Chapter 165 My Mission
Chapter 148
Two days later.
Rosa's POV.
The evening refused to move.
I sat at the edge of my mattress, staring at the clock like it might change its mind. The thin hand ticked forward in slow, steady movements.
Each sound scraped at my nerves. My hands tightened in the sheets, twisting them without thought.
Midnight was almost here.
Beyond the palace walls, past the dark stretch of trees and winding paths, a small group was preparing to break Brielle out.
Sleep would have been the wise choice. Pretend none of this was happening. Let everything unfold without me.
But I couldn’t.
Something heavy and hot sat in my chest. Not pure dread. Not pure thrill. A strange mix of both that refused to let me rest.
“Go,” the voice murmured. “You have to see it.”
I fought with myself, pulling the blanket close and squeezing my eyes shut. I counted slowly, remembering how my mother once taught me to quiet my fears during thunderstorms.
But this was different.
I needed to see Brielle step into that boat. I needed to watch the river carry her away. Needed proof that she was beyond the reach of this place.
Only then would I be able to breathe fully.
I flung the blanket back and got to my feet.
I opened my wardrobe and took out the dark leather clothes that swallowed light instead of reflecting it.
They were fitted and practical, made for speed and silence.
I considered turning back. Instead, I dressed.
The leather fit snugly against me as I laced my tall boots from ankle to just below my knee.
When I was done, I reached under my mattress and retrieved the small pistol I had kept hidden there for weeks.
It was lighter than people imagined. Cold to the touch. I turned it over in my palm once, then tucked it carefully into the space between my boot shaft and my shin. I pulled the laces over it, weaving them in a way that kept the gun flat and hidden but still quick to reach if my fingers needed it in a hurry.
I looked at myself in the narrow mirror beside the wardrobe door.
The person staring back at me did not look like a queen.
She looked like someone the night would not notice. Someone who moved through shadows the way water moves through cracks. Someone dangerous.
Good, I thought. That is exactly what tonight needs.
I stepped out of my quarters and stopped immediately.
The hallway was quiet. The kind of quiet that has weight to it. The kind that makes every small sound feel enormous. My boot heel touched the stone floor and the soft knock of it traveled further than I wanted.
I slowed down. I softened each step. I moved the way hunters move when they know the animal is close and one wrong sound will ruin everything.
The main gate was not an option. The guards there were alert and loyal. They would see my face and ask questions and by morning the whole palace would know the queen had slipped out alone in the middle of the night dressed like an assassin. That kind of story would create problems I did not have the energy to manage.
I moved along the outer wall of the corridor instead, keeping to the edges where the light from the torches did not quite reach.
As I passed Jax's quarters, I slowed down without meaning to.
His window glowed faintly. The main light was off, but the small lamp beside his bed threw a warm, dim flicker against the curtain. I stood there for just a moment. Three seconds, maybe four.
He was probably asleep. Or maybe he was lying awake the same way I had been, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the same things.
I didn't let myself think about it too long.
I moved on.
Gate D was at the far end of the palace compound, past the empty festival courtyard and the old storage building that smelled permanently of dried herbs and wood smoke. Nobody used Gate D except during celebrations, when the crowds needed more space to move in and out. At this hour, on an ordinary night, it was the most forgotten door in the entire palace.
I had made sure it would not be forgotten tonight.
Five hours earlier, I had walked casually past it and stopped to speak to the two guards posted there. I kept my voice light and easy, like someone making friendly conversation. I pressed a small pouch of coins into the hand of the older guard without drawing attention to it. Enough for a good night of ale and bread and whatever else men like that spent their free coins on.
They hadn't asked a single question.
The younger guard had even smiled.
Now, as I approached the gate in the darkness, one of them straightened up and without a word pulled the heavy bolt back. The gate opened just wide enough for me to pass through. I nodded once. He nodded back. And then Gate D closed quietly behind me like it had never moved at all.
The night outside the palace walls was a completely different world.
Inside, there were torches and stone floors and walls that kept the wind out. Out here, there was nothing between me and the sky. The darkness was thick and real. The kind of darkness that made the world feel much larger than it did in the daytime.
I clicked on my torch and kept the beam pointed low, at the ground in front of my feet.
The path to the river was familiar during the day. At night, it felt like a different path entirely. The trees on either side were tall black shapes that moved when the wind moved them. Their branches reached toward each other overhead, and in some places they met, blocking out the stars completely.
My boots pressed into the dirt with a dull, steady rhythm.
I held the torch in my left hand and kept my right hand loose at my side, close enough to my boot to reach the gun quickly.
From somewhere deep in the trees came a long, low sound. An animal calling to something or warning something. I couldn't tell which. The sound stretched out and faded, and then the crickets filled the space it left behind, their noise rising and falling like a wave that never quite broke.
My heart was beating faster than my feet were moving.
I kept walking.
I told myself to think about Brielle. I thought about the way she had looked the last time I saw her. The tiredness behind her eyes. The way she held herself like someone who had been carrying something very heavy for a very long time and had learned to make it look normal.
She deserved to be free.
I walked faster.
I smelled the river before I saw it.
There was a coolness in the air that the trees alone couldn't explain. A clean, open smell. The kind that only comes from moving water. Then the path curved slightly and the trees thinned out and there it was.
The river.
Even at this hour it had a kind of quiet beauty. The water caught the moonlight in small, broken pieces that shifted and reassembled with the current. The boats tied to the wooden stakes along the bank bobbed gently, pulling against their ropes and then settling back, over and over.
During the day, this place never emptied. There were always people. Women filling clay pots. Children splashing near the shallow edges. Boat drivers call out their destinations and their prices. Traders arguing over the weight of fish.
Tonight it was almost empty.
A few figures moved near the far bank. The light from the long poles planted into the ground along the riverbank spread a pale, yellow glow across the water and the muddy earth beside it. It was enough light to see clearly, if you were positioned in the right place.
I needed the right place.
I found a tree a short distance from the bank. Its trunk was wide and its lower branches were thick enough to hold weight. I grabbed the lowest branch with both hands, tucked my torch into my jacket, and pulled myself up.
Then the next branch. Then the next.
I settled into a fork between two thick limbs, about halfway up, where the leaves were dense enough to hide me but the gaps between them gave me a clear line of sight down to the water.
I could see everything.
I leaned back against the trunk and let out a slow, careful breath.
And I waited.
Minutes passed.
The boats rocked. The water moved. The light from the bank poles flickered once when the wind picked up and then steadied again.
I checked my watch.
I told myself I would stay for one hour. If nothing happened in one hour, I would climb down and walk back to the palace and get into bed and trust that the plan had already worked itself out before I arrived. Maybe Brielle was already on a boat. Maybe she was already moving upstream toward Crimson Pack, wrapped in darkness and finally, finally breathing free air.
That thought settled something in me, just slightly.
And then something made me look down.
Not a sound, exactly. More like a feeling. The kind that arrives before your brain has figured out the reason for it.
I looked toward the bank.
Three figures moved along the edge of the water.
Two of them were large. Wide shoulders, heavy boots, dark clothing that matched mine in its intention if not its style. They moved with the particular carefulness of people who did not want to be seen, but whose size made carefulness difficult.
The third figure between them was smaller.
Blindfolded.
Hands tied at the back.
Even from the tree, even with the distance and the dim light, I knew who it was.
Brielle.
Something loosened in my chest for one single moment, and then it tightened again just as fast. Because something was wrong. I didn't know what it was yet, but something was wrong. I could feel it the way you feel a storm before the sky changes color.
The two large men dragged Brielle toward the water's edge. She stumbled once and they pulled her upright without slowing down. A piece of dark cloth covered her mouth. She was making sounds through it, small, muffled sounds that the river noise almost swallowed completely.
The few people who had been nearby saw the three figures coming and left. Quickly. Without looking back. The way people leave when their body has already understood the situation before their mind has caught up to it.
The two men stopped at the bank and looked around. Left, then right, then behind them. Their guns were out. Long, dark, held with the ease of people who had held guns many times before.
Then one of them spoke.
His voice was low but the night carried it upward through the leaves to where I sat perfectly still.
"Let's erase her once and for all. That greedy master wouldn't pay. He has been owing us for two consecutive operations now. What assurance is there that he's going to pay for this one?"
I stopped breathing.
The second man let out a long, slow hiss through his teeth. The sound of someone who has been patient for too long and has finally run out of patience entirely.
"That greedy bastard."
Brielle made another muffled sound.
Hmmph. Hmmnph.
Her head turned slightly, like she was trying to hear better, trying to understand what was happening around her even without her eyes.
The first man kept talking. His voice had an edge to it now, the sharpened edge of anger that has been sitting in someone for a long time, gathering pressure.
"He always looks for ways to keep all the gold and the money to himself. Every single time. And it would be foolish to think he would act any different now. He never has. Not once."
The second man nodded. Even from the tree I could see the slow, heavy agreement in t
he movement of his head.
They were not here to rescue Brielle.
They were not here to put her on a boat.
The words hit me the way cold water hits skin. All at once, everywhere.
My hand moved toward my boot.
Then…
Bang