The inn’s main door exploded inward from my magic, the planks splintering like kindling. Every conversation in the common room stopped dead as I strode inside, power crackling around me.
The air in the room changed, the way it always did before a storm hit the coast. People leaned away from me, their eyes wide, feeling the promise in my magic. I made no effort to hide my fury. Anyone standing between me and her would not be on their feet for long.
Isi had slumped in her chair, her face as pale as parchment, her breathing shallow and labored. Lexie leaned toward her, one hand pressed to her forehead, her eyes flaring with panic.
For a heartbeat, I couldn’t move. My mind refused to acknowledge the sight of her head hanging at an unnatural angle, her lips parted, her breathing ragged.
“She collapsed,” Lexie was telling the innkeeper, her voice tight with fear. “One moment she was fine, and then?—”
“It’s horrible,” Maddox said, sounding and looking bored. “Did she eat something at dinner that disagreed with her?”
Rage flooded my system. Power crackled around me, my magic responding to the emotion, and each piece of glass in the room—windows, bottles, lamps—sang a high, crystalline note of warning.
Every soul inside this inn knew that if they came between me and her, they’d be dead before they hit the ground.
Maddox’s gaze found mine across the room, and his slick smile faltered, panic taking its place.
As I slammed my way to their corner, he leaned over Isi and yanked another vial from his pocket, flipping off the stopper and dumping it into her mouth.
“Antidote,” he said with a shrill note to his voice. “It was a joke!”
Reeling away from her, he raced toward the back of the building.
I whipped out magic, slamming a bolt into his back. He barked out a cry and staggered forward, smacking into the wall, before falling to the floor. Lifting him, I flung him against the ceiling. Again. Only then releasing him to drop onto the hard planks. He groaned but did not rise.
“Bind him,” I snarled. “Take him to my guards.”
Within seconds, I was scooping Isi up into my arms. Her head lolled against my shoulder, her skin too pale and cold. But her heart still beat, weak, but steady.
She lived, and I’d destroy the very fates themselves to keep her this way.
I ran toward the entrance.
Lexie’s gaze followed Isi. “King Trewyn?—”
“Get back to the castle.”
They scrambled to obey, though I barely registered their movement. All my attention remained on the woman in my arms, on the way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks, and on the barely visible rise and fall of her chest.
I’d carried wounded soldiers from battlefields. I’d held dying friends and even a few fallen enemies.
My father.
My mother.
I’d never felt anything like the terror that gripped me now as I rushed toward the castle.
The journey passed in a haze of single-minded purpose. I took the most direct route to the healers’ wing, passing staff who wheeled out of the way, some pressing their bodies against the stone walls.
I must look ready to rip off someone’s head—because I was. They universally bowed, saying absolutely nothing.
I bent close enough that my lips brushed the curve of her ear, so only she could hear.
“Don’t leave me, Isi,” I whispered in her ear. “Minx. You are not allowed to leave me.”
Inside the ward, Healer Meren took one look at Isi and directed me to place her on the nearest bed.
“Some sort of poison,” I barked. “She recently drank it and received an antidote.”
