“Fitting, isn’t it, that I learned of Librius’s special skills because of Aiden and my sister. The same people who destroyed my most valuable resource with their irritating explosives. Now, they will both have died from them.”
Tears slid down my temples. “Please. Please tell the guards not to set them off.”
Something dark and malicious glowed in Renwell’s eyes. “Are you begging me, Kiera?”
I swallowed my pride. “Yes.”
“See, this is what love does,” Renwell murmured. “It has you begging beneath a man you claim to hate.”
My hatred for him was deeper than ever. But my love for Aiden knew no depths, no bounds, no rules.
“If I kneel before you and swear my loyalty, will you call off the guards?”
Renwell hesitated, then slowly nodded. “Yes.”
You lie. But so do I.
Renwell rose to his feet, blood coating his pant leg and his side. But he held himself upright and proud. He’d never needed a crown to rule over those he saw as lesser than him.
I slowly gathered my body, kneeling at the tips of his boots. I gazed up at his victorious smile.
“Before I swear myself to you, you should know,” I said, inching my hands upward, “that the only reason I would get on my knees before you would be to”—I snatched Mother’s knife from his boot and rammed it into his gut—“steal a knife from your boot.”
I ripped the blade out, and Renwell staggered backward, clutching his stomach. I raced out of the throne room, my heart screaming in my chest.
Am I too late?
I sprinted down the steps, suddenly seeing what Renwell had prevented me from noticing before—fuses trailing over the sidesof the bridge. Guards with torches stood in the middle of the bridge, waiting.
Shouts and clashing weapons reached me from the far side of the bridge, where a battle raged in a crimson tangle of steel and sunstone. A familiar black-haired man fought his way through the Wolves like a demon.
Trying to reach the bridge. To find me.
I screamed as I ran across the bridge, waving my arms to get his attention. “Aiden! Don’t cross the bridge! Aiden! It’s a trap!” But the roaring waterfall swallowed my voice.
The guards shifted uneasily as I charged toward them.
“STOP HER!” Renwell bellowed from behind me.
One guard stepped in my way. I cleaved through his arm, snagging the torch before it landed on a fuse. I kept running. I waved the torch, trying to catch Aiden’s attention.
He finally looked up, his face breaking into a relieved smile at the sight of me. Which morphed into a look of fury a moment before someone slammed into me from behind.
I fell hard on the stone, trying to keep the torch and my knife from hitting as well.
Renwell’s heavy breathing had a rattle to it as he seized my legs and started dragging me off the bridge. “Blow it as soon as that man steps on it,” he ordered the nearest guard.
“No!” I screamed, kicking my legs until I crushed Renwell’s hand against the stone.
He swore and let me go. I scrambled to my feet. Aiden was so close to the bridge, fighting as hard as he could to reach me.
My heart pounded, heavy and sad and lost. “I love you, Aiden.”
I lunged past the guard and pressed my torch to the fuse in the middle of the bridge. It spat and sizzled out of sight.
I met Aiden’s eyes one last time before an explosion ripped through the air. The ground buckled beneath my feet.
Something snagged my collar and hauled me backward. The bridge between me and Aiden crumbled away into the ravenous waterfall, carrying the screaming guards with it.
