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He’s already shoved open the palace door. “Make sure no one sees enough to raise the alarm,” he snaps at Zaneta under his breath.
He marches down the main hall draped with tapestries and hung with gold-framed paintings. My feet stride after him over the intricately woven rug.
My thoughts scramble in my frantic attempts to figure out how to defy him. I might be able to throw myself faster forward, right into him.
But I have no weapons, and Zaneta is containing my magic again. What would bumping against the magic advisor accomplish other than pissing him off and making her even more cautious?
Maybe when Zaneta pushes my magic out of me again, I can launch at least a little of it toward my captors instead?
I won’t have much time to find out. Lothar wants me to destroy the royal family the second we reach them.
I have no idea how deep into the palace the audience room lies. Lothar veers down a side hall, picking up his pace even more, and Zaneta forces me to match it.
Lanterns flicker on the walls, casting their golden glow through the opulent passage. Then voices echo off the vaulted ceilings from somewhere in the distance—an urgent shout.
My heart leaps with the thought that our intrusion has already been discovered. But Lothar and his underling don’t react.
My gut knots tighter with sickly understanding.
The shout wasn’t a real sound. That was my mind acting up, inventing hallucinations. Cracking more as my magic tears at my sanity.
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Nothing yet. With every step, we must be getting farther away from the sacrificial accomplice Zaneta is drawing strength from. I test the boundaries of her control and find I can swing my arms just a little with my strides.
Somehow I don’t think a swish of my sleeves is going to save me or King Konram.
I reach toward the power coiled inside me. It’s whirling in my chest with a sense of anticipation after being called on once already.
If I can crack Zaneta’s control over my magic—if I can shatter her concentration for long enough to break free?—
Two guards hustle toward us from farther down the hall. One of them hesitates, looking us over. “Advisor Lothar, I don’t think?—”
Lothar doesn’t even need to gesture this time. Zaneta knows what her orders are—and my body jerks to follow them with the squeeze of her magic around me.
Two more spears of power spring from my hands. Both of the guards collapse, their eyes rolling up, their forms totally limp.
Lothar points to a side room, and Zaneta has me heave the corpses inside. I grapple with my power, willing it to careen farther to the side, to smack into her, but it stays melded to the strict course she’s given it.
I still can’t deviate too far from her control. She’d need to be right in the way of where she’s having me direct my magic, and it’s unlikely she’ll be that careless.
Lothar lets out a hiss of his breath through his teeth. “Come on. Before anyone else can interfere.”
We hurry to another corner and turn toward a door carved with crowns and leafy branches. Zaneta has me cut down the two guards stationed outside before they can so much as speak.
Another scream builds at the base of my throat, but I can’t even look away from their lifeless bodies.
As we hurtle onward, she compels me to disengage the door’s lock with my magic. More power balls behind my sternum, ready to shove the door wide so I can spring inside and smash through every person waiting beyond it.
No. I can’t let this happen. I can’t.
My pulse thunders in my ears. My thoughts flail in my head.
And as we reach the door, I see my opening.
In the same moment as my first blast of magic hits the door to fling it open, Zaneta throws me forward alongside it. She wants me to charge inside before the royal family has time to react.
So I fling myself even faster in the direction she’s already pushed me.
