“Nice of you to finally show up,” Nial said.
“I told you Lord Otto’s man would find her,”shesaid with a grin. “Come on, Gwen. The food is going to get cold.”
Everything felt as if I were underwater. Doubt and confusion swirled around me, tripping me. I caught myself, slamming the door and circling the table as if to take the seat next to her.
The overlords watched me keenly, and their two witnesses, Felicia, a general of the warrior forces, and Melchior, the chief strategist—both clearly confused as to why they were there.
Nial peered at me, and it was almost as if he could see what was in my heart and mind.
His eyes cracked yellow for just a flash of a moment.
Speak her name. One last time.
I opened my mouth, and choked, “Adelie, this is what we wanted. I love you always. Please forgive me.”
I didn’t hesitate. The time now.
My blow…was swift and sure.
Adelie didn’t even have a chance to turn and look at me before my sword cleaved her head from her shoulders. It was a stroke I’d learned years ago, to make sure that death was instant, none of that lingering bullshit. The head of full, beautiful red hair, curly and styled, dropped forward and landed on her own lap. The blood flowed from her neck, covering her favorite shirt with horrid crimson. I couldn’t see her face as the life flowed out of her, soaking the hair.
I held my stance for entirely too long, watching the last of my friend drip to the floor.
Blood is life.
Blood was also death.
I stabbed the sword into the table and finally broke my numb stare, pinning each overlord with a red glare that I wished could pierce their flesh.
I hissed, “It’s done.”
I marched out. I slammed the door.
I ran.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-THREE
~ GWYNNORE ~
“Gwynnore,” Nial stated, cool and unruffled.
I wasn’t answering. It wasn’t enough time.
It would never be enough time.
“Gwynnore.”
I needed time. So much more time to deal with what I had done because of the law. I knew Adelie would have approved, but I would never know for sure because I wasn’t even allowed to take her blood. All of her memories, all of her knowledge, flowed out of her, on to her clothes and dripped into pools on the floor.
I hoped each one of those assholes sat there and stared at her dead, headless body.
Hiding in my apartments, stealing through the halls, running through the mountains, hunting in the forest, none of it quelled the guilt that I bore. Adelie had been my best, and sometimes only, friend my whole life.
And I had chopped her head off.
Maybe in the afterlife, she understood what I had done, why I had done it.
The crown was my everything.
