Breaking Stars (Book 2) by Jenna Van Vleet

trousers still gathered around his ankles. The cloth began to muddy as he ground into his skin, not realizing he stopped scrubbing dried blood and began opening hangnails. No one had suspected him, but he knew. It was his guilt, and no pardon of the crown would ease him.
    The General had selected a young girl for the task with blonde hair like the fair-faced Princess, though it fell to her shoulders and not her waist. She had the same Anatolian face with a slender chin, small nose and cheekbones. The girl’s eyes were deep brown unlike the Princess’s hazel orbs, but it was the only variation. She was the same height, strong in the shoulders and legs with tough hands, but the hand would not matter in the end.
    Lex had been given strict instruction to stay close to Mage Gabriel once the alarm was sounded. By the time he found the Mage, it was almost too late, but the General said go, and he went, stealing into the grain house where the girl slept with her sisters. Years of training taught him silence, and a pillow to her face taught her the same. A grizzly task was ahead of him.
    General Calsifer was not far off, cantering up on Araybiatt with a tight and worried look on his face. Blood was on his hands, and the aroma of smoke and cooked pork about him. He took only a moment to describe the Princesses’ wounds, sidestepping the destrier to a trot as he tossed the Lieutenant her quiver and a bottle of foxroot dye. He galloped off promptly and quietly, Araybiatt’s steel-shod hooves covered in canvas.
    The task to mimic the wounds was cruel and grotesque. He did not have a Cinibarian blade, but her hand came off at the wrist with a single stroke, slender and brittle as fresh ice. The Princess had been burned, but he did not know to what extent, so he let the flames work their dark power over her body. The foxroot spilled over her face and into her hair, covering only half of the wet locks. He severed her hair on one side. One eye was burned, and the other he caved in with three sharp jabs of his hilt, so none would know the color of her eyes.
    He shook as he wrapped her in a draped her over the saddle. Lex mounted up behind her, smelling blood and ash, feeling her still-warm corpse against his legs. He fought back the urge to sick up and instead found the nearest soldier patrol, a group of Queen’s Wing men he did not know, and proffered his find. He let the men take her and vanished into the streets. Nolen knew his face by now, and if the Prince knew he was involved, it could undo the deadly ploy and make the girl’s death for naught.
    Lex shut off the tap and let the water turn his skin bright red.
    The worst part of the act would never come to light. The girl would never be known as anything other than Princess Robyn until the rightful heiress showed her face. By then the girl would be buried and lost. Yet, she was not an expendable, not a rogue pillow-maiden, or a marauder, or criminal that was lost daily and forgotten. She was middle-class girl with a family that loved her, a family that would never know where their girl had gone. Lex hoped they would think she ran away, but the torture of not knowing would ruin them as it nearly ruined his father when his mother was stolen.
    Rumors circulated the palace already, but none whispered the name Robyn Bolt. No one important knew who the grain miller’s daughter was impersonating, but the halls were heavy with the same story. The Breaker of Stars was finally broken. To protect the Princess, Lex could say nothing to ease the ruse.
    He sucked in a breath. No one would know, no one could know. It was not Prince Nolen who had broken the Mage, nor the girl herself, but Lex who had struck the final blow and felled the greatest man living.

 
     
    Chapter 6
    Sometimes, the mere act of breathing took too much energy out of Gabriel. As promised, Nolen had taken everything from him, and at long last his powerful will gave in. To his core, he now cared for nothing. If Nolen gave him