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Fuck.
Lord Thomas’s mouth tightened briefly at our silence. “I saw her at the beginning of the battle. What she did.” He turned to Casimir. “And you are like her. Like… whatever she has become.”
Casimir held his silence, but this time his gaze flicked over to me. I suspected I could read the question.
Now what?
I let out a slow breath. Now, we were burning time. Now there was only one card remaining that I had to play, short of the one that left us fleeing an army while chasing the monster who used to be our friend.
“You are loyal to Aneira?” I asked the lord, watching carefully for the first hint the man intended to call for his guards. “Both you and your bodyguard? You swear this on the royal tree in Lumilia, vowing your lifeblood to the apple and the crown for now and all time?”
“Yes. Without question.” Lord Thomas regarded me curiously for a moment. “You speak as if you are a soldier of the crown.”
Here went nothing… “I was. I serve Princess Gwyneira. We all do. We would die to save her. But to do this, we need to leave. Now.”
Valeria spoke up, a shrewd expression on her face. “You’re not Aneiran, are you?”
There wasn’t much question in that question.
I drew a breath. “We?—”
“We’re Erenlian,” Niko interrupted before I could thread that needle as carefully as I planned.
Shit.
Lord Thomas froze. Valeria’s hand went for her sword.
Magic surged on the air, coming from my friends, but the lord caught Valeria’s wrist before she could draw the blade. “No.”
He held up a hand to us too with a cautious expression. “We need no more battles today.”
Now, that was unexpected…
“Stand down,” I said to the others, watching him.
The magic faded behind me.
“What the fuck, Niko?” Clay demanded.
“Lies serve no one,” the younger man replied, his voice tight. Controlled. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
My jaw clenched with the urge to tell him suicide didn’t either, but there was nothing for it. The truth was out now, and we were still burning time.
“We’re not your enemies,” I said. “Not unless you endanger the princess.”
Lord Thomas’s eyes scanned the others and then returned to me, a trace of suspicion coming into his gaze.
My stomach sank. He was putting the pieces together. The ones that probably would have occurred to him anyway, but thanks to Niko’s honesty, I couldn’t steer their arrangement.
“And the one who took the princess?” he asked.
I paused. “We’re not sure what happened there.”
The words weren’t a lie. More like half a truth. Because I sure as hell didn’t want to add demon to the conversation.
Thank the gods Niko apparently didn’t either.
The lord gave a measured nod. “But you and the princess,” he continued to Casimir. “You are both something else entirely.”
