He swayed at the sudden loss of support and went down onto one knee, head bowed.
The two women stepped together, in front of Val, and gripped the sword together, lifting it high between them just as the door crashed open.
Chapter Twenty-One
Everything took too fucking long.
The cavalry guards at Court Gate couldn’t understand why a squad of Palace Blues was heading back into the palace they had just left and tried to send them back to the barracks. Tristan had been entirely comfortable with killing them all where they stood, but luckily for them, Mathos’s parade ground bellowing had convinced them to stand back.
The cobbled bridge seemed to have stretched impossibly as they clattered their way to the gate.
The discussion as they left Jeremiel and Garet with the horses was interminable. The men would wait for ten minutes and then quietly lead the horses away to join up with Rafael and Reece. There was no way anyone was coming back out the front. Why did it take so bloody long to explain?
And then the guards on the inner gate gave them another round of skeptical looks as Tristan strode forward flanked by Mathos, Tor, and Jos.
He ignored them. They could see the fucking blue tunic.
“Halt.”
He narrowed his eyes and slowly turned to face the soldier. The same one that had had his eyeballs glued to Nim’s chest. It would be a pleasure to end this asshole just for the way he’d looked at Nim.
“I knew I recognized you, you’re the captain that got sent back down to the stables.” He nudged his friend with his elbow and chortled.
Tristan took a step forward, and another, until he was looming over the guard. The soldier swallowed heavily as Tristan slowly raised his hand. His fingers were still tipped with brutal curved claws; he had no idea how to get rid of them. And, at that moment, he wanted nothing more than to slowly sink one into the guard’s eye.
His thoughts must have shown on his face, because the man stepped back with a strangled sound, and then Mathos was there, hand back on Tristan’s shoulder, eyes flicking up to the archers focused on them from the unfinished walls in a silent message.
“We came back,” Tor answered for him as the soldier gulped and then wisely stepped aside.
And then they were moving again.
Before they could reach the great hall, the wooden doors swung open and a great rush of people came pouring out. From the snatches of conversation that he could overhear, it sounded as if the king had retired for the night and the guests now felt safe to make a run for it. The cleaners were already busy in the hall, and everyone there wanted to get far away as quickly as they could.
It was chaos as everyone pushed and shoved, trying to get back to their carriages in a great heaving mass. A few brave, or stupid, people whispered about Val and the queen, but they were quickly shushed by their panicked friends as they hurried away.
This was where their blue uniforms finally helped. A large, empty circle formed around them as everyone tried to avoid them, chatter dying away into brittle silence and anxious glances.
Tristan’s fingers ached as his claws lengthened impossibly further and the dark pit inside him gaped wider. This was where he had to choose a direction—hall or chamber, Val or Nim.
The thought of leaving Val hanging in the hall burned like acid. But with the king already in his chambers, Nim had to be his priority. If he could ask him, Val would agree.
They peeled away from the crowds, down a covered walkway, past the pair of guards that stepped back with a suspicious look, and into the palace proper.
A wide marble foyer filled with art, gleaming in the soft lamplight, led up to a long corridor carpeted in plush blues, which Tristan knew led to official chambers, libraries, and studies.
Ahead there was a set of stairs, carpeted and flanked by lamps glowing in their sconces, leading up to the royal sleeping chambers.
An alert palace guard in an immaculate blue tunic stood at the bottom of the stairs, watching them suspiciously as they strode over to him.
Tristan recognized his face. A good-looking Tarasque, the sheen of copper-colored scales creeping around his jaw. He’d been climbing remarkably swiftly through the ranks, just promoted to work with the Lord Chancellor a few months before the Hawks had been demoted to the cavalry. It must have been bloody lonely to be the only competent man surrounded by Ballanor’s cronies and relations for so long.
Did the Blue have any respect left for his former captain? Would it be enough to get them through?
A quick look at the man’s set jaw and narrowed eyes ended that hope.
Although, if he were being honest, Tristan was sick of this game that they were playing. It would be a relief to finally acknowledge exactly whose side he was on and act on it.
“Stand aside. We have palace business.” Mathos’s tone could have cut glass.
