He was likely asleep.
Hopefully asleep. It’d probably be better if his healer didn’t barge into his room and shake him silly. It definitely wasn’t behavior approved by the Torre. By Hafiza.
And yet she kept walking, her pace increasing, steps near-clomping on the marble floors. If he wanted to take a step back on their progress, that was just fine. But she certainly didn’t have to let him do it—not without trying.
Yrene stormed down a long, dim corridor. She wasn’t a coward; she wouldn’t back down from this fight. She’d left that girl in that alley in Innish. And if he was inclined to sulk about Nesryn, then he was entitled to do so. But to call off their session because of it—
Unacceptable.
She’d simply tell him that and leave. Calmly. Rationally.
Yrene scowled with each step, muttering the word under her breath. Unacceptable.
And she had let him kick her out, no matter what she might have tried to tell herself.
That was even more unacceptable.
Stupid fool. She muttered that, too.
Loud enough that she nearly missed the sound.
The footstep—the scrape of shoes on stone—just behind her.
This late, servants were likely heading back to their masters’ rooms, but—
There it was. That sense, pricking again.
Only shadows and shafts of moonlight filled the pillar-lined hallway.
Yrene hurried her pace.
She heard it again—the steps behind. A casual, stalking gait.
Her mouth went dry, her heart thundering. She had no satchel, not even her little knife. Nothing in her pockets beyond that note.
Hurry, a small, gentle voice murmured in her ear. In her head.
She had never heard that voice before, but she sometimes felt its warmth. Coursing through her as her magic flowed out. It was as familiar to her as her own voice, her own heartbeat.
Hurry, girl.
Urgency laced each word.
Yrene increased her pace, nearing a run.
There was a corner ahead—she need only round it, make it thirty feet down that hall, and she’d be at his suite.
Was there a lock on the door? Would it be locked against her—or be able to keep whoever it was out?
Run, Yrene!
And that voice …
It was her mother’s voice that bellowed in her head, her heart.
She didn’t stop to think. To wonder.
Yrene launched into a sprint.
Her shoes slipped along the marble, and the person, the thing behind her—those footsteps broke into a run, too.
Yrene turned the corner and slid, skidding into the opposite wall so hard her shoulder barked in pain. Feet scrambling, she fought to regain momentum, not daring to look back—
Faster!
Yrene could see his door. Could see the light leaking out from beneath it.
A sob broke from her throat.
Those rushing steps behind her closed in. She didn’t dare risk her balance by looking.
Twenty feet. Ten. Five.
Yrene hurled for the handle, gripping it with all her strength to keep from sliding past as she shoved against it.
The door opened, and she whirled in, legs slipping beneath her as she slammed her entire body into the door and fumbled for the lock. There were two.
She finished the first when the person on the other side barreled into the door.
The entire thing shuddered.
Her fingers shook, her breath escaping in sharp sobs as she fought for the second, heavier lock.
She flipped it closed just as the door buckled again.
“What in hell—”
“Get inside your room,” she breathed to Chaol, not daring to take her eyes off the door as it shuddered. As the handle rattled. “Get in—now.”
Yrene looked then to find him in the threshold of his bedroom, sword in his hand. Eyes on the door.
“Who the hell is that.”
“Get inside,” she said, her voice breaking. “Please.”
He read the terror in her face. Read and understood.
He shoved back into the room, holding the door for her and then sealing it behind her.
The front door cracked. Chaol locked his bedroom door with a click. Only one lock.
“The chest,” he said, his voice unfaltering. “Can you move it?”
Yrene whirled to the chest of drawers beside the door. She didn’t reply as she threw herself against it, shoes again slipping on the polished marble—
She kicked off her shoes, bare skin finding better grip on the stone as she heaved and grunted and shoved—
The chest slid in front of the bedroom door.
“The garden doors,” Chaol ordered, finishing locking them.
They were solid glass.
Dread and panic curled in her gut, ripping the breath from her throat.
“Yrene,” Chaol said evenly. Calmly. He held her gaze. Steadying her. “How far is the nearest entrance to the gard
en from the outer hall?”
“A two-minute walk,” she replied automatically. It was only accessible from the interior rooms, and as most of these were occupied … They’d have to take the hall to the very end. Or risk running through the bedrooms next door, which … “Or one.”
“Make it count.”
She scanned the bedroom for anything. There was an armoire beside the glass doors, towering high above. Too high, too enormously heavy—
But the movable screen to the bathroom …
Yrene hurtled across the room, Chaol lunging for a set of daggers on his nightstand.
She grabbed the heavy wooden screen and hauled and shoved it, cursing as it snagged on the rug. But it moved—it got there. She flung open the armoire doors and wedged the screen between it and the wall, shaking it a few times for good measure. It held.
She rushed to the desk, throwing books and vases off it. They shattered across the floor.
Stay calm; stay focused.
Yrene hauled the desk to the wood screen and flipped it onto its side with a clattering crash. She shoved it against the barricade she’d made.
But the window—
There was one across the room. High and small, but—
“Leave it,” Chaol ordered, sliding into place in front of the glass doors. Sword angled and dagger in his other hand. “If they try that route, the small size will force them to be slow.”
Long enough for him to kill it—whoever it was.
“Get over here,” he said quietly.
She did so, eyes darting between the bedroom door and the garden doors.
“Deep breaths,” he told her. “Center yourself. Fear will get you killed as easily as a weapon.”
Yrene obeyed.
“Take the dagger on the bed.”
Yrene balked at the weapon.
“Do it.”
She grabbed the dagger, the metal cool and heavy in her hand. Unwieldy.
His breathing was steady. His focus unrelenting as he monitored both doors. The window.
“The bathroom,” she whispered.
“The windows are too high and narrow.”
“What if it’s not in a human body?”
The words ripped from her in a hoarse whisper. The illustrations she’d seen in that book—
“Then I’ll keep it occupied while you run.”