I choke on a sob. But I’m out of the gates. I risk a single glance behind me. At least ten guards are sprinting my way, sigils glowing.
I brace for impending agony.
Strong hands scoop me up and I thrash, kicking and slamming my head back into a hard chest.
“Stop,” a voice commands, and I freeze.
“Leon?”
He doesn’t answer. The world spins, and I’m suddenly sitting on a horse. With a kick from Leon, it takes off at a gallop.
Leon rides like he was born on a horse, and he gallops down side streets and alleys, keeping the ludus in the distance even as we circle around behind it.
“The guards?”
“Gone. Whoever you’re working with created some kind of a distraction.”
“Who owns this horse?”
“A friend who owed me a favor. Quiet. Let me concentrate.”
I didn’t know Leon had friends outside of the Thorn. Honestly, after the way he has shut himself in his house for the past six years, I’m surprised he has any friends left at all.
When he’s sure we’ve lost anyone who might be following, he leaves the horse at a public stable near the ludus, but not before stroking her neck and murmuring sweet words in her ear.
As soon as we’re inside the ludus, he jerks his head, gesturing for me to follow him toward the guardant quarters. Their common room is similar to the imperius’s although much smaller, but Leon keeps walking into a tiny bedroom.
“No one can hear us here.” He gives me a hard stare. “What happened?”
I don’t know how to answer that. “How did you know I needed help?”
“Tiernon said you disappeared, and Maeva asked me where you’d gone when we all returned here. I knew you were doing something stupid.”
And he came. Even though he hates me. He came.
“Now tell me what it was.”
I slump into his chair in the corner of the room. “I need to get out of here, Leon. As soon as I have a chance, I have to get to the city gates.”
“You can’t. They’ve locked down the city.”
I let out a shaky breath. I expected this. “I’ll wait them out.”
“What did you do?”
Despite Leon’s assurances about the room, I lower my voice to a whisper. “I killed the emperor.”
Leon scowls at me. “No, you didn’t.”
“I did.” My tone is belligerent. I didn’t expect him to be pleased, but the least he can do is believe me. “I saw his face, Leon. I watched him die.”
“The emperor is alive. I know, because one of my contacts just left a room where Vallius was sitting with the Primus on one side of him, and Rorrik on the other.”
My stomach twists into tight coils. I don’t understand. Isawthe emperor’s face, even in the dim light.
Leon gives me a pitying look. “We’re surrounded by vampires, Arvelle.”
Realization flickers through me. Vampires. Vampires who can manipulate our thoughts. Vampires who can wipe our memories. Vampires who can make us see things that aren’t there.
