“I will make you meet the gods tonight.” Leaning back, she dropped the knife to throw a punch that made even Khayrivven flinch as Niely’s head snapped back.
Khayrivven caught him, slowly lowering him so he wouldn’t make more noise than necessary, his gaze flicking across the yard where people were meandering back toward the palace. From the corner of her eye, she spotted Elina’s pale silk gown, streaked with splatters of rain.
Elina.
The woman’s head turned ever so slightly, as if she’d heard?—
Guardians help her?—
While she debated making a mad dash for the yard and pulling Elina out of the crowd, Khayrivven had unlocked the hidden entrance, dragging Niely inside the hallway. Whether it was solid rock or an illusion like the wall farther down, she didn’t care. There was no getting around this task of cold-blooded murder.
Her blood did seem to chill a degree or two as she stepped inside the building and looked at the man at her feet. That’s when she saw the silver glint in the alcove beyond the door.“The knife.”
The thought hadn’t fully left her mind when Khayrivven hopped across the threshold to collect the blade she’d so carelessly dropped. Before he could return to her, the door closed, and she was alone with the unconscious man.
“Khayrivven?”
No answer. Not even a growl.
She had the faint feeling of a pair of eyes watching her as she searched the sides of the threshold, hoping for a secret mechanism that would free her even if it wasn’t keyed to her. Panic was a living beast inside of her as she slammed her hand on the stone beside the door. She needed to get out. She needed to?—
Something grabbed her by the ankle, tugging so hard she lost balance and hit the wall with her shoulder and the side of her head as she tumbled to the floor. But Lory was up in an instant, facing the man she’d knocked out with a single punch.
Niely was on his feet himself, a knife in his hand and already coming for her. He didn’t waste any time asking questions, for now. With lethal precision, he slashed at her, hitting her skirts as he cut under her defensive arm, aiming for her thigh.
Silk ripped in the silver blade’s wake, steel biting into her leg, and Lory stifled a scream as he punched her in the shoulder, already up again. A soldier. Trained for the field just as Khayrivven. Trained to survive. And to kill.
But Lory had survived the streets of Dunai as a half-starved child. She’d stolen and run from men twice her size and four times her weight. She knew how to leverage her body against someone stronger. Plus, she’d trained with the best. All those hours of practicing Veiled and Steel on the roofs of the mock houses of the training parcours paid off as Lory lowered her center of gravity, ignoring the pounding in her head as she struck her fist into Niely’s throat. He staggered back with a cough, gasping for air.
“Little bitch,” he hissed. “You’ll die … for this.” He wasn’t stable on his legs, but that didn’t keep him from leaping for her once more, his blade biting into her forearm this time, as she blocked the blow with her bare arm. Next time Khayrivven took her on a mission like this, she’d wear her uniform—or at least the same kind of clothing the men wore to this event. Anything that formed a layer of protection over her skin, really. An ugly curse sprang from her tongue as she hopped back, her shoulder hitting the wall an inch from the door.
She was bleeding, but her good leg feathered into Niely’s stomach with ease. The lord was a soldier, though, and he was fast. So damned fast. Lory strained against the hands flipping her around and locking her in an iron hold, Niely’s forearm under her chin, threatening to crush her windpipe.
Khayrivven’s fingerprints at her throat pulsed like a living imprint of his hand, shoving Niely’s arm back inch by painful inch. Lory braced a foot against the wall, pushing as hard as she could and slamming her full weight into Niely, who cursed and spat as she knocked back her head, hitting his nose.
“You will die for this,” he repeated. “And the only regret I’ll have is that Falcrest wasn’t here to watch.”
NO!Her scream, though merely shouted in her head, shook her bones, her flesh. The entire room seemed to tremble as she scrambled off the man whose friendly smiles resided so close to an ugly vindictiveness.
“I will not die here,” she said as she got to her feet, a grin that would put Khayrivven’s smirk to shame spreading onher mouth. “But Iwillmake you meet the gods tonight,” she said, waiting for him to be back on his legs, hands in her pockets, unsheathing her knives. “More specifically, I’ll make you meetoneparticular god.”
Niely flashed his bloodied teeth.
“When you cross his Veil, tell Eroth I said hello.”
When Niely came for her this time, she was ready, and his blood painted her rain-drenched gown crimson.
Thirty-One
Khayrivven
The door had closed.And nothing he did made the solid rock disappear. He’d almost ripped off a finger trying to reach through it, hoping it was a mere illusion like the one door in the stone chamber. His fingertip was still bleeding where it had scraped across the rough stone.
With a groan of frustration, Khayrivven slammed his fist into the wall next to the door.
“Lory,” he growled, but not a sound reached through the barrier that had closed for him.
He didn’t need to glance over his shoulder to know who had willed the lock to reject his magic.The Master of Whispers had mentioned before that he didn’t trust Khayrivven not to interfere when Lory was to make her first kill, probably still remembering Khayrivven’s own hesitation on the day he’d slain Onyx, a woman so fierce and loving, she’d cracked Khayrivven’s heart. A woman whose beautiful, deep umber face would haunt his sleep for the rest of his days. Whose blood he could still feel on his hands when he closed his eyes and remembered her laugh.
