We ride hard. My concern for Noemi is a great distraction from the ache between my legs.
The half hour’s journey Stark and I took from the city lasts maybe five minutes on the way back—and costs the city of Brightbane several low-hanging structures and a pen of pigs that was set loose as we barreled straight through everything in our path.
By the time we’re past the gates and waved inside by the guards, Anassa is panting and her muscles are shaking from the prolonged full-on sprint. I jump from her back, checking in with her as I race up the pale stone steps of the palace.
“Just get to the girl,” she says.
Stark runs past me and slams the doors open. I march through, out of breath and hand on my dagger’s hilt, eyes scanning the hall before me. My father whirls around, startled by our sudden entrance.
Fredrich’s eyes widen when he sees me, and he rushes toward us.
“Where’s—?”
“Saela is safe in her rooms.” My surprise that he knew the question before I asked it stuns me into silence, and I let him take my arm and guide me down the hall at a clipped pace. “I’ll return to her once I’ve taken you to them.”
Noemi’s agony still tears through the bond, but it’s now been joined by Venna’s alarm and anger. Shouts echo through the high halls as we draw closer. Dread sinks into my bones.
“Where are we going?”
“The king’s personal chambers,” my father replies.
I curse inwardly and reach for Stark for some semblance of calm. His mind meets mine, and he soothes me as best as he’s able while feeling halfway murderous himself. Even then, Noemi’s emotions are devastatingly violent, gouging deep into the bone inside my skull.
There’s a shriek ahead, and I lurch into a sprint again. Then comes what sounds like furniture crashing and armor scraping against stone.
I turn the corner and stop dead in my tracks.
To think, I left with Stark precisely toavoidcausing a diplomatic crisis.
It’s chaos. Royal guards are restraining Noemi, who fights against them. She has a deep scrape over her brow that’s pouring blood down the side of her pale face.
Venna is rifting, disappearing and reappearing in different places around the room. Each time she steps out of the darkness, the guards startle and whirl, their faces taut with concentration as they try to track her movements.
At the center of it all is Lucien. He stands in a casual, lazy lean against the ornately carved entrance to his chambers. He looks as if he’s posing for a portrait, not like he’s watching diplomatic relations break down before his eyes.
And he’s bleeding.Everywhere.
The entire front of his silk robe—egregiously drawn open at his chest—is dyed scarlet with it. There’s a deep wound at his shoulder, already healing but clearly serious.
His expression as he watches Noemi struggle is strange. The top half of his face looks amused, like a cat toying with a mouse. The bottom half is twisted with what looks like cold anger.
I immediately push a deafening order through the bond.“Stand down.”
Noemi and Venna freeze in place, bodies locking up but faces still communicating obvious anger. There will be time to talk through all this—afterward.
I step forward. Lucien’s guards part before me. The king watches as Stark and I approach. He clearly takes in the ruined state of my dress and the way Stark’s shirt hangs open from where I tore it off him.
“Sorry if we interrupted something,” he drawls.
“Tell me what happened,” I demand, ignoring him.
Multiple voices begin speaking at once. Lucien raises his hand, and they’re strangled silent.
“It would seem that this one”—he gestures to Noemi—“somehow tracked my movements and gained access to my private chambers, then proceeded to lie in wait with a dagger coated in poison.”
He pauses to just barely curl his upper lip at her before his gaze cuts back to me.
“When I entered my bedroom, she ambushed me and managed to wound me deeply before my guards responded to the commotion. I assume thenyouinformedthat one”—he gestures at Venna—“that one of your own was in grave peril, because she came running to point more weapons at me. And thus, the very standoff you see before you.”
