The darkness was absolute—a magical shroud that swallowed the glow of the mana-lamps. In the silence that followed the first scream, the only thing I could hear was the frantic drumbeat of my own heart and the steady, metallic shink of Kaelen drawing his sword.
"Stay behind me," Kaelen's voice was a low, dangerous vibration. "If I move, you move. If I tell you to drop, you don't ask why."
"I'm an accountant, Kaelen," I whispered, my hand finding the cold hilt of the dagger hidden in my emerald skirts. "I'm used to people wanting me dead after a bad quarter. But usually, they use lawyers, not assassins."
A sudden whistle of wind—the sound of a crossbow bolt—sliced through the air where Kaelen's head had been a second before. He didn't flinch. He lunged forward into the dark, and I heard the sickening thud of steel meeting leather and bone.
"They're not after the Prince," I realized, my brain finally catching up to the chaos. "Vane doesn't need Kaelen dead yet. He needs the evidence gone. He needs me gone."
"Down!" Kaelen roared.
I dropped. A shadow swept over me, the scent of cold metal and old smoke trailing in its wake. I didn't wait. I swung my legs out, tripping the figure in the dark. As the assassin stumbled, I drove my small dagger into the gap in his armor—the spot just above the boot.
It wasn't a killing blow, but it was a "Late Fee" he wouldn't forget.
"Nice hit," Kaelen grunted, grabbing my arm and hauling me toward the balcony doors. "But we're outnumbered. Vane bought the whole Guild."
We burst onto the balcony. The cold night air hit my face, smelling of jasmine and impending doom. Below us, the palace gardens were a maze of shadows.
"The North exit is blocked," Kaelen said, glancing over the stone railing. "We have to go up. To the rooftops."
"In this dress?" I looked down at the yards of emerald silk and the hidden pockets filled with bearer bonds. "I'm carrying five million dragons in my corset, Kaelen! I'm literally too heavy for acrobatics!"
Kaelen didn't argue. He sheathed his sword, stepped toward me, and before I could protest, he threw me over his shoulder like a sack of gold.
"Hey! This is highly unprofessional!"
"Invoice me later," he snapped, leaping onto the stone balustrade and pulling us onto the trellis.
We climbed. The wind whipped my hair into a silver frenzy as Kaelen scaled the ivy-covered walls with the strength of a man possessed. Below us, the palace was waking up. Torches flickered in the gardens, and the shouts of the Imperial Guard mingled with the clashing of steel.
We reached the peak of the Treasury Tower—the very place where I had spent the last three nights. Kaelen set me down on the lead-shingled roof, his chest heaving slightly.
"The records," I gasped, pointing toward the skylight of my office. "Vane's men will be burning them. If those ledgers go up in flames, my audit means nothing. It's just my word against a Chancellor's."
Kaelen looked at the skylight, then at the soldiers storming the base of the tower. "I'll hold the stairs. You get the 'Shadow Ledger.' But Elara—if the room starts to burn, you leave it. No amount of gold is worth your head."
"Spoken like a man who has never had to balance a budget under fire," I muttered, already sliding through the narrow opening of the skylight.
I dropped into the office. The air was already thick with the smell of kerosene. A lone figure stood by my desk, a torch in one hand and my precious "Ghost Fleet" files in the other.
It was Lord Vane.
He looked different without the peacock robes. He looked desperate. "You should have stayed in the mud, Lady Lexen. You could have lived a long, boring life as a disgraced exile."
"And you should have learned how to hide your 'miscellaneous' expenses better," I retorted, circling the desk. "Burn the paper, Vane. Go ahead. But you forgot one thing."
I tapped my temple.
"I have a photographic memory for numbers. I've already sent a summarized balance sheet to the three major banks in the Neutral Territories. If I die tonight, those records go public. Your 'Golden Anchor' will sink the entire Imperial economy. The Emperor won't just execute you—he'll erase your entire bloodline from history."
Vane froze. The torch trembled in his hand. "You're lying."
"Am I? Do you want to gamble your life on the hope that an accountant didn't make a backup of her most important file?"
Outside, the door burst open. Kaelen stood there, covered in the soot of battle, his sword dripping. He looked at Vane, then at me.
"The Guard is here, Vane," Kaelen said, his voice like a tombstone. "Drop the torch, and you might get a trial. Drop the papers, and I might let you live long enough to reach the dungeon."
Vane looked at the torch, then at the window, then at the cold, amethyst eyes of the woman who had ruined him with a quill.
With a scream of rage, he threw the torch—not at the papers, but at me.