Well, good to know the poison works. Except everyone was supposed to have some, and it wasn’t supposed to work this quickly.
The general drops to the floor next to his dance partner, convulsing and foaming from the mouth. As the behemoth goes down, he knocks over a servant with another dessert cart. Plates and glass shatter, bringing all music in the throne room to a whining stop.
A lone cleaver skitters from the waistband of the servant’s uniform—all eyes on the knife.
We’re fucked.
Chapter Fifty-One
Aren
No one moves. No one breathes.
All eyes are locked on the glistening blade as it slides to a halt. Then to the dead general. I catch Dietan’s eye, holding his gaze for the length of a heartbeat.
Crap.
Now more people are retching, especially those who’ve had some of the special desserts. Then the room erupts into chaos.
“Guards,” says Namreth, his voice calm, controlled.
They sound the alarm, and down another hallway, a horn blows. Heavy boots echo in the corridors, growing louder as they near. The clank of armor fills the air.
Shit.So much for hoping a majority of the soldiers would be unconscious when we struck. Or looking at the general on the floor, dead apparently. I wasn’t counting on someone eating that much. At least the commanders attending the party seem to be very drunk.
Men with shiny medals pinned to their chests stagger and gape as panicked ladies in silk gowns and jewels shove their way toward the doors only to find them blocked by the approaching guards.
One after another, guards spill into the room, spears and swords at the ready. They grunt and shout, eager for battle—too eager. Maybe they were celebrating in the barracks after all.
The show of force sends the guests scrambling yet again, while the masked rebels scramble to reach their weapons. In an instant, everyone’s running, the chamber’s jammed with people, and Harvest Mother, I can’t find Dietan.
I hurry toward the place where I last saw him, but he’s gone. Lost. I nearly trip over a bejeweled woman who’s stumbled and fallen in the panic. I look for any sign of Dietan’s white wolf mask. Any sound of his voice.
Nothing.
The screams of the crowd compete with the soldiers’ war chants and the shouts of the rebel servants, who fumble with their humble knives. The guards take notice, and both sides clamber for the blades.
A rebel reaches for a knife on the floor, only to have his hand cut off at the wrist by a guard. A servant bares her knife, her grin triumphant. But she’s slow to act, and a guard slits her throat from behind. My stomach sinks. I should have known that our brave band of castle servants never stood a chance against the mad king’s battle-ready soldiers.
The soldiers are all red in the face, eyes filled with fury, or maybe just drink. Regardless of the cause, they are bloodthirsty.
In the middle of this chaos, the king sits calmly on his throne, a gust of wind swirling around his feet. He scans the room, quietly taking stock. His striking blue eyes turn to the sickened guests near the poisoned tray of treats, then to the growing number of armed servants. He realizes what is happening, and his vengeance is swift. He holds up his hand to the nearest servant girl and snaps his fingers, ripping the mask off her face with a gust of wind. She isn’t one of the servants we recruited to our cause, but that doesn’t matter.
Namreth stands. He clutches her chin, and the blood drains from her face. He lets go, and the girl falls, trembling, from his grasp. Then I witness the most terrible thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life, an image that’ll be scorched into my memory for the rest of my days.
The king snaps his fingers, and with a crack, the girl’s chest collapses, her rib bones snapping like twigs, her sternum folding in on itself. Her whole body convulses as a steady stream of red dribbles first from her mouth, then her nose and eyes. She’s dead before her head hits the marble tile.
Everyone is screaming. Good goddess, every soul in the room is running wild.
A soldier tackles a servant who tries to run away, ripping off her mask and pummeling her into the floor with his fists until she no longer moves and blood pools around her body. A rebel jumps on his back to retaliate, but a second soldier spears him with his sword, driving the blade into his open mouth.
Two more servants fall to the ground beside each other. A third, thin as bones, drops down over the others, while a fourth, a boy of no more than twelve, falls to his knees beside them, sobbing. Some try to run, but the doors are all closed, the exits blocked.
“Where are you?” I yell, but Dietan’s still nowhere to be seen. We’re losing, and losing badly. I try to find Marcus, Jared, anyone, but a gauntleted hand crushes my wrist, and a steady stream of my own blood dribbles down my arm. With his other hand, the soldier rips the mask from my face. It catches on my hair, tearing a clump from my scalp, but I don’t scream in pain. I won’t give the bastard the satisfaction.
I twist and turn, straining against his fist. “Dietan,” I cry out once again as the soldier forces me to my knees, my arm going numb, my head wound throbbing, the pain growing sharper.
The rebellion is a complete disaster, and Dietan is still nowhere to be found. I fear the worst, that he’s been killed in the chaos, that he lies dead and overlooked beneath our feet.
