I open the door onto the flat-topped turret and am immediately enveloped in heat from the flames rising from the iron barrel in the center.
“Violet?” Eya smiles and hops off the edge of the thick stone wall on the other side of the barrel. “I didn’t realize you were relieving me.”
“I didn’t realize you had watch before me. How have you been?” I make my way around the barrel and try not to think of how many of the cadets will have their things offered to Malek in the next day.
“Good—” Her eyes blow wide as she glances past me—and I turn, immediately drawing a dagger from my thigh and moving to her side.
Four grown soldiers in infantry blue rush out of the doorway, each brandishing a shortsword as they face us. My stomach drops to the bottom floor and crashes. They definitely don’t look lost.
“Infantry is not allowed in the Riders Quadrant!” Eya snaps, flipping her hatchet over her wrist and gripping the handle.
“We’re here with express permission,” the one on the right snarls.
“And paid well for the specific message we’re to deliver.” That ominous line comes from the tallest one on the left as they spread out on the far side of the barrel, splitting in the center to come at us from both sides.
Four assassins and two of us. They have the exit, and we’re pinned between the fire, the wall, and four stories of nothing. Not good. And they know it, especially by the slow smile the one closer to the center gives, the firelight reflecting off his blade as he raises it.
Fuck them. I did not survive the entirety of last year, or these last few months, to die on top of the academic wing.
“Kill them all,” Tairn orders.
“Go left,” Eya mutters.
I nod and unsheathe another dagger. “Let me guess.” They take slow, coordinated steps toward us, and Eya and I pivot so we stand back-to-back. “Secrets die with the people who keep them?”
The one on the left blinks in surprise.
“It’s not as original as you’d think.” In rapid-fire, I flick two daggers at him, catching him in the throat and heart. Eya shouts behind me, charging at the two on her side as my first attacker falls like a damned tree, crashing into stone and driving my daggers deeper.
Blades clash behind me, and I lose sight of my remaining attacker in the high flames as I grab two more daggers. Shit, shit, shit. Where is—
Fire blasts toward my face and I dive to the left, narrowly missing the barrel that skids across the cobblestone floor and slams into the wall with a thud loud enough to wake the dead. My shoulder takes the brunt of the impact when I fall, and I grimace as I force myself onto my knees, ignoring the wide, unseeing eyes of the soldier I’ve already killed.
“I’m coming!” Tairn shouts.
Eya screams, and I make the mistake of looking back over my shoulder as one of the soldiers wrenches his sword from the middle of her chest.
Blood. There’s so much blood. It slides over her leathers as she clutches her ribs, and I watch in horror as she falls to her knees.
“Eya!” I shout, stumbling to my feet, but I can’t get to her with the barrel blazing between us. Pinching the edges of my daggers, I lunge forward, then hurl both at the assassin she hasn’t slain, catching him in the chest.
I have two more out when I spin to face the only one left, but there’s no time to throw them. He’s used Eya’s death to close the distance. I gasp as he grabs ahold of my waist, locking down with a grip I can’t dislodge as he marches three quick steps to the edge of the tower.
No! I slice at his arms, but he holds fast despite the wounds. I kick hard in his stomach, and he sputters, and with the next kick, he releases me. My momentum sends me flying backward, and my daggers scrape both sides of the turret’s crenellations as I skid toward the edge, my feet kicking under me and finding nothing but air.
Fast. It’s happening too fast to do anything but react.
Instinct takes over and my hands splay wide against the sides of the crenellations, releasing the daggers. Clawing for purchase, I sail backward, my skin grating against the rock to slow me down as I do, and the tips of my boots hit the edge of the turret…then slip right off.
But the impact is enough to change the angle of my fall, and stone rushes up at my face for no longer than a heartbeat before my stomach collides with the edge of the turret, stealing what breath I have on impact.
My weight drags me the rest of the way backward, and I dig in with my fingernails and hold as my lower half kicks against the crevices in the stonework beneath me, looking for a foothold.
This can’t be happening, but it is.
“It’s nothing personal,” the soldier says, crawling forward onto the three-foot-deep wall.
I gasp for breath and cough at the first full inhale. There has to be a foothold below. There just does. This isn’t how I die.
My feet search and I can feel the ridges, but there’s nothing substantial enough to support my weight.
“It’s just money,” he whispers from his knees and reaches for my hands.
Oh gods, he’s going to—
“No!” Power floods my veins, but there’s nothing to do with a strike this close.
“Just money,” he repeats, lifting my hands from the stone.
Xaden. Sgaeyl. Tairn. This will kill us all.
The soldier lets go.
I scream, the sound so shrill it tears my throat, and I slide, scraping my forearms raw as gravity drags me down, the top of the turret fading from view, but my fingers grab hold of the tiny lip at the edge…and cling.
My heart lurches into my throat as my feet scramble.
No foothold.
