The soldier falls to the ground, dead.
“See? I cannot trust you!” John yells.
Without moving her head, Rapunzel darts her gaze to me, then back to John. Something in her eyes warns me this won’t go well—for me. “Allow me to prove my loyalty.”
With that dagger jerky against my sister’s throat, John glowers at Rapunzel. “What can you possibly do to prove such a thing to me?
“Eliminate a threat in your kingdom to seal our truce.”
John is hesitant. The tension is brutal until finally, he says, “Fine, Rapunzel, you have my word.”
Which is worth absolutely nothing.
“Order your man to free her hair.”
Again, John hesitates, but also again, he eventually agrees. I’m sure for no other reason than curiosity. Rapunzel pushes herself to her feet. She’s soaked with Wren’s blood as she slips a dagger from its sheath at his hip. Every muscle in my body goes taut as she walks toward me. My gut coils because I can practically read her thoughts.
I’m the threat who must play dead.
She gives me no warning before plunging the blade into my left eye.
“Next time, take the eye.”
She remembered.
Eleanor’s scream echoes around me as agony rips through my face. The nauseating squish of the blade slicing my eyeball drowns out all other sounds. The grotesque tug as Rapunzel pulls out the blade turns my stomach, and I nearly disgrace myself by vomiting all over my feet. The dagger hits the ground as I choke on a strangled gasp and stagger back. My hands fly to my face, blood blinding the eye she left perfectly intact.
“Poisoned,” Rapunzel says. Of course this is a lie. “In case we ever had to put him down.”
Like a mongrel.
With pain resonating throughout my entire skull, I make a good show of things by grabbing the nearing object. Purposely wobble. Let out a theatric groan. Someone laughs. Turning, I let go of whatever I’m holding. Dramatically stumble over a dead soldier. Slam my back against the wall and slide down to the floor in a haze of very real pain bleeding all over the stone floor.
This is the first and last time I will lie at John’s feet.
ChapterTwenty-Two
All the days of my life led me to this moment.
Pain and sorrow and loneliness made me strong.
The years in the tower gave me grim determination.
Wren, Quinn, and Dax’s love is the support I need as I inch toward my father. “I’ve learned one vital lesson since Wren took me from the tower. Would you like to know what it is?” I step over Quinn to position myself closer to John and Eleanor. A wave of nausea rolls through me as I avoid the carnage that litters the chamber floor.
Behind me, Dax and Sir Walter move with me, acting as a wall that conceals Wren from John’s manic view.
“How to kill that blasphemous creature?” He gestures with a nod at Quinn.” He rolls his eyes at the firm set of my jaw and disgusted flare of my nostrils—not to mention Eleanor’s tortured sob. “Fine. Tell me quick, Rapunzel.” John jostles his wife when he shifts her in his arms, the dagger scraping against her throat. “I would put an end to this wretched night.”
“Actually, John, I learned a little blood makes for a big distraction.” I take advantage of John’s confusion and surge forward to tug Eleanor away from him.
John reaches for Eleanor but grasps at the empty air as we jump out of the way. Dax and Sir Walter part, and there’s Wren, lying on his back with head lifted, bow primed. Gaze locked on Rygard’s stunned king.
Only his fingers move, dispatching the arrow. It pierces John’s left eye, mirroring how Percy Kincaid killed Henry.
Wren, after all, was trained by the best.
Thrown back by the impact, John drops the dagger. Before his body hits the ground, Quinn pops to his feet, bloody eye and all. He grabs John by the throat. Dangles the gasping, dying man like a broken doll above the ground. Yanks him close, nose to nose. “Not yet, you son of a bitch.”
