“The Hand holds the blade,” growled the man, “that carves the path of change.”
He surged forward as he said it. Rhy moved to block the blow, but this time something held his sword. He glanced down and saw the tip shivering where it was pinned on the water’s surface, stilled by the attacker’s magic.
Fuck, thought Rhy, right before the force wrenched the weapon from his grip. It vanished, sucked down beneath the surface, and then the attacker was there, his blade driving straight through Rhy’s chest.
He let out a ragged gasp as the sword scraped his ribs, drove up and through, the tip coming out between his shoulder and his spine.
The pain was a rod of searing heat.
All this time, and he still hadn’t gotten used to dying.
It stole his breath as blood dripped into the water, blooming like roses around them. His body betrayed him, sagging into the attacker’s arms.
“This is the end of the Maresh,” said the Hand.
Rhy laughed, blood spilling through gritted teeth. “Haven’t you heard?” he said softly, dragging himself upright. “I’m the Unkillable King.”
The other man’s eyes widened in shock, then horror, as Rhy took a step back, and then another, drawing his body off the blade. It hurt—saints, it hurt—but it wouldn’t be the end of him. Blood was pooling in one lung, but Rhy drew in a shaky breath, and then another, as the wound between his ribs begins to heal.
The attacker scrambled backward, slashing blindly with his sword as he tried to reach the other side of the bath. Rhy waded toward him, the pain receding in his chest, dulling into something he could stand.
The attacker dropped his sword, the blade disappearing into the bloody water as he raised his hands in surrender. Or at least, that’s what Rhy assumed he was doing. Until the man’s lips began to move.
The sound that came out had the whisper of magic, and as he spoke, something wrapped around Rhy’s legs, and pulled, forcing him down, beneath the surface. He thrashed, but the reddened water twisted around him like rope, holding him against the bottom of the pool. Beyond the roiling surface, he could just make out the assassin, fingers splayed as he held the magic, and the magic held him, the way it had his sword.
And Rhy realized, as his lungs burned and his vision blurred, that he was going to drown.
* * *
Kell was eating dinner when he began to die.
Lila was leaning against the galley counter, peeling an apple, and he’d just taken a mouthful of Raya’s latest stew when the pain erupted in his chest. The spoon fell from his fingers and he bowed his head, clutching the table as a white-hot blade drove between his ribs.
“Oh, come on,” said Lila, “I know it’s not her best, but—Kell?”
He sucked in a breath, and tasted the ghost of blood. Lila jabbed the paring knife into the fruit and set it down, starting toward him. He felt the phantom scrape of the blade dragging free, clutched at his chest even though he knew the wound wasn’t there. Wasn’t his.
Rhy.
The pain began to ebb from a sharp and violent thing into a vicious ache, and Kell drew in a ragged breath, and straightened, thinking the worst of it was over. He pulled the red ring from his finger, was about to utter the spell that connected the band to his brother’s.
But when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.
He tried again, but his lungs tightened, unwilling to part with their air. He couldn’t breathe. A visceral panic seized him, coiled around his limbs. His head began to swim, and a terrible pressure formed in his chest as something changed, the terrible sensation that his lungs were filling up with water. He made it out of the galley and into the narrow hall before he swayed, and retched, half expecting the water to spill onto the wooden floor.
Nothing came up, but his lungs vised again under the strain. He tried to stand, but his body buckled, his brother’s ring falling from his fingers. His vision blurred, and then he was on his back, and Lila was kneeling over him, her face dark with worry, her mouth moving, but her voice was drowned by the pounding in his ears.
And the encroaching wall of black.
* * *
Rhy remembered wondering if they should ward the royal baths.
But magic kept the water hot, and it seemed like such a nuisance, such a waste of time and energy, so he’d opted to leave the room unwarded, and now here he was, pinned to the bottom of the bath by someone else’s power.
Something glinted on the floor nearby. The sword he’d lost. Rhy strained, trying to reach toward it, but the water only tightened, squeezing the last of the air from his chest.