He’s rocking me, I think. Either way, I feel him all around me.
I’d feared this for so many years—dying, being killed by a violent hand. Now it’s here, and all I can see or think about is Mikail. I feel his love surrounding me like a warm blanket on a cold day. I was so lonely before I met him, wandering the massive palace halls by myself. No father. A mother who’d beat me before deigning to hold my hand. Siblings who dismissed me. What an incredible thing it was to have found him. To have had his hand brush mine in the garden all those years ago. What a gift to have loved him every day since. And to have had his love, too.
It is such a blessing to think of love in the end. I feel nothing but gratitude.
I love you, Mikail.
I try to say it. I think I do. My vision is fading, but I hold on to the image of his face as long as I can. My first love. My last.
Chapter Seventy
Aeri
The Palace of the Sky King, Khitan
Quilimar just murdered her brother.
It all happened so quickly, the guard yelling “weapon” and the queen pulling a saber. Euyn turned her breast to gold just as she struck him in the heart. The queen released the blade, her jaw dropping in horror when she saw Euyn was empty-handed.
Quilimar was immediately surrounded by guards and carried out by four of them. But now the doors have slammed shut. There is a guard blocking each of the two doorways to prevent us from escaping. The remaining eight slowly march toward us, swords drawn.
We are trapped in this grand banquet room. Now we will join Euyn in the Ten Hells.
Sora, Royo, and I back up behind the king’s table, but Mikail, the deadliest of us, is on the ground. He’s cradling Euyn’s body in his arms and stroking his hair, but the light has already left Euyn’s eyes. Quilimar struck a fatal blow, and he was dead within seconds.
I am not ready to die, though. Not when I have Royo. Not when I want so many tomorrows with him. I want to fight for us, but the only blade we have is the saber lodged in Euyn’s chest. I do have a hairpin dagger, but what is that against ten heavily armed guards? There’s my amulet, but with the cost escalating for each use, I’m not sure I can get us out of here.
Certainly not four of us.
“You have all colluded to assassinate the Queen Regent of Khitan, mother of the true king,” the guard says. I think he’s the captain. He is the older guy who took the messages to the queen earlier. “You have been judged guilty and sentenced to death. Surrender the ring now, and we will grant you merciful ends.”
That’s right—the ring. Euyn died with it on, and I can wield it! I kneel by Euyn’s body and turn his hand. Nothing. It’s gone. I scan his other hand, but there’s no ring. Is it somewhere on the floor? Did Quilimar manage to take it?
I’m about to ask Mikail if he has it when his face contorts. He changes from his normal careless expression to one of pure rage. Then he stands and lets out a soul-shattering wail. The drumming has stopped, but the room shakes from his cry. The vibrations make my spine rigid, an unholy terror flowing through me. And he is on our side.
“You want the ring? Come get it,” he says.
He sounds every bit a demon.
Two of the guards hesitate, falling out of step, but the other six continue toward us in the vast room. I run my hand over my hair and take my clip down. I unsheathe the small dagger. It feels impossibly tiny versus swords and axes. Sora shifts something out of her pocket. I’m not sure what it is—a vial, I think; maybe lipstick. But she’d have to kiss a guard to use her poison, and we don’t have that kind of time.
We’re all so screwed.
I reach over and hand the little blade to Mikail. It’s not much, but it’s what we have. He won’t disturb Euyn’s body to take the saber. I get it. I wouldn’t be able to if it were Royo. Still, heartbroken or not, I know any weapon is best in Mikail’s hands. He closes his fist around the hilt of my small blade and nods.
The guards approach us in a semicircle with the captain in the center. He gestures to us with his sword.
Without a word, Mikail pitches the hairpin dagger at the captain. My small blade flies through the air. One second. Two. Then it lands in the man’s eye. It’s an impossible shot, but the captain falls to the ground and starts convulsing.
Mikail and Royo use the confusion to flip the king’s table on its side, creating a barricade between us and the guards. Plates smash, wine spills, and desserts roll.
Royo slides to the floor next to Euyn’s body and bows his head. “Forgive me, my prince.”
He rips the saber out of Euyn’s heart. More deep-red blood gushes down Euyn’s already soaked chest. Bile rises in my throat, and I look away, but at least Euyn didn’t feel that.
Mikail watches Euyn’s body out of the corner of his eye, but then he leaps over the table and gestures for the guards to come to him.
My stomach twists as four approach at once, their swords raised. Two guards follow a few steps back. One stays behind, trying to save the captain. Mikail is empty-handed, waiting.
