I winced. “Do not trifle with my spiced honey cakes!”
His laughter echoed along the stones of the stairwell as he strode away. I glanced at Dorsan, gesturing to my open doorway. “Shall we?”
My guard dipped his chin. Jonas, in not-so-subtle words, had insisted until tensions eased I was not to be alone. Trouble was, we didn’t know if tensions would ever ease.
Dorsan took his place between the door and the window, while I settled beside an open trunk packed with my dresses and Jonas’s tunics.
I’d only started folding a few more tops when a flash of gold sparked on the vanity. Stones in the heirloom necklace clinked together, shiningsome of their fiery light into the room. I took off the gift after we returned to Klockglas.
I’d thought the necklace was precious when Cara delivered it for the king, but the sight of it had turned wretched the moment I left the shores of Natthaven. I hadn’t put it on since.
But where flashes of brilliant light were common when the mystical chips of stone collided, a growing spiral of light was not.
The bursts of gold spun, faster and faster, until a shield of fiery heat filled my chamber. From the fire, a figure stepped through.
My heart stalled.
Arion materialized in my bedchamber. His red hair was covered in a deep blue hood, two white iron blades were strapped to his belt. White iron did not draw blood like an average blade—it rotted affinities from the heart.
Too deep, too many cuts, and it became fatal when magic was bled out.
Somehow in my stun I managed to scream, and scramble back. Dorsan had his blade drawn in the next breath, but Arion was swifter.
One of his white iron blades flew across the room, the point disappearing deep into Dorsan’s belly.
“Dorsan!” I tried to catch his stumble, but my guard’s height and weight drew me to the ground with him.
He coughed and gasped. No blood seeped from his wound, only charred skin as the iron rotted his affinity from his heart. I gripped the hilt of the blade, desperate to yank it free, but Arion tore me away.
“Time to go, Skadinia.”
I screamed again and kicked and clawed at Arion’s arm. Cold bled over my palms, but a lance of pain chased away my affinity before it could take hold. Arion had drawn his second blade and sliced across my hand.
The white iron weakened my affinity as much as others. One strike and my head grew hazy.
“You . . . bastard.” I made a weak attempt to snatch Arion’s blade, but the prince merely sliced another gash over my arm.
I cried out, falling to the haze of the iron.
“That’s enough, Skadinia. You’ve played your games, but your place is with me.”
Through my murky vision, I watched as Dorsan struggled for breath against the cruel blade.
I watched as the light faded from my loyal guard’s eyes.
A tear slid down my cheek. The burn of the blade had overtaken my arms, leeched into my throat, and pumped through my blood with every thud of my heart.
I knew a great deal about white iron, knew how fiercely it could incapacitate magical blood. Marks of it were written across my flesh.
Arion waved a palm over the sparking charm on my necklace. “Clever, don’t you think? You’ve kept a way for me to reach you all this time.”
All gods.
It was gifted to me . . . on purpose. A second blow of betrayal was sharper than the first. Arion was a powerful Ljosalfar, one of the rare few who could summon enough light and heat with his affinity, it broke through walls, air, barriers, and allowed him to walk through it no matter how small the flare. He could always pull more until it grew into a blaze.
I’d carried the key to his door.
Arion placed a folded missive on the edge of the bed and hooked his arms under Dorsan’s unmoving body, and dragged him toward the back of the chamber.
