Page 179

It hit him the way I had been taught to make it hit, the exact way his nephew Teorin had taught me to kill a Thren when he trained me in the woods all those months ago. He slumped sideways in the throne without a sound.

Behind me I heard Avaneer's goblet hit the floor and Eravic moving fast. Another sound, then silence.

I looked at Fyris, now motionless. Then I crossed to Avaneer unconscious on the floor and crouched and pulled the sword from his waist and turned it over in my hands.

"Why Fyris?" Eravic said from behind me. He was breathing harder than usual. "Why not Avaneer?"

"Because I am certain it was Fyris's idea." I stood. "The bond. Avaneer walking into that dinner. All of it came from somewhere and it was not from crown prince incapable of thinking of anything beyond himself." I looked at him. "Besides, his brothers will either align with him and then fight him for the throne. Or they will align with him and they will all retaliate." I looked at the sword. "In any case, the retaliation will be against Orsin." Understanding dawned on Eravic's face.

I sighed, turning the sword in my hands. "Fyris wanted the veil open. He was willing to drain me completely for it. He sent Avaneer to make sure it happened."

I walked back toward the throne.

"And moreover." I stopped in front of Fyris. "It will be far easier to make Avaneer's life miserable if he is alive to experience it."

I plunged the sword through Thrykis's chest.

I held it there a moment longer than was strictly necessary.

"That was for you, Sevrin," I said quietly. "You are a problem, yes. But they had no right."

I pulled the sword free and walked back to Avaneer and crouched beside him and pressed the hilt into his unconscious hand and wrapped his fingers around it one by one until it looked like something he had chosen to hold.

I stood.

"Squeeze my neck," I said to Eravic.

"No."

"Eravic."

"Absolutely not."

"We have no time for this."

He looked at me. Stubborn.

"Eravic. Please."

A sigh. Then he stepped forward and put his hand around my throat and pressed. I felt the marks form. I reached up and took hold of his shirt at the collar.

Our eyes met.

I pulled. It tore cleanly.

"We must look like we struggled," I murmured.

Then I screamed.

The guards hit the door before the sound finished leaving me. They flooded in, weapons drawn, and I was already pointing at Avaneer on the floor, the bloodied sword in his hand, his eyes beginning to open with no memory in them of how any of this had come to pass.

"We were talking," I said. My voice shook in exactly the right way. "The King told Avaneer he must take responsibility for me and Avaneer became angry. He said he had waited long enough. He said he wanted to be king himself." I pressed my hand to my throat where the marks were. "He stabbed him. And then he came for me." I grabbed Eravic's arm and clutched it tightly. "He had no choice but to defend me. And look at how he was harmed." I brushed my fingers over Eravic's bare chest, his ripped shirt hanging off it. I felt him still immediately.

The guards stared at Avaneer. At the sword. At Fyris very dead and slumped in the throne with a wound through his chest.

Then one of them pulled a horn from his waist and raised it to his mouth and blew.

The sound tore through the palace like something alive.