Page 155 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

With my free hand, I yanked Richart back. He let out a gasp of surprise just as the air in front of me trembled with disorientation.

The assassin lunged. His blade sliced through empty air where Richart had been a heartbeat before. The assassin’s expression flickered with irritation as his perception of the world shifted beneath his feet.

He came at us again. But the same confusion seized him mid-motion, making his strike veer right, his step half a foot span too short, momentum faltering.

Richart pressed forward to take advantage of it, one hand wreathed in fire, the other with blade outstretched.

“Don’t!” I snapped. If he walked into the ward, he’d be confused too.

Richart held his position. I prayed I wouldn’t have to reckon with the guilt that he’d listened later on.

The ward was insufficient to hold out against a single focused attacker. It was meant to confuse, to buy time. Time Berian didn’t have.

If he’s even alive. The king’s aura was so weak, I couldn’t feel it at all.

For three heartbeats, the ward held him. I let myself believe it would be enough.

Then the assassin stopped. He went so utterly, completely still that the room seemed to stop with him—no creak of floorboards, no shift of fabric, nothing. His blade hung loose at his side. His head tilted a fraction, like he was trying to catch a sound at the edge of hearing. It made my skin crawl.

When he closed his eyes, I didn’t dare breathe.

Then he smiled like a man who’d solved a puzzle.

He took one step, eyes still closed. Then another.

Richart tensed beside me. My grip on the statue went rigid. My next breath didn’t come either.

He knows.

He’d already figured the same trick I’d told Owain to use back in Selmont—ignore everything your senses tell you and keep walking.

Everything was all happening so fast, the guards outside hadn’t even realized there was a problem yet.

Too late. Gone was the faltering hesitation my ward had once instilled. The assassin now moved with fluid precision.

Richart caught the first blow on his bracer rather than his blade. The impact sounded like a hammer striking stone. I shuffled out of the way, holding the warded statue like a shield.

Just as Richart’s offhand rose to unleash magic, the piercing shriek of the device assaulted my senses, causing an intense, unbearable pressure to build within my skull.

It felt as if my brain were hemorrhaging. But Richart was the one hemorrhaging magic. The fire wreathing his hand guttered out and his aura dimmed with amazing speed. The assassin had used the device to siphon so much energy from him at once that Richart hit the floor hard enough to rattle the bedposts.

I took one step toward Richart before my own legs reminded me I was still standing in the room with the man who’d just dropped him. There was nothing I could do unless I got out of this room with my magic intact.

Then the assassin turned toward me, eyes still closed tight. I understood with a horrible certainty that the ward in my hand wouldn’t save me.

The assassin’s next step brought him too close.

The scream I’d been holding back out of hope tore out of me like a desperate prayer. “Owain!”

The assassin’s eyes snapped open, his mind rapidly re-evaluating the situation. He looked at me then at the window and made a split-second decision. The buzzing finally stopped as I caught my breath. He secreted the device somewhere inside the folds of his clothes, preparing his exit.

He turned to run. So I threw the statue at him—anything to slow him down. It struck his back with a hollow thud.

He recoiled as a sharp gasp betrayed sudden pain. He bent over, trying to collect himself.

The door didn’t open so much as cease to exist, and the sudden, overwhelming pressure of Owain’s presence filled the room. It seemed to take in a breath just as I did. Behind him, the guards poured in. Camrick brought up the rear with the mage contingent trailing behind.

The room became chaos before the assassin was able to make it ten feet. Someone knocked over the side table. A guard stumbled into my ward’s remnants and wobbled, disoriented, colliding with another man.