"His sword, death's stamp, where it did mark, it took; from face to foot he was a thing of blood, whose every motion was timed with dying cries."

—From Coriolanus,

By William Shakespeare

JOVANA DUSANG WOKE UP with a knife at her throat and she wondered, momentarily, absurdly, why on earth Alastair was such a heavy sleeper. It really couldn't be a good trait for a guard to have...

Then her senses kicked in, her eyes widening, and within moments, she had rammed her skull into the face of the man hovering over her and heard his nose make a sickening crunch as it broke. Along with his hollering, that was enough to wake Alastair as the assailant's knife clattered to the ground. Jovana made a swipe for it, the blade shining in a sparkling silver as the moonlight shone against it.

As she reached for the weapon, the assailant had her in a headlock. She made a wild stab with the knife, feeling it sink into flesh and hit bone. A roar of pain and Alastair was already up, but the grip around her throat didn't loosen.

"Let go of the queen," Alastair said. She saw stars. Where were her other guards? Had they been paid off? Drugged, presumably?

"Why should I?" The voice was indistinguishable, speaking in Otharian, a language she only possessed a very rudimentary command of. "I have such a valuable prize in my hands."

She squirmed, burying the knife deeper. He gave a groan but still did not let her go, and swung an elbow into his ribs with all the strength she had as it rapidly faded from the lack of oxygen reaching her lungs. Shutting her eyes, she felt for her magic, but it was so very depleted from all of her efforts earlier that week and during the journey from Mordania to Atla...

No! She would not die like this, She would not go out like this. Her eyes fluttered open, to see Alastair give a growl and tackle both her and her assailant to the ground, seizing the knife from the man's thigh and driving it into his eye socket.

Jovana's stomach turned at the sight of the man's severed eyeball. She whispered hoarsely, "His eye? Really?"

A squelch and a groan from the assailant. The knife came out once more, and Alastair made a slice almost gently, almost clinically across the man's neck. He was dead.

"He deserved far worse for what he did to you." With blood on his hands, Alastair reached for her.

With that same blood splattering her white nightgown and speckling her palms, she let him. "Thank you."

"I took an oath to save your life, remember?" He pulled her into his arms, and there was something about that moment, something vicious and dark and cruel unfurling in both of them. A primal, atavistic promise: I would kill for you. I would burn this city to the ground for you. The blood on my hands would be nothing compared to the love I hold for you in my heart.

"I wasn't aware you kept your oaths," she teased, her legs sprawled across his lap as he tugged her close.

"I have kept all my promises to you," he said lowly, and she knew then that he was referring to the betrothal ceremony all those years ago, all that time ago, when they had been at each other's throats instead of in one another's arms. He would be the end of her, and she would gladly let him be.

"Thank you for saving my life," she said again, and though she said nothing else, they both knew what it meant.

They both knew who and what they were to one another.

//

Yet for the rest of the night she was plagued by restless dreams and fitful nightmares. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she stared blankly into the dark walls of the inn, hearing horses neigh and birds chirping outside. Atla was so much warmer than Mordania that when she went to find her wool wrapper, she discarded it immediately. In Mordania, ice would have been dripping from the eaves, barely a bird in sight.

No, she was not truly here to defeat Kaiden Thorne or even to seize control of Atla. What she was here to do was to prove something. To prove to herself that she was capable of embracing every drop of magic that ran through her veins. To prove to him, to Ilyas Durand, that this thing he had tried to foist upon her, this experiment that he had tried to make her into, would turn around and become a thorn in his side.

Although she had to admit, considering the weather here, she would not really mind much being at least partial ruler of Atla. It was balmy enough that she only needed to throw on a loose wine-red tunic, nearly purple, tucked into black linen trousers. The ensemble, she would admit as she braided her hair, was less of a regal attire and more one fit for fighting, but she would never sacrifice practicality - particularly when self-preservation was required - for style.

And, clothing was the armour she wore. In court, it was dresses and gowns that hid her from view as well as amplified her presence, always in shades of red. So beneath the tunic she had worn leather, polished and beaten to be both soft and durable as steel.

When Ilyas Durand heard word from Kaiden Thorne of the man's crushing defeat at the hands of one Jovana Dusang, well... He was under the impression that she had taken a long holiday to Othar, and the Lord Regent was likely hoping she would never return to Mordania. Instead, she had gone to reclaim what had been her birthright, whether it had been duly given to her or not. She had come to claim what and who she was, and no one would stop her.

If only she had been able to get a good night's rest last night, that would be easier. As she laced up her boots, she heard the bed creak beneath her. Alastair was awake, then. He stood before walking over to the intruder's corpse.

Crouching over the body, he pulled the blade from the man's chest. Examining the hilt with a practiced eye, Alastair declared, "This assassin was Mordanian."

His clothing was lightweight and inconspicuous enough that the styles were indiscernible, neither Mordanian nor Otharian nor Atlan, but not showing any nation. Still, the hilt of this dagger had clearly been meant to send a message. Its hilt was carved with the Durand insignia, a scroll and a hammer crossed in a circle.

Alastair sucked in a sharp inhale. "Durand."

"Your father," she said. "It seems news of my stunt has reached him. Very quickly, too. I never imagined he would hire such a sloppy assassin. Where there's one who failed, there's likely another. What should we do with the dagger?"

He frowned before tucking it into the weapons belt at his hip which he had just slid through his belt loops, shortly after rolling his trousers up his muscled legs. "I am a Durand. He cannot profane his family name forever, and especially not by sending his family weapons into the hands of an assassin. The next time I see him..."

His knuckles whitened around the hilt. "Well, I shall return this weapon to him."

Somehow, she had the feeling he did not mean to slide the blade into his father's pocket "Do let me know when and where, so I might witness it."

He chuckled, standing again and going to the vanity. "I'll be sure to, my queen."

There were still hours before her scheduled duel with Kaiden. Her boots remained untied, the laces pooling on the scuffed wooden floor in a tangled heap. She finished lacing one, then the other, and as her head hung down, she said in a muffled voice, "Do you think I'll win the duel?"

"What?" Alastair's expression was surprised as he surveyed her, pausing after he had splashed water onto his face from the washbasin.

She was confident in her own abilities, but a bit of encouragement had never hurt anyone. "I asked you what you think the outcome of the duel will be?"

He picked up a razor, running it over the faint scruff that had formed on his jaw. "Victory for you, surely, and Kaiden running away with his tail between his legs."

Jovana grinned at the visual. She tucked the dagger her mother had given her all those years ago into her belt, for good luck and protection alike, and so they were off. All thoughts of the attempted assassination be damned.