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Chapter 3

Author: Laurel Quill
The live comments erupted into screams.

Only Elias, standing beside me in the study, gave me a long, quiet look.

"You wanted to see him?"

I corrected myself immediately.

"I wanted to see his treasury."

Elias said nothing.

The Skyveil continued.

Rivermark's story ended with an assassination attempt.

Attackers poured into the waterside pavilion from every direction while Sebastian shielded me and retreated.

I wore plain white clothes, the blindfold snapping in the wind.

Sebastian pushed me onto a boat and turned back to fight.

He believed I was escaping for my life.

In reality, I circled to the rear warehouse and joined a Hawkridge merchant convoy already hidden there, taking three shiploads of grain, one chest of gold, and the River Transit Seal.

Before I left, I placed an IOU on the table.

My handwriting was beautiful.

"Borrowed for Hawkridge's emergency. Double repayment within three years."

Sebastian stared at the note for a long time.

Then he laughed.

He laughed until every attendant around him dropped to their knees.

"Fine.

"I will remember her."

By then, Rivermark's comments were exploding like fireworks.

[Double repayment? It has been three years! Where is the interest?]

[His Majesty smiled at that IOU every day. I thought it was a love letter!]

[Princess of Hawkridge, come out and pay your debt!]

I rubbed my nose.

I did intend to repay the money.

The method just might not be what they were expecting.

Elias tapped the tabletop.

"The three shiploads of grain?"

"One fed disaster victims, one was traded for weapons, and one became the founding reserve of Hawkridge's first national bank."

"The gold?"

"It built seven frontier granaries."

"The River Transit Seal?"

I pressed my sleeve again.

Elias's smile grew colder.

"Also with you."

I lowered my voice.

"It's more convenient to keep everything together."

Act Three belonged to Willowspire.

Crown Prince Adrian Locke of Willowspire was the most troublesome of my four creditors.

Ronan had a temper. Sebastian had too many schemes.

Adrian was different.

He was chronically ill, permanently pale, and sometimes coughed as though a strong breeze might carry him away.

The weaker his body became, the harder his heart seemed to grow.

The system assigned me the identity of a covert guard serving as another woman's substitute.

A substitute for whom?

For Cassia Vane, the first love he had lost years earlier.

When I heard that plotline, I nearly cursed the system into shutting down.

"I'm the princess of Hawkridge and you want me to stand in as somebody's replacement?"

The system flashed a notice.

"Willowspire possesses the medical formulas and frontier-defense maps Hawkridge needs most. Host, broaden your perspective."

Poverty broadened my perspective for me.

So I became Ash, the quietest and most loyal covert guard in the Crown Prince's residence, and the one who took the most blades for him.

Adrian was sickly, but the court around him was full of predators.

I took arrows meant for him, discovered poison attempts, and climbed walls at night to steal formulas from the Royal College of Medicine.

Once, when his fever would not break, he gripped my sleeve and refused to let go.

"Ash."

His voice was rough with fever.

"Are you going to leave me too?"

At that moment, I had three Willowspire frontier rotation maps sewn into the hem of my clothing.

I couldn't afford to go soft.

But a heart isn't a machine. You can't switch it off whenever it's convenient.

In the end, I only lowered my eyes.

"Stay alive, Your Highness, and I will stay."

By the time the Skyveil showed that scene, half of Willowspire seemed to be crying.

[Ash! My Ash!]

[The Crown Prince built a memorial for her with full honors!]

[My head hurts. Was she a con artist or the reason he's alive?]

Both.

I had saved Adrian.

And I had deceived him.

The final chapter of my Willowspire mission was another poisoning.

I pretended to have been struck by an incurable toxin and lay weakly in Adrian's bedchamber.

He fed me bottle after bottle of Willowspire's restricted medicines.

I swallowed while the system scanned each formula.

Once the formulas were complete and the defense maps had left the city, I "died" in his arms.

That day, Adrian held my body and coughed until blood covered his palm.

On the Skyveil, the young prince's eyes were red and his voice terrifyingly quiet.

"Issue the order.

"Bury Ash, covert guard of the Crown Prince, with the honors of my intended wife."

The study fell silent.

Elias didn't ask again where I'd put the things I stole.

Willowspire's medical formulas had stopped an epidemic in Hawkridge.

Its defense maps had also allowed Hawkridge to avoid three encirclement campaigns.

Watching Adrian on the Skyveil, I finally sighed.

"How is his health now?"

Elias glanced at me.

"Still worried about him?"

I sat up straight.

"Mostly worried he'll die on the way here trying to collect."

Elias looked perfectly calm.

"Relax. He has already reached the border."

I fell silent.

That didn't relax me at all.

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