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“They’re as well as they can be, considering what Lothar did to their parents.”
He knows about Lothar. Well, the prince and princess were there in the audience room—they would have told him.
My mouth opens, but for a few seconds I can’t push the words past the tension in my throat. “He wanted me to kill them all. One of the other scourge sorcerers, a woman who’s been controlling at least some of the daimon, was holding me with her magic so completely that at first I couldn’t even move a finger unless she commanded it. But she had to leave the sacrificial accomplice she was drawing power from behind when we came to the palace—her control weakened a little—I tried to make sure they couldn’t use me…”
My hand rises to my bandage.
Casimir lets out a rough sound as if he’s the one who’s been wounded. “We’ll have a medic look after that as soon as we can arrange it. You did everything you could—you shouldn’t have been put through that horrible ordeal in the first place.”
Renewed queasiness is building in my gut. The ordeal was even more horrible for people other than me.
“But I didn’t manage— Lothar still attacked the king?—?”
Stavros pulls me closer and presses a kiss to my unharmed temple. Then he bows lower and captures my lips with every bit of the heat and tenderness he’s brought in the past.
When he eases back, his voice has thickened. “The kingdom is in disarray, and we have a lot of work ahead of us, but neither of those things are your fault. I think you should hear exactly what happened from those who witnessed it—the people your efforts did save.”
I swallow hard. Yes. If I hadn’t knocked myself into a stupor, Zaneta would have forced me to slaughter every member of the royal family.
She and Lothar must have attacked the king and queen while I was unconscious, but they didn’t have the power on their own to destroy the entire royal family all at once.
Guilt remains lodged like a stone in my stomach. “The scourge sorcerers wouldn’t have been able to get into the palace at all if it wasn’t for me. I killed some of the guards…”
“Because Lothar forced you to,” Casimir says, stroking his fingers up and down my back in a soothing caress. “You’re no more responsible for that than Rheave is for the damage they’ve compelled him to inflict.”
And yet it’s so much easier to forgive the daimon-man than it is myself.
Stavros gives me a gentle shake. “You haven’t answered my first question yet. How did you get away from them?”
I gather myself and explain about the sedative and Kosmel’s voice in my dream, waking up and killing the daimon guard and Zaneta.
Casimir’s deep blue eyes brighten at that part. “Then she can’t bring you under her control again.”
I nod. “And it was hard for her to keep up her influence, so I’m not sure if any of the other scourge sorcerers could manage it. But that doesn’t mean—we’ll still need to be careful. If I start acting strangely again?—”
“We’ll recognize what’s going on and react much faster,” Stavros finishes for me.
That wasn’t what I was going to insist on, but I can’t summon much enthusiasm for arguing with him about when he should murder me.
I do arch an eyebrow at him. “You came right to me here without having any idea whether I was in my right mind or if it was a trap.”
The former general snorts and motions at the shard of clay I dropped by my feet. “It seemed incredibly unlikely that your captors would have sent you to assassinate us without even a proper weapon.”
Trust him to have paid that much attention to what blade I was holding. And I guess he has a point.
I exhale in a shaky rush. “All right. What do we do now?”
Stavros glances at Toast, who’s been watching our exchange with an air of mild disdain. “Get on your horse and follow us back to where we left ours nearby. We’ve temporarily taken shelter in one of the military’s hidden supply stores, just a couple of hours’ ride from here.”
Looking around with my non-military-trained eyes, I wouldn’t have a clue the patch of forest we’ve entered contains anything other than trees, birds, and the other obvious components of a woodland. But Stavros directs his stallion through the brush without a moment’s hesitation.
He stops and dismounts at a spot where the layer of leaves and dirt on the ground looks a little more stirred up than elsewhere. With a sweep of his arm, he uncovers the slab of stone that he removes to reveal the round steel hatch underneath.
The metal surface is etched with the crest of the Melchiorek family—and scorched around the edges.
The last time we broke into one of these underground storage rooms, Rheave had to shatter the magic sealing it with his daimon power. It looks like he used a similar tactic here.
The seal must be permanently broken. Stavros gives a quick pattern of knocks, presumably designed to let those below know it’s him and not an unwelcome intruder, and then hefts the hatch upward without any resistance.
