Page 35 of Rule of Wolves

“So the courtship is going well?” Zoya muttered.

“I see,” said Nikolai slowly. “Where is it you plan to go?”

“Home,” she declared.

“And how did your friends get free?”

“I…” Her voice wavered. “I struck a guard. I don’t think I killed him. The rest was easy.”

That was Nikolai’s fault. He’d kept the Tavgharad behind bars in the palace dungeon, but he’d given Ehri free use of the upper floors of the palace, the gardens. He hadn’t wanted her to feel like a prisoner. Now, he suspected at least two of his guards were dead, and he didn’t want to see more violence done this day.

Nikolai holstered his weapon and stepped forward, hands raised.

“Please,” he said. “Be reasonable, Princess. You cannot hope to escape. There are too many miles between you and the Sikurzoi.”

“You will provide us transport. You cannot harm us without incurring the wrath of my sister and all of Shu Han. The wedding you desire is a sham and a travesty.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Nikolai admitted. “But have I been cruel to you? Treated you unfairly?”

“I … No.”

A look passed from one member of the Tavgharad to the next. Inside him the demon snarled. Something was wrong. He was missing something right in front of him.

The Tavgharad guard with the rifle set down her weapon, but it was hardly a gesture of peace. Her expression looked carved from stone.

“What is that smell?” said Zoya.

“I don’t smell anything,” said Tolya.

Zoya fluttered her fingers and a bare breeze wafted toward them from the steps.

“Accelerant,” said Tamar, edging closer to the stairs. “Their clothes are soaked.”

Understanding and terror struck Nikolai. They couldn’t mean to …

“Set us free!” demanded Ehri. “Queen Makhi will never stand for—”

“Ehri, move away from them,” he said, watching one of the Tavgharad reach into her pocket. “This is not an escape. This is—”

“I will never—”

“Ehri!”

But it was too late. The Tavgharad guard who had put down her rifle shouted something in Shu. Nikolai glimpsed the match in her hand.

One by one, the Tavgharad burst into flame, each of them a torch engulfed in golden fire. All of it too fast, a slide of keys on the piano, a sudden doomed flourish.

“No!” Nikolai cried, rushing forward. He saw Ehri’s shocked face, the flames racing up her skirts as she screamed.

Zoya acted in an instant, a rush of cold wind extinguishing the fire in a single icy blast. It wasn’t enough. Whatever the Tavgharad had doused themselves with had worked too well. Ehri was on the ground, screaming. The others were silent heaps of charred flesh and ash. His servants were crying out in terror and the palace guards stood frozen in disbelief.

Nikolai’s hands and forearms were badly burned where he’d tried to grab Ehri, his clothing clinging to his smoking flesh. But it was nothing compared to what had happened to the princess. Her skin was scorched black, and where the top layer of flesh was burned away, her limbs were red and wet. Nikolai could feel the heat radiating from her body. She was shaking, her screams stuttering as she convulsed, her body going into shock.

“Tamar, drop her pulse and put her into a coma,” Nikolai commanded. “Tolya, get a Healer.”

Ehri’s screams went silent as Tamar knelt and did her work.

“Why would they do this?” Zoya said, her face stricken as she took in the sudden carnage, the burned piles of blood and bone that had been women mere moments before.