Page 179 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

The sound rattled my teeth and slammed against the obsidian shield with a deafening crack. Chunks of stone the size of skulls, dust, and jagged shards of mortar slammed into the conjured wall I’d constructed to keep my people safe. I planted my feet firmly on the floorboards, muscles tightening, using every bit of my strength to hold the shield as their faces were contorted with terror.

For a long, agonizing beat, there was only the roar of falling stone, holding strong against it, and the blinding, choking grey of pulverized mortar. By the time the rain of debris finally ceased, my entire body burned.

Reina would only have risked that if she was desperate—but desperate meant alive.

Everything afterward happened so fast, it felt like the gods had sped up time. Slowly, I let my protective shield fade away into wisps of smoke. The air outside the shield was a solid wall of choking white. Beside me, Camrick stepped forward, his hands cutting through the haze as he summoned a gale to tear the dust away.

That one isolated burst had been enough to change everything in unexpected ways. The murmuring had stopped. And my people, not just my soldiers who knew and trusted me, were looking at me as though they were seeing me for the first time. I was used to their curiosity and underlying wariness.

But now? Now it seemed as though my people weren’t merely waiting for a chance to escape.

One of the eastern lords had pressed his back against the wall when I’d entered this corridor earlier. Now he gave a brief nod then righted himself, appearing almost startled by his automatic show of respect. Everyone shifted subtly inward, as though my proximity now offered safety instead of threat.

Yet a single isolated burst had accelerated the shift that started when Berian took ill.

I’d become someone who might be relied upon in their eyes. Someone respected. A leader worth trusting.

I’d wanted this forever. But in this moment, I would’ve traded it without hesitation to be able to split myself in two so one of me could be in the family wing protecting Lunette.

With the dust cleared, I saw Richart, butter knife in hand, slumped over a bleeding man in black robes. He’d been so drained of magic he hadn’t been able to call his usual fire to defend them. While still recovering, he’d tried to save my aunt with the only thing at hand.

He was more than steady. He already had my acceptance, but now he also had my undying gratitude.

Reina, hair in disarray, dress ripped, eyes blazing with shadows, stood over the body of a second mage. She didn’t have the martial training I had, but she’d torn a hole through the mage and the wall with the force of her rage alone.

Though she was swaying on her feet, the sound of her shout echoed through the hall, reaching everyone’s ears. “They stole the device. The Assembly aims to kill the king!”

She’d barely finished the sentence before Camrick and a group of guards subdued the two mages that had been behind me. And I’d already started running.

Reina had been the distraction. This had been too easy… Far too easy for something they wanted us to waste time on. Priority one was to get Lunette as far away from Vaustin as possible before he could silence my powers.

Halfway back to the main hall, I felt a sudden lurching tug inside my chest. Something that was the emotional equivalent of a scream drowned out the warm, constant hum of our mate bond in the space of a single heartbeat.

Fear. Anger.

Neither belonged to me.

Lunette.

I sprinted, heart thumping, breaths turning ragged. The corridor opened into the great hall, and the moment I crossed the threshold, I stopped.

A line of soldiers in yellow and red stretched across the breadth of the hall, shields locked, spears angled just enough to make movement past them impossible. A line of my reserved men—far fewer in number and now weaponless—were on their knees before them.

This wasn’t just a distraction. It was a coup.

Chapter 48

Lunette

The soft scrape of wood on stone and the feeling of two new auras announced unwelcome additions to the prison they’d made of my room—one to which Berian had handed them the key.

A passage I hadn’t known was there opened in the floor.

They know about the escape tunnel.

The dark below seemed reluctant to release the two figures, clinging to their black Assembly robes as they rose.

The first was the mage who’d spoken at length about his cousin’s bloodline during the luncheon. He smiled at me now as though we were continuing that conversation, like he wasn’t stealing my freedom and silently promising worse. The second man was equally unremarkable but far quieter.