I braced my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath as an inhuman groan slipped out of Rooke’s mouth. I’d never seen anything as horrendously cruel as that perfect skin shredding, the relentless drip, drip, drip of Rooke’s blood hitting the floor like a faucet.
Bloodsinger.
Gravelock—Lord Butcher—had Bloodsinger magic, and after only hearing tales, now I was seeing that hideous power in action, carving deep gouges through Rooke’s flesh, turning the arrogant prince into a macabre masterpiece of red and black and white, as I frantically re-counted the guards, deciding how many I could take out in my first sweep.
I rose from my hiding place, hand gripping the banister, preparing to jump, when Rooke’s pained one-word moan—No—pinned me in place.
His bloodied eyes narrowed in warning, before he managed to jerk his head to the side. Just once. Something poked at the edge of my consciousness, and then, inside my head…a deep, masculine voice…
Stay right there, commander.
Today is not your day to die.
Let this play out.
Along with his warning, pain blazed through me in searing ribbons, every hard-fought word sounding like they might be Rooke’s last.
I can do this. Let me help.
You’re…no good to me dead, commander. Stay right the fuck there.
“I’m…not sure…what you think you’re…accomplishing. You…kill me now…where will you ever…get enough blood…for your pathetic scheme to work?” Rooke grunted, body torquing wildly beneath Gravelock’s assault, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists.
Gravelock sighed. “You are, for once, correct. As entertaining as this has been, soon enough I shall need every last drop.” Rooke crashed to the ground with a bone-shattering thump. “Fan out.” He ordered the guards. “Scour every last inch, bring mewhomever you find.”
Which meant Rooke bled out like a stuck Grimbeast on his pristine marble floors for the next twenty minutes while I tried to stay one step ahead of the guards, out of sight of a raving Gravelock, pacing back and forth in front of Rooke, telling him all the very creative ways he was going to die in a voice loud enough to carry through the entire castle.
Stamping feet marched past my hiding place, where I curled myself into a ball beneath a window ledge, drawing myself back into the dark crevice as far as I could go.
I could make a run for it, try to get free of the castle, but something about leaving Rooke at the mercy of the Butcher didn’t sit right with me. I took a bracing breath, tightened my grip on my knife and slid from the shadows. I was nearly out of my hiding place when a black feather floated down in front of me, landing on the stone floor.
Fire roared through the empty space, incinerating the feather—fire that would have turned me to ash if I’d crept out from my dark corner. A second later, two Fae guards swept past, flames flickering at their fingers, a look of death on their blank faces.
Something rustled above me and I ducked lower, then a raven flitted through the air, landing on the back of a chair, tilting his head, peering at me. He flapped away, soaring through an open doorway.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Are you helping or leading me into a trap?”
I kept my head down, following the sound of rustling wings, heading deeper into the castle, away from that ranting voice, ducking into one room, then the next.
Every time the raven stopped, I found somewhere to hide while he perched high up on the ceiling beams like a silent sentinel until it was finally time for me to move again.
It was uncanny, the way the little beast anticipated thesoldiers’ movements, kept me from being incinerated more than once, fluffing his feathers once the enemy was gone before taking off again.
The two of us wove through the labyrinthine castle, down twisting stone stairs, cavernous hallways, until I had completely lost my bearings.
I hid in armoires and under beds, behind tapestries that smelled like mold.
Until finally, I was back where I started—up on the balcony, guards closing in from both sides. Trapped, I crab-crawled back into the shadows on my hands and knees while my friend the raven soared up into the highest part of the ceiling, like he knew I was beyond saving.
Or maybe he just wanted a better view of me getting incinerated, who knew?
“You think you’re smarter than me, but where has all your cleverness ever gotten you?” Gravelock crouched down in front of Kaden, ran his finger through the blood on the floor, smearing it around like a painting. “You’re weak, like your father, and like him, you will die at my hand.”
“At least I’m not the one wasting my afternoon chasing down a mirage,” Rooke panted, “but by all means, continue to waste your time searching.”
I folded myself beneath a writing desk under the window, heavy boots tromping back and forth as the guards poked swords into the shadows, shot tendrils of fiery magic into every dark corner. Sooner or later, I’d be burned out of my hiding place—or skewered—and then I’d be about a hundred ways fucked.
Like hanging in the air while I bled out, fucked.
