I had begun to walk toward them when an extremely large man suddenly stepped out in front of me and I nearly ran into him. I was about to apologize when I looked up into his face and froze.
It was the man who had tried to kill me in the temple.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Pardon me,” the man said as he moved around me. My heart finally started to beat again when he was several feet away.
I was back in the high priestess’s office at the temple with that man sitting on top of me, trying to stab me in the throat, and I was doing everything in my power to keep him from killing me by moving his blade to my left shoulder. I found myself rubbing my shoulder, my limbs trembling.
How was this possible? I practically ran to Xander, desperate to talk to him. I slid my hand into his and squeezed, not wanting to make a scene in front of Stolos.
My husband had an easy smile when he turned to look at me, and it fell off his face.
“Excuse us, Stolos. I need to speak with my wife immediately.”
He led me out onto the patio, where we could be alone. “What happened? You look as if you’ve seen a shade.”
“I might have,” I said, my heart still pounding far too quickly. “Do you see the man over there, the very tall one with the dark brown tunic?”
“Yes.”
“That was the man who stabbed me in the temple.”
“Are you certain?”
“About the man who did this?” I pointed at my shoulder. “It’s not a face I will ever forget.”
“But he’s dead. Io killed him. That man is living and breathing, so he can’t be the one who hurt you.”
“Identical twins?” I offered. It was the only explanation.
He nodded. We both watched as he walked over to Erisa and then took up a position behind her. Like he was a bodyguard.
“Antiope said that the assassins in the temple bore no insignias or had any indication who they served. They were meant to be anonymous,” I said.
“Because they work for my stepmother and had been sent there specifically to find you. She didn’t want to risk me finding out.” He pulled out his broadsword.
I put my hands on top of his. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to go kill him,” he said through clenched teeth. “If I can’t kill the man who hurt you, then the least I can do is take it out on his brother, who looks just like him.”
When had I become the voice of reason and the advocate for not murdering? “You have to stop trying to kill people that could testify against Erisa and help make you king.”
“He’ll lie.”
“Then use Io’s truth serum with the compulsion. He’ll have to tell the truth and won’t be able to keep anything from you. Just make sure he doesn’t have any access to weapons. And tie him up so that he can’t do damage to himself.”
A lesson I had learned the hard way.
“I still want to slit his throat,” he said.
“If he works for your stepmother and you kill him, then she’ll retaliate and go after your men. More people will die.”
“That’s usually how civil wars work.”
Something Demaratus had once taught me came into my head. “Any throne taken by the shedding of blood will require blood spilled again to keep it.”
“I am fine with that. I’ll kill her, too.”
