There was shouting, screaming, coming from the hallway. Boots pounding on marble. The clangorous ring of steel striking steel.
Chaos, rising in a crescendo.
With a roar, thesanguinagiyanked Kit’s ice star out of his shoulder, a feral smile on his face as he dragged the edge of his crystal sword through the blood there. Then, he laughed as he slashed wide, a crimson arc of power following the path of his blade. It shot toward Kit, and she leapt out of the way just in time. The bolt of power hit the wall just behind where she had been standing, cracking the stone, the resulting shockwave shattering the glass of her balcony doors.
That same eerie scent she’d caught earlier hit stronger now—iron and smoke and the tang of something sweet, cloying, wrong.
“The hospitality of Kingshelm has come to an end, pixie.” The cultist’s upper lip was curled, his hatred palpable—pulsing off him in waves.
He came at her again, faster this time. As though he’d been holding back before. Toying with her. Kit ducked, sliding beneath his swing, and shooting forward with a flap of her gold-and-silver wings. Her magic thrummed in her veins, frost blooming across her palms, ice spilling upward and hardening into a long, sleek spear.
Just as the cultist reached her once more, his crystal blade meeting her spear—white and red, ice and blood.
Kit bared her teeth, pushing against him, their weapons crossed in the air. He shouldn’t have been this strong. She should have been easily able to push him back.
“Come on then, asshole.” She reared her head and brought her forehead to his face with a vicious crunch.
The man stumbled back, blood dripping from his nose, his lip split.
Licking his lower lip, he revealed crimson-stained teethwhen he grinned.
He raised his sword again, readying another blast of that terrifying power.
Kit braced herself, preparing to parry, to dodge, to?—
A hand shot from the shadows.
Indigo fingers wrapped around the cultist’s jaw from behind.
And with a deafeningcrack,Tenebris Nox snapped thesanguinagi’sneck.
The man’s body crumpled to the floor. Kit looked down at it with disgust.
“I had that under control,” she muttered, panting. Her icy spear melted into mist.
“I have no doubt,” said Nox, stepping fully out of the shadows and surveying the corpse with distaste.
“Where is it?” Kit asked suddenly, looking the nocterrian over as though expecting them to be wearing the crown half between their horns.
“It is safe.” They didn’t look up; their eyes were still fixed on the cultist on the floor. “Hidden in the shadows. No man will find it.”
Kit followed their gaze, taking in the red blade still clutched in the dead man’s fingers. “Did you see anybody else? Where are the others?”
“I crossed paths with Sephone on my way to you. Noctis spare anyone who dare get in her way. I think she has a particular bone to pick after the last cultist attack she lived through.”
“Stars above, it hasn’t even been a week for her. For Tristan either. You’d think thesanguinagiwere following them at this point.” A thought occurred. “You didn’t see him though? And what about those other guards—Thibault? Hargrave? And what about Dentarius?”
Nox shrugged. “I do not know. I came for you first.”
Kit blinked, some emotion she did not know how to name pressing in on her from all sides. Her gaze dropped to the floor, and she nudged the cultist’s body with the toe of her boot. “They’ve infiltrated the guard.”
“They’ve infiltrated the entire palace, Kit.”
Her eyes snapped to theirs, a meeting of red-black, blue, and green.
“It’s just as Tristan described in Dawnspire. A coordinated attack. Strategic. They came for each of us first. Warded our rooms againstsound. Locked us in.”
Kit’s jaw clenched. “Why us? Why now?”
