Helene was standing outside the library, along with Rhea. Judging from their expressions, the two women had seen and heard everything.
Helene studied me for a moment. Then her lips creased into a sly smile, and she headed after Sullivan.
Rhea glanced at me, then focused on Dominic. A muscle ticked in her jaw, and she too whirled around and strode away, heading in the opposite direction from Sullivan and Helene.
Dominic and I stayed silent for a few seconds, listening to the sound of their footsteps fade away.
“I don’t think that could have possibly gone any worse,” I muttered.
“Of course it could have gone worse,” Dominic said. “Sullivan could have blasted me with his lightning, or Rhea could have stabbed me with her sword. Or both.”
I snorted. “I think we both know I’m the one Rhea wants to stab.”
We looked at each other. Dominic’s lips twitched, and he chuckled. Yeah, me too. Better to laugh than cry, especially given this tragic comedy of errors and misunderstandings.
“You seem to care a great deal about Lucas,” Dominic said after we’d both stopped laughing.
There was no point in denying it. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to everyone,” he teased.
I rolled my eyes. If he had been anyone else, I would have punched him in the arm, but I’d already screwed up enough things tonight without assaulting the crown prince. “I could say the same thing about you and Rhea.”
He sighed. “Is it that obvious?”
“Only to everyone,” I teased him back.
Dominic smiled a little at that, but he didn’t laugh again. He couldn’t, and neither could I.
“How long?” I asked.
“I don’t know exactly. I was devastated when Merilde, my wife, died, two years ago. Rhea was Merilde’s best friend, and we helped each other deal with her loss. Eventually, one day, I just . . . noticed Rhea in a way I never had before. What about you and Lucas?”
I shrugged. “I broke into his house and stole his jacket, along with one of his pillows. He found me sleeping in the corner the next morning. Needless to say, he was not pleased.”
“I bet he wasn’t. Lucas never liked anyone going into his room or taking his things without asking, not even his toys when we were children.”
Dominic smiled again at those memories, but the warm expression quickly faded from his face. “But we can’t think about Lucas or Rhea.”
“No, we can’t,” I whispered. “No, we can’t.”
We stood there in silence for a moment before Dominic cleared his throat, changing the subject.
“You should think about my father’s proposal.”
I reared back in surprise. “About marrying you?”
He nodded. “You don’t know me, but the two of us want the same thing—to protect our kingdoms from Morta. Together, I think we can do that.”
I drew in a breath, tasting his scent, which was filled with lime truthfulness. He really did want to protect his people—and mine—from the Mortans, and he would do whatever was necessary to make it happen. I admired his determination and his willingness to do his duty, even if he was dooming us both in the process, along with Sullivan and Rhea.
A faint grin curved his lips. “Besides, you seem pleasant, and I can be quite charming, in case you haven’t heard. I think we would get on together well enough.”
“Oh, yes. I had heard that about you, but charming only goes so far when you’re talking about marriage.”
He grimaced, and his grin slowly faded away. “True enough. I should get back to the dining hall and check on my father and Gemma.” He hesitated. “Just . . . think about what I said. Please, Everleigh?”
“I will.” I paused. “And I suppose that I should retire to my chambers before I start any more fights tonight.”
He grinned at my black humor. I smiled back at him, and together, we turned to leave.
We’d taken only a few steps when a blond woman hurried into the library. For a moment, I thought she was one of the palace guards. But her head was down, hiding her face, and she was moving much more quickly than usual. But the thing that really caught my eye was the fact that her sword was clutched in her hand rather than holstered on her belt.
Several more guards followed her into the library, cutting Dominic and me off from the exit. I drew in a breath. The guards all reeked of sour, nervous sweat, along with vinegary tension and sharp tangs of magic.
I’d smelled that combination of scents before—on the turncoat guards roaming the halls of Seven Spire the day of the royal massacre.
“Guards?” Dominic called out in a confused voice. “Is something wrong?”
He started toward the blond woman, but I grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“Those aren’t your guards,” I said.
The woman lifted her head, and that’s when I realized that she had one familiar feature—amethyst eyes. She grinned, then twirled her sword around in her hand and advanced on us. The men surrounding her drew their weapons and did the same.
They were Mortan assassins—and they were here to kill me.
Chapter Fourteen
Dominic stood there, his eyes wide, frozen in place, as if he couldn’t believe that he was being attacked in his own palace. I could have told him that this wasn’t about him and that Maeven had sent these assassins to kill me, since she hadn’t managed to do it at Seven Spire, but I didn’t get the chance.
Led by the blond woman, the assassins advanced on us, a solid line of deadly intent. At first, I wondered why they didn’t charge forward, but then I realized that they were trying to pin us up against the glass wall so they could more easily hack us to pieces.
I yanked Dominic back. That snapped the prince out of his surprise, and he raised his hand, dark blue lightning flashing to life on his fingertips.
I silently applauded myself for not letting Calandre talk me into wearing a gown and pulled my sword out of the scabbard on my belt.
“You take the ones on the left,” I murmured. “I’ll take the ones on the right. Don’t let them pin you up against anything. Always keep moving. You stop moving, and you’re dead.”
Dominic nodded and reached for even more of his lightning. I lifted my sword higher and focused on the assassin closest to me, all the while listening to the opening strains of the phantom music that always played in my mind whenever I was in a fight.
Then, with one thought, everyone attacked.
Three assassins converged on me, yelling and swinging their swords. I dodged the first assassin, then the second one, but the third one was a mutt with speed magic, and I barely managed to avoid his hard, fast blow. He was definitely the most dangerous of the three men, so instead of moving away, I whirled around, stepped into his body, and grabbed hold of his wrist.
And then I blasted him with my immunity.
I might not have my gladiator shield strapped to my arm, but in a way, my immunity was better than any shield, and it immediately snuffed out his speed magic. It still felt strange to actively, forcibly call up my power instead of hiding it, but something about wielding my magic as a weapon also felt extremely, satisfyingly right.
The assassin must have had some enhanced strength as well, because the tip of his sword plunged to the ground, as if the weapon was suddenly far too heavy to wield. He struggled to lift the blade, not understanding why his magic had suddenly vanished.
I let go of his wrist, whirled around, and sliced my sword across his chest. The assassin’s blood spattered all over me, but I welcomed the wet, stinging warmth on my body and the strong, coppery stench in my nose. Those two things told me that he was dying and I wasn’t.
The assassin screamed and crumpled to the floor. I stepped over his twitching body and looked for the next enemy to fight.
The first assassin yelled and charged at me again. I ducked to the side just as his weapon came whistling down. He was closer than I’d realized, and his blade sliced cleanly through the edge
of my tunic sleeve, exposing the silver bracelet on my right wrist.
I grimaced. Calandre was not going to like having her fancy embroidery ruined, but I imagined—hoped—that she would like it even less if I died, so once again, I lashed out with my sword, swiping it across the assassin’s stomach. He too screamed and staggered back into one of the tables, bouncing off it and falling to his knees.
That assassin was also bleeding out, so I risked a quick glance over at Dominic.
The crown prince hurled a large ball of blue lightning at one of the assassins in front of him. The assassin tried to avoid the blast, but the lightning slammed into his shoulder, making him scream and fall to the ground. His sword dropped from his charred, blackened fingers, and his whole right arm was now a melting, bubbling husk of flesh.
The stench of singed hair and fried skin filled my nose, overpowering the blood. I’d heard that Dominic was a powerful magier, but I hadn’t realized that he was almost as strong as Sullivan.
Dominic growled and tossed a ball of lightning at another assassin advancing on him. That assassin avoided the blast and swung his sword at Dominic, but the prince sidestepped the blow, pivoted to the side, and punched the other man in the face, making his head snap back. Then Dominic wrenched that man’s sword out of his hand, flipped it around, and stabbed the blade into the assassin’s chest. That man also fell to the ground screaming.
And that was all I saw before another assassin came at me. This man had seen what I’d done to the other two, so he didn’t recklessly charge forward. Instead, his eyes narrowed, and he studied every little thing about me, just like I was doing to him.
As we circled around each other, that phantom music started playing louder and faster in my mind. The assassin moved in to attack, and I let the swelling notes sweep me away. The music played and played, and my hands and feet moved in time to the beat as I perfectly performed the moves, the steps I needed to in order to stay alive and kill my enemy.
Left, right, twirl in for a strike . . . Left, right, avoid the counterstrike . . .
And on and on it went until the assassin lifted his sword a second too late, and I slid past his defenses and buried my weapon in his stomach. The man screamed, and I twisted the blade in deeper. He screamed again, and I yanked the sword out of his stomach and shoved him away. He joined the other two assassins I’d already killed on the floor.
My head snapped left and right, searching for more enemies to fight. And I found them—all gathered around Dominic.
Four assassins were left, along with the woman who’d led them in here, and they had cornered the prince in between the fireplace and the glass wall.
With one hand, Dominic brandished his stolen sword at them. In the other, he held a ball of lightning, ready to unleash it on whoever attacked him first. The assassins were so determined to kill the prince that they didn’t notice that I was still alive.
And I suddenly realized that winning this battle wasn’t the only thing I needed to do—I also needed to protect the prince. Because if I survived this assassination attempt and he didn’t, then I doubted I would leave Glitnir alive, queen or not.
The nobles would say that Vasilia had killed Frederich and that I had come here and killed Dominic. The people would scream for blood—my blood—and no doubt Heinrich would be happy to give it to them.
Maeven had set a clever trap. Killing Dominic and then letting the Andvarians kill me would be almost as good as murdering me herself.
I tightened my grip on my sword. That wasn’t going to happen. None of it.
Dominic spotted me creeping up behind the assassins. He flicked his eyes to his right, telling me to focus on the men on that side. I nodded back, then raised my sword and rushed forward.
In front of me, the assassins attacked Dominic, who hit one of them in the face with his lightning. That man dropped to the ground, shrieking and clawing at his burning eyeballs and melting skin, but the other assassins kept coming at the prince.
The assassin in front of me snapped up his weapon, but I closed the distance between us, grabbed his shoulder, and yanked him back toward me—and the point of my sword. The weapon plunged into his side, making him scream. I twisted the blade in deeper, then yanked it out and shoved him away.
Another assassin whirled around in my direction, but I was already moving toward him, and I slashed my sword across his chest and kept going, heading toward Dominic.
The prince blasted the remaining man with his lightning, then faced the final assassin—the blond woman.
She had been hanging back during the fight, but now there was no one between her and Dominic. He yelled and raised his sword, but the woman lifted her hands, and a wave of air blasted out of her palms and slammed into the prince, throwing him back against the wall.
My eyes widened. She was no ordinary mutt assassin—she was a weather magier who had just been waiting for the right moment to unleash her magic.
Dominic’s head snapped back against the wall, cracking the glass and leaving a spray of blood on it. His sword dropped from his hand, and he hit the floor alongside it.
Fear squeezed my chest, and for a moment, I thought he was dead.
Then Dominic let out a low groan of pain and slowly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, although he was clearly dazed.
An evil smile spread across the magier’s face, her eyes lit up with power, and a ball of purple lightning crackled to life in her palm. She was too close to miss, and Dominic wasn’t going to be able to avoid the strike or fend her off with his own magic.
I sprinted in that direction, with my free hand stretched out in front of me, even though I knew that I would be too late to close the distance between us and that I wouldn’t be able to touch the magier in time to snuff out her magic and keep her from killing Dominic.
“No!” I screamed.
The magier whipped around to me. Her eyes were the same eerie, electric purple that Libby’s had been, and the caustic stench of her magic was the same as well. She was another member of the Bastard Brigade.
For a split second, I thought—hoped—that the magier would toss her deadly lightning at me instead of Dominic, since he was already down on the floor, and I was still upright and the greater threat. But instead, she whirled back around, determined to kill him first.
Desperate, I yanked my dagger off my belt and threw it at her, but my running stride spoiled my aim, and the blade sailed wide and thunked into a bookshelf instead of her back.
The magier didn’t seem to notice my flying dagger. She reached for even more of her magic, and the lightning in her palm burned bigger and brighter.
I forced myself to run even faster and stretch my free hand out as far as it would go, hoping that I could at least get a finger on her. One little fingertip on her skin was all I needed to unleash my immunity and throttle her magic. I still wasn’t close enough to touch her, but something strange happened.
Her magic vanished anyway.
Well, perhaps vanished wasn’t the right word. The purple lightning crackling in her palm wavered, just for a moment, as though it were a candle flame being threatened by a strong gust of wind. Surprised, the magier glanced down at her hand, as if she didn’t know what was wrong with her power.
I didn’t know what was wrong with her power either, and I didn’t care. Her one second of hesitation let me close the distance between us, and I knocked her away from Dominic and down to the floor.
The magier screeched, and her lightning flew out of her hand and slammed into my chest. I screamed in pain and surprise, and I couldn’t stop my hands, arms, and legs from convulsing as the lightning sizzled through my body. Her power was so strong that it knocked my tearstone sword out of my hand, and the weapon slid across the floor out of reach.
The magier realized that she had the advantage, and she locked her hand around my right wrist and sent another wave of magic scorching through me. This time, the horrid stench of my own singed hair and fried flesh filled my nose, and I co
uld feel my skin burning, burning, burning from her intense power.
It wasn’t enough that the members of the Bastard Brigade were determined to kill me. Oh no. Every single one of them had to be a bloody magier too who wanted to incinerate me with their fucking lightning.
I was really starting to hate the Mortan royal family, bastards and all.
The magier shocked me over and over again. The rest of the library fell away, and all I could see, hear, feel, smell was her damned purple lightning slamming into my body.
I tried to fight it, tried to push back against her magic with my own immunity, but I couldn’t even catch my breath long enough to scream between the bolts of lightning, much less grab hold of my own power. Her magic was seconds away from completely overcoming my immunity and frying me to a charred crisp—
Suddenly, the magier let out an angry shriek and flew backward, away from me. For a moment, I didn’t understand why, but then the scent of cold vanilla with just a hint of spice swirled through the air, overpowering everything else, and a blast of blue lightning streaked through the air above my head. My heart lifted.
Sullivan.
He strode forward, his long gray coat snapping around his legs, and put himself in between me and the magier. While the other woman scrambled to her feet, Sullivan glanced down, making sure that I was still alive. Murderous rage filled his face, and his eyes gleamed like electrified sapphires. Without a word, he focused on the Mortan magier, lifted his hands, and blasted her with his lightning again.
The weather magier was strong, but Sullivan was stronger, and he cut right through her defenses and knocked her back down to the floor, hitting her with his blue lightning. The magier screamed and convulsed just like I had.
For several seconds, all I could do was lie still and suck down breath after breath, trying to slow my racing heart and stop the twitching in my arms and legs. The whole time, Sullivan kept blasting the magier with his power, as if he never wanted to stop hurting her for how she had hurt me.
And I realized that Sullivan wasn’t going to stop—not until he killed her.
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