Especially when Coreto commanded, “Bind her,” and one man stepped forward with a length of rope he used to lash her wrists together. The rope bit into her skin. Rough. Unyielding.
Slowly, the count loosened his grip on her arm.
But that was a mistake.
She drove her elbow backward into his ribs.
Gasping, he let her go.
“Help!” she screamed, diving around her turncoat guard and dashing for the doors. “Guards!”
Lord Bennett stepped in front of her, his expression grim. “Sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured, grabbing her by her bound wrists.
Sweetheart?
Gritting her teeth, she lunged toward him and hiked her knee, driving it straight into his groin. “I am the Queen of Elmoria,” she shouted as the wretched man doubled over, shuddering in pain. “And I will not be—”
She choked on her remaining words as a length of silk swept about the lower half of her face and wedged between her teeth, gagging her. Rough fingers yanked the silk taut and tied it behind her head, tangling some of her hair in the knot.
“You know what your problem is, Seraphina?” Coreto whispered, his hot breath unfurling against her ear as he finished tying off the gag. Slowly, he turned her around, forcing her to meet his cold gaze. To see the silent triumph flashing there.
She narrowed her eyes at him, hoping he felt the full weight of her disdain within her own gaze.
He smiled—a quick twitch of his lips, there and gone in an instant. “You are too trusting.” Gently, he tried to smooth a bit of her hair back from her face. “You seem to think loyalties cannot shift overnight. That they cannot be bought.”
She twitched away from his touch and narrowed her eyes further.
His expression darkened. “Now, be a good girl and show me where the secret door in this room is. I know there is one.”
And what if I don’t?She arched her eyebrow, her chin lifting in challenge.
Coreto’s smile returned, but this time it chilled her to the bone. He dropped his voice low, the words for her alone, when he warned, “I intended to make this a bloodless coup, girl, but I am happy to adjust at a moment’s notice. Shall we start with the Lord Chancellor? I have never much liked Percival myself.”
He was bluffing. He had to be bluffing.
She searched his eyes, hunting for a crack in his cold smile.
…But she found none.
Chapter forty-nine
Olivia
The latest news from Arlund pounded through her thoughts, pulsing in time with her steps. With the Pain radiating down her left leg. With those blasted bells ringing in the distance as they had been for the last ten minutes.
Hurrying through the corridor, she hunted for Seraphina.
The Viscount of Arlund dead.
The front, shattered.
Arath would be there soon.
She could already imagine the look on her best friend’s face when she told her.
Just as she could imagine how Seraphina would balk when she advised that they finally abandon Goldreach, that they fall back toa more defensible position—the Dawnspire. Seraphina wouldn’t like it.
She would refuse to go.
