Chapter 4 The Betrayal in the Shadows

The man outside the carriage had spoken as though ordering my death were a simple errand. I stared at the roof, where something heavy scraped across the wood, and tried to make sense of the prince’s expression. Kyron looked furious, but not surprised. He pushed me beneath the opposite seat just as a blade punched through the leather where my head had been.

“Stay down,” he ordered.

“I wasn’t planning to stand up.”

He glanced at me, apparently offended that I could still answer him. Then he kicked the door open and leaped into the darkness. The carriage rocked beneath me. I heard a grunt, the clash of steel, and a body hitting the ground hard enough to shake the wheels. Someone cried out for the others to surround him.

For a heartbeat, I considered running. The trees were close, and the attackers seemed interested in Kyron. But the driver lay slumped across his seat, his hand dangling beside the wheel. When I crawled forward to check him, his fingers twitched. He was alive.

I reached through the broken window and caught his wrist. Blood ran from a wound beneath his collar, soaking the front of his coat. I pressed my sleeve against it, desperate to remember the lessons I’d copied from Thornveil’s discarded medical books. Keep pressure on the wound. Keep the patient breathing. Do not panic.

“Help me,” I whispered, though I had no idea whom I was asking.

Heat gathered in my palm. At first I thought it was the man’s blood, but a pale shimmer spread between my fingers, illuminating the torn fabric. The driver drew a sharp breath. Beneath my hand, the bleeding slowed.

“What are you doing?” a stranger demanded.

I looked up. A masked attacker stood beside the carriage, a crossbow aimed directly at my chest. His cloak bore no royal crest, only a narrow silver thread stitched around the cuffs. I raised my free hand, knowing there was nothing I could do to stop the bolt.

He fired. Something slammed into me, and the world tipped sideways. I fell against the seat, certain I had been struck. Instead, a black wolf stood between us, enormous enough to fill the doorway. An arrow jutted from its shoulder. Its golden eyes met mine before it lunged at the attacker.

Kyron. Somehow, impossibly, I knew it was him.

The wolf struck with terrifying speed. I turned away before the man’s scream ended. When I looked again, Kyron stood in human form near the wheel, blood running down his bare arm. He wore the trousers he’d shifted in, but his shirt lay shredded among the fallen leaves.

For a moment, I noticed that his hands were trembling. I had imagined princes were incapable of fear, princes who spoke to other people as though they were dirt beneath their boots. Yet he glanced at the road, listening for something I could not hear. Whatever had sent those men after me, he understood its danger.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

The question startled me more than the attack. “No. The driver needs a healer.”

Kyron followed my gaze to the injured man. His expression tightened when he saw the blood, but his attention soon returned to my hands. A faint silver glow still clung to my fingertips. I hid them beneath my skirt, too late to pretend he hadn’t noticed.

“Who taught you that?”

“Nobody taught me to glow,” I answered. “I was trying to stop the bleeding.”

He crouched beside the driver, checking his pulse. “His wound is closing.”

I leaned closer. The torn skin had begun knitting together beneath the stained cloth. Relief swept through me, followed immediately by fear. I had read about healing gifts, but they belonged to trained wolves with established bloodlines. I wasn’t supposed to possess anything unusual except my eyes.

A twig snapped behind us. Kyron rose, catching my arm and pulling me close enough that I could feel his heartbeat. A woman emerged from the trees with both hands raised. Her dark hair was tied beneath a scarf, and a familiar scent of rosemary reached me through the smoke.

“Nessa?” I could scarcely believe it. “What are you doing here?”

The kitchen maid stumbled forward, breathing hard. “I followed the carriage. I knew Garrick was lying when he said you were going somewhere safe.”

Kyron moved between us. “How did a servant follow a royal carriage through guarded roads?”

“Through the old hunting paths.” Nessa swallowed, looking at the bodies scattered around the clearing. “Please. We need to leave before the others come.”

“Others?” I asked.

She reached beneath her cloak and produced a small brass token marked with a crescent inside a circle. I’d seen that symbol before, carved into the underside of the cellar shelves where I slept during winter storms. I had always assumed it was an old servant’s mark.

“My mother gave me this,” Nessa said. “She made me promise to show you when the royal men came.”

Kyron’s face hardened. “Where is your mother?”

“Dead,” she replied. “She worked in the Roswyn household before the massacre.”

I felt the ground shift beneath me, though I hadn’t moved. Nessa had been there through my loneliest years, slipping me food, mending my clothes, teaching me which flowers could treat a fever. All that time, she’d known something about my family.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” My voice sounded small.

“Because I thought we’d have more time.” Her eyes filled. “I was told you’d be safe until your wolf awakened. Nobody imagined the scholarship would expose you.”

Kyron seized the token and turned it over. On the back, barely visible in the moonlight, were three letters etched into the brass. He went completely still. When I asked what they meant, he closed his fist around it.

“We leave now,” he said. “The academy is no longer safe.”

“It’s the only place I have left,” I protested.

“Then you’re running out of places.”

Nessa stepped toward him, her expression changing. “You recognized the mark. Tell her what it means.”

Kyron’s jaw tightened. Before he could answer, the wounded driver caught my sleeve. His eyes were wide, his breathing ragged again despite the healing wound. He pulled me close enough to whisper, and I smelled blood on his breath.

“Don’t trust her,” he rasped. “She opened the gates.”

I turned toward Nessa. Her face had gone pale, but she wasn’t looking at the driver. She was staring into the woods behind me. From somewhere among the trees came a low whistle, and Nessa slowly raised her hand to answer it.