No, it can’t be what I’m thinking.WhoI’m thinking.
I pause with my hand on the knob and shake my head at myself. There are rumors Elusian blood haunts the palace and causes madness—that is why no one stays here for longer than a week. Of course, I don’t believe that, but I am starting to lose my senses. Beginning with falling for Tor.
I take off my dress and take down my hair, but I can’t get in bed. I pace the floor in my slip, my head spinning. I can’t resolve how good it felt to be with Tor with how terrible I feel now. That scream. That scream was so familiar that it had to be— My denial suddenly dissipates and I stop short, the truth sinking in.
The Praetorian asked me to stay in my room, but I can’t just sit idle. I can’t. I have to know for certain.
I throw on my velvet robe and grab a fur cloak. As I leave, I’ve never hoped so badly to be wrong in my life.
XLVIII.
Torren
“So…any developments you want to tell me about?” Julian smiles as we run down the marble stairs of the palace. We’re sprinting, but he has enough time to raise his eyebrows at me.
A fourth person was just attacked, maybe slain, at Jubilee, and my closest friend wants nothing more than to gossip.
“Intolerable,” I mutter.
But I put myself in this situation. I allowed my needs, my desires to come first. And gods, if I had to do it over again, I’d do the same. I still smell Kera’s perfume on me. I still feel her in my palms.
I ball my hands into fists. I have to push what just happened to the back of my mind and leave it there. I am hunting a killer, not a lover, now.
“Does this mean you no longer suspect her, or are you debuting a new interrogation technique?” Julian asks.
“I should’ve drowned you in the baths,” I say.
“Too late. You’re stuck with me now.”
Just like that, things are normal again between us—the way friends come together in the worst of times.
He laughs but then composes himself as we reach the entryway. The front doors are still ceremoniously chained, so we go toward the back of the palace. This level has a massive stone terrace overlooking the drop-off below.
We grab torches in our left hands, leaving our right free for weapons.
Anything could be a trap at Jubilee.
Julian adjusts the dagger in his hand, and then we nod to each other. I take a breath, slowing my heart. We move through the doors of the veranda as one, as if we are legionnaires again. All the memories of moving just like this in the wilderness come rushing back.
The night is cold and clear, and the moon shines on the deep white snow. I scan the ground, but there are no footprints by the doors. The area seems undisturbed, but appearances can be deceiving.
I point to the right, twice. Julian motions his head to the left, signaling he’ll cover my back as I proceed east.
The cold of the knee-high snow burns my calves as I step, but pain is temporary. Discomfort makes me focus. My senses are on high alert for any sound, any movement other than Julian behind me. There’s no wind—the air is completely still.
I hope the killer made the mistake of lingering; I’ll settle this tonight.
A few steps later, there’s something dark on the white snow. My heart rate ticks up, but I force myself to follow my training. I freeze with my hand up and then gesture to Julian. He looks to where I’m pointing, then we proceed north, with Jules still protecting my back in case this is an ambush.
I continue, step by slow step, toward the dark lump in the snow. It’s a woman lying on her back. There’s no doubt that she was the source of the scream. Her body is bent at unnatural angles, and blood has gathered in the snow, forming a crimson halo around her broken skull.
Someone threw her out of a window or pushed her off a balcony. And, although it is an older woman, it is not Medea.
A slight amount of relief hits my chest. The death of another senator would’ve triggered chaos at the conclave and would all but guarantee that I lost my position.
But who is this?
I stare up at the palace. Which room did this woman come from? The second floor is dark, but three rooms on the third floor are lit. All the chambers except Eyo’s are lit on the fourth floor and all on the fifth aside from the king’s bedchamber. The divining room tower lies to the east, but someone couldn’t fall from there onto here—it’s too far.
