I see my chance to seal Rohan’s freedom, and, hopefully, Cassia’s freedom with him, but I need to act fast because Galla is already drawing a deep breath, and I’m certain she’s about to rally.
My hand lands on her arm, and whatever poison she was about to spew dies in her throat, a mangled sound, as she wrenches herself away from my touch.
I take a single step after her, and Antony follows me, staying close to my back.
“Galla darling, I’m sorry you’re upset about Rohan, but he was following us around.” I widen my eyes at her. “It was so very tedious. I did ask him to stop. I did warn him.”
Her face is pale and her voice shrill as she forms the assumption I hoped she would. “You…killed him?”
I stretch my lips into a grimace and lift my shoulders in an apologetic shrug. “I didn’t think you’d mind. He was marked for death tonight anyway, was he not?”
“But, I?—”
“You wanted to see it happen. I understand. How disappointing for you.” Without taking my eyes off her, I gesture to the left. “Perhaps one of your lords will volunteer to take his place?”
At the corner of my eye, Antony’s smile grows even more menacing.
Galla shakes her head, a side-to-side motion she can’t seem to stop making as she backs away from Antony and me. A darkness falls across her features, a deepening shadow as more of the sun’s rays slip behind the horizon in the distance.
“All of them,” she whispers.
A quiet hum starts up through the crowd. Even Galla’s lords don’t seem to understand her meaning, shuffling where they stand.
“Mistress?” Quintus asks.
“All of you!” she screams, pointing at me with a furiously trembling hand. “Kill that witch!”
Chapter Sixty
Antony
Whatever cruel plans Galla had for tonight, Thyra has disrupted them.
But with disruption comes danger.
Thyra may have given me the perfect opportunity to take out all of Galla’s lords, and in doing so, created the climate for the perfect diversion to slip away and get the hammer, but Galla is never more vicious than when she’s angry.
She will cut and shred and strike until there’s nothing left…
Her chin raised at a haughty angle, Galla backs toward the dais, trembling as she continues to point at Thyra and scream. “Tear that witch apart! Teach her the meaning of pain!”
As each of Mother’s ten lords spreads out, prowling to form a wide circle around us, and all the other highborn and their lowborn servants scramble to the far edges of the room, I draw Thyra close, taking the chance to speak while I can. “When Azul swoops, fly to the temple on the western slope. Get the hammer.”
Her gaze flashesto me. “You’re coming with me.”
“Not this time.”
When she recounted to me her vision of the Vividari tomb, the full extent of her description hadn’t registered. I was focused only on her hope that she could open the chamber.
“You were walking alone.”
“Oh.” She exhales softly, as if she’s realizing it now, too. Her forehead pinches, a growing tension before she gives me a nod.
If I thought I could get her into the air already, I would, but I need to take down the lords first, or they’ll fly after her.
“Until then, stay close to me,” I say, taking note that Mother’s ladies have all hurried to the far corner near the dais, including Emiliana, who is suddenly shoved to the most exposed edge of their group. Delphina’s are the last hands to shove Emiliana onto the open floor, where she hunches, far too close to the fight.
The way Emiliana flinched when Delphina’s hands landed on her back…
