“Figure of speech,” Lev said.“You’re trying to split Ether.”
Alobaz glared at Lev but continued on: “I wasn’t thinking things through.Death throes aren’t exactly the ideal time for it.”
And that had to be what happened to him.Just because sänglures didn’t easily die for good didn’t mean that every other time they almost died didn’t feel just the same and just as awful as their first mortal deaths.Almost dying still felt like dying.
That was why Alobaz had putherfirst.Why he’d cared so much about saving someone whom he should have been condemning to her own death.
And what about now, huh?He should be ordering her execution, not searching her out to … what?Confront her?Accuse her?Get answers?
He wasn’t going to see her because he felt a pressing need to lay eyes on her.To make sure that she—after attempting to assassinate him—was safe.That couldn’t be the reason.
It simply couldn’t be.He wouldn’t allow it.That would be … absurd.
It would be weak.
“What are we going to do once we get to her?”Félix asked.
Alobaz growled.He wouldnotbe weak.He wouldnotallow himself to be used, manipulated, or betrayed again.Never again.
“I’m going to interrogate her.Find out who she is and why the fuck she tried to kill me.”
“Right on,” Night said.
“And after that?”Félix asked.
“That depends on who she is and why she tried to kill me,” Alobaz said.As soon as the answer was free of his lips, he knew it was the wrong one.
“She’ll be punished for what she did,” Alobaz amended.
“The punishment for a sänglure who committed the offense of an assassination attempt on a royal of the empire is permanent death, draining of all their body’s blood and chopping off their head.Along with, of course, the usual punishment: public disembowelment, total dismemberment, then slow roasting of all the individual parts over the punisher’s spit.”
“Yes, Lev, I know.Thanks for quoting my own father’s laws to me, though,” Alobaz said.
“Not a problem.”Lev was still too damn fucking chipper!“So you’ll do it?After fighting to save her, you’ll see her put to death?”
“Of course,” Alobaz said even though it made his insides roil.
“Glad to see you back to your usual self, General,” Zi said.“You had us scared for a bit there.No good ever comes from showing weakness or mercy.”
“Truth,” Lev said.“Gotta roll with that big dick show of force.”
“Sage advice as always, Lev,” Alobaz said.
He beamed.
“I was being sarcastic.”
He smiled wider.“Oh, I know.”
Alobaz sighed.“You fuckers are gonna be the end of me.”
Moncho palmed him on the back hard enough to send stars shooting through his vision.
He cringed.“Aw, shit, Baz, sorry!I forgot about your stab wound.”
“How the fuck could you, Monch?”Lev said.“That’s the whole point of all this.”
“Not used to seeing the big guy anything less than indestructible.”
