Free The Warlord's Legacy by Ari Marmell

smiled coldly. “Is she staying with the others?”
    “So far as I know. You never did tell me how you’re planning to reach her.”
    “I thought I’d get her to invite me in, actually. Might I borrow a quill, an inkpot, and some parchment?”
    Irrial frowned, but gestured at Rannert. Expression unchanging save for a fluttering eyelid, he delivered the requested items. Cerris took only a moment to scribble a note, and several more to work a taper from a nearby candelabrum. The wax he dripped upon the folded parchment would never pass as any sort of formal seal, but it would suffice to reveal if anyone opened the missive. Cerris stuck the letter through his belt and, even as the baroness drew breath to speak, twisted his neck to stare briefly at every man and woman assembled in the chamber.
    “I’m sure you’re all faithful to Lady Irrial,” he said, voice low, “but be certain. Once this begins, you’ll have only a few hours before the Cephirans discover what’s happened here, and they will
not
forgive. If anyone’s loyalty isn’t worth dying over—
and killing over
—tell me now. I’ll be happy to knock you out, and you can claim you were never involved. Anyone?”
    Several of the staff failed to hold his gaze, but nobody raised a hand.
    Cerris nodded curtly and, though he carried the dead soldier’s sword at his hip, claimed a dagger from the nearest servant. He looked once more at Irrial who, though her face had grown abnormally pale, nodded in return. “Do it,” she told him softly.
    Knife clenched in a tight fist, Cerris slipped silently from the chamber, heading for the room in which the billeted soldiers slept.
    ‘
Ah, murdering men in their sleep
. That’s
the valiant soldier I remember.
’
    When he returned to the others, his hands were crimson. Not one of his victims had awoken long enough to make a sound.
    Irrial shuddered, clearly uncomfortable with this side of her friend, however necessary. She and the servants gathered by the front door, ready to cross the lawn and disperse into the streets.
    “Remember,” Cerris whispered, “groups of no more than two. Once you’re away from the estate,
do not run
. Just act casually, behave as though you’ve every right to be where you are.”
    ‘
Easy enough for you,
’ the voice taunted. ‘
You feel like you’re supposed to rightfully own everything anyway.
’
    It was no more difficult murdering the two gate guards than it had been their sleeping brethren. They knew Cerris—or thought they did—and they expected to see him leaving the house. He approached casually, even offered a friendly smile, and then the younger soldier was crumpling to the earth, clutching uselessly at his slit throat. Stunned, the second man was drawing breath, grasping frantically at his sword, when Cerris drove the dagger up into his chin.
    A glance to ensure the street was empty, a wave toward the house, and Irrial and her servants came running. “You remember where to meet us?” she called in a whisper as he stepped away.
    He smiled back at her without slowing. “Just make sure you’re there waiting for me.”
    “I’ll be there, Cerris,” she whispered to his retreating silhouette. Then, with a smile far more confident than she felt, she sent her servants on their way and marched out into the street—arrogant, stubborn, faithful Rannert at her side.

    T HE ANCESTRAL ESTATE OF D UKE H ALMON seemed somehow off-kilter, standing at the far southwestern edge of the aristocratic quarter, and indeed the city entire. Haughty and unapproachable, the first duke of Rahariem had deliberately held his home aloof from the “lower folk,” and while subsequent generations of the line had softened in their attitudes toward the populace—and vice versa—the notion of moving and rebuilding their home was never seriously considered.
    The property was sprawling, several times larger than the Lady Irrial’s, but it was not the rolling lawns or statue-bedecked gardens that