Chapter 1

When my father died, he left me seven shadow guards, each one deadly.

But when the rebels stormed the imperial city, the captain of those guards abandoned me and ran to the palace to save my half-sister.

I clawed my way through a dozen deaths before I reached the southern lands, and only then did he come limping in after me, my half-sister at his side, ready to confess.

"This servant failed to protect you. I beg you, punish me as you see fit!"

I glanced back at the shadow guard lying on the sickbed, more breath leaving him than coming in.

Then I said, flat and quiet, "Take your own life."

The captain's face changed in an instant. It was a long moment before he forced out a single sentence. "This servant... the reason I left without a word was to protect the second young lady!"

I nodded, cold. "Yes. That's why I'm granting you the mercy of your own blade, instead of ordering you hacked to pieces."

1

The white funeral banners drifted in the wind.

I sat on the cold rush mat, looking at the seven men in black who stood before me with lowered heads.

Everything churned in my chest, and my fingers tightened without meaning to on the coarse hemp of my mourning clothes.

My father had died half a month ago, on the battlefield of the northern frontier.

When his body was brought home wrapped for burial, only half a breastplate remained to name him by.

The Duke Protector's house was a house of loyal martyrs, every last one.

The emperor, moved by a lifetime of service, granted me, the firstborn legitimate daughter, the title of noble lady, and gave me my father's shadow guards as well.

Cyril Henson, the captain of those guards, was the man who years ago had crawled out of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood at my father's side.

His skill was the finest of all seven.

He was cold by nature, spare with words. In all those years I had almost never seen him smile.

Before he marched out, my father had taken my hand and said, "Cyril is loyal. With him beside you, guarding you, no matter what you face, ruin will turn to safety."

My father had never once lied to me, all my life.

I believed him.

From then on I treated Cyril as my most trusted man.

Whatever His Majesty rewarded me with, I would give half to him.

But every time he only bowed low, gave his thanks, and refused to take it.

He said only that protecting his mistress was his duty and nothing more.

His faithfulness to his post moved me, and I came to trust him more and more.

I even told him where the secret passage of the Duke Protector's house lay.

I never knew that my trust, far from buying me the same loyalty in return, would instead become the stepping-stone he used to win my half-sister's favor.