Introducing an epic, slow burn enemies-to-lovers romantasy novel about a heroine forged in steel and rage, and the cursed immortal who might turn out to be as much her salvation as she is his, perfect for fans of Danielle L. Jensen and Callie Hart.
Never run. Never bow. Never die.
Reya Connery became the Crimson Dagger, the most notorious thief in Rhiterra, by following a strict set of rules. One: There is no honor among thieves. Two: A good blade is key to any negotiation. Three: Only the dead keep secrets. And Reya has a secret that must be kept at all costs. But when a heist goes wrong on the eve of paying off her debt to a ruthless crime lord, Reya may need a new set of rules. And lots of coin. Fast.
Enter Caelan Halcyon, an immortal warrior whose magic makes him a valuable target—if the curse inching closer to his heart doesn't kill him first. There's just one person who might be desperate enough to try and get their hands on the fabled cure in time to save his life, someone whose legend claims they can steal anything: the Crimson Dagger. A male of honor, Caelan loathes everything the beautiful, cocky thief represents, yet knows that Reya is his last hope for survival.
Their search takes them to the edge of the known world, where Reya discovers that there is far more at stake than her and Caelan’s own lives. Now, Reya must confront deadly foes, her growing attraction to the immortal who is as lethal as his jawline is perfect, and the rage she's spent a lifetime trying to bury. This time, her daggers aren’t going to cut it, and the fate of all magic-born hangs in the balance.
Enter a world ruled by tyrants and thieves, where magic is outlawed, revolution brews, desire is dangerous, and an impossible cure may prove deadlier than the curse.
Tropes:
Slow-burn romance
Enemies-to-lovers
Deadly curses
Tortured immortal hero
Secret identity
Forced proximity
Found family
Only one saddle
Release date:
August 4, 2026
Publisher:
Requited
Print pages:
432
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Reya Connery braced herself flat against the underside of the bridge, nothing beneath her but air.
Any minute now, she thought, fingers and soles digging into the floor beams. Sweat shone like a crown across her brow. Her eyes tracked a glistening bead as it plummeted to the cobblestones three stories below.
It was hardly the first time she’d risked her neck for a purse full of coin, but if she did her job correctly—and she always did—it would be the last. A strand of copper hair she could never quite bring to heel escaped from the elaborate braid tucked inside her hood, and she muttered a quiet curse when it fluttered into her line of vision.
“Careful, Red, or you’ll give yourself away,” Gavin goaded her, arms quivering as he strained to keep straight-backed between the stringers.
She would have given him a vulgar gesture were their limbs not all that held them perched above the streets of Edris.
“Where the rotting hell are they?” Zaim groaned on her other side. “I’m raining sweat.”
Reya pinched her eyes shut, breathing through her nose. It had been a long day, and she’d just cleaned her armor. However, if the two imbeciles beside her didn’t stop whining, she was prepared to clean it again, despite how difficult it would be to scrub their bloodstains from the leather.
She just had to get through tonight. Then she would be free.
Before she could tell them both to hold their tongues lest she remove them, a cacophony of bouncing chainmail and clattering hooves triggered a hyperawareness she felt everywhere. A caravan surrounded by armored and mounted Silver Guardsmen rounded the corner south of where they were hiding.
Finally.
The impressive convoy was exactly as her employer had described. Three carriages conjoined at the base, one in front of the other. Six sentries on horseback. Two more stationed on a platform at the rear. One armed driver.
Not enough to stop them.
Her words were little more than a puff of air: “On my mark.”
They had no ropes or grappling hooks. To land directly atop the caravan, they had to time their fall perfectly.
This would work. After all, it was her plan.
“Now.”
Against the starlit backdrop of the Rhiterran Empire’s famed capital city, three thieves dropped from the sky.
Reya plunged into the night, midnight-blue cloak whipping behind her like a banner of war. Her stomach rose with the sudden weightlessness, but years of training kept her dinner down. The caravan crossing under the overpass reached up to greet her. Reya bent her knees as her boots hit the hood of the second carriage with a thud she felt in every limb, already palming two daggers from the arsenal of steel strapped across her hips and thighs.
Zaim landed onto the bench next to the driver, stole the reins, and shoved the poor man off before he even realized what was happening.
“Ambush!” one of the sentries shouted.
“On your left,” Reya said, and threw. Gavin crouched just in time to miss the blade that shot over his shoulder. She sent another flying, and another, aiming for the joints in the sentries’ armor: where the shoulder met the arm, the hip met the leg, and the jaw met the neck.
Two riders broke off from the convoy, while another lifted a signal flare.
Reya moved, dagger poised to sever the tendons in his wrist, but an arrow tore through his trachea first, saving her the trouble. Four more blue-cloaked figures appeared, sprinting across the rooftops alongside the caravan and unloading their quivers on the sentries.
A bolt whistled past her ear. With a hiss, she twisted with the kind of speed she’d earned through pain, glaring at the Silver Guardsman who had missed her cheek by a hair’s breadth. He moved to reload, but not quickly enough. Her dagger found its mark in the man’s eye, and he fell from his saddle with a choked scream, his white stallion cantering on without him.
Reya kissed the air in the horse’s direction, sending a silent wish on the wind that it would find its way out of the city and into the ancient wilds of the north.
Zaim whistled sharply in warning from the driver’s bench before snapping the reins. Their spotters fell back, and Reya and Gavin braced themselves as the caravan jolted forward with renewed speed, the sleeping city a blur of color and light as they flew past. She felt every rattle of the wheels over the cracked stones.
To the Silver Guard, Reya and her cohorts were known simply as “those rotting assholes.” But the criminal world knew them as the Bluehoods. They were far and above Rhiterra’s most dangerous outfit, helmed by Lennox Raulin, the empire’s ruling crime lord. Reya preferred to work alone, as she so often did these days, but Lennox had insisted this job was too big for one person.
Do this, kiddo, and you and I will be square, Lennox had told her.
Come sunrise, for the first time in a decade, her days would be hers to decide.
“Eyes up,” Reya said with a nod to the rear, one hand on her steel as the two sentries on the platform—all that remained of the guard—began climbing toward them.
The Rhiterran imperial crest gleamed on their breastplates: an airborne eagle clutching a serpent in its talons, wings splayed around an eight-pointed star. The scene was meant to symbolize the empire rooting out the world’s corruption. The hypocrisy of it nearly made her roll her eyes. The snakes were not slithering through the world King Rothmire was set to conquer; they were right here in his capital, getting rich.
Reya would know—she was one of them.
Gavin was already darting for his chosen target. Of course, he’d taken the smaller of the two men.
“Rotting coward,” Reya muttered, drawing her fighting knives and adjusting her stance as the caravan went over another divot on the road.
In the cold light of the two waxing moons, her opponent’s eyes raked along the feminine curves beneath her armor. She could practically read his thoughts as he sized her up, smirking when he marked the delicate features on display above the navy strip of fabric obscuring the lower half of her face: the high, freckled cheekbones and emerald eyes rimmed with the deepest sapphire. Despite how her body angled toward him in violent challenge, he did not deem her a threat. That error of judgement would be his last.
“You know,” Reya said, “every man I’ve ever fought has looked at me with that same expression. And every single one has fallen just the same.”
She waited for him to make the first move. The second he did, she knew he and his partner were not run-of-the-mill Silver Guardsmen. These soldiers had been chosen to dispatch the worst kind of threats. Size was his advantage, so speed would have to be hers. She began a dance she could have performed in her sleep, sidestepping his swings again and again even as the carriage rattled beneath her boots. Reya swept out her leg, hoping to bring him to his knees, but he anticipated her. She was up again in an instant. Time slowed as he made to cut her in half, and she flew into a backbend, watching the soldier’s blade soar over her face. Reya had to give him credit: He was lasting longer than most Silver Guardsmen who’d tried to kill her.
His overconfidence turned to frustration, and she grinned beneath her mask. The hem of her cloak whipped in a gust, moonslight flashing on the ruby-encrusted dagger that never left her side. The man’s jaw slackened as he realized who he was fighting.
She loved this part, when at last they saw her for the menace she was. His controlled movements turned increasingly erratic with his rage as he lunged again into the place she’d been standing. Reya feinted left and took the opening to drive her dagger up into his helmet. But he caught her wrist and headbutted her—hard.
With a stream of curses so colorful she was certain her ancestors were looking down from the stars in shame, she put distance between them, dodging his thrusts by the sound of the blade cutting the air. She curled and uncurled her toes, clenched and unclenched her fists, until the world slipped back into focus. Reya could count on one hand the number of times that had happened to her in the last five years.
Cool air touched her lips, and she realized her mask had slipped; the fabric hung like a scarf around her neck. The soldier, smug with imagined victory, studied her face in enough light to describe it to a sketch artist. She didn’t bother fixing the mask. He would be dead in a minute.
Reya stowed her fighting knives and tugged her father’s sword from its sheath across her back; she could still feel the impression of his hand on the worn, leather-wrapped hilt.
Using the sword was like looking her father’s ghost in the eye. It hurt every time. But she savored the pain.
They collided, steel clashing and glinting in the moonslight as the caravan tore through the streets. Reya dared take her eyes off him long enough to note the building they’d just passed. He was a gifted fighter, but there was only one person in this All-Gods-damned city who could best her. When they rounded a sharp corner, she was ready for it, crouching down to grip the side of the carriage’s roof. She’d made the Bluehoods walk the route over and over again until they knew every turn, curve, and bump—when to brace, when to lean, and when to hold on.
He dropped to one knee to keep from going over the side on the turn, and she didn’t hesitate. His final words, whatever they were, broke off into a gurgle as she drove her sword through the gap between his helmet and shoulder. Tightening her grip, Reya pressed a leather boot against his chest and kicked. When the blade came free, she jerked away from the blood spray, clamping her mouth and eyes shut and rocking back on her heels as his body tumbled off the roof.
Reya smeared the splatter from her face with an elbow. Then she caught her reflection in the sword. The thief staring back at her rippled around the words inscribed down the fuller in the runic script of the First Language: Never run. Never bow. Never die. Sacred, ancient words. Her father’s words. Reya swallowed hard. How many times had she soaked them in blood?
Every thief had an endgame. When Reya pictured hers, she often found herself standing inside a forge thick with ash and heat, a cast iron sign of her own making above the door. A place to create rather than take. To forge. A different life; the life her parents had always wanted for her. With her debt to Lennox paid in full, she could finally leave this city. Sail to a distant shore and put the blue cloak to the flames. Master an actual trade.
Her father’s trade.
Gavin faced her, one foot resting casually on the back of his opponent—either dead or unconscious—on the hood of the next carriage.
“I thought you were going down for a second there, Red,” he said and shoved the body off the roof.
Beneath his hood and mask, Reya knew his head of dark curls was knotted tightly at the nape of his neck. Gavin was broad-shouldered and lean-muscled with warm brown skin, a stubbled jaw, and a crooked smile that made even steel-hearted women swoon. Reya knew exactly what that stubble felt like scraping against her thighs. She could almost still feel him beneath her, hands bruising her hips as she moved atop him, encouraging her to take what she needed. Running a job was practically their idea of foreplay. The devious gleam in his multicolored eyes—a rare fusion of palest green, blue, and descending hazel—told her he was afflicted by the same memories.
Every time, she swore it would be the last, until the next time when it wasn’t. Reya didn’t do relationships. This thing between them, whatever the hell it was, needed to end—and it would.
Tomorrow.
Reya wiped the blade on her pants before sheathing it, the merciless wind drying the spatter on her cheeks. “You always leave me the burly ones.”
“We all have to earn our coin,” Gavin said, a grin in his voice. “Not that you need it. You’re richer than all of us, and yet for some reason you still live in that closet of a flat in the West End.”
Reya huffed. “Best view in the city.”
Gavin leapt over to her carriage, invading her space. “I think you just like having an excuse to sleep at my place.”
Arrogant bastard. She loved it. “Since when do we sleep at your place?”
He hummed a laugh, reaching up to smear a drop of blood on her cheek. “I would have taken the big guy, but I hate to rob you of your fun. Or has the famous Crimson Dagger gone soft?”
The overlarge ruby set in the pommel of her dagger sparkled in the moonslight, as if preening under the attention. Reya had more than earned the cold sweat that name elicited in even the most dangerous circles of Rhiterra’s criminal underbelly.
“You wouldn’t know fun if it grabbed you by your worthless balls.”
He winked a green-blue eye. “Happy to prove you wrong on both counts anytime. Tonight, if you’re lucky.”
Reya shoved him a little too hard, but he just laughed, at ease in the lightness between them that had grown far too comfortable.
“If you two are finished!” Zaim shouted over his shoulder.
Reya turned to assess their position as she reaffixed her mask. With the guards gone, Zaim had turned the caravan off the Sovereign Road, and now they were hurtling toward the South End warehouse district, or as the locals liked to call it, the Heap.
Edris was the beating heart of an empire, a capital roaring with life and enterprise. A fitting stronghold for a king—murderous warmonger though he was.
And Reya was heir to its underworld.
Lennox had been explicit in his instructions: He wanted the entire caravan. And he’d been particularly cagey about what was inside.
Part of her was afraid to find out. Lately, every job made less sense than the last, even for someone like Lennox, whose hands were in too many pockets to count. The more illicit his business dealings in Rhiterra became, the more people in positions of power who got involved, the more Reya added to her roll of sins the All-Gods were sure to read off at the gates to eternity. She couldn’t deny she was glad to soon be leaving Lennox’s employ.
There were precious few pieces left of her soul, and she intended to keep them.
One last job.
“If anyone tries to follow us,” Reya said, nodding to the bow and quiver peeking over Gavin’s shoulder, “shoot them down.”
The caravan passed its first marker—a stone monument to some ancient royal Reya couldn’t name—as Zaim wove the maze she’d charted to lose any tails. They had exactly ten minutes until they reached the drop-off point. Reya maneuvered down one side of the first carriage, using the handles and footholds the engineers had conveniently placed there for the sentries, while Gavin took up position at the rear to cover them.
Each carriage door was chained and padlocked. Her job now was to remove the locks before they reached the drop-off point so the Bluehoods could quickly empty the cargo and torch the evidence.
The job was as good as finished. Already mentally packing her trunks, Reya freed the hatchet from her belt and hurled the blade down on the shackle. Even she, for all her skill, couldn’t pick a lock at the speed the carriage was moving. It only took three swings until the metal sparked and snapped. She stowed her weapon. Grabbing the broken bar and chains, she creaked open the small door and tucked them inside, unwilling to leave so much as a breadcrumb for the Silver Guard to follow; the dead sentries would be the last anyone ever found of this caravan. A hollow thump and clatter echoed back to her. Opening the door a little wider, Reya peered into the darkness, expecting to see box crates, chests, barrels, antique furniture, something, anything.
But it was empty.
That’s not possible. Denial warred with reality as her mind raced for an explanation. Could the caravan have been a decoy? Gavin had assured Lennox that he’d confirmed the transport time and day with three separate informants. It had taken Reya weeks to coordinate this job. Weeks to spy on the Silver Guard and pay off the right people, learn their route, and plan the assault.
This was precisely why she liked to work alone.
Grinding her teeth, Reya adjusted her grip and jumped to the next carriage, refusing to accept that this all had been for nothing. She caught the handle and pulled herself up with a grunt, wedging her toes into the footholds.
They passed their second marker—a tavern with a crescent moon sign half-hanging off its hinges. Seven minutes. The adrenaline lighting her veins on fire was better than a shot of whiskey. She did her best work to the symphony of a ticking clock and her own racing heart.
Reya turned the next lock over in her hand and examined its odd, intricate design. It wasn’t a model she’d seen before. Even the chains on this carriage were thicker.
This must be it. But then why have three carriages?
That’s when she felt the strange otherness emanating from the metal and recoiled. Praying she was mistaken, she angled the iron padlock toward the moonslight; it set the keyhole’s inner green lining shimmering, and she swore.
The lock was fashioned with Kellstone—the only natural substance in the world immune to magic. Which meant whatever traveled inside this carriage was either so valuable that the Silver Guard had wanted protections against even magical tampering… or it was magic. And magic had been outlawed in Rhiterra for centuries.
If it had been any other job, she would have leapt off the moving caravan and gone home, riches be damned. She wanted nothing to do with whatever was inside. And yet her future depended on it. Reya counted to five, willing someone to stop her. But no one would or could. Freeing her hatchet, Reya threw it down once, twice, three times. Sparks flew, but the iron held.
Again.
Nothing.
Again. Again. Again.
“Rotting hell, break!”
The metal snapped. Reya tried to catch the padlock, but it clattered across the street behind them as the caravan sailed on. She would have to go back for it later. Groaning, Reya sheathed her blade and loosened the chains, hesitating over the threshold.
Opening the carriage would be reckless now that she knew magic was involved. The safest plan was to toss the chains down to the street and move on to the next carriage. She could come back to recover them with the lock. But her feet wouldn’t move. She wasted precious seconds debating a choice she’d already made. She needed to know what they were dealing with.
Reya prayed whatever was inside wouldn’t be the death of her.
With a tug of the iron handle, the door flew open in the wind. Waste and mold and rot and the faint scent of petrichor filled her lungs. Eyes watering, Reya covered her mouth and nose. She took one glance at the contents and swore against her palm.
All-Gods above.
They were all screwed.
When Reya locked eyes with the female she had been hired to steal, she tasted bile.
The immortal had all the features of a human woman, save for the emerald marks glowing on her skin, curving down the sides of her arms, torso, and legs; they were elegant in a brutal sort of way, as though they had been carved into her to release an inner light. She was folded in a corner of the small prison cell, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. It was evident she hadn’t eaten a meal or seen sunlight in weeks. But beneath the pallor and bruising, she was still the kind of stunning that stole one’s breath. Ink-dark hair spilling around her, the female looked no older than twenty-five, but she could have been two hundred.
She was a Sage, the most lethal of all magic-born. And she hadn’t been taken captive quietly. Not only had they beaten her, they’d chained her to a bolt in the floor.
And around her neck—a solid Kellstone collar.
Blood rushed to Reya’s face.
A murderous rage warred with the fear in the immortal’s wide, steel-gray eyes when she looked at Reya. Once, Sages had ruled the continent of Ianess. With strength and senses far beyond that of humans and rare, powerful gifts of magic, they’d been as feared as they were revered. But the discovery of Kellstone had leveled the field between Sages and humans, whose far larger populations had driven the Sages out of their lands over centuries of bloodshed and conquest. Most Sages were just human enough in appearance that they could cover their marks and hide in plain sight, but the majority had fled to safer foreign shores.
The caravan took a sharp left turn, and Reya adjusted her grip on the doorframe. The raised floor and low ceiling of the carriage kept the prisoner from standing, and one long, narrow vent in the rear wall let in light and air. The Sage retreated as far as she could into the corner.
This was why Lennox hadn’t told her what they were stealing, and why he’d promised such riches. With the Kellstone mines yielding less and less each year, the Sage’s restraints were worth a fortune. Yet they were nothing compared to what she was worth—dead or alive. By hijacking the entire caravan, Lennox got them both. Reya was loath to admit it was a genius plan. And she had been instrumental in its execution.
A long, sharp whistle from Zaim indicated they’d passed the third and final marker. Four minutes.
The Bluehoods had never involved themselves in magic-born trafficking. So why now? And why this Sage? Did Gavin and Zaim know? She had so many questions, but the only one that mattered was what she was going to do next.
Lennox would do what he always did: sell to the highest bidder. And in Reya’s experience, the person willing to pay the most was usually the most despicable. At best, the Sage would become someone’s weapon. A tool for wicked men, just like she was. At worst… Lennox would ransom her back to the king they were stealing from, a monarch rumored to strap magic-born to examination tables. Reya had no doubt this female would suffer a fate worse than death.
“What’s the holdup?” Gavin shouted, the wind ripping at his words so she could barely hear them.
The wood beneath her fingertips groaned in her grip. She was this close to winning her freedom. If she double-crossed Lennox now, she’d be going home not a copper richer for it, and there’d be hell to pay. Magic was dangerous—on that much, she and the King of Rhiterra could agree. Reya had spent the last ten years keeping well away from those who wielded it. If freed, the Sage might attack first and ask questions later, and Reya had no desire to experience whatever power the Rhiterrans decided needed a damn collar to contain it. This female was not her problem.
As if reading her thoughts, the Sage let out a choked, almost reluctant sob, a pitiful noise ringing with rage and despair, and Reya squeezed her eyes shut, knowing the sound would haunt her forever.
Please, those otherworldly eyes seemed to say when Reya looked up. Don’t leave me here.
Reya’s shoulders curved around the tightness in her chest and the unwelcome weight on her shoulders. Once, she had been locked inside a box, too. What would she have given for someone to let her out?
She was a lot of things—thief, liar, killer. The world had taken everything from her, so she had decided to take back. In the last ten years, she’d been starved, left homeless, beaten, incarcerated, and damn near strung up for the crows. There was blood on her hands that she could never wipe clean. Lennox had made sure of that.
But she didn’t steal people and trade them for coin.
If her father were alive to see what she had become party to, he would never forgive her.
Gavin was right. She was going soft.
Lennox would punish her, sure as the dawn would come, but Reya could survive it. She had before. Whatever she had become, she was still Gwendolyn and Hector Connery’s daughter. And she could feel their eyes on her from the stars.
Oh, damn it all to hell.
“All right, this is how it’s going to go,” Reya said. She set down the chains and crawled inside the carriage cell on her hands and knees, over wood that was rotting under fluids she tried desperately not to think about. Her breathing picked up speed as the walls closed in around her, and she shut her eyes, imagining she was standing in a forge that smelled of home, her father’s ghost smiling down at her. The skin on her neck burned, but she refused to touch the necklace there. She would not lose herself to this weakness—not here, not now. “If you want to live to see the sunrise, you’re going to do exactly as I tell you. Now, keep those hands where I can see them while I get rid of these.”
There were wicked-looking sores around the Sage’s swollen wrists and ankles where she had tried to break free. When Reya reached to examine the restraints, the female’s fists swung. Reya barely ducked in time to avoid a hit to the face.
Una spare her.
“Knock it off!” Reya grabbed her by the wrists and slammed her up against the wall, a feat she only managed thanks to the female’s weakened state. The Sage screamed and kicked as only an immortal could. It was pure survival instinct, but Reya wanted to throttle her anyway, even as she marveled at the Sage’s grit. “Save your strength for someone who’s actually trying to kill you,” Reya growled, bearing down with all her strength. “Because believe me, there will be plenty.”
“Red, let’s go!” Gavin shouted, his footfalls thudding on the roof directly above their heads.
The female stilled, and Reya dared release one of her wrists to press a finger to her mouth. Three minutes.
“Nothing I could say would earn your trust, and we don’t have time for it anyway,” Reya said quietly. “If you do not take the escape I am offering you, I will deliver you to my employer and let him decide your fate, and I won’t lose a wink of sleep over it. Meanwhile, you will go down in history as the biggest fool to ever walk this earth—human or magic-born. You have eighteen seconds to decide.”
The female closed her eyes so tight her whole face wrinkled, as if that would make it all go away. Her swallow was audible, but she opened her fists in acceptance.
A fighter, then. Good.
“Wise choice.” Reya followed the chains to a ring welded on a steel plate in the floor. Rhiterran blacksmiths often didn’t use the correct heat or clean their metal properly. If she applied enough force to the right spot, the bond would snap if it hadn’t been properly fused. Reya ran her thumb along the puckered metal of the weld at the base of the plate. She retrieved her hatchet and struck the base twice. The metal gave, and she grinned despite everything. “Every cage has a weak spot. You just have to find it.”
Reya extended a hand to the Sage. It was a simple and yet loaded motion. An offer up—if only the Sage had strength yet to take it. Come on, Reya thought. They didn’t break you. After a moment’s hesitation, the female’s hand clasped hers, and Reya saw it—a spark in those steel-gray eyes. Reya’s answering smile was all teeth.
“Hold on to me,” she said, gripping the Sage tight. “And don’t scream.” She threw all her weight into the jump, and together they leapt from the moving carriage. Reya twisted to take the brunt of the fall, and knew she would bear the bruises tomorrow.
The female howled as they slammed into the cobblestones, and Reya knew Gavin heard it.
“What did I say?” Reya growled, hauling the Sage up and wrapping her cloak around them both, trying not to gag. She was going to need at least three baths after tonight.
Gavin shouted at Zaim to stop the caravan, but they’d already turned the corner. Even if they stopped, they wouldn’t be able to turn the horses around in the narrow alley, and Reya would be long gone by the time Gavin caught up to them. Still, Reya broke into as quick of a run as she could with the extra weight bearing down on her, urging the female faster as they twisted and turned through the winding streets of Rhiterra’s worst neighborhood.
Dawn was still a few hours off, and this part of the city was mostly abandoned—hence why she’d chosen it—but even the few transients they passed wouldn’t dare cross someone in a blue hood. The closer they came to the wall, the more likely they were to run into a patrol of Silver Guardsmen, but unfortunately, that was exactly where they needed to go.
“There is only one way out of this city that will allow you to leave unseen, and you’re not going to like it,” Reya said as they walked, keeping to the shadows and peering around corners before they turned. “But it will not be half as bad as what will happen if you’re seen.”
Across the Heart Sea, it was not uncommon to have a magic-born serve your food or pour your ale, live next door, or wave to you in the streets. But here, walking out in the open was as good as a death sentence.
Like she’d summoned them, a unit of Silver Guardsmen turned down the street opposite them. Reya shoved the Sage into the darkness of the nearest alcove and flattened herself over her, shielding them both from view with her cloak and holding her breath. They were liable to find the Sage by her smell alone. Only after the guards were long out of earshot did Reya pull back from the Sage to look down the street.
What she was about to do was risky. But she needed answers, and she couldn’t weather Lennox’s wrath without them.
“Are you all right?” Reya asked.
The Sage nodded, glancing down the street as if surprised they’d pulled it off.
“Good.” Knowing she would never get another chance, Reya freed her ruby dagger and pressed it below the raw skin on the f
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