Page 60 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Whatever this was, it felt like a new instinct I had to contend with. It wasn’t like the violence I constantly kept restrained under layers of decorum and duty. This was wilder. Everything within me was reaching for the nearest threat because it couldn’t reach her.

Was this something related to protective Nocthel instincts I’d previously ignored?

I was on the brink of losing the battle against my baser impulses when Emrys spoke again. “The majority of your men made it back to Tir Larethia alive. Your general Allard sent word immediately following the attack.”

For a heartbeat, the words didn’t land. My pulse thundered too loudly, the command to fight still snarling at the edges of my mind. Then Allard registered.

“Camrick…” I said hoarsely. “He’s here?”

Emrys grunted and hooked a gauntleted thumb toward the clearing beyond the splintered doorframe.

Relief punched through the worst of my bloodlust. The good news didn’t erase my enthusiasm for murder, but it did loosen its grip, leaving me with the bizarre realization that the Beast of Darreth was actively trying to calm me down. Cursed gods, how the tables had turned.

As the phantom heat of the bloodlust fully receded, the cold reality of my exhaustion set in. A tremor ran through my hands. I locked my fingers together, forcing the magic back into my chest. Cam and most of my men were alive. That mercy was heady—and dangerous. I had no idea what Berian, or the court, would demand in return for another supposed failure.

If I didn’t change the subject, I’d storm outside to see the men for myself immediately. But that would only disrupt Isca performing her gentle diplomacy with Lunette. Fuck. I was not looking forward to facing Luna as a prince.

I hoped she’d understand that I’d done it to protect her. Hoped she’d forgive me.

“How’d you find me?” I asked.

“Found the corpses of two mercenaries, felt the residual magic on both,” Nisien answered. “Then Emrys accidentally broke a ward—thought it was the Assembly’s—and we followed the trail here.”

Luna wouldn’t be happy about that. “I hope you’re going to charge the wards on the way out!”

Emrys started, “I don’t know ho—”

“You can bloody well try!”

“Given your pique,” Nisien said, looking for all the world like he was savoring the lethal animosity between Emrys and me, “I venture she has something to do with those too?”

“Yes!” I snapped.

Nisien had the grace to look impressed.

I recounted the morning’s fight with the mercenaries and what they’d said about the ring and their ties to the Assembly.

Emrys’s curse pulsed in his eyes with visible, enraged energy. He had more reasons to hate the Assembly than I did. They’d used him as a weapon for years and had tried to trick him into starting a war with Gelida after they’d kidnapped Isca.

I untied the makeshift sack I’d created from the mercenary’s tunic from around my belt and held it out. “Either an artificer has come up with a new technique, or the Assembly’s gotten its hands on a few artifacts.”

Emrys snatched the bundle from the air before Nisien could get hold of it. He carefully unfolded the cloth. His eyes widened, and he recoiled at the sight of the ring.

He quickly handed the cloth-wrapped bundle back to me. “Do you have someone to inspect that?”

“Yes.” Reina would, at least. My life was absorbed with military matters, not running a network of experts and spies like hers was. She hated the Assembly after they failed to save my mother. She’d be delighted to turn her resources against them.

“Glad they’re dead,” Emrys said finally, smiling in a way that made me think of a lion taking its first breath after ripping out a throat. “I’ll kill any we see on the road.”

Nisien considered him sidelong. “Isca won’t like—”

“Isca naps frequently,” he concluded with a frown. The implication being that what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt.

Nisien and I exchanged a look then shrugged. We’d both make the same decision—whatever it took to protect our people.

Nisien said, “Emrys is still upset that we didn’t run into Vaustin Maeron and his retinue of morally deficient lackeys on the road.”

Vaustin took his name from his father, the Assembly’s longtime Chancellor—a title that sounded ceremonial until you understood its reach. The elder Maeron’s heir was the one mage tasked with hunting down and suppressing the abilities of “problematic” magic users, the definition of problematic being whatever served the Assembly’s interests at any given moment.