After waking and finding Royce Melborn standing in the dark at the foot of her bed, Lady Lillian Traval’s eyes went wide, but she didn’t scream. Had she, Royce would have slit her throat in an instant, not so much out of necessity, but reflex. He was there to kill her anyway, but the woman’s self-restraint bought the lady an extra pair of seconds. She made the most of them.

  “Wait!” she said. The single word was urgently cast, but the volume was low, practically a whisper, as if the two were together in this endeavor rather than predator and prey.

  Royce was so impressed he did as she asked. He had the luxury. The Traval Estate was practically vacant. Lady Traval had no children or pets, and her husband was away on business. As a precaution, she’d even gone so far as to send all the guards and servants away. Lady Traval and Edmund wanted to be alone, and as such, the lovers had the entire place to themselves. Royce couldn’t have had an easier execution to perform. Lillian could have shrieked for hours, alerting no one other than Edmund, who lay fast asleep on his stomach beside her. The young baron was no more a threat than the pillow he lay upon. Royce’s two victims were prone on the mattress, helpless in the lady’s lavish bed chamber. Bright moonlight revealed the sheen of sweat on bare skin. Both lay naked, wrapped just as much in each other as in the tangled bedsheet.

  Curiosity was what made Royce delay, and this came in two parts. The first was how this pampered wife of a noble shipping magnate had maintained her wits at such a moment. The second was the anticipation of what she might say next.

  What can she say?

  He expected to be disappointed. She would likely claim something to the effect of You can’t do this! despite the obvious truth of the situation. Royce had heard such words on those few occasions where his target had had the opportunity to speak. Nevertheless, she had surprised him with her quiet restraint. That didn’t happen often. He felt she’d earned at least one sentence, even if it wouldn’t make a difference.

  It did.

  “I can pay more,” Lady Traval said.

  Well played, and in only four words.

  Edmund stirred. “What? You’re paying me now?” he asked merrily in between sleepy breaths. “Have I become your trollop?”

  “Shut up, you idiot!” Lillian snapped, still in that carefully quiet voice.

  “What makes you think you can pay more?” Royce asked.

  At the sound of his voice, Edmund rolled over and peered into the dark. It took a second before . . . “Novron’s ghost!” the Baron of Sansbury screamed. Luckily for him, the lady of the house had already entered into a negotiation sufficiently intriguing to grant a stay of execution for both.

  “Because I know my husband,” Lady Traval replied, as if Edmund didn’t exist. “He’s cheap. I guarantee that I can pay twice what he offered.”

  “Who is this?” Edmund glared at Royce. “Lilly, what are you two talking about?”

  “Oh, Eddie, please do be quiet, or you’ll get us both killed.”

  “Killed?” ?The young man’s eyes threatened to fall out as he looked first at her then Royce.

  “Twice as much?” Royce asked. “Are you being literal or just flamboyant?”

  “I’m not sure,” Lady Traval replied. “What is the life of a noble adulteress going for these days?”

  Royce suppressed a smile. He had never met Lady Lillian Traval before, but he’d known of her for years. She had the distinction of being Riyria’s first official client. While Royce was not normally sentimental, it still counted for something that she paid promptly and well. Her husband, by contrast, was indeed cheap. The lady had paid fifty tenents for the recovery of one earring, while in return for the double murder of his wife and her lover, Hurbert Traval was only willing to part with . . .

  “Thirty,” Royce replied.

  “Gold, I hope,” she said, sounding disappointed but not surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “Is he really here to kill us?” Edmund asked. “Did your husband?—”

  “Silence, Edmund! Damn you! I’m trying to save our lives, you foolish boy!”

  The baron cringed, whimpered, and pulled up the sheet. Edmund Wyberne, the eighth Lord of Sansbury, was pretty, pale, and pathetic. The lad was wealthy and still in his teens but always as morose as a man with a noose around his neck. His father had died only a few years ago of consumption?—?the White Death?—?leaving Edmund an enormous inheritance, including the illness that left him frail, pale, and inexplicably attractive to women. Apparently, ladies had a penchant for corpses.

  “Sixty it is then,” Lillian declared.

  “You have it here?”

  “I do.”

  “Wait! You can’t trust a hired murderer!” Edmund wailed from behind the armor of the damp bedsheet that he held to his face. “What’s to stop him from killing us, stealing your money, then collecting his reward from Hurbert?”

  Lady Traval rolled her eyes. “If he does that, my husband will know he stole it, and that will be . . . well, bad for business. Won’t it? No one would ever hire him again if news got around, and it certainly would get around. Gossip as spicy as this will spread through the gentry like water on a flat stone.”

  “Are you serious?” Edmund exclaimed. “You expect?—”

  “But if I give it,” she said, her eyes on Royce, “I will provide an excuse for where the money went. I’ll have to or admit to my husband I’m cheating on him, which your presence painfully proves he suspects. I trust you were not hired to simply kill me, but engaged to slit my throat only if you found me with someone in my bed tonight?”

  Royce nodded.

  “So, you can simply report I was alone, can’t you? You’ll have done your job?—?as far as my husband knows. After he pays, you’ll walk away with three times as much money as promised. And no blood on your clothes, no need to look over your shoulder tonight. What do you say?”

  Royce walked out the front door of the Traval Estate and through the moonlit, snow-blanketed gardens, feeling both pleased and oddly out of sorts. He had been prepared for a night of old-fashioned mayhem, a return to the long-neglected craft that defined him. Royce felt a tarnish had built up on his talents over the last few years of partnering with Hadrian Blackwater. The man had succeeded in stifling Royce’s art, but this night was his chance to scrape off the rust and get back into shape. To his delight, Hadrian, who found the idea of killing a woman too repugnant, had opted to stay in the nearby port town of Roe. If Royce believed in gods, he would have declared this to be a sign. While not exactly looking forward to the killing?—?Royce took no more pleasure in murder than a butcher does when lopping off the heads of chickens?—?he did relish the anticipation of a certain return to normalcy.

  Royce hadn’t felt like himself in quite some time. He suffered bouts of longing for the old carefree days of blood and butchery. Back then, everything was simple; everything made sense. Now, nothing did.

  I’m obviously sick, and the illness goes by the names of Hadrian Blackwater and . . . Gwen DeLancy.

  Royce thought this was what it must be like for a wounded wolf who had been taken in by an ignorantly helpful family. They meant well enough, but a wolf is supposed to be wild, and the family wouldn’t understand how all their feeding and petting could ruin the animal. With too much domestication, the poor wolf would forget how to survive on its own.

  This evening should have been my night back in the wild. Free of their influence, enjoying a boy’s night out, except . . . It’s as if the universe itself is aligned against me and allied with them. Soon there will be no more place for my old self. What a sorry state.

  Royce exited through the stone archway, officially leaving the garden and the Traval Estate behind. He took a moment to close and relock the iron gate.

  “Where ’tis our book?” a voice asked.

  In an instant, Royce ducked, dodged, pulled his dagger, and cursed his laziness. He searched for his assailant among the shadows of barren trees cast by the moon on the snow-covered road that led to town.

  The man wasn’t hard to find. Dressed in a tattered gray cloak, he stood along the path just outside the gate. Long red hair, mustache, and a pointed beard leaked out of the hood and wreathed a face even paler than Edmund-the-Baron-at-Death’s-Door. He displayed no visible weapon. His arms remained limp at his sides.

  “Wait not, so desperate am I. Produce it now, and rid me of my cursed dread.” The voice was raspy and strange.

  Back in the estate, Royce saw a light appear in Lady Traval’s bedroom window. First floor, front-facing, the expensive glass was perfect for a snooping eavesdropper, or worse, a spy.

  Too late for a random caller or wandering minstrel, he’s here for a reason. He’s either a very unfortunate busybody, or he works for Hurbert Traval.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Royce assumed the latter and was surprised the old baron had the intelligence to send a shadow to keep watch over his assassin. As impressed as Royce was, he couldn’t let it go. He needed to warn the shipping magnate not to play games with Riyria.

  Besides, his dagger, Alverstone, was already in his hand, and this was his boy’s night out.

  The man didn’t so much as flinch when the dagger slid into the side of his throat. The neck offered all the resistance of a stewed carrot, and the white blade passed through until it pushed out the hood on the far side. The victim crumpled.

  Royce studied the man for a moment, making certain he was indeed dead and that the corpse wasn’t in any way familiar. Then he left the body where it lay.

  As Royce walked on, two things bothered him.

  First, if this was Hurbert’s spy, why give himself away? And what an odd way to do it. Where ’tis our book? Royce pondered this a moment, concluding the obvious. He’d misheard. The man had a bit of an accent, and likely didn’t say book at all. He probably said, where is the bok or boche, something in another language like Calian or maybe Alburnian. That’s what his accent sounded like. Bok might be the Calian word for money, or gold, or something. Perhaps, after witnessing the deal Royce had made with Lady Traval?—?and knowing that Royce was carrying a bag of gold?—?the spy planned to double-cross Hurbert and blackmail the blackmailer.

  This line of reasoning made perfect sense, assuaging his concerns?—?except for the second thing, which was a bit harder to reason away. Royce had just stabbed a man in the neck, making certain to sever the big artery, only . . .

  Where is the blood?

  Usually, such a murder resulted in a brief gush. Years of practice had taught Royce to anticipate the spray. He had moved to the side to avoid the mess. This usually worked, though he always got some on his blade hand. But this time, his knuckles came away clean. Such a thing was not inconceivable. After all, the dagger had done all the messy work. This, too, would have satisfied him except . . . Royce looked at Alverstone and, with the aid of the moon, saw the gleam of a clean white blade.

  Royce found Hadrian in the village, drinking at the Pickled Pig’s Foot. This wasn’t a hard guess. As far as he knew, it was the only tavern in the entire seaside town of Roe?—?possibly the only one in the entire province of Oakenshire?—?and when Royce had left Hadrian, he had looked to be in a drinking mood. The shabby stucco-and-thatch public house was perched on a hill just up from the wharf, where it had a view of the ocean that was marred only by a couple tiers of roofs and a forest of chimneys.

  Since it was past midnight, no other patrons remained inside, and the look on the tavern keeper’s face as Royce entered suggested the owner had been hoping Hadrian would leave before anyone else wandered in. Despite the name, the Pickled Pig’s Foot was not an unpleasant place. Given the damp winter’s night, the interior of the tavern provided a welcome warmth of seasoned wood and the cozy glow of resting embers.

  Royce offered the tavern keeper an artificial smile, which was reflected back.

  “What can I get you?” the apron-endowed, hair-deficient man asked without a lick of enthusiasm.

  “Nothing, thanks. I’m not staying. Just here for him.” Royce pointed.

  As expected, this elicited a genuine smile.

  Hadrian sat in the back corner near the fireplace, behind a table filled with empty mugs and a candle’s melted corpse.

  “I wasn’t gone that long, was I?”

  Hadrian looked up with a grimace. He had several days’ worth of stubble and eyes that belonged to a much older man. “Enjoy yourself, did you?”

  Royce glanced over at the owner, who was pretending not to notice them as he wiped a clean counter. Having only three people there was good, but it was also bad because, without other patrons, the place was utterly silent.

  Hadrian followed Royce’s line of sight and said, “Oh, right. Don’t want to say too much in front of old Oscar, do we?” Hadrian burped and wiped his mouth. “That’s Oscar, by the way. He owns the Pickled Pig’s Toe . . . Foot . . . whatever.” Hadrian stared off into space for a second, his mouth hanging open, then he asked, “Why is it that these places always have such disgusting names?” He looked at Oscar, who couldn’t help but hear every word. Hadrian was drunk and therefore louder than normal.

  “Sorry, no offense intended,” Hadrian went on, “but honestly, is that the best you could come up with? Did you really think passersby would be so captivated by the promise of a severed pig’s foot floating in a vat of brine that they would find it utterly impossible to pass your door without popping their head in to experience the promise? Why not just name it the Stinking Turd? Bet that would pack ’em in even more, right?”

  “He’s drunk,” Royce apologized as he walked to Hadrian’s table.

  “Yeah, I know.” Oscar wiped his hands. “You’re heading out though, right? I’d kinda like to lock up.”

  “Just give us a second.” Royce sat down.

  “Yeah, give us a second, Oscar,” Hadrian said. “My business associate needs to bring me up to speed on our latest project?—?likely wants to gloat. Do you want to gloat, Royce?” Hadrian put a hand to his mouth. “Oops. You think Oscar heard your name? That’s bad, right?”

  “This is why it’s never a good idea to drink,” Royce said.

  “No? Wait, I thought you . . . you like wine, don’t you?”

  “I like Montemorcey, but it’s incredibly rare, and when the source of your vice is almost nonexistent, it’s an easy habit to keep in check.”

  Hadrian nodded. Then he pursed his lips, turned, and shouted. “Hey, Oscar! Got any of this rare Monty Mousey wine?” Hadrian’s brow furrowed. “Wait, I think I got that wrong. How do you say it?”

  “Don’t carry wine,” Oscar replied. “And I thought you were leaving.”

  “We are,” Royce said, getting to his feet and welcoming Hadrian to do the same if he were capable.

  “I wasn’t asking for a bottle,” Hadrian said, using the table to push himself up. “I was just curious. Don’t need to be so touchy. For a guy who owns an alehouse named the Pickled Pig’s Foot, you’re awfully quick to push paying customers out the door.”

  “You’ve been here for six hours. Unlike some people, I have a life.”

  “Yeah, but . . . wait . . .?” Hadrian stood with one hand still on the table, steadying himself as his eyes shifted in deep thought. “Pigs don’t have feet?—?do they?” He first looked at Oscar, then at Royce. “I mean, they’ve got hooves, right? They’re like horses, sort of, except that pigs’ hooves are cloven. It’s like they have two toes, but they aren’t toes, not really. And since a pig has two toes and a horse has none, why are they both hooves?” He looked at each man in turn once more. Neither Oscar nor Royce said anything. “You know what I mean. But the point is, no one talks about horses’ feet, right? No one says they’re going to put a shoe on a horse’s foot?—?even if that makes more sense. I mean, shoes go on feet. No one puts a shoe on a hoof. That’s just so strange.”

  Royce grabbed Hadrian by the strap of his baldric and hauled him forward. “Did you pay?” Royce shook his head at his own stupidity. He turned to Oscar. “Did he?”

  Oscar nodded. “Handsomely. If not for that, I’d have tossed him out hours ago. My wife is going to be furious.”

  “Oscar is going through a bad time right now,” Hadrian said. “His wife is acting like a harpy. Tell him, Oscar.”

  “He’ll tell me next time,” Royce said, hauling Hadrian to the door. “Maybe he’ll even have some mousey wine then.”

  “Yeah, that would be good. Do that, Oscar. Get some mousey wine for my friend for the next time.”

  The bracing cold of the winter night stiffened Hadrian, and his face crimped into a tight grimace, not unlike if Royce had slapped him. “By Mar! It’s freezing out here! Let’s go back in.”

  Oscar slammed the door shut and threw the bolt.

  “Geez, Oscar, that was rude. I thought we were friends!” Hadrian yelled at the closed door.

  “You’ll need to be a little louder if you want to wake the entire village,” Royce explained.

  “Oh, you’re a funny guy, aren’t you? Did you tell Lady-what’s-her-name a joke, too? Did she laugh, or couldn’t she because her throat was slit?” Hadrian shifted unsteadily as he eyed Royce. “You don’t even have any blood on you. Is that the mark of a professional, or did you wash up in her basin before leaving? And was it just the poor woman, or did you kill her dog, too?”

  “Lady Traval doesn’t have a dog.” Royce pulled him over to where their horses waited.

  Hadrian snorted a laugh. “Well, not anymore she doesn’t. Chucked it out an upper-story window, did you?”

  “There was no dog, Hadrian. Now, do you want help getting on your horse, or do you need to vomit?”

  Hadrian stopped to ponder this perplexing riddle, then shook his head and pointed across the street. “Nah, I’m okay. My horse is in the stable over?—”

  Royce handed him Dancer’s reins.

  Hadrian looked up into the face of his horse. “Dancer! How’d you get here?”

  “By Mar! How much ale did you drink?”

  Hadrian once more stared off into space as he stroked the white diamond on Dancer’s forehead.

  Royce shook his head. “Never mind. I get it?—?it was a lot. Get on your horse. Let’s go.”

  Hadrian managed to climb aboard Dancer after only three attempts. During this complicated operation, the horse remained rooted like a tree on a calm day, as if this wasn’t the first time for either of them.

  Royce thought that Dancer, being sober, would be capable of following Royce, but Hadrian, being drunk, couldn’t be trusted not to interfere, so Royce attached a lead to the ring on Dancer’s halter. Hadrian either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  “Did it get colder?” Hadrian complained, absently letting go of the reins to pull his wool cloak tight. “Feels colder. You know, winter is like a pretty woman who talks about a lot of nothing. They’re nice at first: fun, different, beautiful even, but after a while . . .?”

  Hadrian picked up the reins and became fascinated by the knot that bound the ends.

  Royce waited. “After a while, what?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  Royce shook his head. “Forget it.”

  “I’m just saying that winter lasts waaaay too long. Aren’t you tired of winter, Royce? Everything is cold. Cold and dead. As dead as Lady-what’s-her-name.”

  “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Come again?”

  “Lady Traval. I didn’t kill her.”

  Hadrian didn’t say a word for several minutes.

  “I would have told you sooner had I known it would shut you up.”

  “Why didn’t you kill her?”

  “I couldn’t go through with it. She was a helpless woman with big, pleading eyes, and I just couldn’t bring myself to take the life of an innocent?—”

  Hadrian fell off his horse.

  He hit the snow on his back and grunted in pain. It took him a second, then he rolled to his feet with a miserable groan and looked up at Royce with the most incredulous set of drunken eyes. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course not, you idiot. She offered me more money to leave her alive. I just wanted to hear what you’d say. That looked awfully painful, by the way.” He grinned. “Ground’s frozen, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, on both counts.”

  Hadrian climbed back into the saddle on the first try this time, leaving Royce to suspect the bracing cold and the fall had helped to sober him a bit.

  On they went, up the river road that followed the bank of the Galewyr.

  The sides of the river were frozen, but a dark line of moving water cut through the center and made the ghostly sound of rain on long-lost leaves.

  “It’s still good news,” Hadrian said.

  “Absolutely. We made triple the money without doing anything other than taking a winter ride.”

  “We?” Hadrian shook his head. “That’s your money.”

  “We’re still partners, and the gold is clean. Not a drop of blood on it. You can spend the coin proudly.” Royce considered mentioning the other fellow who also did not appear to have a drop of blood, but Hadrian was too drunk and too happy for Royce to ruin the improved mood. They had a long ride back to Medford, and the only thing worse than a happy-chatty Hadrian was a depressed-chatty Hadrian.

  They rode for a while in silence.

  “What?” Royce finally asked.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “I know. That’s the problem.”

  “I was just thinking that four years ago, you wouldn’t have offered to share the money?—?wouldn’t even have told me about it. I also doubt you’d have let her live. You’d have taken her money and killed her.”

  “Four years ago, we weren’t partners?—?not really. And leaving Lady Traval alive makes logical sense. No wisdom in killing a paying customer.”

  “Uh-huh, uh-huh.” Hadrian nodded. “And the Royce Melborn I first met, even the one of only a couple years ago, would never have asked ‘What?’ because I was silent. The old Royce would have considered it a blessing. You’ve changed. You were once an animal, a wild thing really, but now . . . now you’re practically domesticated, aren’t you? You’ve become a tame beast, haven’t you, Royce?”

  “If you weren’t drunk, I’d kill you.”

  “I’m gonna tell Gwen.”

  “Do not tell Gwen.”

  Hadrian laughed.

  “I hate you when you’re drunk.”

  “That’s strange.”

  “How so?”

  “Because that’s why I drink . . . to stop hating myself.”