Page 181 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

“They’d never believe you killed him, so don’t worry,” he said, almost pleasantly. “You’ve been rather too publicly devoted to his recovery. Inconvenient, in some ways. But then, that was never the plan.”

“Why?” I asked. My voice came out far steadier than I felt. “What could possibly be worth the risk of regicide?”

He tilted his head and gestured at the mages standing behind him. “Promises. Ones the current crown would never give me.”

“Money,” I said. “Power.”

“Of course.” He said it the way you’d say, it’s raining. “But also guarantees. A bloodline. Security for the next generation.”

A cold knot formed in the pit of my stomach. “So they’ve offered you your pick of women to enslave.”

He casually shrugged one shoulder, as though the plight of half the people in the world was a detail too minor to warrant the energy of a proper dismissal.

“You’re going to help them collect women like livestock,” I said. “Just like they used to round up Fae women, and you shrug about it.”

“I only need one,” he said pleasantly. His eyes moved over me with an assessment that made my skin feel like something I wanted to shed.

He’s made a deal for me specifically. “I would never marry you,” I said coldly, standing stock-still.

“Of course not. I only need you for breeding. There are plenty of noble daughters who won’t mind living comfortably without the pressure to reproduce.”

I saw the plan now. The Assembly would have their Arcanist broodmare, a rich man who would do whatever he was told to keep her, and in a generation, they would have children with Fae blood who’d never known anything but their control.

No.

The simple, animalistic understanding that there was an escape nearby made my feet move. I released a sharp pulse of telekinesis that forced the door to swing open, ushering in a biting gust of cold air.

But the guards caught me.

My arms yanked back, shoulders wrenched with agony at the sudden tug. Muffin stared at me from the open doorway with his ears back. I covertly sent another push of telekinesis through the gap. I hoped it would be enough to open a hole in the mesh keeping Muffin inside.

Coryanthus decided he’d had enough. He crossed to the corner of the room and slammed his heel down to dismiss the illusion covering the hatch to the escape tunnel. The floor answered him just as Muffin wiggled through the gap I’d made.

Thank the mother goddess.

If Muffin attacked one of them, they’d kill him without a second thought. I needed him away.

The men holding my arms began to drag me toward the hatch. Cold certainty dropped into my stomach like lead—if I went with them, I might live, but I would wish I hadn’t. No one would find me. By the time Owain came back, there would be nothing left but a rumor about the woman who’d run with the body of the monarch in her room.

Owain.

I reached for the bond. He was there. Furious and on his way.

I wanted to weep tears of relief, but I wasn’t out of this situation yet.

Thibault and the two mages, who had stood by with an intolerable, quiet patience while one life ended and another was shattered, walked sedately over to help Coryanthus lift the latch.

Berian’s body was still in the chair, lifelessly watching me. I shuddered, unable to shake the feeling that I would have the same kind of ending.

I’d spent years as a thankless shield for people who’d measured my worth by how much of myself I gave away. Then I’d been reduced to a womb by a king, and a slave by his murderer.

I was so tired of being used. Of women being treated like we were only worth what we could produce. And I refused to lose the first person I’d chosen for myself.

Death had always known where I lived. She’d sat beside me at sickbeds, waited under bloody sheets, breathed softly in the corner while I worked. I’d always closed my eyes while granting death as a mercy. How fragile, how soft that girl seemed now. How desperately the old Lunette had wanted goodness to mean clean hands.

But bodies had never been clean. Birth was blood. Healing was pus and fever and bones set with screams bitten into blankets.

Maybe justice was messy too. I wouldn’t close my eyes this time.