He doesn't answer. His eye flicks to her, behind me, and back.
"Father."
"She—she needed discipline, you know how she gets—"
"I do." I raise the gun and the sight lines up with his face. "I know exactly how she gets. How we both got."
"Iowyn, please. I was trying to protect you, both of you. Everything I did—"
I pull the trigger.
The gun kicks against my palm. The sound fills the room, fills my skull, and his head snaps back. Blood on the carpet. Blood on the wall. His body slumps against the bedpost and stays there.
He's dead.
One shot.
That's all it took.
All those years of flinching and it only took one shot to make it stop.
My ears are ringing and the room smells like copper and smoke.
Seris screams.
The sound rips through the ringing, high and raw, and I spin toward her—but Caius is already there. When did he—it doesn't matter. He scoops Seris against his chest with one hand covering her mouth to muffle the sound. She thrashes and he holds her still, his eyes meeting mine over her head.
"Move." Calm. Command voice. "Now."
The scream alerted the house, if not the gun shot. I can hear it already—footsteps, shouting, doors slamming open below us.
Koshin's hand closes on my arm, his grip iron. "Iowyn. We go."
My father's blood is spreading across the carpet, staining it.
I smile.
The gun is still in my hand. My hands aren't shaking—they shook when I saw Seris's bruises, but they're steady now.
"Now."
We go.
Koshin pulls me toward the window—not the door, the window—and throws it open. Cold air rushes in. The roof slopes below us, tiles slick with dew.
"Can you climb?"
I'm already swinging my leg over the sill. "I got in, didn't I?"
The drop hits my knees. I roll, find my footing, and scramble across the tiles with Koshin landing in a crouch behind me. Ahead, Caius is already halfway down the drainpipe with Seris tucked against his chest. She's stopped screaming, which is either good or very bad.
Shouting below. Guards finally mobilizing.
Too late.
Too fucking late.
We hit the garden running. The wall is ahead—the same wall I climbed twenty minutes ago—and Caius goes over first with Seris still in his arms, then Koshin, then me. Palms scraping stone, arms screaming. I'm going to feel this tomorrow, assuming I live until tomorrow, assuming any of us do.
