The lower archives of the Iron Citadel smelled of dry rot, binding glue, and old dust. It was a suffocating scent to most wolves, who preferred the crisp air of the pine forests or the salt of the sea. To Rowan, it smelled like leverage.
For a week she had barely slept. While the southern lords drank imported wine and whispered behind their velvet sleeves, Rowan sat in the freezing subterranean vault of the castle, surrounded by towering columns of tax ledgers. She was tracking the grain.
Cedric hadn't just stolen her throne. He had systematically hollowed out the north, selling off the winter reserves to black market merchants in the south to line his own pockets. She was building a paper trail piece by piece, matching the dates of the starved winters she had survived to the inflated bank drafts of men like Lord Harland.
If she was going to wear a crown, she refused to be a blind ornament sitting next to a king. She was going to hold the leash.
The heavy oak doors of the archive were closed. Breeda was stationed outside, an immovable wall of muscle and iron. The citadel was supposed to be the safest place on the continent.
It happened in absolute silence. There was no shout, no clash of steel, just a sickening muffled thwack, the sound of heavy metal striking a skull through a leather helmet, followed by the dull thud of Breeda's massive body hitting the stone floor.
Rowan's hand froze over the ledger. Her blood turned to ice water.
Ten years of scrubbing floors in a keep full of violent, unpredictable warriors had rewired her nervous system. A court-bred noble would have gasped. They would have called out for the guard. Rowan didn't even breathe. She silently reached down to her heavy leather boot and pulled the dark iron letter opener she had slipped inside that morning. It wasn't a sword, but it was sharp.
The iron hinges of the doors groaned. Rowan slipped backward, fading into the pitch black space between two towering shelves of legal texts. She crouched low, ignoring the sharp protest of her healing ribs, and steadied her breathing.
Three figures stepped into the dim light of the reading lamps. They wore boiled leather dyed matte black. No insignias, no pack marks. Mercenaries. They moved with the terrifying, synchronized fluidness of professionals. In their hands they held short curved daggers. The blades possessed an ugly oily sheen that caught the lamplight. Wolfsbane paste. A single scratch would paralyze a shifter's nervous system in seconds, turning them into a statue while they suffocated.
"Split up," the largest of the three whispered, his accent thick and southern. "Find the northerner. Make it quiet. The guard changes in four minutes."
They fanned out.
Rowan pressed her back against the damp stone wall of the aisle. Her heart hammered against her sternum, a frantic, bruising rhythm. She was unarmed against three trained killers. The air in the narrow aisle felt heavy, suffocating. Her mind briefly flashed back to the root cellar at Frost Peak. The dark. The cold. The absolute helplessness.
The wolf inside her snarled, vicious and starved. No. She was done hiding in the dark.
She listened. The soft scrape of leather soles against stone. One of the assassins was moving down her aisle, peering into the shadows. He was a broad-shouldered man holding his poisoned blade loosely, arrogant in his advantage.
Rowan didn't wait to be found.
As the man passed a gap in the shelves, Rowan launched herself from the shadows. She didn't aim for a cinematic strike. She kicked him precisely in the back of the knee with the heavy reinforced heel of her boot, collapsing his joint inward with a wet crunch. The man dropped with a strangled grunt. Before he could raise his dagger, Rowan grabbed a massive brass-bound encyclopedia from the shelf above and swung it downward with everything she had. The corner of the book caught him square on the temple. He crumpled face first onto the stone, out cold.
The noise was deafening in the quiet vault.
"Aisle four," one of the others barked.
Footsteps rushed her position. Rowan scrambled backward, tearing books from the shelves, hurling heavy ancient tomes into the aisle to disrupt their footing. She vaulted over a long oak reading table, her dark velvet skirts tearing against the rough wood.
The second assassin vaulted the table right behind her. He lunged, his poisoned blade slashing a hair's breadth from her cheek. Rowan twisted violently, ignoring the tearing pain in her side. She grabbed his knife wrist with both hands, using his own forward momentum to drag him off balance. As he stumbled, she brought her knee up, smashing it brutally into his ribs. He dropped the knife with a hiss of pain, but he was faster than she was. He spun, driving a heavy fist into her stomach.
Rowan gagged, the air exploding from her lungs. She stumbled backward, hitting the edge of a bookshelf.
Before she could recover, the third assassin grabbed her from behind. A thick leather-clad forearm locked around her windpipe, crushing her throat.
"Got you, you feral rat," the man snarled directly into her ear.
Panic flared, blinding and white hot. Her airway was completely cut off. Black spots danced at the edge of her vision. Rowan dug her nails into the man's arm, but it was like clawing at iron. She was losing consciousness, but she refused to die like a victim.
She slammed her head backward, crushing her skull into the bridge of his nose. Cartilage shattered. The man howled, his grip loosening for a fraction of a second. Rowan dropped her weight, slipping free of his hold. She grabbed a heavy wrought iron candlestick from the table and spun around.