Because in all their planning, they had assumed that Doran would defend his queen. They had forgotten, as so many did, that his one enduring loyalty was to violence.
The Captain had carved his way deeper into the chaos and stood unnervingly still amid the swarm of courtiers and civilians, blade crossed over his chest and his expression serene. Without looking around, Doran reached out, as casual as one swatting at flies—and caught a man mid-sprint by the throat. Adeline could hear the breath throttled from him even above the din. As if in sympathy, a hollow ache hit her squarely in the chest. She hurried toward them, and in her mind, Aera’s roar became the ghostly roar of the tourney crowd, watching her step into an arena to face Doran’s cruelty. It was the roar of a tavern brawl, Doran’s cloak rippling in the storm of his own rage. It was the roar between her own ears when she’d seen Kai for the first time, pinned to the ice as Doran towered over him. Adeline’s floundering pulse snatched at her voice, but she pressed past it, the yell ripping clumsily past her tongue.
“Captain!”
Doran moved nothing but his eyes, a flash of steel that longed to slice right through her. His grasp on the spluttering man visibly tightened for just a moment. With considerable effort, Adeline kept her sword arm relaxed against the overwhelming thrum beneath her skin. Magic hammered at her insides, but she fought to keep her body still, as she’d often seen the stablehands do around the more temperamental stallions. She could not risk spooking Doran with his hand still locked around that poorman’s throat; couldn’t risk sending her clumsy tangle of vines his way either, at least not yet.
“Let him go,” she said.
Her feet ached in their silken slippers, curled for grip against the icy marble as though the Captain might charge her at any moment. As it was, he simply gazed back at her, the cruel slash of his lips slowly curving. The man in Doran’s grip floundered, his feet slipping uselessly on the ice and dragging his weight against the hand that collared him. His splutters grew raspier, more frantic.
“Let him gonow.”
“And why would I do that?”
“What lawful reason have you to stop him from leaving?”
“Lawful.” Doran gave an awful chuckle and rolled his eyes skyward, staring up at the winking icicles as he rolled his sword vaguely through the air. “Mutiny, treason, I’ll think of something.”
The man got his feet under him and dragged in a gasping breath. He stopped struggling, stopped moving altogether, but for the stricken glance he shot over his shoulder at Adeline. She swallowed back the rising tightness.
“This night isn’t going to end the way you imagine, Captain. Avette will be in no position to pardon your senseless violence, I can promise you that.”
She let her suggestion hang in the frigid air; let him think of what might become ofAvette’s position, and where that would leave him. She saw the moment it landed, the flash of understanding in his iron eyes. Doran released the man just as slowly as Adeline released her taut breath. The man spun, eyeswide with awe and gratitude, before he turned to run again—and impaled himself directly on Doran’s blade.
Adeline caught her own scream in her palm.
Her heartbeat drummed in her ears as Doran let the man sink slowly to the ground. The ice beneath him splintered into crimson fractals, a hundred rusted daggers fanning out beneath his body. And then, with a booted knee to his chest, Doran gently shoved the man off the end of his sword and watched, dispassionate, as he keeled sideways and stilled.
Dead.
An innocent, under the Beiras’ protection. Her mother’s protection. Her own.
And she had failed him.
“I think I’ll take my chances,” said Doran softly.
Adeline flew at him.
The Captain’s face came alight, without a doubt, the most joyous that she had ever seen him. He kept his stance open and unguarded until the very last moment, then swung out and shoved her backward with a trill of steel on steel. Adeline’s feet slid out from beneath her, and Doran’s weight sent her sprawling, breath bursting so viciously from her that stars flared in her vision. She had a fleeting impression of their last spar, Adeline winded and flat on the ice just as she was now, Doran prowling over her like a ravenous beast. He had dragged out his victory then, relished every moment of her pain and fear in full view of her mother and all of Eisalaan. There was no one now to watch his victory; no one to demand an end to his cruelty.
As though he could read her memories, Doran grinned.
“Ever the meddling brat,” he said.
His grin became a vicious gritting of teeth as he swung his sword back, and Adeline did not think. Did not decide. The storm erupted from her skin with a grinding rush of roots and leaves and roaring winds, and by the time she managed to wrestle back the unending flow of magic, Doran’s face was a breath from hers. He was rigid with shock.
And tangled in vines.
They stared at one another, each of them panting with entirely different exertions. Doran made no snide remark; he simply stared down at Adeline from where he hovered, strapped in place by tangles of green that hung from the distant shards of ice above them. His face worked furiously, fingers flexing until, with the great huff of a raging bull, he ripped his arms free and fell atop Adeline, snarling. She had barely a moment to throw her arms up and block his full weight before he was scrabbling at her throat.
Not choking, but searching for a source, a treasure she did not have.
“How,” he hissed over her gritted shrieks of effort. “How, you little bitch?”
He tore at the front of her frilly dress, ice pearls popping free from her bodice and snowing down around them. She tightened her jaw deliberately, and he reared back so fast she did not register the pain of his palm across her face until the crack had cleared the air. Her skin roared, aflame beneath the sting, but she only bit down harder on her own tongue.
“How?”
