Chapter 9 · Frontier Lord - Chapter 9: The Kill Order

The spy's pack sat open in the mud like a gutted animal.

Ava crouched beside it, Rain standing close enough that his boot heel brushed her knee. The oilskin pouch lay flat between them, the wax seal already broken. She'd seen plenty of fancy seals in the capital—silver stags, twin laurels, all that noble garbage. This one was different. Plain black wax. No house mark. Just a single stamped line across the center, like someone had dragged a knife through it before it dried.

She pulled the folded paper free. Her hands didn't shake. That surprised her.

The letter was short. No greeting, no signature. Just four lines in tight, slanted script she recognized from a hundred passive-aggressive notes slipped under her door back in the capital.

*Windstone Hollow: inhabited. Bloodline likely dormant but verify. Heir present. Secure heir alive before first snow. Frostplain gap opens spring.*

Klaus. Of course it was Klaus.

Rain leaned in. She could feel the heat coming off his shoulder, smell the sweat and woodsmoke still clinging to his shirt. "That a name?"

"Ex-fiancé." She said it flat, like she was naming a type of vegetable.

Rain went very still. "The one who—"

"Yeah.