My tingling fingers barely registered how it felt. I had no idea what it was.
But only a pinprick of light remained in my vision. So I clung onto that, and I clung onto whatever I’d found.
When you have nothing left, even a scrap of something is important.
I struck.
Hot liquid spurted over me. I managed half a gasping breath.
I wanted to live.
I wanted to live.
There was only darkness and that pinpoint of light.
I reached for it. Death didn’t get to come for me today.
Not today.
Spluttering. Gurgling. More red. The weight on me grew heavier. Robin’s mouth gaped.
Someone was roaring. Not in terror or pain, but in ten years of hate and hurt and rage.
It took me long moments to register that I could breathe. My arm was still going, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing.
The roar was mine.
Robin slumped to one side, a shard of glass in his eye, his face and neck a bloody mess.
The soft bits.
I wheezed, sucking in as much air as I could, pulse hammering on my ears.
My broken wrist and sliced hand should’ve been in agony, but every part of my body was alight with terrible and glorious fire. It buzzed through me like potent magic.
Blood everywhere.
My hand, my face, slick with it.
From the state of him, he had to be dead. I didn’t need to check his pulse.
I should be sorry, shouldn’t I? Upset? Scared? Something?
But all I could do was blink at his blank eyes and slack face.
Then the shadows came.
Gentle shadows lifted Robin’s body off me and cradled my broken arm. My head spun as I sat up, something warm helping me. I had to blink several times before I registered the blackest of black hair, the silver eyes surveying me, and beyond that, the door hanging off its hinges.
Bastian’s lips moved, and he cupped my cheek, turning my face away from Robin. It was only as I took long breaths that the thunder in my ears abated enough to hear what he was saying.
“Don’t look. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
I blinked up at him, then smiled when I realised he was trying to protect me from the sight of what I’d done. “I’m… I’m all right.” Dimly, pain broke through my daze, as if speaking had brought reality back.
I pulled away from Bastian’s protection and I looked.
The shard of glass from one of Ella’s bottles glittered.
Even a scrap of something is important.
Was it ghoulish to laugh at a time like this?
Robin’s remaining eye was wide in shock. Maybe that was why he hadn’t protected himself from my blows—he hadn’t expected them.
Blood. Gore. Torn flesh.
The sight of him utterly destroyed didn’t horrify me as the people I’d poisoned had.
“He earned this.” My voice came from somewhere far away. “He… he tried to kill me. Not just now, but… all these years.” I shook my head as Bastian’s words from Lunden came back to me. “A slow death.”
Bastian nodded, eyebrows tight together. “He did. He did.” He pressed a kiss to my brow and another to my mouth—warm and alive and mine.
It was only when he pulled away with red on his lips that I realised my face was covered in blood. I reached out to wipe it away, but it coated my hand too. My dress and cleavage. The floor around me.
My gaze snagged on the broken door, shockingly white compared to the crimson.
I frowned at Bastian, somehow, impossibly here. “How did you know?”
“Urien. He couldn’t stop Robin entering, but he could come and tell me.”
More ridiculousness. I could be left alone with that man, yet being with Bastian was wrong?
He gave a long exhale, shoulders sinking. “Thank fuck he did. Though…” He glanced at Robin’s body. “It looks like you didn’t need me.”
I might’ve smiled. It was hard to say. Everything felt a bit fuzzy, except for the pain radiating from my wrist and palm.
He tore a strip from the hem of his shirt and bandaged my hand, staunching the bleeding. “I’ll send for Asher to heal you, then we can get you cleaned up.”
“No.” The firmness of my voice shocked even me. “Help me up.”
He frowned but obeyed, shadows holding my arm steady.
“You’re going to take me to the Hall of Healing, and we’re going to walk the busiest corridors of the palace to get there.”
Maybe I was losing my mind. Maybe I was still running on adrenaline. But after everything, I was standing, and Robin was not.
The corner of Bastian’s mouth rose in a bemused smile as he cocked his head.
“I will not hide away in here.” Head high, I took his arm, allowing for my sliced palm. “I’m not the one who should be ashamed. Let’s show your fellow fae what blindly clinging to their laws caused.”
76
Bastian
Urien’s eyes widened when we left our suite. I wondered if Kat noticed, but she seemed focused on the end of the corridor like she’d seen a prize and wouldn’t stop until she had it.
With a nod, I ordered him to guard the broken doors. We would have words later. I didn’t know whether to kill him for letting that man in or kiss him for fetching me.
I’d smashed into that room, body and shadows coiled to strike. My hands clenched with the knowledge that under all the blood, bruises marked Kat’s skin. I had failed to keep her safe.
And yet…
And yet she’d saved herself.
Somehow that trumped my guilt, because my ember had erupted into a flame and utterly destroyed the life that had threatened hers.
Maybe I was sick. Maybe it was my unseelie side bleeding through, but I had never felt more proud than I did in that moment. Not when I earned my place in the Queensguard. Not when I was made Braea’s Shadow.
Nothing—nothing matched walking through the palace corridors with this woman on my arm, broken but unbowed, wearing her dead husband’s blood like it was a badge of fucking honour.
Just as she’d ordered, I chose a route through the busiest corridors. Mouths dropped open. Eyes bulged. Everyone who saw her forgot to hide their curiosity.
Whispers broke out in her wake, and Ella appeared at my elbow, pale and aghast.
By the time we reached the grand hall, she’d amassed quite a crowd, and more stopped in their tracks here, as folk from both courts returned from theatres. Even Cyrus paused as he swaggered in, eyebrows inching up. Their murmurs drifted with the lights, which clustered around us as though attracted to her.
Between the rumours and the fact she’d lived in my rooms for the past few months, we were beyond trying to hide what she meant to me. This appearance would seal that and, with a little luck, spell out that, not only was she under my protection, but she would deal with any threat ruthlessly and bloodily.
She nudged me, and I leant closer, alert to where she wished to steer. I followed the subtle pressure of her touch to the fountain and helped her step up onto its lip as an expectant quiet stole over the large space.
Inwardly I winced at the tightness around her eyes—any movement had to be agony, uncovering new injuries.
Stars above, was it tempting to just carry her to Asher or the Hall of Healing, but this was what she wanted and, I suspected, what she needed.
“People of Tenebris and Luminis.” Her voice rang through the silence. “I hear the whispers beginning already. I’m sure there will be plenty of rumours to explain my state. In case there is any doubt about the truth your kind love so much, let me be clear.” She flashed a smile, teeth shockingly pale against the blood covering her face.