“He’s with Her Highness,” Majnu said. “It appears, according to initial reports, that he was the one who saved her.”
Leo’s head snapped up. “What?”
“Those are the initial reports, sir,” the Spear said. “We’ve had casualties, both palace and civilian. Some of Her Highness’s guards died in an explosion. Ferma was killed by a sniper.”
“Ferma?” Leo said, stunned. He felt a pressure in his stomach, as if he was slowly being swallowed by quicksand.
“Holy Bird Above,” Arish whispered.
Leo stared at Majnu’s floating image.Ferma dead, Yassen Knight alive. It makes no sense.
“Seven minutes you said?”
“Yes, sir,” Majnu replied, and Leo shot to his feet.
The passage from his office to his chambers rumbled open. He strode through, past the polished halls and bustling kitchens, through the main courtyard and Aahnah’s banyan tree, his heart fluttering in his chest like a caged bird.How in the heavens did the Arohassin get past capital security? Past Samson’s men?He heard a hum and saw a black dot on the horizon—the hoverpod.
He began to jog and then run. Aahnah’s necklace jostled against his chest as he sprinted past gaping servants and guards.
And as he did, all that hurt, all that bitterness against Elena evaporated.
He realized now, as he ran to his daughter, that the pain he felt was not because of her betrayal—it was because she saw him. She had revealed the things he had avoided.
Have you ever considered what I wanted?
“I haven’t. Please,” he begged. He did not believe in the heavens nor the Phoenix—no god would answer his prayers—but as he ran, heart in his throat, Leo called to the one person who he did believe in. “Please, Aahnah. Let her be safe.”
He could ward off Jantari armies, root out clusters of Arohassin agents, and burn the Prophet himself, and still, he would have failed his daughter.
Have you ever asked?
That night, she had searched his face for an answer, eyes wet, waiting. But he had never stopped. Never paused and turned to her.
Leo burst through the gates and onto the landing platform that jutted out behind the palace, along the lip of the hill. He saw a team of medics huddled against the rain. Guards lined the platform, and there was Majnu, ordering his men to surround their king.
The hoverpod appeared through the burning sky, and its descent seemed to take an eternity as Leo watched it dock and its ramp slowly unfold before bloodied guards stumbled through.
And then he spotted her. That dark mess of curls.
Leo pushed past the guards, the medics, Arish, Majnu, all of them, and saw Yassen supporting her, helping her down the ramp, pushing her forward. Her eyes fluttered to Leo.
“Elena!” he cried and drew her into his arms. He squeezed her tightly and felt blood on his clothes and his face, but he did not care.
Elena. His daughter. His heir.
She was alive.
Elena made a soft, rasping sound.
“Yes?”
Her eyes locked on him. Her words were faint.
“Ferma,” she breathed. “What happened to her?”
But then a team of medics rushed in and unhooked him from her. Leo watched, heart thundering, as they eased her onto a hoverbed, undid the wrapping on her wounds, and sedated her. He watched her go.
“They got Ferma,” a dull voice said behind him, and Leo turned to see Yassen. Blood stained his cheek.
