Kestral Nightfeather's Arc

Chapter 6 of 4

Lilly's warning had come true faster than Kestral feared. Three nights after the enforcer left, two travelers arrived out of order. Soldiers first, merchants after. Kestral read it like a storm. The capital had stopped sending buyers. Now it sent steel. Her tavern had one door and no back way out. She would not survive a night behind the bar. So she did not wait behind the bar. She closed early, packed one bag, and walked through the dark to a hidden soddy at the edge of town. Ivy and purple vines cloaked its broken windows. She had kept its location secret for years. Tonight she needed its second door, and she needed the one hound who might owe her a word. Lycoris was already inside. The gray-cloaked headhunter stood by the cold hearth, scars pale in the low light. He had paid her a gold coin once and called her worth buying from. Kestral set that against the blade coming for her throat. "You recommended me," she said. "Now the court sends a killer instead." "I heard." Lycoris did not move. "Einod. He's close." "You know him." "I hired him once." His voice went flat. "Why are you here, not running?" "Because you profit if I live," Kestral said. "A dead secret-keeper buys you nothing. A live one you vouched for makes you look right." The second door creaked. A boar humanoid ducked under the low frame. Mud caked his leather armor. A long sabre hung at his side, and his tusks were longer than the blade. Einod the Crusher filled the small room. He looked at Kestral, then at Lycoris. "Contract's hers," Einod said. "Move, hound." Kestral spoke before Lycoris could. "The crown pays you once. I pay you every season." She dropped Waylon's coin and Lilly's second coin on the broken sill. "Kill me and the next hunter learns I kept nothing. Let me live and I feed you names for years. Lycoris already tells the trade I'm worth buying from. Ask him." Einod's dark eyes slid to Lycoris. "True?" "True," Lycoris said. "She doesn't break. She doesn't lie. Dead, she's one payment. Alive, she's a well." The boar stood still for a long breath. His hand rested on the sabre, then fell away. "Crown won't like it," Einod said. "Tell them you couldn't find her," Kestral said. "I'll make it worth the lie." Einod picked up the two coins. He turned them in his thick fingers, then pocketed them. "First name. Now." Kestral gave him a true one that cost her nothing and protected Emberlin. Einod grunted and ducked back out the second door into the dark. Kestral breathed. She had turned the crown's blade into a buyer. But Einod would return hungry for more names, and the court would learn its assassin had been bought. The woman they could not kill had just made herself the realm's most dangerous well.