Again.
“Your Majesty,” the boy said, short of breath, hair a wild mess, “don’t be angry. Grandfather said?—”
“Caius,” Milonia said sharply, her voice cracking. “Quiet.”
She, no doubt, worried her son would make things worse, but it was too late for that. Dimitrios had truly lost everything of worth here today.
None of that, however, was Caius’s fault.
Dimitrios dropped to one knee. Theron, Thalios, and Lykos bounced on their rear paws, licking wherever they could reach. Dimitrios barely registered any of it. His hands moved on instinct, petting them without seeing.
“Future king of Otuvia, huh?”
Caius’s mouth lifted to one side. “That’s what Grandfather says.”
“Then I’d hold him to it.”
A hiccupping sound came from Milonia, but Dimitrios refused to look up. This wasn’t for her, nor was it for her father. They were a separate matter entirely, and Caius shouldn’t have to pay the price for that.
He squeezed Caius’s shoulder. “I’m going to make things right. Iswear it.”
Caius flew into Dimitrios’s arms, hugging his neck. “You’re not mad at me for keeping it secret?”
Dimitrios closed his eyes. “Never.”
He held tight. Memorized the weight of him. The shape of his laugh. Because it might be the last time.
When he finally let go, he rose and faced Milonia for the first time, her face wet from crying. He stomped on every instinct inside him to care.
“Stay until the danger has passed,” he said. “I won’t risk Caius’s life on the roads because of your deception.”
Dimitrios turned before she could answer and faced the people outside, who had become strangely calm.
His chest lifted on a single, decisive breath. “Nikolas.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Maybe he was a fool. But he refused to let go of this one thing he could save, even if it had taken Milonia’s revelation to get him there. “Open the gates.”
“The doors won’t budge,” Otekah rasped, voice muffled by her blue face covering.
Below, Silver Wolf warriors staggered from the exits, dragging each other upright. Some coughed until their whole bodies seized, others clawed at the air as if they could scoop the poison away. The cloud rolled after them—thick, green, hungry.
Kai, from the foot of one of the many stone warriors that overlooked the arena, shook her head. “If we don’t, we die.”
Otekah only shook her head, her expression unreadable beneath her blue face covering.
For the first time in her life, Kai’s mind went blank. No blade, no command, no will of steel could cut through this.
Keeping everyone on the observation level would help, but it wouldn’t save those in need of immediate treatment, nor would it last in the long term. Eventually, the poison gas would fill the room entirely.
Even Poloma, who’d studied every poison she could get her hands on, shook her head in mute defeat. Whatever hissed from those vents wasstranger than anything they knew—and there’d be no antidote here, not in the heart of their training hall.
A torch guttered halfway up the wall. Its flame bent sideways, then flared, racing along a tendril of gas like fire along oil. It burned in a curling wave, searing bright, before collapsing into smoke.
Kai stepped up to the level’s edge, hands on her hips, as one by one, the gas tendrils reached toward the fire and burned.
Chapter
