My gaze lifts in unison with my sinking heart, stare sweeping around the second-floor mezzanine that wraps around the sunshine-yellow room; the banister lined with stony-faced archers, their ruddy armor glinting in the firelight spilling off flaming bowls of oil. Weapons poised and notched, it’s like they’re waiting for something.
Or someone.
I look past the ground guards to an ornate set of double doors on the far wall—alsoyellow—a sun carved at the base of them, golden rays reaching. Just like the miskunn’s sketch on the map in my pocket. Meaning the silver-haired fae I’m supposed to slaughter is somewhere on the other side of all …that.
Unfortunate. I was hoping to get in and out in a blink.
That’s not ablink-sizedcontingent.
It’s afuck-up-and-diecontingent.
I spin and back my head against the wall, mulling over my options.
Pain hacks down my spine. Like an incorporeal chisel chipping at my vertebrae, splitting each bony bulge in two before moving on to the next.
I arch, balance tipping. Fall to my knees as my mouth opens, Sereme’s name a caged roar welling in the back of my throat.
She’s only halfway to my tailbone when heavy footsteps echo down the corridor.
My gaze drags right, clashing with the bold copper stare of a helmetless Fade soldier—hands poised at his crotch. Like he’s still refastening his pants after a quick trip to the privy.
He stills, looks me up and down, all the color leaving his cheeks. In the same instance, I notice the clear bead dangling from his ear.
Cold dread hacks me through.
I gasp my lungs full of air, open to Clode, and rush through a series of words—panicked recognition blowing his eyes wide as he, too, begins to speak.
Though I finish first—forging an airtight vacuum to swallow our sound and hopefully avoid an impromptu onslaught of guards—he’s quicker to blast out an offensive demand. One I recognizetoowell.
My heart sinks.
I lash the same words. Swift, but he beats me, ripping the final gusty lyric from my lips.
Clode huffs, then reaches down my throat, fists my lungs, andsqueezes so hard I taste metal. Then shepulls, like she’s gripping the trunk of a tree, trying to hoist it from the ground—roots and all.
Fucking.
Ouch.
Sereme continues to chip down my spine as the guardalsochokes; mouth wide, clawing his throat and chest in the same manner as me. Like Clode’s standing between us, elbow-deep down both our throats, taking her time to weigh up which of us spoke to her with more eloquence.
Me, obviously. I love that bitch. But I guess he finished first.
Meaning I’m probably done for.
I tighten my chest muscles, trying to grip my lungs and keep them there.
Please don’t kill me, Clode. We have so much fun together.
Most of the time.
Blood bubbles up my throat. At the same time, the whites in the soldier’s eyes flood red, his capillaries bursting, lips turning purple, all the veins in his neck and temples popping to the surface.
A sharp pain shudders through my chest, like fibers ripping. Something I haven’t felt before. Foreboding sinks its claws in me.
Definitely fucked.
I brace, certain my lungs are about to mulch up my throat—
