The sound was impossibly loud. The bullet found its mark—through the attacker's temple, clean and final. He dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut, taking Kailin down with him.
The door crashed open, the bolt ripping free from the frame.
Morek burst through first, moving with that inhuman speed of his. He was a blur, crossing the room before my eyes could track him. One of my attackers went down, Morek having disarmed him and broken his arm.
Codric and Shovia were right behind him. They tackled another attacker together, bearing him to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Shovia had her knife at his throat before he could recover.
The hall monitor appeared in the doorway, weapon drawn, eyes wide at the carnage.
The fourth attacker, the one I'd wounded earlier, made a break for the window. He grabbed the cable they'd used to descend from above and launched himself out into the night.
I started after him, but Morek caught my arm. "Let him go. Go take care of Kailin."
I stumbled across the destroyed room, where Kailin sat on the floor, the dead attacker sprawled beside her. She was shaking, blood spattered over her nightclothes.
"Are you hurt?" I dropped to my knees beside her, running my hands over her arms, her shoulders, checking for wounds. "Kailin, talk to me."
"I'm—not hurt." Her voice was thin, breathy. "He didn't—you shot him before?—"
"I know. I know." I pulled her into my arms, holding her tight while she trembled. "You're safe. You're safe now."
Footsteps pounded in the hallway. More security arrived, alerted by the shot and the screaming. They flooded into the room with weapons drawn, taking in the scene with professional scrutiny.
Then Ravel was there. His eyes swept the room—the broken window, the scattered furniture, the bodies, the blood. They settled on Kailin and me, and something shifted in his expression.
Fury.
He was furious, but I didn't know whether it was at the assassins for trying to kill Kailin or me for not doing a good enough job of protecting her.
"Get a medic," he ordered. "Now. And secure those two prisoners before they bleed out. I want them alive for questioning."
The security team took over for Codric and Shovia, binding the attacker they'd tackled to the ground. Morek's guy was unconscious, so he couldn't give the team any trouble.
That left the dead one. The man I'd shot to save Kailin's life.
Ravel crouched beside the body, pulling down the mask. The face staring sightlessly at the ceiling was young, mid-twenties, and looked Elucian. He had the rough hands of a laborer, and I wondered what his job was at the Citadel. Ravel patted his pockets and pulled out a small packet with the remnants of a brown, sticky substance. He brought it to his nose, sniffed, and grimaced.
"This smells like the drugs the Shedun ingest before attacking," Ravel said. "If he uses this crap, he must be a convert."
Kailin's trembling intensified, and I held her tighter to me.
How much more of this could she handle?
Perhaps instead of refusing my family's request to come home, I should use it to get her out of here. Nothing was worth her life. Not becoming a rider, not what I'd come here to do, and not that damn prophecy.
I could deal with my parents' reaction to her.
"There were four of them," Codric said from where he stood near the shattered window. "One escaped."
"He's not going to make it far." Ravel looked at me and then Kailin. "They were obviously after Kailin. How did you two manage to fight them off?"
I shifted my grip on her. "I felt that something was wrong, then I heard them at the window. They were using ropes to rappel from the platform above us."
"Your instincts saved your lives." Ravel regarded me with newfound appreciation. "Elucia is in your debt, Alar. I'm in your debt."
I wanted to ask what he'd meant by that when a medic pushed through the crowd. "Anyone hurt?"
"Not seriously," Morek said.
