“Nostratum veriatis parsenethal.” The priest’s deep voice boomed over the silent audience, reaching even where Jade stood with those who had crammed into the standing room at the back. No one understood him, but it didn’t matter. The people were enraptured. It was tradition, the old speech spoken over the new monarch.
The priest retrieved a goblet that sat on a pedestal, an ornate gold vessel inlaid with rubies and diamonds. He raised the goblet in the air, speaking more nonsense words. Something in his voice struck Jade as odd, but it was likely just the foreignness of the language he spoke. Besides, Jade didn’t need a direct translation, as she had studied past coronations enough to know what was taking place. The wine in the goblet represented the royal bloodline. And as part of this ceremony, since the bloodline had shifted and Arabella was part of that new line, she would partake as well as her father.
The priest turned to Prince Reynauld, who stepped forward to meet him. But something was wrong. No one else noticed it, but Jade had been trained to pay attention to such things. The way the priest offered the goblet to Reynauld then stepped back with an extension of his arms, as though giving an over-the-top bow...It was too familiar.
He spoke again, and this time, his voice sent a chill down Jade’s spine. Reynauld lifted the goblet to drink, and some members of the crowd by the door with Jade cheered.
“NO!” Jade cried out as loudly as she could, tearing at her throat. But it was lost in the clamor, and the priest retrieved the goblet from Reynauld as Arabella stepped forward, and he offered it to her. Except it was no priest. Jade saw it now, plain as day under the ridiculous disguise.
Nicolas was dressed as a priest, handing Reynauld and Arabella a goblet of wine that Jade felt certain was poisoned with rienevoir.
“STOP!” she screamed again as she squeezed through people, and with a slight decrease in the crowd noise, her voice rose above the rest. All headsturned in her direction, including those of the people standing on the platform. Jade stared squarely at Nicolas first, though she couldn’t see his features behind the veil, then her eyes met Arabella’s panicked ones. She seemed to already know why Jade had interrupted the ceremony, casting a worried glance at her father.
Jade broke free of the crowd and ran down the clear center aisle, but the guards lining it stopped her. Two of them each grasped an arm and held her back, but Jade wouldn’t relent. “DON’T DRINK IT!”
Arabella glanced from her father back to Jade, her eyes round with alarm. She held the goblet out in front of her as though its mere presence in her hand was enough to kill her.
The priest Nicolas posed as remained in place, apparently calm and unflustered. He laid one white-gloved hand over the other in front of his robes, as if he was waiting for the disruption to end so he could carry on with the coronation.
Jade pushed back at the guards who tried to stop her, struggling to get free. “It’s poisoned,” she said directly to them. “I’m Captain Jade Ni’ihm. I’ve been investigating the murders—”
“I don’t care who you are,” one of them said gruffly. “We’ll not have you causing a scene at the coronation.”
But whatever scene Jade had made was quickly topped and forgotten. At the front of the cathedral, Prince Reynauld coughed.
Arabella took a reactive step back, her face going pale. Reynauld couldn’t control his cough, and it turned into wheezing. The goblet fell from Arabella’s hand, clattering on the marble floor and echoing off the tall ceilings. She had just witnessed this same course of events with her sister.
An uneasy murmur in the crowd rose to panicked gasps and shouts as Reynauld reached out to Arabella, but she continued to back away, her face frozen in shock, and Reynauld fell to the floor.
“He’s not the priest!” Jade cried, for the guards and for anyone else who would listen. “It’s the assassin!”
The supposed priest, who still stood placidly as Reynauld convulsed on the floor and the crowd had erupted into chaos, faced Jade. The guards holding her turned to the stage where the prince lay dying as the priest slowly took small steps backward.
In the bedlam that ensued as the heir to the throne met his end, no one paid any attention to the “priest” or cared about anything Jade had said. An uproarious cacophony echoed off the cathedral’s arched ceilings, and the guards loosened their hold on Jade. The second she broke free, the priest ran.
He dumped his heavy robes, revealing the black clothing underneath that Jade had been so close to only hours before. And then he was gone, vanished down a passage at the back of the cathedral.
Jade sprinted down the aisle and onto the platform, paying no attention to anything happening around her, including Reynauld dying and Arabella inching toward a breakdown. She only had eyes for her target. She refused to let him get away this time.
As she entered the passage where he’d disappeared, she caught sight of the head covering billowing behind him and used it to follow his movements. But then she heard the smack of fabric against the floor and soon came across the discarded headpiece. She slowed for only a moment, instinctively following the path Nicolas must have taken. The creaking of hinges as a door opened followed by an abrupt slam proved she was heading in the right direction.
Jade pushed through the door and stumbled down a few stone steps, the sudden brightness of morning light blinding her momentarily. She regained her footing, pausing for only a moment to scan the street for Nicolas. As it was not a primary road for travel, the narrow street behind the cathedral was not slammed with the same crowds on the other sides. Nicolas was easy to spot as a dark blemish against the revealing daylight.
Pounding footsteps approached behind her, and Jade knew without looking that it was some of the castle guards. She bolted again after Nicolas,twisting down an unusual path until the narrow back streets opened to a wide avenue that ran beside a river. Jade sprinted as quickly as she could down the almost empty street toward Nicolas, with the majority of the crowd stacked outside the cathedral. She pushed her legs harder, faster, ignoring the burn of her muscles and the stitch in her side. Jade wouldn’t lose the assassin again.
Gunshots fired from behind her, and Jade dropped to the ground, her momentum sending her body scraping across the pavement. Loose rocks bit into her splayed palms and tore at her uniform. She first glanced back at the shooters, finding the guards from the cathedral on her heels, and then she turned to Nicolas to see if any of the shots met their mark.
The first volley appeared to miss Nicolas completely, and he shifted his path toward the river. He was going to try to take cover in the water.
At the water’s edge, Nicolas halted and turned. Jade’s heart skidded to a stop.
He met her eyes for only a moment, but in that moment, Jade saw him. The true prince, rejected, hunted, hated. Stripped of what was rightfully his. In that fraction of a second, an overwhelming desire filled Jade, a wish that Nicolas had never sought revenge. She wanted to see the prince reclaim his throne. But the path he had chosen only led to death.
A second round of shots went off, breaking their shared gaze. He ducked, and Jade caught the flash of a half-smile before he turned and made to jump, right as more shots were fired. This time, Nicolas jerked, and a fine mist of blood splatter filled the air behind him. He staggered as he continued on, still managing to dive into the water as the guards shot a fourth and final round.
Jade leaped to her feet and raced to the water’s edge. The river rippled where Nicolas had jumped in, but it quickly began to still. She kept her eyes on the spot for as long as she thought it likely to expect another movement, but nothing came to the surface.
A bridge crossed the river a few strides away, a thick, curved stone bridge with a rounded opening underneath for vessels to pass through. Jaderan to the bridge and crested it, stopping at its highest point and peering out over the water. Sunlight glinted off the normal ripples of the river’s lazy flow. Jade shielded her eyes against the glare, but it was no use. There was no sign of Nicolas.
