**Chapter 9B: The Hunter’s Instinct**
“Is there a quest?” Rin asked, her voice losing its icy formal edge and shifting into the clipped tone of a professional. “Or are you on one?”
The man chuckled, a dry sound under his hood. “You certainly know the signs. The usual business, really. The Royal Family is paranoid. They call the Guild to do ‘unofficial’ guard duty when the Palace guards are too busy looking pretty in gold lace. I’m one of the five they sent.” He paused, his grin audible. “Though the Guildmaster sent ten. The Royals don’t need to know we’ve doubled the shadows.”
Rin sighed, leaning against the cold stone. She knew how the Guild operated—the ‘extras’ were there to gather intelligence as much as to protect.
“So, who is the target?”
“The Princes,” he replied. “They’re the prizes tonight. Especially the heir. There’s talk of a splinter group from the borderlands wanting to make a statement.”
Rin’s mind flashed back to the borderlands, to the grit and blood that still felt more like home than this marble cage.
**Flashback: Two Years Ago – The Silver-Needle Woods**
The wind had been screaming that night. Rin, sixteen years old, wore a tattered cloak and boots caked in frozen mud. She was on a Rank-A Subjugation and Search quest. A merchant caravan had vanished near the Whispering Pass, along with a crate of enchanted mana-crystals.
She had tracked them for three days through the Silver-Needle Woods, where the trees were so sharp they drew blood if brushed against. The ‘beast’ was no ordinary creature—it was a pack of Frost-Blight Chimeras, twisted beings of bone and shadow that fed on magic.
Rin found the survivors huddled in a shallow cave, the Chimera alpha circling outside, its breath turning the air into toxic mist. She hadn’t waited for Guild backup.
She stepped into the clearing, her silver-blue eyes glowing with cold inner light. As the alpha lunged, she reached into the Void—the silent space between breaths—and pulled. A wall of black-tinged frost erupted, shattering the beast’s front legs. She moved like a blur, her short-sword coated in absolute zero. There was no grace in that fight, only brutal efficiency. When backup finally arrived, they found Rin sitting by a small, magically shielded fire, the merchant’s daughter wrapped in her cloak, and five Chimera carcasses dissolving into ash around them.
She had succeeded where a full squad of knights would have faltered—not because she was noble, but because she was a hunter who refused to give up.
**Present Day**
“What is it?” the cloaked man asked, breaking her reverie. “Want to work with us tonight? I could use a sixth pair of eyes on the rafters.”
Rin looked down at her gloved hands, then back at the golden lights of the ballroom spilling onto the snow.
“You know I have reunited with my family. I have… obligations.”
“As if that ever stopped you from doing real work,” the man laughed softly. “The Frost name might be on your papers, Rin, but the Guild is in your marrow. You’re a hunter. You can’t hide that under silk for long.”
Rin turned her head away, her gaze drifting toward the high windows where Prince Kieran watched the crowd with those same observant grey eyes.
“Until when will you work for them?”
“A week for this shift. Then the change-over.”
Rin nodded. “Keep your eyes on the kitchens. That’s where the ‘statement’ will start if it comes.”
“Always the strategist,” the man said, before leaping back onto the stone railing and vanishing into the night as if he had never been there.
Rin stood alone for a moment, the cold air finally calming the restless energy in her blood. She was a daughter of House Frost by day, but the shadows of the palace—and the hunter within—refused to be silenced.