Carver slammed into him, tackling Lord Amin to the hard ground. Screams of alarm ripped the air as the knife bounced and skittered away.
“No!” Lord Amin snarled, tears leaking from his eyes as he thrashed against Carver’s hold.“No!”He fought like a man possessed, and Carver grunted as every muscle in his body strained to hold the older man down.
Two guards rushed forward to help Carver just as another shriek—raw, guttural, and furious—split the night.
His head snapped up. It was either luck or a curse that he saw straight through the crowd and right to the emperor, who was staring at the woman standing before him in horrific disbelief.
Cora’s mother was flushed, the fingers of one hand digging into the emperor’s arm. Her other gripped the knife that was now buried in his chest.
Carver knew as long as he lived, he would never forget that sight. The emperor’s gaping expression frozen in the face of Sofina Amin’s crazed rage. “Die!” she screeched, yanking the blade free before driving it forward again.
It didn’t land. The emperor’s guards—who had been distracted by Lord Amin’s attack on Jayveh for a single, disastrous moment—swarmed Lady Amin. Cregonshouted for a protective perimeter as he leaped around the emperor’s chair. He caught the sagging man, his yells for a physician lost in the screams of the crowd. Pandemonium burst. Even if people hadn’t seen what happened, they were fleeing the garden. Panic thinned the air.
“They must die!” Lord Amin shrieked. “They don’t deserve to live!Noneof you do!” Nothing about the deranged man bucking beneath Carver was recognizable as the man who had been so overcome with grief mere seconds ago. The sharp transition was more than startling—it was chilling.
The second Lord Amin was secured by the guards, Carver surged to his feet. Jayveh and Amryn had been herded back by her guards.Safe. Heart hammering, Carver’s gaze shot to the emperor.
He had been laid out on the dais and was surrounded by his guards. Cregon was putting pressure on the wound, the tightness in his face the only thing that betrayed his dread. Hector was cradling the emperor’s head, tears streaming down his face. High Cleric Lisbeth fell to her knees, head bowed and lips moving quickly as she rocked back and forth in the throes of a frantic prayer. Rhone Quinn leaped onto the dais, his sword drawn. He looked furious, because there was no clear enemy to fight.
Cora’s mother was still screaming, her cries shredding the night. She writhed under the weight of the guards who pinned her down.
Cregon glared. “Get her out of here!”
The guards immediately wrestled her—and her husband—away.
“Let me go to him!”
Jayveh’s shout broke Carver from his frozen state of stunned horror. He hurried over. Amryn was holding Jayveh’s arm, looking far too pale as the princess argued with her guards. They were trying to keep her safely covered.
Tears shined in Jayveh’s eyes as her head whipped toward Carver.
“Let her go,” he said. His heart clenched as the reality of what he’d seen fully hit. He swallowed hard. “He doesn’t have long.”
Grief twisting her face, Jayveh pushed through her guards and rushed to the emperor. Her bodyguards were quick to trail after her.
Amryn caught Carver’s hand. “I could . . .” Her tentative gaze darted to Rhone, who stood watching over the emperor.
Carver’s gut twisted. The emperor was like his own grandfather, but . . . “No,” he rasped, his whisper low and rough. The fact that Amryn would even offer to heal the emperor proved just how compassionate his wife was. But the emperorhad ordered the extermination of empaths. Because of that, the one person here who might have been able to save his life could not risk trying. Not with a knight, a high cleric, and so many other witnesses around him. Carver didn’t know if that was justice, or simply a cruel irony.
He suddenly tensed. She would be feeling the agony of the emperor’s death. The fear of the crowd. “You need to get—”
“I’m all right,” she breathed. He could see pain in her eyes, but she wasn’t sick. The bloodstone was shielding her, at least enough to make this bearable.
Carver still hesitated, but Amryn tugged him forward. Together, they walked to the emperor’s side.
A bloodied black jacket—a guard’s uniform, no doubt—was bunched tightly against the emperor’s chest, held in place by Carver’s father. His breaths were wheezing, his eyes unfocused, his lips trembling.
Jayveh had knelt at the emperor’s side. She gently took his age-spotted hand in both of hers. “I’m here,” she murmured, assurance and grief in her low words.
The emperor blinked slowly, then his glazed eyes settled on her. “Jayveh,” he croaked.
“Save your strength, Your Eminence,” she said in a hushed whisper. “All will be well.”
“Yes,” he rasped, his breathing thinning rapidly. “All will be well. You will lead the empire well.”
Jayveh’s breath caught. She began to tremble, even as she clung to the emperor’s hand. “No. You’ll be fine. You’ll . . .” Her words faded as the emperor was seized by a violent coughing fit.
Cregon grit his teeth, and High Cleric Lisbeth touched the emperor’s shoulder. She began to murmur a solemn prayer. A prayer Carver had last heard on the battlefield as a cleric had prayed over the dead and dying. His gut clenched and his eyes stung as he saw the blood that now coated the emperor’s lips.
