Ned let out an outraged gasp. “Excuse you! I’m bloodyfantastic!” He drew his knife sharply back and thrust it forward.
Evan jerked his head to one side, and Ned sliced through air. Evan breathed a sigh of relief at having escaped injury—right before a long line of fire lit up along his ribcage as Ned lunged forward again and the blade split Evan’s skin.
Time stopped.
His mouth fell open in a silent scream, all the breath driven from his body by the deep, searing pain, and Evan sagged back against his attacker, clutching at his wound.
Oh, itburned.He blinked away tears.
“Evan! Duck!”
Evan obeyed instinctively, curling his chin against his chest. There was a flash of silver as a knife whistled past his ear, and then something hot and wet splashed against his cheek. A moment later, Ned let out a wet gurgle and collapsed in a heap on the floor, a jet of blood spurting from his throat in a veritable fountain that quickly slowed to a trickle and then ceased.
Evan blinked and ran a hand down the side of his face. It came away red. He blinked again and shock and pain had him sinking to his knees, unable to stand. Next to him Ned lay unmoving, eyes wide and sightless.
At the rapid clatter of boots, he looked up. Thomas was hurrying toward him, expression grim. Evan had never been so glad to see anyone in his life.
Thomas dropped to his knees next to him and Evan fully expected a hug, but instead the first thing Thomas did was hold two fingers against the side of Ned’s throat for a few secondsbefore nodding to himself. “He’s dead.” He pulled the stiletto out of the wound in one smooth motion and wiped it on Ned’s shirt before slotting the blade back into his boot.
The display of ruthless competence made Evan want to shove Thomas up against the wall and kiss him senseless—except that would have involved standing and moving, and both of those things were quite beyond him.
Still, he stored the image away to reexamine later—when he didn’t have a gaping chasm in his side that felt like someone had set his skin alight.
Thomas turned his attention to Evan, brow creased with worry. Gentle fingers grazed over the length of his wound, and Evan gasped as pain bloomed afresh and his world went fuzzy and dark around the edges. “You need the maester,” Thomas said, his voice tight.
And then he scooped Evan up in his arms and began to run.
Chapter Fourteen
Thomas liked to think he was quick on his feet, but right now it felt like he couldn’t move fast enough, not with Evan lying limp and bleeding in his arms, having fainted sometime between Thomas lifting him and reaching the stairway. His breath rasping and his heart thundering in his chest, Thomas forced himself to keep running up the flight of stairs that led to the physician’s rooms, panic and urgency driving him.
The gash in Evan’s flesh was long and ugly, and Thomas had no way of knowing how deep it ran, but he was familiar enough with knife wounds to know that they were unpredictable. The tightness in his chest uncoiled a little when Evan moaned as Thomas reached the landing and stumbled the last few steps along the passageway that led to Maester Owens’s door. He kicked at it with his boot, unwilling to let go of Evan.
Guilt churned in his gut. He should have made his move sooner. True, it was important to know who was behind the threat but not as important as Evan.
Nothingwas as important as Evan.
Thomas just wondered why it had taken him this long to see it.
He kicked the door again, harder this time.
“What?” the maester snapped, flinging the door open. “Do you know what time—Your Grace!” His eyes widened when he saw Evan, naked and bleeding.
“Please,” Thomas panted out. “He’s been stabbed.”
The maester’s mouth thinned and he pulled the door closed behind himself before hurrying down a seemingly never-ending hallway that led to the infirmary with Thomas hot on his heels. He unlocked the doors and swept inside, indicating a bed in the centre of the room. “Put him there,” he said briskly.
Thomas lowered Evan gently onto the bed. As he did so, Evan’s eyes fluttered open, and Thomas found he could breathe again.
Evan shifted, then froze and let out an agonised moan.
“Stay still,” Maester Owens said, setting a bowl of water and a rag down on a small table next to the bed. “Let me look at you so I can see what I’m dealing with.” Maester Owens ran the cloth down the length of the gash in Evan’s side and Evan gave another low moan that had Thomas’s insides churning. The maester picked up another cloth and pressed it against the wound to stem the bleeding. He continued to hold it in place, the silence thick in the room, and Thomas thought he might burst at the seams with the need to know what was happening. After minutes that lasted hours, the maester lifted the cloth and gave a low hum. “It’s not as bad as it looks. It’s a surface wound, and it’s not deep enough to have affected your vital organs.”
All Thomas’s breath left him in a rush. “So he’ll recover?”
“There’s no reason he won’t be as good as new,” the maester said. “Of course, the duke will need to take some time to rest and not do anything…”
The maester’s mouth snapped shut before he actually used the term ‘foolish’ to describe a member of the royal family, but the wordhung unspoken in the air.
