“I called and called for help,” she continues, “but this cell is four stories high. Plume finally came to that leak in the roof, and I managed to get a message across to her.” She points to a damp spot on the ceiling where a board has rotted out.
Basten whips his head around to the door. “You’re saying Rianescaped?”
Suri nods.
“Fuck!” Basten slams the handle of his knife against the bars, then takes a moment to steady himself, then races out of the attic.
His boots clomp heavy on the stairs.
For a moment, I’m so stunned I can’t move. I still can’t process Suri’s story.
A kiss? Rian and Suri?
I don’t even know how to begin to wrap my mind around that. I mean, yes, she’s inexperienced, but she isn’t a fool. She wouldn’t have fallen for just anyone’s pretty words. She must have actuallyseensomething in Rian.
Didn’t you, once, Sabine?
I go rigid. But underneath the shock is something bitter—the ache of a wound I should’ve seen coming. After all we’ve been through—taking him prisoner, stopping the bloodshed in the city, even daring to share wine with him again—he still turned on us.
Onme.
Gods help me, that’s what stings the most. A part of me wanted to forgive him—to trust him.
And he used that against us.
“I’ll send guards to unlock the cell,” I say to her in a rush, and then hurry after Basten, even as she’s calling back to me.
But adrenaline pushes me forward. I feel my human glamour fall away, being left behind as the fey lines blister free. My incisors sharpen against my bottom lip, my hunger snapping in my throat.
Now, I’m on the hunt.
I catch up with Basten at the bottom of the stairs, where he’s banging on doors to rouse the sleeping guards. “Up, soldiers! Swords at the ready, Rian Valvere is on the run!”
Night guards and sleepy-eyed maids all stop to stare at me as I race to the window; they aren’t used to seeing me in my fae appearance.
My blood races through my veins, sending my silver glow pulsing, as I scour the courtyard below for any sign of Rian. Knowing him, this is no random seized opportunity. He’s surely been planning this escape, possibly for a long time.
“Can we not have a crisis at midnight, for once? What’s wrong with noon?” Folke, still tugging on his pants, stumbles down the hallway as his jaw stretches in a yawn.
“Rian fucked us,” Basten spits, as a guard hastens to help him strap a sword around his waist. “He escaped. Folke, get to the gates, make sure they’re sealed?—”
Commotion on the stairs makes us all turn to find the sentries from the castle entrance hustling up the stairs, out of breath in their clattering armor.
“About the gates, King Basten,” one of them says, pausing to brace his hands on his knees. His face is corpse-white beneath his helmet. “And you, Queen Sabine.” He glances at me, my silver sheen reflecting in his eyes, and he swallows hard. “You—you need to come see this for yourself, Majesties.”
Basten and I share a look—the kind that carries a dozen memories of what Rian has already proven himself capable of.
And then we run.
I follow the soldiers down the stairs to the first floor, my pulse running hot. I don’t feel like a princess now. Or a queen. I feel like a predator stalking the man who wounded her with far more than arrows.
We pass through Raven Hall and out into the front courtyard, shrouded by night, where a dozen soldiers are gathered with torches. They stand back from the gates, giving it a wide berth, almost stock-still.
“What are you doing?” I cry. “Your king gave the command, swords up!”
I grab Captain Fernsby, but as he turns toward me, I get a view of the gate. Of what they’re all staring at.
And my own feet drift to a stop.
