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Rheave makes an urgent noise in his throat. “The soldiers—they’re all captured daimon.”
At the same moment, the wind ripples over one of the fleeing figure’s hoods. As I twitch my gaze to track the movement, the fabric flaps back enough to reveal dark hair framing a pale face I recognize in an instant.
Not the woman I was looking for, but a girl who it appears needs my protection even more in this moment.
I don’t know why Princess Klaudia is running away from the guards who would normally be defending her or who she’s with, but the captured daimon are the scourge sorcerers’ tools. I doubt their intentions are good.
“We take the guards down,” I bark at the others, and leap into the street.
I miss my prosthetic hand more than ever, but my sword slides from its sheath with a reassuring hiss. I barrel past King Konram’s daughter and her companions straight toward their pursuers.
A flash of startled confusion crosses one of the guards’ faces just before I slam my sword into his chest. The moment the blade penetrates his heart, his body hardens into the clay it started as.
As he thuds to the cobblestones with a crack of the fired clay, a lightning-like bolt of energy careens through the air and smacks into the woman next to him. She reels backward, the side of her head charred by Rheave’s supernatural attack.
Before she can regain her balance, I’ve slit her throat and spun toward the third pursuer.
He tries to dodge me, lunging after the princess. In the same moment as I drive my sword into his side, an arrow smacks into his temple.
I’m not sure which weapon causes his ultimate end. Like the other two, he stiffens into clay and collapses.
I whirl in the direction the princess was running. My friends were racing over to help me in the confrontation, Rheave with his bow and another arrow in hand, the other two gripping their knives. With the fall of the last body, we turn to consider the three figures in their fancy cloaks who’ve hesitated in a tight huddle by the doorway of a darkened shop.
Princess Klaudia’s voice wavers from beneath her hood. “General Stavros?”
I lost my military position more than a year ago with the injury that damaged my sight, but I’m not of any mind to correct her now. The fact that she recognized me may be the only reason she hasn’t kept running.
I lower my sword and hold up the stump of my wrist in a gesture of surrender. “I only wanted to ensure they wouldn’t hurt you. What’s happened, Princess Klaudia?”
The only answer I get is a muffled sob as she presses her hand to her mouth. The girl is only sixteen—gods only know what she’s been through to bring her to this point.
Stepping closer, I make out her brother’s face beneath one of the other hoods. Prince Jacos is even younger, and his skin has turned sallow despite the blotches of exertion from their run.
The figure in the middle who was clutching them lifts her head to meet my gaze. In the second before my vision fogs again, I find myself staring at one of my former students—Petra, her name is.
Her dark eyes hold mine so solemnly my stomach hollows out.
She’s a distant relative of the queen’s—not even from the Melchiorek line. Why would King Konram have evacuated her along with the immediate royal family?
Why is she with her cousins and not the king himself or any of their actual protectors?
When she speaks, her clear voice holds steady other than a brief quiver of emotion she can’t totally suppress. “Ster. Stavros, we need your help. King Konram and Queen Ishild are dead.”
Four
Ivy
My head throbs harder with every stumbling step. Liquid trickles down the side of my face—a metallic flavor seeps between my lips.
Blood; it must be blood.
Everything but the ache feels so far away.
A hand is clamped around my upper arm, yanking me faster. I just want to stop and lie down, make the pounding in my skull stop, but my legs keep lurching onward.
A voice grates out from beside me. “Can’t you get her running?”
Another voice, wobbly: “I’m sorry, Master Lothar. I’m doing my best. It’s harder when she’s injured.”
