“I tried to stanch his wound,” Arsenault snapped, impatient. “She is the one who runs! Would she flee if she were not guilty?”
Still the lieutenant hesitated. His Husterri hesitated with him, waiting for a signal.
I barely saw the arrow fly. I just saw it sprout from the lieutenant’s throat, fletched in red. Movement writhed through the crowd—scarlet masks pulling down over faces, blade-sharp noses pointing toward me. And Arsenault’s leering face above it all, smiling as his red death spread through the crowd.
Red Masks. That’s what Lullaby had been trying to say.Red Masks.
One of the people holding me went limp, her body crumpling to the ground. A quick fist laid the other flat on the cobbles. Slender hands circled my arm and pulled me out of the grip of another man, who was gaping at a tall beauty who laid a bare hand on his chest.
“You look tired,” Oleander whispered, with an enchanting smile.
He collapsed at her feet. I turned and buried my head in Lullaby’s shoulder.
“I’m so glad to see you,” I whispered. “But why didn’t you escape with the other legacies?”
“Billow and Haze led a contingent to where Dowser’s waiting,” Lullaby confirmed. “But we couldn’t just leave you here.”
“We have to get you somewhere safe,” Luca growled, moving to stand beside Oleander.
“Where?” Worry slicked Oleander’s gaze as she turned on her heel and took in the scene of violence unfolding around us. “It would seem Sainte Sauvage is calling for your blood.”
Disguised wolves and Husterri had left off fighting each other and had turned as one on the Red Masks. There weren’t as many of them as the soldats in uniform, but they seemed sharper—more frightening. Each mask was a dangerous blade; each body a weapon carved out of hatred and misplaced faith and distorted ideals. And they were ruthless—bystanders fell prone on the ground or were used as human shields, while both Loup-Garou and Husterri were loath to use brutal force on innocent Ambers.
The Red Masks bore terror in their wake, and I wasn’t the only one who felt it—civilians and soldats alike fell away from their onslaught, fearful of the only thing they had that we didn’t—a symbol.
But no—that wasn’t true.
In the chaos of my confrontation with Gavin and Arsenault, I’d nearly forgotten what I’d come here to do today. This wasn’t about the Sun Heir. This wasn’t about the Ordeals. This wasn’t about what my family thought they could steal with cunning and silence and treachery. This was aboutme.
This was about everything I’d dreamed of, in that long-ago dusk at the edge of the darkness. That impossible world—more precious, more exquisite, more radiant—than the one we had been told to expect. But radiance wasn’t always sunlight. Impossible things could be wrapped up in improbable deeds. And sometimes, the things we needed most already lived inside us, caged between our ribs and buried deep inside our hearts.
We carried worlds of possibility within us, just waiting to shine light into the dim.
“We have to go back,” I gasped out.
“Back?” Luca asked.
“Back,” I confirmed. I straightened my shoulders and stood a little taller. “I’m not going to run from what I started. I’m not going to run fromhim.”
I looked at Arsenault, pacing the podium and waving the joined Relics, yelling blasphemy at his minions. Red Masks chanted his words on repeat, a cacophony of exploited prayers as they beat and maimed and mauled their way through soldat and civilian alike.
I am the sword—
I am the sword—
I am the sword—
“We have to go back,” I repeated. “I’m not done here today.”
Oleander looked like she wanted to spit poison atme. Luca slowly nodded. Lullaby set her mouth and took my arm again, making a beeline toward the podium without a backward glance. After a moment of jostling through bodies shoving in the opposite direction, she opened her mouth and began to sing.
A bubble of glory wafted before us like a shield. People stepped away from us, smiling. We neared the platform in half the time it had taken me to escape. This close, the violence was extreme. Husterri and diamond wolves fought side by side, even as Red Masks pressed close from every angle, silent hidden faces in stark contrast to the grimaces and groans echoing from the other soldats.
We were nearly there. We took cover in the shadow of a wooden support.
“What’s the plan now?” Luca growled. His hand clutched a dagger that looked too small and fragile to do much against this onslaught.
Lullaby kept softly singing, her melody like a shield around her, but I could feel her listening.
