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My eyes locked with his, and the Hound licked its muzzle.
Liv shook beside me, power rolling off her in embarrassed little waves. Adorable. Another guard rushed her from behind. She swung the knife without turning and missed him by an impressive distance.
Her tail did better. The pink, heart-shaped tip snapped free from beneath her dress and struck him across the face. His eyes went unfocused and he walked unsteadily into a nearby wall with a soft, confused sound. Liv stared after him. “I hate how effective that is.”
“I don’t.”
“We’re discussing this later.”
“We have several discussions scheduled.”
Her mouth hardened, though the bond carried the smallest flicker of relief.
I turned back to the matter at hand. Scarn stumbled toward the service corridor, but my nightmares reached the hall first. They crawled across the southern sigils while the lights died ahead of him.
Scarn stopped.
“Lux.” His voice thinned. “Think carefully.”
I entered the corridor with Liv beside me.
The Hound crowded the hall, shoulders scraping stone, teeth surrounding my smile. Nightmares wrapped around Scarn’s boots. He jerked once and discovered the floor had no intention of releasing him.
“Kill me, then,” he spat.
I let the Hound lower its head until one enormous red eye sat level with his. Scarn’s breathing changed. There it was. Finally. The fear he had spent the whole night pretending belonged to everyone else.
“No,” I said quietly.
His mouth twitched. Death was an outcome he understood. I wasn’t feeling generous enough to give it to him.
His eyes darted toward Liv. “You need me alive. I can keep the South from coming for her.”
“You announced what she was to a room full of soldiers.”
“I can contain it.”
“You failed to contain a flower courier.”
His mouth twisted. “Other clans will come. They will cage her, drain her, and use her until there is nothing left worth returning to you.”
The Hound lowered its head.
Scarn was right about one thing. The clans would come. Power attracted greedy men, and Liv carried enough inside her to start wars no ruler would admit belonged to him.
Letting them take her was never among the possible outcomes.
“They are welcome to try,” I said. “I only need them to remember what happens next.”
Scarn’s breath broke. Nightmares entered through his eyes, writhing their way in like snakes. His knees struck stone. Both hands flew to his temples. I built nightmares out of everybody he’d used to build power: every friend sold out, every soldier fed to an unwinnable fight, every woman silenced because fear made him feel bigger. The dead shifted beneath his hands when he tried to rise.
Then they started climbing after him.
Ghosts broke through the pile with milk-white eyes, the people he had killed, betrayed, starved, and buried catching his ankles and climbing onto his back.
“Coward,” one whispered.
“False king,” said another.
