Page 44 of The Ember and the Emerald

The monstra shadow straightened, as if it readied itself.

Across the room, the soldier I’d pointed to shifted his weight. His hand slipped beneath his cloak.

Knife.

He launched away from the table. Straight at her.

For a heartbeat, everyone else froze in disbelief. Then my body moved before my mind caught up. I swung my pack with both hands, hurling the weight into his chest. Or trying. He twisted aside at the last second, avoiding contact. But that dodge ruined his clean line to the queen.

Won’t get another chance. I threw myself at him, a collision he couldn’t prevent. I drove him to the floor, away from my mother. Stone rattled my teeth, the impact knocking me breathless. My hat tumbled free.

He recovered faster. A dagger flashed. Once, hot and deep into my side. Then the blade sank near my neck. More pain, everything happening in a nanosecond. My scream tore loose, echoing off the chamber walls.

Boots pounded. Someone shouted. The room erupted into motion, but the shadow moved swiftest. It surged off the wall in a single violent sweep and plunged itself into the soldier’s back, like smoke being forced into lungs. The soldier paused unable to deliver a third, final blow.

Then his whole body seized, his eyes rolling white. Blood spilled from his mouth and nose. From the corners of his eyes. His ears. He jerked in quick succession, as if he were experiencing the same blows I had received.

“What’s happening to him?” someone cried.

He collapsed in a boneless heap at my side.

The shadow ripped from the body, a black whip of presence. It—he—whooshed across the room, disappearing through a wall.

Everything else happened in a blur. Ahav snatched my mother behind him, one arm locking around her waist. Captain Rourke and Ian surged in together. The captain kicked the dagger away from the body and wrenched the dead soldier’s wrists back with practiced brutality, just in case he revived.

Ian dropped to a knee and hooked an arm under my shoulders, hauling me out of striking distance with flawless strength. To his credit, he didn’t jostle my wounds. He put me back on the floor and pressed his hands into my side to slow the flow.

“She needs serpens-rosa,” he barked.

Negations rang out. Too many voices coming too fast to track.

Black dots wove through my vision, swallowing the room. My hearing narrowed to a high, thin ringing. I fumbled for the vial at my throat and found only a sliced cord.

“No,” I rasped, panic rising. My fingers scrabbled over the stone, slick and shaking.

Kevin’s voice piped up from the pack, painfully calm. “I believe in you. Statistics do not.”

Finally, cold glass brushed my palm. I snatched it, popped the cork with my teeth, and dumped the grain into my mouth. Swallow.

Heat chased through my veins like wildfire, the black dots retreating. Pain dulled. Strength returned in a sharp rush.

I sucked in a breath, jerked from Ian’s hold, and forced myself upright. Chin jutting, blood still on my lips, I snapped at the room, “Told you.”

With the threat defused, the room went quiet as the occupants contemplated what had just happened, what could have happened, and what this meant.

Ian reached in my direction, afraid I’d fall again, but I sidestepped him. “Don’t you dare touch me.” I’d watched him poison a sixteen-year-old girl.

Not even a little insulted, he held up his hands, palms out. “Of course, Oracle. Whatever you wish.”

An ashen, shaking queen and her pallid husband peered at me with different degrees of relief and dismay.

“You saved my beloved and our child,” he croaked.

“That’s right, I did.” I notched my chin. “As a down payment on my reward, you may return my monstra to me.” Whoa. I sounded like a genuine water maiden. “No reason to ponder it. You are a king who represents his people. They are your body, after all. You—and they—always pay your debts. Yes?”

He mulled before nodding stiffly and looking to Captain Rourke. “Secure the creature in the suite reserved for Elowen.” To Ian, he said, “Escort our honored guest there.”

“Yes, Majesty,” both men said.