Page 114 of Of Masks and Fury

I leaped at him, snatching the ceremonial sword from its sheath at his waist and brandished it in his face. The balance was decent, better than the practice swords from my childhood lessons. Not as good as the blades Naveah had given me, but it would do in a pinch.

With a grunt, the lord flung himself away from me.

Pivoting, I started to run, but tripped over the skirt of the heavy gown. Pausing, I hacked off my dress at the knees with swift cuts. The fabric fell away like shed skin.

My magic churned, aching to be set free.

Growls and shrieks rang out, and I looked up, finding two firecats making their way toward me.

Pherin’s gaze met mine.Bite now?

Yes, please.Feel welcome to give our guests a taste of what a companion can do.

Her feral snarl rang out, followed by a blast of flames that scorched its way across the ground and created a quick path through lords and ladies who leaped and scrambled to avoid being burned.

Screams echoed around me.

She and Gavelle burst through the ornamental hedges, scattering brush and guards like leaves in a storm. They reached the head of the aisle and stalked toward me.

A figure swaggered down the aisle behind the firecats. Familiar face. Familiar dark clothing. The man my father had employed, trusted, and placed at my side.

Father recognized him at the same moment I did.

“Blain!” Relief cracked through my father’s voice, the relief of a man who thought he’d found his weapon. “Blain, seize her. Bring her to me now.”

The figure kept walking.

“Blain.” Father’s voice sharpened. “I gave you an order.”

The magic dropped, falling away like a held breath releasing, taking the altered jaw, the face wound, and the careful stillness of a man who’d been pretending to be less than he was. What remained was something altogether different. Taller somehow, though that hadn’t changed. Broader in the shoulders. The leashed quality gone, replaced by something that had never needed a leash at all.

My heart stopped, then kicked into a fierce, wild rhythm.

Yes.

Father went absolutely still.

I watched it cross his face, that specific, terrible comprehension of a paranoid man realizing the full scope of what had been done to him. Blain had stood in his dining room. Walked his halls. He’d had access to Father’s court, access no foreign ear should ever have.

And he’d deliberately placed this man at his daughter’s side.

He hadn’t hired a bodyguard.

He’d invited the enemy in and given him a key.

A strangled sound burst from my father, the sound of a man whose worst fear about magic and those who wielded it being confirmed in front of his entire court.

I wasn’t being saved. I was being joined by someone who’d fight beside me instead of for me.

The remaining guests who hadn’t fled pressed back against the garden walls. A few of the older nobles had been at court long enough to remember diplomatic visits from Syllavar. Recognition moved through them like a wave.

“Impossible,” someone breathed.

“The rebel king,” another voice said, the words carrying in the sudden hush. “That’s the rebel king.”

“A barbarian,” someone else hissed.

There was nothing barbaric about the man approaching me. Dangerous, yes. Lethal, absolutely. He moved with the confidence of someone who belonged exactly where he was, claiming what was his.