Her mouth quirked. “Oh, come now, Sir Scaredy-cat. This will be fun.”
And then they were gone.
51
FRAY
KIT
Kitvaulted over a toppled table in the palace hallway, slipping in something she didn’t dare look too closely at as she slid across the marble floor. The palace was in ruins. Cracks spiderwebbed through the high marble columns. Hallways were half-lit, the sconces having guttered out. The air was thick with smoke, the scent of singed cloth, and the coppery tang of blood.
Just ahead of her, Tenebris Nox shadowstepped through a shattered doorframe. The cultist who had been rushing the nocterrian from behind couldn’t stop in time, so they collided with the jagged edges of the door, screaming as shards of glass and wood raked across their skin.
A quick thrust of Nox’s sword had the screams stopping.
“Left or right?” they asked, wiping the bloodyblade on the back of the cultist’s robes.
Kit pressed a hand to the wall, steadying herself as she tried to catch her breath. “Throne room’s to the east. But we need to find the others first.”
And then they were moving—down twisting halls, over strewn bodies. At one point, Kit took to the air, floating just a foot or two above the ground to avoid slipping in any more blood.
There was so much blood.
There were also too many servants among the dead. So many who hadn’t had a blade to lift in their own defense.
“How did this happen so quickly?” Kit’s voice cracked as she and Nox turned another corner.
“We don’t know how much we missed. They placed silencing runes around our rooms for that exact reason. The attack could have been triggered the instant we broke into his safe.”
“This is our fault then.”
“No.” Nox slowed to a stop, grabbing Kit’s dangling wrist and forcing her to land in front of them. “This is no one’s fault but Varyth Malchior and his followers. Remember, this was planned. Our finding the crown may have been the spark that lit the match, but who knows how long ago the kindling was set.”
Kit only nodded as the two of them continued on, turning another corner—and immediately leaping out of the way as a bolt of lightning forked through the space between them.
Sephone stood at the end of the corridor, arms raised, hair wild and black eyes blazing.Sanguinagicultists screamed as the lightning she commanded surged through the air. It licked at their crystal weapons, shattering them, before striking at the enemies themselves. Three went down in an instant. A fourth managed to raise a shield with one hand, conjuring a blood-red whip with the other.
Kit reacted, ice crystallizing in her palm, turning into something long and sharp and spiked. She readied it, moving to toss her icy spear into the cultist’s back.
She didn’t need to.
Not when Sephone was a blur of motion, forgoing her magic entirely to leap upon thesanguinagi’sshield, shattering it with one strike ofher brass knuckle-covered fist.
Another hit had the cultist’s face caving in.
A third, and they stopped moving entirely.
“Remind me never to piss her off,” Kit whispered.
“If it helps, I think she is probably always a little pissed off,” Nox replied drily.
And then they were moving again, falling into step with one another as Sephone pivoted to join them.
“Where are we headed?” she asked, not even pausing to wipe the blood from her fist.
“To the king,” Kit said. “Have you seen anyone else?”
“Not yet, I?—”
