwen’s professionalism. It had certainly taken her long enough to adopt the habit. To get past her silly notion that if someone won a fight, they shouldn’t die all the same. How many hours she and Clever Hands had spent debating that point—

He appreciated, too, the painlessness of it. She hadn’t wanted the princess to suffer. A Kindly Soul, indeed.

There were voices around him, but too distanced for him to care. Faces and touches, that was what still mattered.

Lochlann, holding his head off the floor.

The princess, struggling against her father’s arms to reach him, her hood fallen back.

His Death, kneeling, leaning in

The comforting touch of forehead on forehead,

cool palms against his face

“Now?” Aaron inquired.

“Is this what you want?” his Death asked.

No, Aaron thought, and that is what followed him into the darkness.