My heart is pounding so loudly in my ears I can barely think. He’s felt it. He’s felt my rage. He knows I want him dead.Fuck! It’s over.
Gods, I’m going to die. I’m going to die right here in this room, and then what will happen? Will Larus try to avenge me? Will he fight his way through as many of them as he can before they bring him down too?
And Adria. Would she fight for me? Or would she stay her hand?
Does the war mean more to her than I do?
Taran, the Orsan guard, leaps from the dais. I freeze as he closes the distance to me.
I should do something. I should sink the room into shadow. I should pull my dagger or my sword and fight for my life.
But I can’t. I’m frozen in place. Not by magic, but by fear. It’s a terrible, all-encompassing fear. I can feel death. I can feel how close it is.
But I’m not fighting. It’s happening again, and this time, it will be my last.
Just pull your sword. Go down swinging at least.
I can’t. I just can’t.
I shut my eyes and wait for death to come.
Chapter Ten
But it doesn’t.
Death doesn’t come. Not for me.
I hear the terrible slicing sound of steel through guts—familiar to me now, this being the third time in three days.
At least this time I’m not the one doing the stabbing.
I peek one of my eyes open to see the man who was standing next to me topple over, the contents of his abdomen spilling onto the stone floor.
A throwing knife falls from his hand to the ground. Was he planning to kill the king too, or didmythoughts damn him?
Did I just get this man killed?
Around me, chaos erupts abruptly when his body hits the floor.
There are scattered screams and the drawing of weapons, a stampede of nobility running for the exits, the guards shouting directions that go unheeded.
Taran grabs my arm.
“Let go of me!” I yell, but his grip is tight, and he pulls me with little effort away from the carnage.
I turn to look over my shoulder for Adria and Larus, but I can’t see them over the frantic movements of the crowd.
By the time I look back around, Taran has led me into the antechamber.
Ronan is there, his back turned. He’s giving directions to the guards, who are escorting an older woman from the chamber.
“Anything?” he asks Taran.
“Just the knife on the ground. Gaius will search the body and his rooms.”
“House?”
“Corvinus,” says Cyrus. “They’ve been hit particularly hard by your changes to indenturing.”
