Page 359 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

“He’ll recover.” My words brought every set of eyes up to my face. “He’s a strong kid, and he’s in the best possible hands. He’s gonna be fine.”

“Like you’re fine?” Freya challenged.

“I can swing a blade.” Despite the confidence in my words, my sister’s too-knowing eyes fell to the pocket on my tactical suit where that potion lived these days. A pointed, silent pushback. I forced a tight smile. “He’ll be in fighting form before you know it.”

Carefully, Freya slid the crown back into place, closed the door, and turned the lock before slipping her gloves back off. “Then we better set the pieces in motion before he is.”

“Agreed.”

“But first, we have a brief detour.”

“Freya,” I growled.

“Please. You owe our parents a visit.”

“So not the time.”

“Might be the only time,” she snapped back, leveling me with a glare that would make lesser men cower. “James and Sam miss you too, asshole.”

Rolling my eyes, I followed the tiny shithead back toward the door.

“Fine. But we’re going straight from them to recruit our people.”

“Fine,” she snipped, earning an amused snort from Cyrus, whose hand hovered just inches off her lower back like he couldn’t quite bring himself to touch her.

I needed to wring his fucking neck.

Ally could infuriate me like the best of them—God knew sacrificing herself was enough to make me lose my fucking mind.

But there was nothing—no stone I’d leave unturned, no Renown I wouldn’t slaughter—nothing I wouldn’t do to get her back.

If she were standing next to me now? Not a fucking chance I’d keep my hands off her.

“This has to be an intimate task force,” Tessa cautioned, drawing me back to the moment. “Only the people you trust implicitly can be brought up to speed, or this will hold up about as well as a house of cards.”

SEVENTY-TWO

THE CRUEL KING

BLYTHE

171 days…

Three days.

For three days, Barry and Smith escorted me to and from the healer’s wing without deviation. Smith brought me meals himself, and I could only assume they were under the impression Moros had wanted me taken out. Or simply broken. Either way, I hadn’t seen Adrastos since they’d taken me to the fighting ring. Hadn’t seen Ally since I tended to her cuts and scrapes—the blood of her opponent still warm across the stone floor.

She’d eviscerated him.

Ruthlessly.

Whatever pieces Moros had scrambled, her skill behind a blade wasn’t one of them. Too valuable, I supposed. Likely the reason they kept her in the first place. A weapon to be honed and wielded.

But on the fourth day… the cousins let me eat breakfast in the mess hall. On our way back from the healer’s wing, we passed the gaping hallway windows overlooking the courtyard, and my blood ran cold.

Moros was enjoying one of his spectacles. Perched on his throne atop a stage raised for the occasion, he watched as a mammoth-sized guard in black armor lifted his whip and brought it down with brutal force, blood spraying from a bare back…

A bare back that looked… small.