“I speak to a commoner who has found his way into my bar, looking for information. Perhaps he’ll find someone peddling it.” She raises an eyebrow. “But when you see the king again, please tell him to reconsider who he paints an enemy to Islor, because I suspect he will desperately need one in particular before long.” She sets her gold coin on the table. “And I would stop executing mortals if I were you.”
“I have.” At least the ones who don’t openly defy the rule of law.
“It was mildly pleasant knowing you, Atticus.” With that, Bexley is gone, slipping out of the booth and gliding through the darkness toward the door.
Leaving me alone with my dour thoughts.
It was mildly pleasant knowing me? Past tense?
What does Bexley know that she refused to tell me? I survey the Goat’s Knoll, looking for an immediate threat, but I see none. Still, my hand lands on the hilt of my dagger for comfort. I have half a mind to haul Bexley into a dungeon to see if she’ll be so surly when her wrists are shackled.
The gold coin she left behind gleams under the firelight. I collect it and flip it over within my grasp as she did. My stomach clenches as I take in the two crescents, intertwined. This coin must be from Ulysede, which means there is someone from there within my city.
I scramble out of the booth and charge out the front door intent on finding Bexley and interrogating her.
Instead, I find Kazimir armed and facing off against the raven-haired beauty I bumped into earlier, and a tall, cloaked form at her side.
Her eyes glow silver.
“You’re a caster.” Surprise fills my voice. And she’s with Jarek—a legionary. I’m reaching for my sword when a searing pain slams into my chest.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
ROMERIA
Atticus drops to the ground as people around us scream and scatter. They have no idea they’re looking at their fallen king.
“That landed true and will likely be merth.” Jarek’s attention is still on Kazimir, who stares with a mix of shock and horror.
Atticus isn’t moving.
“Fuck!” I rush to his side. The arrow protrudes from his torso, right where his heart would be. I check for a pulse. It’s barely there.
Atticus deserves to die for all the mortals he’s executed, but I know Zander wouldn’t want this. “I’m doing this for your brother, not you.” I reach for Aoife’s healing thread. But Lucretia’s words come back to me. I don’t have time to knit this idiot’s flesh back together with one affinity. I have to do this quickly or not at all.
“If you want him to live, I suggest you focus your energy on the enemy about to run out that door,” Jarek warns Kazimir a moment before a dark-haired man dashes out.
Kazimir charges him.
“Hurry up!” Jarek barks at me.
“Then get this thing out of him!”
He rushes to my side and yanks on the arrow, pulling it free. Even covered in crimson, the metal gleams, silver and deadly.
Without the arrow to plug it, blood pours out of Atticus’s chest in a steady rivulet. Gritting my teeth, I clamp my hands over the rush and summon all my affinities, allowing them to coil together in one thick silver thread. The sound of clanging steel fades from thought behind me as I sink my power into his fatal wound.
In seconds, the still body beneath me shudders to life. Atticus gasps for breath.
“The king’s guard is on its way!” Jarek shouts.
Hyacinth-blue eyes that remind me of Annika’s blink before focusing on me. “You.”
He has no idea who I am. “I think you’ll live, though you don’t deserve it. Get Wendeline to fix up anything I missed.” Horse hooves pound against cobblestone, warning me that we’ve run out of time. But on impulse—or maybe because a spiteful side wants Atticus to know who saved his life—I lean in to growl in his ear, “By the way, I don’t even know how to play draughts.”
Jarek yanks me away, and we run for the alley.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
GRACEN
My dress is covered in spit-up, snot, and urine, and my back aches by the time I tuck in the last of the restless children, a four-year-old girl named Nora whose parents were taken to the execution square. She wouldn’t stop sobbing until I promised her she will see them again.
I pray that wasn’t a lie.
Corrin meets me by the doors, her hands on her hips as she surveys the ballroom of sleeping bodies. “I visited a barn much like this once.” She picks a piece of straw from her lips with a grimace. “I will be smelling and tasting hay all night.”