Lorne’s anger seemed to vanish then as he turned around with a groan to face the people he’d come in with and covered his eyes. Had he come here thinking he’d have to fight to get answers? Fight to get the way to break the curse out of us? I could sympathize with his—and everyone else’s—despair and desper?—
Suddenly, Lorne whipped around, hurling a dagger toward Flurry.
Chapter 10
Everything happened so fast that I wasn’t even surewhathappened until it was all over and there was a dead guard in Flurry’s arms. People were screaming and bumping into me as I tried to get to Flurry and everyone else tried to get away.
And then it was like everything slowed down until a second took a minute, and I could see everything that happened.
Flurry clutched his guard to his chest and screamed, flung a hand out, and ice shot from his fingertips. Not shards but vines of ice that wrapped around Lorne as he turned to flee, fully encasing and freezing him where he stood. In the time it took for Flurry to stop and take a breath, Lorne and his companions were all sealed in a writhing mass of icy tendrils that quickly solidified.
A dead man, an enraged prince, and five people frozen in ice.
Time returned to normal as other guards cleared the room or moved their comrade onto the floor. I refused to leave,pushing my way to Flurry’s side. I’d known he had a temper and figured he could be brutal if he wanted to be, but the absolutely broken expression on his face as he looked down at his guard had me desperate to get to him before he fell apart.
“Hey,” I whispered and cupped his cheek, “look at me. Right here. Come on, Flurry.”
He looked up at me, tears in his bright blue eyes, and when one fell, it turned into a snowflake and floated away. “He’s dead. For me,” he croaked.
I nodded, wondering if it was the first time one of his guards had sacrificed themselves for his safety. If the brothers had been at war so much, surely people had died fighting?
“It was his choice,” I told Flurry. “He dove in front of you because he wanted to.”
Flurry shook his head, more tears falling. He swatted at the snowflakes and wiped at his face. I’d helped stop him from breaking, but now his rage was returning. When he looked toward the frozen people with a ferocious snarl, I put myself in front of him to block his view.
“Are they dead?”
“No,” he gritted out.
“Like the wolves?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the normal procedure for when someone’s committed murder?”
He looked up at me, confused. “What?”
“Regardless of where it happened, someone committed murder, got caught, and there are witnesses. What happens next?”
Flurry swallowed hard and touched his forehead. “They’re arrested. Held. A trial is set.”
“Melt them then.”
His gaze snapped to mine, eyes narrowed.
“Flurry, you need to follow the law, right? Your ice stopped them, but now you need to let the guards apprehend them and do their jobs.” I got down in his face to whisper, “One murder doesn’t deserve another. Don’t kill them in revenge. That’s not you.”
Or at the very least, I wasn’t going to let it be him.
He seemed to gulp back his anger before taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. I just kept caressing his shoulder and waiting, hoping I was doing the right thing. I understood his rage, of course. If that had been one of my friends jumping in front of a blade to save me, well, maybe I wouldn’t have stopped going after the bad guys until they had daggers lodged in their throats, too. Unless someone stopped me because they knew I wouldn’t ever want that on my soul for the rest of my life.
Flurry stepped around me, and I turned to see what he was looking at. Several guards were in front of Lorne and the others, their eyes on Flurry like they waited for his next move. He gave a nod and then reached out and made a fist.
The ice trapping them shattered.
Lorne started begging for his life like it hadn’t just been saved. Had he not been aware while frozen? Had he not even known he’d been frozen? The guards bound Lorne and the others as they, too, begged for forgiveness or insisted they’d had no idea what Lorne planned. Asthey were led away, I got the feeling not a single one of them would be loyal to the others.
I watched as the dead guard was carried away by his fellows, until I felt Flurry bump into me. He was looking at his hand, the front of his gown, both of which were bloody.
