My breath seared my throat, and I nearly shook with the fire in my blood.
But then I looked into his eyes. Kiera’s eyes. My heart twitched.
You’ll be killing her father. Right after she found out you killed her mother.
My sword point wavered.
“Don’t, Aiden!”
Both our heads jerked up to see Kiera dashing through the room. Pain slammed into my side, and I grunted, looking down. Weylin had stuck a small knife beneath my ribs. Blood oozed through my shirt. I staggered back.
Kiera leapt in front of her father, her wide eyes bouncing from the knife in my side to my face. I grunted and jerked it out, then tossed it onto Weylin’s bed. Gods-damned coward. The knife was too small to do much damage, but it stung like a dozen nettles.
“What are you doing here, Kiera?” I rasped, pressing my free hand over the wound.
She seemed to gather her fury once more, those treacherously beautiful lips twisting in anguish. “Keeping you from killing the rest of my family,” she spat.
Weylin straightened behind her, his smug smile slipping back onto his face. “You’re finally proving your loyalty, daughter.”
I ignored him, as did Kiera. I slowly started to circle around her, but she turned as well, blocking me from Weylin. “You don’t know the whole story.”
“What’s there to know? You killed my mother with this very knife,” she snarled, waving the hated black blade at me.
“I killed her because she asked me to!” I roared, the truth finally clawing out of my chest like a savage beast that had been kept too long in captivity.
Kiera’s face whitened. “Enough, Aiden! No lie can save you now.”
“Lies have saved you plenty,” I growled, nodding to where her father was creeping toward his bedroom door. “After all, you learned from the best.”
Kiera’s eyes filled with angry tears. “Nothing you say can justify her murder. Nothing.”
“Want to bet, princess?” I hissed. “I killed Brielle to save her from being executed byhim!” I jabbed my sword in Weylin’s direction, and they both froze.
Weylin recovered first. “Lies! Don’t listen to?—”
“How do you think I knew about this secret passage between the Den and the royal bedchamber?” I demanded. “A passage only the king and queen and their High Enforcer know about. Shetoldme about it!”
Kiera shook her head, stepping back to look between me and Weylin. “That—that can’t be true.”
Weylin said nothing, but his fingers curled into white-knuckled fists.
I sneered at him. “Brielle was trying to smuggle me into the palace any way she could because she didn’t want to have to kill you herself. Because she knew exactly what kind of monster you are. And she had decided to take that crown from you for herself.”
The veins in Weylin’s face and neck thickened, and he bared his teeth. “That bitch should’ve died on the executioner stand like the gods-damned traitor she was!”
Kiera gasped. “You . . . you . . .”
“Shut up!” Weylin snarled at her. Then he glared at me. “I discovered your little plan with my stupid wife. I stopped it then, and I’ll stop it now. Renwell!” he shouted.
Renwell sauntered into the room with a dozen Shadow-Wolves who lined the walls opposite me and Kiera.
I gripped my sword and kept my back to the tunnel door. I couldn’t kill my way to Weylin. I’d lost my vengeance the moment I’d seen her eyes in his. My hand was slick with blood from my knife wound, but I wasn’t going to die in this gods-damned room.
“Renwell,” Kiera breathed, not seeming to care where I was. “Did you know? About my mother?”
Weylin released a cruel laugh. “Idiot girl. He’s the one who told me Brielle had been sneaking off to meet someone. We don’t suffer traitors, do we, Renwell?”
But Renwell didn’t answer. He merely looked at Kiera with something almost like regret. Or anger. The knife slipped from Kiera’s hand to clang against the floor.
