Page 295 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

“It’s simple, really,” he said, working the blade carefully. “Terror makes them easy to placate, easier still to influence.” His eyes flicked to me. “They’ve come to trust that my pets are there to help, not harm. Let me play my role until the time comes, and by then it will be too late for them to resist my forces.” He turned the blade over, finally lowering that haunting gaze.

I followed it even as I shifted against Adrastos’ lap, his broad hand splayed across my stomach, holding me in place.

Runes.

The blade Kade held was familiar—carved with ravens and runes.

My body stilled.

Even as Adrastos’ fingers dug into the soft pad of my belly.

Because I knew that blade.

It was one of the first things I’d noticed after that night in the desert. The night my sisters were slaughtered. The night Magnolia bound herself to ‘Bellamy.’

The day we almost lost him.

The day I thought I lost him.

I’d been entirely hollowed out when Freya Porter sauntered up and offered her help.

And tucked against her ribs had been that blade. Slender. Shadowed. Easy to miss, just like her.

She wore it again when she brought me a half-dead Paladin and demanded we set him right.

The promise of truth, wielded by a phantom without remorse.

I lifted my eyes to Kade’s, and he flashed me a wink.

Adrastos’ hand stilled. He straightened the hem of my skirt.

Right as the screaming started.

FIFTY-EIGHT

COLLATERAL

BLYTHE

Guttural. Primal. The kind of agony that sent my body rigid and my blood cold.

Because only one kind of torment made that sound: a grieving mother.

Sweat broke out across my brow, my back, before I’d fully found my feet. Adrastos’ heat was a firm wall behind me, and to my horror, Marlana placed herself between me and the rest of the table as we assessed for threats.

There were none.

Only that frantic, soul-deep terror that had me ripping my hand from Adrastos’ grip and bolting out of the wards toward the sound that haunted every trauma doctor’s nightmares.

“No, no, no!”

I shoved through a wall of thickly muscled bodies to find Cáit sinking to the floor, Coraline limp in her arms. Mouth red.

No.

I only poisoned the wine. The royals’ wine.

This had to be something else.