Chapter 6: The Cut

"Dad!"

I do not remember deciding to run. My legs just went.

The hooded man was ten steps behind my father, then eight, then five. He was fast and quiet, and nobody was looking at him. Everyone was too busy shouting about the Guardian. My father was holding my mother and smiling at me with wet eyes, and he had no idea.

"Behind you!" I screamed. "Dad, behind you!"

He turned too slowly. The silver dagger was already coming down.

I threw myself in front of him.

I did not feel pain at first. I only felt a cold line across my left arm, like somebody had drawn on me with ice. Then it started to burn. I looked down, and my sleeve was open, and red was running down my wrist.

"Rian!" my mother screamed.

The assassin pulled the dagger back for a second try. His face was hidden in his hood, but I could see his teeth. He was smiling.

Then a body hit him from the side.

It was the young soldier, the one who had lowered his sword first in the square. He tackled the hooded man with his whole weight, and both of them rolled across the ground. The dagger flew out of the killer's hand and spun into the dirt.

"I have him!" the soldier shouted. His voice cracked. "My lord, I have him!"

Four more soldiers jumped on top of the assassin. He fought like a wild animal, but there were too many of them. In a few seconds, they had his arms twisted behind his back and a rope around his wrists.

I was still on my knees, holding my arm, when I heard the thud.

Kael had reached me. He dropped down beside me, and his face was white.

"Show me."

"It is nothing," I said. "It is just a scratch."

"Show me."

I pulled my hand away. The cut was long, but not deep. It hurt like crazy. My father was crying and trying to look at it, and my mother was pressing the edge of her coat against it, saying, "Oh, my baby, my baby."

"Mom, I am twenty-two."

"You are my baby."

I could not argue with that.

Kael was staring at my arm. Then he looked down at his own sleeve.

A thin red line was soaking through the black cloth on his left arm. In the exact same place.

"Oh no," I said.

"Oh yes," he said. He sounded almost amused, in a tired way. "It seems the bond shares everything."

"So if I stub my toe..."

"I will feel it."

"And if you get a haircut..."

"You will not feel that."

"Good. I was worried."

He actually laughed. It was short and rough, and he looked surprised by it, like it had come out by mistake. The soldiers around us looked at each other with their mouths open. I think it was the first time they had ever heard it.

Then the laugh was gone, and his eyes hardened. He rose to his feet and turned to the soldier who held the hooded man.

"Pull back his hood."

They did.

The man underneath was thin and pale, maybe forty years old. He had short gray hair and a face I did not know. Nobody in the village knew him either. I looked around, and everyone shook their head.

"Who sent you?" Kael asked.

The man said nothing.

"Who sent you?"

The assassin lifted his head. His eyes were strange, pale and empty, like a person who was not really there. He looked at me, not at the King, and he spoke in a quiet, flat voice.

"The Guardian's blood opens the gate. It has always been the blood."

"What gate?" I said.

He did not answer. He just kept staring at my arm, at the blood on my sleeve.

Vance stepped forward, smooth and calm, as if he had been waiting for his turn.

"Your Majesty, this man is clearly mad. Let me take him to the dungeon. I will question him myself."

"No," Kael said. "Garrick will take him."

A large soldier with a gray beard stepped out of the crowd. He was almost as tall as Kael, and he had a scar through one eyebrow. He nodded once. "My king."

"Chain him. Put four guards on his cell. Nobody sees him until I have spoken to him. Not one person."

"Not one," Garrick said, and he looked pointedly at Vance for half a second.

Vance bowed with a pleasant smile. "As you wish."

I watched him. I could not tell what he was thinking. That was what scared me most.

The ride to the castle took almost two hours.

Kael would not let go of my arm. He wrapped the cut in a strip of his own cloak, tied it very carefully, and then spent most of the trip glaring at the bandage like it had insulted him. Every few minutes he checked my other wrist, where the black lines had stopped moving.

"The poison is sleeping," he said quietly. "For now."

I tried not to think about what that meant.

"It is fine," I told him.

"It is not fine."

"It is a scratch."

"It is a scratch on my mate."

"Ex-mate."

"Mate."

"Rejected mate."

"Mate," Kael said, with enormous calm, and went back to glaring.

Across from us, my father hid a smile behind his hand. My mother had fallen asleep against his shoulder, worn out from crying. A warm feeling filled my chest, and I refused to give it a name.

The castle rose up out of the dark like a mountain. Black stone, high towers, hundreds of lit windows. It was the biggest building I had ever seen.

"It looks like a tomb," I said.

"It was built to look like one," Kael said. "People are more careful around tombs."

A young servant showed us to a warm room with soft beds and a table full of food. My parents ate quickly and fell asleep before their heads hit the pillows. I could not eat. I kept looking at my bandaged arm.

Around midnight, a knock came at the door.

It was Garrick, the big soldier with the scar. His face was grim.

"The King wants you," he said quietly. "Now. Bring nobody."

I followed him down long, empty halls to the dungeon stairs. Kael was standing at the bottom, and four guards stood behind him, pale and shaking.

"Show him," Kael said.

Garrick held up a torch.

The assassin's cell was open. Not broken. Not forced. The lock was in perfect shape, and the chains lay on the floor, still closed.

But the man was gone.

And on the stone wall, written in fresh red letters as tall as my arm, were four words.

Welcome home, little Guardian.