The Rebel Assassin

Chapter 13: Marked for Greatness

Joshua clearly hated the idea of teaming up, which made me feel slightly less aggravated about it. At least I could get some fun out of annoying him.

I stood up off the railing and faced the pairs of sparring partners scattered around the balcony, hands on my hips. None of them were paying attention to us, and none of them particularly stuck out. I saw quite a few boys who looked like they could be the right age for the Black Knight, though.

"So, what was your strategy?" I asked Joshua, not bothering to face him as he joined me, standing behind my shoulder.

He sighed. "Just to figure out the most talented fighters and see whether any of them had the Guardian Sign on their shoulder. I thought I had time to methodically narrow it down."

"Amateur," I said. "How did you expect to see their shoulders? It's freezing up here, so it's not like anyone's taking their shirt off to train."

Joshua didn't answer, and when I half turned my head to look at him, his face was completely expressionless.

"Please tell me you were planning to seduce them. I want to see Roman's face when he finds out."

He scowled. "No, I planned to take a bath at the shared bathing rooms they have for after training, where people regularly do take their shirts off. And you can't go in the male bathing rooms."

"True," I said slowly. "Wow. You actually did have a functional plan that gave you an edge over me. I honestly did not expect that."

He glared, and I turned back around to watch the students. "Still, your way could take a while to work. My plan is way better. Come on." I tried to sound confident, even though I wasn't really sure about my plan. It was experimental, to say the least. Anyway, if it failed, Joshua could take a stab at his.

I walked across the balcony to the covered area where the stairs led back down into the university. Joshua hurried behind me.

"What are you doing? Shouldn't we be watching them to figure out who's the best?"

"Even if we could decide, we'd have to make sure not to lose him while we try to confirm he's the one. Better to confirm he's the Knight the moment we see him." At the top of the stairs, I looked around to see if anyone was watching. No one seemed interested in what we were doing. I pulled a pouch from my pocket and, casually as I could, dumped its contents in a line across the threshold of the stairs.

"Dirt?"

"Solangian dirt."

Joshua was grudgingly impressed. "Right, you had that weird reaction to stepping off Solangian ground. Almost clever."

"Almost?" I narrowed my eyes at him.

He looked slightly smug, which was still more than he deserved to be. "How do you know your reaction had to do with physical Solangian soil and not with crossing the border? Maybe the soil won't have any effect in the Protectorate."

I smiled even more smugly. "I know because having it in my pocket has been helping me, and every time I step away from it I want to throw up."

He looked at me for a few seconds, then groaned. "I hate how you can get conceited over feeling sick."

"I am so much better at being sick than you are."

"That's like... not even related."

"Shh."

We fell silent as a boy walked past us, stepping over the dirt and down the stairs without seeming to notice anything.

Joshua let out a breath. "He was too young anyway."