The first arrow swished past Shawn’s face just as he rounded the last corner of the garden walls.

  The two guards jumped, Princess Eleanor screamed and Zack instantly wiped the smile off his face. There was a deliberate rustle from the trees ahead, and a pair of hollow footsteps. The group hastily retreated back behind the corner just in time as another arrow landed near Shawn’s foot with a thunk. Zack slammed his hand over the princess’s mouth, lest she decided to let out a second scream.

  The princess stilled at the sudden action, but didn’t struggle after that.

  “Don’t move, Your Highness, Zack.” Shawn whispered to the huddled pair behind him. He slid out his sword from the scabbard in one sleek motion and signalled at the guards. “Renaud, you watch the rear. Louis, if I’m engaged in a fight, you take the front and focus on retreating. Don’t get dragged into the fight.”

  “So we run back to where we came from?” Zack asked softly.

  The princess let out an indignant sound, which might have been anything between a hmph or a swear.

  “I do not think they’ll let us let go, but yes.” Shawn’s voice was cold as steel. “There are more intruders in the garden than I thought, and there’s something up ahead that they don’t want us to find. We have had enough of loitering around in this situation, but now the Princess’s safety takes precedence.”

  Louis said nothing, whether because he had nothing to say or because he thought it wouldn’t make a difference— was debatable. Renaud let out a squeak of “Yes!” which might have been too undignified for a palace guard. Zack nodded swiftly and clasped his hand around Lady Eleanor’s wrist. The girl in question, however— the very person the other four were tasked to protect— snatched back her wrist and proceeded to glare at each of the aforementioned four people one by one.

  “So we just give them what they want?!” She hissed. “The very fact that they do not want us to go further means we need to go ahead and find out whatever it is that they want to hide!”

  Shawn sighed, his patience rapidly wearing thin. “Not now, Your Highness.” His voice left no room for arguments. “They might be aiming for your life. We do not know their numbers, and there are too few guards to protect you. Pardon my words, but right now, you’re a liability.”

  The Princess sucked in a sharp breath at the last word. If the situation wasn’t so dire, Zack would admire the knight’s boldness — not many in the Royal Palace had the guts to talk back to the First Princess of Triciella, who was far less easy-going than her younger sibling. But the situation was dire, and Sir Shawn wasn’t mincing words, so Zack grabbed back the wrist and cut Eleanor off before she started another tirade.

  “Understood. We will be leaving now, Sir Shawn.” He ignored Lady Eleanor’s glare and nodded at the guards.

  Shawn made a signal for them to back away slowly. Renaud and Louise kept their eyes out for more ambushes from the rear, but there was no one at the back. It only served to strengthen Eleanor— and Shawn’s suspicions further. There was something these people didn’t want them to find out from the other side of the Vespera. They had no intention of stopping them from going back to the inner palace, but the north-western gatehouse was off-limits. Which meant that whatever was about to go down there would be catastrophic for the Royal family.

  Two halves of Shawn’s mind battled with logic and instinct. The former pointed at all things that could go wrong if the first Princess was brought to harm. The latter— the wilder, feckless side of Shawn Wicksmann that he was never able to quite abandon even through 13 years of working in the Royal palace, whispered to him like a siren. It was the voice of cold, hard instinct that had kept him alive as an orphan on the streets. It told him that he needed to be on the other side of that barbican. It told him that he would lose out on precious time if he had to make another trip to the inner palace, time that would cost him the life of the second Prince, who he had sworn to protect above all else.

  It told him to prioritize Emmanuel’s safety over his sister’s.

  Shawn knew that shame would come later, and with that will come the unforgiving punishment of abandoning his duty, but he pushed them all aside and let the cold, hard edge of ruthless logic guide his mind.

  “Your Highness.” He whispered to the girl in a voice low enough for only her to hear. If there was anyone who would understand his reckless desire to save Prince Emmanuel, it was the Princess. Shawn’s tongue felt like it was made of ashes. “I need to get to the other side of Vespera.”

  Princess Eleanor’s eyes snapped to his in a heartbeat.

  “I agree with your assessment that there is something beyond Vespera that they don’t want us to see. There’s a possibility that this is the gate that they might use to escape with Prince Emmanuel, if they have indeed captured him. Going back to the inner palace now will lose precious time.”

  Shawn held his gaze to the Princess’s, waiting for his words to sink in.

  “I need to intercept anyone that makes it past the Vespera. I need to be there to dispose of the ambush team, and to get back Prince Emmanuel.”

  Eleanor’s blazing green eyes burned on him like a white-hot metal brand. “I will be a liability to your plan.”

  It was not a question. Shawn couldn’t do her the discourtesy of looking away. “Yes.”

  They were still retreating slowly. If he needed to move past the ambushers ahead, Shawn had to be quick and unpredictable. He had to disarm them all, lest they decided to target the retreating group instead. And above all, he needed to be alone.

  “Go.” Princess Eleanor told him with no hesitation, her mouth curled into a grim smile. In that moment, she looked more like a Queen than he’d ever thought of her. “Go on, Sir Shawn. I will have Zack with me.”

  Even her whisper sounded like a royal command. “Don’t you dare return without my little brother.”

  Shawn nodded and barked a quick order to Renaud and Louis. He glanced briefly at Zack. “Protect the princess. I’m going on ahead.”

  There was a quick flash of shock on Zack’s face, but it morphed into understanding. The boy’s adaptability to any kind of situation was enviable. No wonder the Princess liked to keep him around, despite that devil-may-care attitude.

  “Keep retreating. That’s an order!” Shawn whispered and final sharp nod to the guards at the rear, whose expressions warred against confusion and compliance. They were trained to follow orders to the T, but they weren’t trained to read minds.

  “Wha—” Renaud began, but the bodyguard had already rounded the corner ahead with a burst of speed and left them all behind in the dust.

  A flurry of arrows landed with a thwack against the walls, but this time, they were accompanied by screams of men and women that fell to the blade of 'Shawn the Wicked'.

  --------------------------------------------------------------

  Kimbley adjusted his hold on the horse that neighed impatiently under him. The palace guard, a dour looking fellow with a prominent unibrow, was standing stubbornly in front of him and showed no sign of sympathy at his plight. His mouth was pressed into a grim line, as if he was contemplating murder in broad daylight.

  “For the last time, I am a guard affiliated with the Winsten household! I have their allegiance sewn right into my clothes! Just take a look, will you?!” Kimbley pointed insistently at the fraying insignia on his breast pocket. He felt like he was about to go mad.

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  The guard stared at him as if he was already mad. “Anyone could sew the insignia of the Winsten house in their clothes. They have been one of the most powerful clans of the kingdom for decades.”

  ‘That’s not how it works!’, Kimbley wanted to scream. The Winsten clan used a special thread to sew their clan’s insignia on every guard and staff uniform. The thread was made up of a phosphorescent, silk-like material from the Swingworm, an insect indigenous to Triciella. The thread was slimy to touch even when dry, and the insignia glowed when placed in pitch black darkness.

  Kimbley had explained as much to the unrelenting guard, but there was no darkness to be found out here in blinding broad daylight. And cupping his hands near his chest didn’t help matters much, not when the guard refused to believe a word he said.

  What’s the point of a goddamned fancy-ass thread if no one believes it?!!

  “Look here, you— uh, what’s your name?”

  The unibrow-blessed guard gave him a funny look. “Sig.”

  “Sig! I have a badge to prove it! If you hold it against the sun, you can see the Winsten crest against it! No one in the kingdom can replicate the crest save for the royal family!”

  Kimbley thrust his badge to the guard’s face. Sig’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes had that ‘How long is this farce going to continue’ look about them. Kimbley was familiar with that look. He had a tendency to bring it out of his much tolerant co-workers.

  “What?” The guard shrugged. “You stole it, obviously.”

  It was absolutely ludicrous how Kimbley couldn’t even enter the Royal Palace, much less meet Lady Joanna at this rate. He was briefly tempted to ride back and throw a “I told you so!” at dumb Nero’s dumb face, but the sudden flare of indignation and stubborn pride outweighed any reluctance he might have harboured till now.

  ‘That’s it.’ Kimbley thought with gritted teeth, Like hell he, Holfried Kimbley, will let some shitty fancy-pants guard stop him. He WILL enter the Royal Palace even if it kills him!

  This was no longer about Lady Joanna. This was his pride on the line.

  “What’s going on in here?” Came a voice from inside the gatehouse.

  Both Sig and Kimbley snapped their heads up. Leaning against the Castor tower, stood a middle aged-man with wavy grey hair and a neatly trimmed beard. A scimitar dagger hung snugly from his waist. The only remarkable thing about him was his left-hand pinky, or rather—the absence of it. You wouldn’t see many nobles or royals with missing fingers in these parts.

  Kimbley fished out Nero’s medallion faster than you could say ‘Winsten’. It glistened against the sun with a golden sheen. “I am Holfried Kimbley, a guard from the Winsten clan!” He yelled before the guard could jump and clamp his mouth shut. “I have come looking for Lady Joanna Winsten, who is currently inside the palace grounds with her fiancé, His Highness Prince Emmanuel. I demand that you let me in at once!”

  “He stole that thing!” Sig yelled indignantly, at the same time when the middle-aged, pinky-less man raised a curious eyebrow, “Demand?”

  Kimbley felt a twitch in his eyes. He was this close to jumping on the guard’s neck and snap it ninety degrees to the right. “I did NO such thing!”

  The middle-aged guy’s face was perfectly impassive. He gave off an aura of someone important. Not important enough to be a noble or a high-ranking officer, but certainly more important than mere riff-raff. In other words, someone who could flip the guard off and get him inside the palace.

  Kimbley chewed the inside of his cheek to stop himself from spouting insults at him. His horse had no such qualms, so it continued to neigh impatiently at the humans who stood at a stalemate.

  “You do realize…” began the important-looking guy, “That in the wake of that godforsaken explosion in the Royal Glasshouse, even mentioning the name of Prince Emmanuel flippantly would be a dangerous gamble for an outsider like you?”

  ‘Really?’ thought Kimbley, and then blurted it out unceremoniously. “Really?”

  “Yes, really”, Important guy nodded solemnly. His eyes landed on Nero’s medallion. “However, I am going to make an exception this time around. I do not know many people that carry around that particular piece of junk around. But I know one that does, and that should be enough for you.”

  “What?!” Both Kimbley and Unibrow-guard yelled simultaneously, their faces contrasting with delight and dismay respectively.

  “It certainly makes one curious as to why a mere guardsman of the Winsten clan would have that medallion.” Important guy murmured and gave the despairing guard a knowing look which went unnoticed by Kimbley, who was busy preening at his own success. “Come along, Mister Holfried Kimbley, I will be taking you to the Ice Pavillion. You can reunite with your young Lady Winsten there.”

  The Winsten guardsman in question threw one last triumphant look at Sig and followed the Important guy inside.

  --------------------------------------------------

  Shawn sliced down the first three assailants with the ease of someone used to doing it mindlessly. Black clad figures sprang on him from all direction, jumping down from the trees and walls like nimble-footed rabbits. The fact that so many of them even made it inside the Royal palace was an alarming though in and of itself.

  “It’s futile.” Shawn murmured softly to a man who attempted to sneakily run past him and got himself stabbed through the ribs for the trouble “Your intentions are painfully obvious. You shall not be going anywhere near the princess while I am around.”

  The man gurgled blood through his mouth and stumbled, but a sword was thrust through his chest from behind, almost catching Shawn off-guard. It was a perfect blind-spot, and it managed to cut a shallow gash across his chest before he changed trajectory and retreated backwards.

  Shawn briefly admired the brutal pragmatism. In battlefield, you didn’t have the luxury to worry about ethics and morals. The terrain, the surroundings, and even the body of your comrade-in-arms was a potential weapon. It would be foolish not to make use of every single thing at your disposal in this situation. Death did not care for sentimentality.

  The figure hidden behind the stabbed assailant was a woman. Shawn could see the swell of her chest through the clothes, wide hips, and delicate features though the slip of the scarf that covered her entire face. Her eyes were anything but delicate. They burned with hatred like a demon, and the bodyguard thought that they looked more like an enemies’ eyes than any of the assailants he had met thus far.

  “And so I have drawn the first blood.” Came a snarl from behind the wrapped scarf. “Shawn-the-Wicked does not so seem wicked right now, does he?”

  The ‘wicked man’ in question mere tilted his head. She looked more experienced than the other assailants. She could be their leader, but Shawn didn’t think that the leader would be out fighting with bodyguards and soldiers. Hired mercenaries, perhaps?

  His enemy didn’t give him the opportunity to ponder further. The woman threw aside the body of her dead comrade and thrust her sword him with lightning speed. Shawn’s own blade met her halfway, sparks flying at the juncture of the clash. He parried furiously but found himself straining under the weight of her longsword. The woman was older, muscular and her physical strength was evident in the way she single-handedly held her longsword against his blade in a deadlock again and again. Shawn maneuvered his sword through the underside and aimed it at her stomach.

  She sidestepped without flinching, and her left hand snapped out and swung towards his neck with a falchion. Shawn barely managed to pull back his sword to block the swing in time inches from his neck. He lashed out with a kick at her torso. She skidded back a few steps, surprised, and Shawn took the opening to retreat into a safer distance from her.

  He eyed the gleaming falchion in her left hand. “I have never met an opponent who fights with two swords at once”. His brain tried to tell him that it was not a compliment.

  The woman tapped her longsword against the ground. “What does it matter?”

  “It doesn’t.” Shawn agreed, and then jumped into the fight with a mad rush of thrill he hadn’t felt for a long time. He didn’t remember the last time an enemy gave him so much trouble. Her skills with the swords wasn’t too great, but one could tell that she was an experienced fighter. Her slashes and thrusts came from unexpected places in the way only someone who was used to fighting by the skin of their teeth would do.

  Shawn knew it firsthand, because he was one of those people. Being drafted in the army by age sixteen and fighting in a war at seventeen had honed him into someone who fought with their whole body as a weapon. He would recognise these symptoms in anyone else.

  A scream behind him immediately snagged all his attention. Shawn’s gaze slipped and he almost missed the falchion’s blade that was aiming for the gap between his armour near the shoulder plate. A stinging pain followed and forced him wrench his focus back to the enemy in front of him. This woman was going to be a bigger problem than everyone else.

  Shawn knocked the blade away at the last second and stumbled back on his feet. His mind was entirely elsewhere, because that scream had belonged to Princess Eleanor.

  The bodyguard cursed softly under his breath.

  “That scream sounded concerning.” His enemy laughed airily, but it sounded cruel. “I certainly hope that your Princess did not encounter any serious trouble on her way back.”

  ‘Louis or Renaud.’ Shawn thought immediately. The fact that his mind automatically latched onto betrayal from his own comrade-in-arms should have been alarming, but today he had seen more betrayals. Nothing would be impossible. Strangely, the thought that it might have been Zack Matthews never crossed his mind.

  His opponent though, didn’t give him the luxury of having too many thoughts.

  She wordlessly lunged at him with her longsword. Shawn parried it and blocked the incoming falchion with his scabbard. She twirled the hilt around her hands as it were a baton and sent the thin blade aiming at his neck. Shawn ducked his head in the nick of time, only for the woman thrust her longsword’s crossguard at him from the opposite direction.

  It hit him square above his right eye.

  Pain bloomed against his temple. His opponent was using her weapons as if they were an extension of her limbs. Shawn both wanted to admire and curse at the dexterity of it all.

  He ignored the throbbing pain and forced a sweeping kick against her ankles. The woman jumped instantly, and in that split second of opening, Shawn threw his steel scabbard at the hand that held the falchion with all the force he could muster. It spiralled through the air and hit her knuckles with a clang. His opponent cried out in pain and her falchion slipped to the ground.

  Shawn had been waiting for this moment all along. He sprang up from his position and grappled her to the ground, wrestling the longsword from her hand like a man possessed. She snarled and chomped down viciously on his left hand. Shawn swore, and used the pommel of his sword to strike her across the head with his right hand.

  There was a sickening crunch.

  Before Shawn could even begin to contemplate on his momentary victory, a familiar sound sliced through the wind and something sharp wedged itself in his shoulder blade. Searing pain spread through his back like lava. He gritted his teeth and swore again. Someone had shot him when his back was turned towards the enemy. An easy target, when ‘Shawn the wicked’ was busy grappling with a sole opponent like he wasn’t in the middle of a carefully planned ambush.

  How could he have been so foolish?

  His sole opponent wasted no time in taking advantage of his momentary relapse. One sharp, bony knee slammed into his gut and her head smashed into his skull, uncaring of the its previous injury from the pommel. Shawn reeled back and saw stars swimming in his vision. A pair of muscular hands threw him off her body like he weighed little more than a sack of potatoes. The bodyguard grunted and rolled off into ground, and got a mouthful of dirt for his trouble.

  Shawn could hear the sound of another arrow being nocked into a longbow. He instantly forced himself back on his feet, but his shoulder felt like it was on fire. He knew that that arrow’s shaft was broken, and the injury would only get worse with time. His head was also bleeding from the crossguard attack. But this was no time to worry about that.

  Because standing before him was the inevitable answer to his previous suspicion.

  Shawn quietly stared at the new assailant. A familiar man stood languidly beside his female opponent— whose face was now bloodied and missing a few front teeth. With his longbow poised ready for the next shot and his face marred with indifference, his former comrade-in-arms now stood on the opposite side of the battle.

  The prince's bodyguard was prepared to face the inevitable. But it still surprised him how intensely he felt the dull sting of betrayal like a poisonous arrow wedged in his heart.

  “It is a pity that this is how we must part, Sir Shawn.” Renaud’s voice was soft, almost sorrowful. “But I have been destined for bigger things, you see. And I shall not let you step a single foot forward from this point onwards.”