Free The Blood Curse by Emily Gee Page A

him be alive when we return .
     
     
    T HE MARKET SQUARE was three streets away. Harkeld set a brisk pace, weaving through the refugees, his belly growling with hunger. Adel followed. The water mage was tall and gawky, with long arms and a thin throat in which his Adam’s apple bobbed nervously. He hadn’t the fighters’ physique of the other Sentinels, or their confidence—but he must know how to fight, or he wouldn’t be here. It was part of their training—to fight as well as soldiers. Ebril had told him that.
    Ebril, who was dead.
    Harkeld plunged into the market square, Adel trailing a half-step behind. It was hard to feel safe with Adel as his guard, but a glance showed him that shapeshifters were also there. The sparrow hopping across the rooftops was a mage, the dog sniffing the gutters, the swallow swooping above the square. And Innis was there too, browsing the skeins of wool displayed in a wagon.
    Harkeld picked up a leather belt and tried to look as if he was examining it, while his gaze rested on her.
    Innis was slender, tomboyish, almost as shy and quiet as Adel, and yet she was the strongest shapeshifter in a century—and the youngest mage ever to take the Sentinel’s oath. Ebril had told him that too.
    Strong magic, but not yet certain of who she was in the world. Too young to be a Sentinel, killing people, being killed. But she’d been his armsman for several months. She’d not been shy, then. She’d wrestled with him often—and won often. She’d defended herself against two soldiers at the pass in the Graytooth Mountains, and killed one of them. She’d killed a Fithian assassin.
    And she’d been Justen when Harkeld had broken the armsman’s jaw. And Justen in King Magnas’s castle, when he’d believed the armsman guilty of rape and nearly killed him.
    Harkeld lowered the belt. He remembered cornering Justen in the stairwell, remembered squeezing the armsman’s throat between his hands. I almost murdered her . His stomach turned over on itself, a queasy, curdling sensation.
    “Er... Flin? Are you all right?”
    He glanced at Adel. The water mage was watching him, his head slightly ducked. Adel was the same age as Petrus and Justen, ready to take his oath as a Sentinel, but he looked years younger, an adolescent yet to grow comfortable in his body. A Fithian would kill you in half a second . Harkeld forced a smile to his lips. “Fine.”
    He moved on, to a stall selling meat pies. Adel followed. The water mage reminded Harkeld of a half-grown puppy, hands and feet too big, clumsy in his movements, eager to please.
    Harkeld bought pies for himself and Adel, then stepped into a quiet space between two stalls. “Want one?” he asked the barrel-chested black dog that was Serril. Shapeshifters weren’t allowed to eat when in animal form—it was one of their Primary Laws—but Sentinels were allowed to break those Laws if necessary, and Serril had to be hungry.
    The dog shook its head.
    Harkeld shrugged and bit into his pie. He ate quickly, scanning the crowd while he chewed. The pastry was tough, the meat dry, but his stomach stopped growling. His gaze skipped over faces, ignoring the women, examining the men. Were any of them Fithian assassins? If I was an assassin, this is the kind of town I’d be in . A border settlement, a place that people and information flowed through. All headed in one direction, now: into Roubos. Anyone crossing into Sault would stand out. And if the Fithians have even one agent here, every assassin in the Seven Kingdoms will soon know where I am .
    When he’d finished the pie, Harkeld moved further into the market square. He ignored Adel trailing diffidently behind him, and kept his awareness on Petrus and Justen—overhead—on Serril—trotting nearby, ears pricked—on Innis—half a dozen stalls away.
    In the dreams, he’d had sex with Innis; in real life, he’d barely spoken to her. Except when she was Justen, when we were friends .
    He watched Innis