CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.” With Shakespeare’s words warm on my lips, I thought how impressed Reign—and our Centaur tutor, Chiron of Delaran— would be that I actually remembered something from all the hours of tutoring they’d invested in.
Rowan kissed my forehead, his lips soft on my skin, his anxiety choking the air between us.
Avenging Tham by eliminating Tasso had to be done and it had to be now. Coal was in bed. The sun had set, the full moon had risen, and the iridescence of the field over Attalos was lighting my way to where I needed to be. But for the first time in my life, I was torn about leaving to fight. “Ydorus and the others are waiting for me.”
“Let them wait,” he whispered, studying my face. Gentle fingers traced the line of my jaw, and caressed my neck. Freshly showered, he smelled delicious, his loose brown curls damp against his neck. His hands moved lower, his touch pausing on the pockets of my battle vest.
My heart beat faster. “Thanks again for the weapons. I love them.”
He shrugged, his smile not touching his eyes. “You’re not really the kind of girl I’d buy flowers for.”
I chuckled.
He didn’t.
“Hey, don’t.” Stretching up on my tiptoes, I claimed his lips. His kiss was stiff, but I persisted, nipping and kissing until he loosened up a little. I pulled my lips from his. “I’ll be fine. Promise. You’ll be so busy with those law books, you won’t even miss me. I’ll be back before you know it and you can sew up any damage. We can have a repeat of last night.”
His glare was an ocular version of a fully extended middle finger. “Swear you’ll be careful.”
I held up my arm and let my Talon brand appear. “On my honor, I do so swear.”
He dropped his lips to the top of my head and pulled me tight. “You’re not nearly as invincible as you think you are, Princess.” To prove his point, he spanked the gash that wrapped from my hip to the cheek of my butt. Hard.
“Hey.” I hissed. “Be nice or I’ll reconsider my after-party plans and cuddle in with Coal.”
He almost smiled. “I don’t think so. If you get back here alive there will be a thorough exam of all your parts and pieces. Doctor’s orders.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him until we were both breathless. “It’s a date.”
Iridescence shimmered along the inner surface of the dome. It danced in greens, blues and pinks, illuminating the black night sky like the Aurora Borealis. Moving amongst the long shadows of sleepy homes, I ghosted through the abandoned streets. The city was quiet, the citizens all tucked safely in their beds. I doubted they were sleeping. The air was charged with violent intention. Mine. The Queen’s. The citizens’ themselves.
My skin rose in goosebumps as I neared the rendezvous point. The evening breeze crept over my skin, leaving the faintest sticky feeling of salt and sweat on my flesh.
“Princess,” Ydorus whispered.
I shifted my gaze to the dark void between two buildings and found him.
“Everything all right, Princess?”
I nodded and joined him. Drawing a deep breath, I fought the ache that had been growing in my chest for days. It felt wrong not having Bruin and Jade watching my back and Julian orchestrating the attack over comms. But they weren’t there and I was. I bit back the pain that I was now on my own.
“Everything is perfect. Let’s do this.”
As Ydorus led me the rest of the way, I tried to shake the feeling that I’d missed something, something just beyond my mind’s eye. I scanned the streets again as he tucked us into a nook at the edge of the courtyard. Tasso, the pompous bastard, stood opposite us, standing against the guardhouse chatting with two men.
Ydorus leaned close. “Besides Tasso and his friends, there are two guards inside the guardhouse, four watching from buildings surrounding the courtyard, two dressed as citizens in the gated patio of the restaurant across the way and there might be one hiding behind the bronze sculpture at the center of the fountain.”
Did they really think I would tromp right into an ambush? Yes. Obviously, they did. They’d probably even laughed about it, me being an emotional female and all. Well, their underestimation of me was to my advantage. Thankful once again for Reign raising me, I drew on my years as a Talon warrior and as a teacher of battle strategy.
Shifting my feet, I stretched my neck from side to side. The moon was almost directly over the main square and when it was, these men would see just what kind of strategist I was. I ran a hand down my newly mended leathers and smiled. Rowan was a handy little sewer. He had many talents, actually. I patted down the front of my vest, glad for the weight of weapons.
I loved all my new knives, but the best for this battle was the handheld compound bow with orichalcum bolts. I slid my fingers over the butt of the weapon and stroked the polished wood. Now all I needed was to get close enough to shoot one of these nasty little fuckers right through Tasso’s eye socket.
That was going to be damn satisfying. Truth.
Ydorus and I sat tight, waiting for the working parts of our plan to sync up. It was Tasso and his men who began the shift and fidget. Maybe they figured I’d get sick of waiting and just go for it. Yeah, think again.
One of Ydorus’s cousins from this morning, dressed as a male server, came out from under the awning of the restaurant with a dessert tray. As planned, he set the tray on the table between the two soldiers trying to blend in and the courtyard beyond. I rolled on the balls of my feet, watching as he busied himself, screening those two sipping at their doped drinks.
“They’re starting to waver,” Ydorus whispered, drawing his pain-stick baton. “Won’t be long.”
We watched as first one, and then the other, slumped in his chair. Two down.
Taking out a lighter, Ydorus’s cousin pointed it toward the tray and I drew my dagger. The whoosh of blue flame was massive, the patio bursting alight. He must have used a stein of booze to ignite the thing because the awning caught fire and in seconds, flames leapt in every direction.
Chaos ensued: the scrape of chairs, the scream of patrons and the rush of two more hidden soldiers to investigate.
The whistle that rent the air was Eury’s signal that he was on the move to secure the guardhouse. That was my cue.
As the waiter and his brother faced off with two very surprised fellow soldiers, I darted from shadow to shadow, edging closer. Despite being close enough to see the feral grin on Tasso’s face, I couldn’t get a clean shot. I ducked low and rolled to the side, coming up against the trunk of one of the metal sculptured trees. Holding up the bow up, I sighted Tasso. Shit, almost there.
I needed him to step out from behind the streetlamp.
The restaurant commotion was still in full riot when a merchant woman burst from her shop and started screeching at the two Strati hiding on her balcony. Waving a broom and a flashlight, she screamed about privacy and the perversion of men watching from the shadows.
Eury rammed a metal bar through the door latch of the gatehouse and blocked the exit for the Strati inside. Whether it was a flash of movement or the Fates deciding to screw me, Tasso turned exactly the wrong way, at exactly the wrong moment and chased after him.
Shit. Tasso was headed out of the courtyard.
Abandoning plan A, I launched into the alley nearest me and gunned it in the same direction. My thighs ate the distance as my heart raced inside my chest. Tasso was mine and no way was he taking Eury down for helping me.
As the commotion of the courtyard grew faint behind me, I cut through a side street. The rhythmic sound of heavy footsteps connecting with stone echoed hollow somewhere on my right. Male voices grumbled and shouted. Something clattered loud behind the candle shop. I raced on.
The moon slid behind the clouds and the luminescence of the field was gone. The sudden loss of light had me blinking to adjust my vision. Footsteps resumed to my right and I pushed into the darkness by sound alone. Eury and Tasso were coming down the next street, had to be.
Adrenaline pumped the thunder of my pulse into my ears. They would be intersecting just about—
The rollercoaster drop had me flailing mid-air.
Water scrambled my mind as I splashed and sank. My muscles tightened as icy darkness enveloped my body.
The canal.
I must have run off the edge of the walkway and landed in a canal. Struggling to find which way was up, I broke the surface and choked my lungs clear. The clouds were passing, the glimmer of moonlight casting a path back to the edge. I was a strong swimmer, but the lip of the alleyway was at least five feet above my head. No ladders. No edges to grab.
The scuffle of a vicious fight, echoed above. Cursing. The dull thud of bodies connecting. The grunt and crash of hand-to-hand. Shit, Eury.
I needed out of this canal. I needed to be up there. A surge of water pushed at me from below. Did I do that? But I could barely work the shower.
The sounds of the battle above tightened in my gut. I couldn’t tread water here all night while people were getting hurt. With all my might, I focused on the water raising me to the edge. I needed a lift. I needed out. I needed—
The catapulting effect was immediate and far more powerful than I expected.
The stone of the walkway came hard and fast. My tuck and roll barely saved my head from cracking. My shoulder hit and bent behind me. White-hot pain shot through my hip. I blinked, my vision spotty.
Tasso was there, not twenty feet away, beating on Eury like a dog in the street.
I scrambled to my feet, ignoring the lethargic response of my left leg or the road rash on my palms. Fuck, where was the crossbow? Canal, likely.
Hand-to-hand it is. Crossing my arms over my waist I grabbed the two hilts protruding from my battle vest and drew steel. Tasso and Eury were still hard at it. Didn’t even hear me slip in behind them when—
I froze. Shaking my head, I breathed deep again to make sure. Scourge. The rotting stench of the undead clung to Tasso’s uniform . . . how?
My hesitation wasn’t long, but it cost me. Tasso spun and back-fisted me to the face. Staggering to the side, I breathed through the hit. He whirled me around. The instant I spun to face him, I rammed my knee between his legs and locked my hands on the fucker’s throat.
An earthquake of emotion ripped through me.
Gone was the strategic, Battle Master of The Academy of Affinities, gone was the Talon Enforcer for the Realm of the Fair, gone was any thought or emotion beyond the violent menace erupting from my core. My skin ignited with a burning heat.
A hard punch to the gut and my breath left me in a rush. Struggling in an all-out brawl, my body moved on autopilot, slashing and hacking at the bastard who had taken pleasure in killing Tham—the sweetest male ever known.
With my vision still on the blink, the images Zophia had shared with me flashed like a never-ending lightning storm behind my eyes. My muscles and bones ignored the damage, ignored the teeth-rattling strikes Tasso landed.
I was action. No thought. No feeling. For the first time in my life, my temper exploded and I didn’t reel it in.
Struggling in a close melee, I unsheathed my Guardian from my thigh and brought it up in a hard arc. The blade fought through his ribcage, positioned to pierce his heart.
“That is for Tham.” I jammed it in, hard. “And for me, you fucking piece of shit.”
Tasso’s eyes widened and then we both sank to the cobbled ground.
Sometime later—a long time later judging by the ache in my muscles—I became aware of Eury’s low moan. I yanked my knife from Tasso’s body and crawled over. The buckles of his chest plate were slick with blood and tough for my cramped fingers to manipulate free. Shit. He was drenched and in bad shape.
“Princess?” I gripped my blade and whirled, blade poised. No need. It was the merchant woman with the blue wings from the other day. She approached slowly, her hands up between us. “Princess, you’re hurt. Let us get you in off the street before more soldiers come. It’s not safe here.”
“Him first.” I wiped my blade on Tasso’s cape and sheathed my knife. “Eury’s worse off than me. He needs Rowan.” When she just stared at me, I snapped. “Lir-Rowan, Noble of the Fifth House, get him for me.”
She recoiled. “This man is a Strati soldier. Leave him to the night. You need to—”
“He’s with me,” I said, resting a protective hand over Eury’s chest. “Not all soldiers are the Queen’s men. If you care anything for what remains of Attalos’ honor, I demand he receive shelter and care.”
She pursed her lips but didn’t hesitate long. Whistles sounded a few streets over. Men shouted. Nodding, she waved to the three young men. They scurried out from the shadows.
With booted feet, two of them rolled Tasso like a rotten log and kicked him into the canal. The third grabbed a large sheet of wood from the alley and dropped it onto the bloody stone walk beside Eury. He and the woman shifted Eury onto the board and dragged him down the alley to a door.
The voices grew closer.
When I made to follow, my foot skidded. Pain ripped through my knee as it hit blood-slick stone. I tried to catch myself, but my body didn’t obey. My vision fritzed again.
The thundering of soldier bootsteps were almost on top of us. The last thing I remember . . . strong hands scooped me up and pulled me in tight.
“We’ve got you, Princess,” a voice whispered. “We’ve got you.”