Her only answer was the pulse in her throat, frantic and deafening.
King Edmund saw him next, and the transformation was immediate. The King’s face, always so disciplined, collapsed intosomething raw and shocked. “You,” he hissed, the word more curse than greeting. “You’re supposed to be—”
“Supposed to be what?” The man smiled mildly, a sight utterly at odds with the carnage. “Dead?”
He moved again, this time directly toward the king. The other rebels fell back, forming a perimeter. Edmund met the black-clothed figure head-on, his sword singing through the air. Their blades clashed once, twice, sparks flying, but on the third pass he caught the King’s wrist in an iron grip.
“Enough,” he said, voice low.
The King tried to twist free. “You have no right—”
The attacker’s other hand closed over Edmund’s and pried the sword away with humiliating ease. He spun the king in a half-circle and sent him sprawling into the wall, then tossed the ceremonial sword across the room. It clattered at Alina’s feet.
In the silence that followed, Alina could not look away from her mother’s drawn face, more terrified than she had ever seen her before. Queen Isabella reached for her, nails biting into her arm. “Please, Alina,” she whispered. “You must run.”
Lord Rowan stepped forward, placing himself bodily between the women and the intruder. He was still holding his dagger, pointing it at the man. “You will not touch them, Kael Stormborne,” Rowan said, his face a mask of rage and disgust.
Kael tilted his head. “I have no quarrel with you, Ashford. Step aside.”
Rowan did not move. “Never.”
For a split second, the two men faced off. In that instant, Alina thought she saw something—respect, or regret, even—pass between them.
Kael sighed. “As you wish.”
Then he was a blur. Rowan’s dagger flashed, but Kael caught his arm and twisted, using Rowan’s own momentum to send him skidding across the marble. Rowan rolled until he came up on one knee, dagger ready. Kael ignored him.
He walked straight to Alina.
For a moment, nothing happened. He stood just a pace away, golden eyes burning into hers. The sound of the battle faded. Alina realized, with a distant part of her brain, that she was trembling—not with fear, exactly, but with something harder to name.
Kael reached out, slow and deliberate, and took her hand.
At the first touch, a jolt ran up her arm, a spark of sensation so sharp she gasped aloud. Her entire body went rigid, every nerve lighting up in sequence. The amulet at her throat pulsed, the crystal blazing hot against her skin. She had expected a hard grip, but he held her hand gently. She fleetingly marveled at how it was possible to fight in one second and hold back your power in the next.
Kael’s gaze flicked to the amulet, then back to her face. He smiled, this time without irony.
“Hello, Princess,” he said.
Alina opened her mouth to speak, only for no sound to emerge.
Behind him, the other rebels kept watch on the doors. King Edmund struggled to his feet, murder in his eyes.
“You will not take her!” the king bellowed, voice echoing off the stone.
Kael did not turn. He leaned in, his voice so soft that only Alina could hear: “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t understand, but in that moment, she believed him.
Then he pulled her forward, one arm wrapping around her shoulders. The amulet seared her skin, so bright it left a starburst in her vision. Her mother screamed, the sound distant and underwater.
Kael whispered a single word.
The world went white.
For a moment, there was nothing but the burn of light behind Alina’s eyelids, the howl of wind in her ears, and the scald of Kael’s grip on her arm.
Sensation returned with violence: every nerve in her body shuddered, a thousand hammers pounding on the inside of her skin. The heat of his touch became a line of fire, tracing the length of her limb up to her shoulder, then bursting outward in a latticework of pure sensation.
