I throw the candle down, right at the base of the nearest gauzy curtains. His indulgences will cost him everything. Flame roars up, hot and instantaneous, licking at the rugs between us. One of the guards is wearing a cloak and fire eats at thefabric like a hungry dragon, consuming him in mere seconds. He screams, falling to the floor and kicking as the guards rear back.
My eyes meet Kari’s.
“I’ll come for you,” I mouth.
Then I turn and bolt along the hallway.
The clock strikes midnight as I sprint, bending to pick up a fallen sword. A heavy chandelier swings in the entry as I take the stairs on swift feet, heading for the main doors. A guard appears at the bottom, but I have the higher ground.
That bone deep grinding begins beneath us, and I skid to a halt as the walls begin to shift.
By Malus’s thorns!The stairs kick and buck beneath me, sending me sprawling. Rooms shift, hallways realigning, and stairs slowly spin, coming out on a different level. The stairs I’m standing on now lead directly into a wall, where the guard seems to be embedded, one boot sunk halfway into the plaster. Lunging for the rail, I stare longingly at the exit, which now seems so far away.
There has to be another way.
“Fucking Labyrinth,” I growl, turning to go back up the stairs, only to find one of Rhykus’ guards sauntering down them, hefting an almighty axe. There are two more guards on his heels.
“He wants me alive,” I point out.
The newcomer glares at me. “That was my brother you just set on fire, bitch. I don’t give a fuck what Rhykus wants. You’re dead.”
I lunge for the rail, but the axe shears through the polished mahogany, shattering it into splinters. Throwing myself underhis blow, I try to dart around him but he grabs a fistful of my dress and hauls me backward.
I go down on the stairs, the world flipping end over end, before I skid to a flailing halt. It knocks the breath from me. The sword is gone. My knife too. I find the latter on the stairs three above me, glittering under the lamplight, the rose engraving winking at me.
Lunging for it, I wrap my fingers around the blade just as the guard slams his boot down. With a scream, I yank my hand back and he backhands me, sending me flying into the wall, where I hit the floor.
Then he’s on me before I can even recover, casting the axe aside so he can use brute strength.
This is clearly personal.
I scream as hands wrap around my throat, pressure squeezing tight. Spittle flecks the warrior’s lips, his teeth bared in a grinning rictus. Locking my thighs around his shoulders, I try to throw him, but he’s at the wrong angle, and his weight seems impossible. I slam my palm into his elbow, but his weight merely drives more heavily onto my throat. My knee finds his ribs, but it’s a glancing blow. Nothing works and panic blooms, hot and tight in my gut as I kick and struggle. Breathing… hard. The world grows narrow, a dark tunnel blooming in the centre of my vision.
No. Not like this.
I haven’t found Aylin.
I haven’t even had a chance tolive.
A hard knee shoves between my thighs. “You thought you could break the rules?” Hot breath scours my face. “Arrogant little huntress. These brides are ours. Andyouare mine. I’m going to choke you unconscious, and then I’m going to fuck you with your own knife?—”
Movement blurs.
Blood sprays across my face.
Hot. Wet.
And the man’s weight crashes down atop me, except for one vital element: His head.
I shove at him, sucking in a lungful of air as his head catapults down the stairs, coming to a halt by the wall.
Someone hauls the weight off me. Coughing and sputtering, I shove to my hands and knees, gasping. Precious oxygen. Gods, that was close. Every inch of my throat feels bruised.
It takes me several seconds to recover, and the sound of a man’s scream echoes as someone is thrown over the railing. Whoever my saviour is, they haven’t paused. Shadows blur, blood sprays, and one by one, bodies slump to the ground around me as I slowly push onto one knee, finding the knife on the stairs again.
Just because he saved me, it doesn’t mean that he’s a hero, brave and true. In this world, those kinds of men don’t exist.
An enormous figure crouches over the last of Rhykus’s fallen men, shoulders heaving with breath. Gore wets his arm to the elbow, and his fist is sunk deep inside the chest of the last man he killed.
