“You’d kill me?” Amaris looked to Theodoric, her voice cracking like she was some pubescent teen.
“My son will do what he must to protect Luana Bay. If that means ridding Magoria of a murderer, then so be it,” the duke raged.
His son? Luana Bay? Magoria?A tightness in her chest overcame her breaths, as if a rubber band squeezed around her, taking every bit of life from her soul.Where the hell am I?
“Who are you?” Amaris was certain she was about to discover the biggest disaster of her life.
“If I give you the common courtesy of answering your question, will you answer mine?” he asked, and she nodded. “I’m Randolf Fastrada, Duke of Luana.”
“Amaris Carter.” She held strong against the fear she grappled with and pulled from Alan’s grasp to hold her own head high. Keeping the bite from her words was going to prove difficult, but she stifled the rage settling beneath. It was routine, throwing up her mask to prevent a fight. She released a breath and allowed her mask to settle over her features. It would keep her alive for now.
“I was informed you were found at the scene of Lord Freville’s brutal murder,” the duke said.
“I didn’t kill him,” Amaris began. “It was dark, and I fell—”
The duke raised his hand, and Amaris pursed her lips. If she followed along, maybe she could get out of it. He shifted on his throne, eyeing the sandy-haired man behind him. “Chief Bennet.”
“Lord Freville’s blood taints your hands,” Bennet began, descending the dais.
Amaris fought an eye roll for his dramatic display but immediatelyreminded herself she wasn’t in a dream. She’d been kidnapped, and these people were dangerous.
“You were covered in it as you leered over his body, watching us and waiting to kill us next.”
“I tripped,” Amaris cut in. “I couldn’t see a thing.”
“Liar!” Bennet snapped.
Amaris recoiled against his intimidation as he took a last daunting step and kneeled before her. “Please,” she begged, feeling her mask slipping away. “I want to go home.” She didn’t care about their fight or whether Derek would be drunk or sober. She wanted him, his protection.
She stiffened as Bennet’s hand reached for her face, but Alan was behind her, holding her shoulder still.
“What a beautiful mark,” he whispered only to her, the tip of his finger dragging down her cheek.
Her hand twitched as he slid his finger over the cut from Derek’s ring, forever etched into her mind.No, it was an accident.
A dull ache spread across her skin as he pinched her cheeks and shifted her face to examine the cut and what felt like a bruise.
She tore her face from his grasp and her mask slipped. “Don’t touch me.” Fiery hatred swarmed her skin, prickling along the surface, but she forced it down again as Bennet sneered. She would only make matters worse for herself, but every muscle in her body wanted to fight. It was what Viv would want her to do.
“You’re going to tell us why you’re here and why you killed a member of noble birth,” Bennet said, “before I slit your throat here and now.”
The duke coughed, and Bennet’s grip tightened around his dagger. Bennet stood and took up a stance beside Theodoric with his knife still firmly clutched in his hand and a vein bulging in his forehead.
Amaris returned her attention to the duke, who said, “I would like to hear your side of the story—how you came to Luana and how you came upon Lord Freville.”
Amaris couldn’t piece together the situation in her head, let alone explain it to anyone else. “I…” The words hung in the back of her throat as Bennet’s eyes homed in. “I’m not sure what happened. One minute I was home and…”
The blue stars.Her mind emptied.
The duke cleared his throat, pulling Amaris back into the torch-lit throne room, encasing them in dark and looming shadows.
“I couldn’t see a thing.” She would contemplate the celestial anomalies later. “I stumbled on him, like you all did.”
Theodoric raised an inquisitive eye at her before wincing and gripping the bridge of his nose. Amaris narrowed in on the squinting of his features and the clenching of his fist, but she quickly shifted her attention to the duke. “I couldn’t kill anyone.”
“You were covered in his blood and have the injuries of a fresh fight. No one else was in those woods,” Bennet snapped.
“I ran away.”
