Page 158 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

Time to disabuse him of that notion.

I stood and circled him once, hands tucked loosely behind my back. “They lied. They’ll offer her to the men in robes who stood behind me in the king’s room. They’ll use and abuse her until there’s nothing left.”

“This is a wasted effort,” he insisted. “You won’t get what you want.”

I would, because the memory of Luna collapsing pressed against my throat like a blade. Her sacrifice would not be in vain.

My magic edged closer to him, slipping across the floor in thin, searching tendrils. When they brushed his legs, I allowed them to scour a dozen tiny cuts along his skin but no more. Then I made them climb, slow as hoarfrost, toward his bound wrists and up his injured arm.

He didn’t make a sound.

“I already know the Assembly sent you. I want names.”

The shadows tightened.

“They’re beyond your reach,” he gritted out, his teeth tight against the agony constricting his arm.

I stopped in front of him. Close enough that he could see my eyes gone black. “Nothing is beyond my reach,” I said quietly.

A brief flicker of doubt crossed his otherwise tranquil features. He leaned back as far as the bindings allowed. “Trying to show me the demon inside?” he asked, a hint of petulance in his voice. “That’s what they call you.”

I had to do something with my hands or I’d literally strangle him. My fingers curled slightly, and the magic answered—a dagger forming and dissolving again and again in my palm. I pitched my voice low. “You don’t see a demon?”

“I will when you act like one,” he spat out, a subtle sneer on his lips.

He wanted me to end this quickly.

But Fate had other plans. With a burst of familiar magic, the cell door burst open, echoing with a loud clang in the tight space.

Reina swept into the chamber like a storm barely contained by the silk she wore. Face pale with anger, eyes black as night, she crossed the distance in swift, furious strides. Camrick stepped aside politely at first, but once he understood her objective, he tried in vain to stop her.

She walked directly up to the prisoner and backhanded him across the cheek.

“Where is the device you drained him with?” she demanded.

She wasn’t gentle. She conjured a knife and tore through his coat, his belt, tunic, and trousers with more precise cuts than I’d thought her capable of. One pocket after another yielded nothing.

He laughed—or tried to but couldn’t past the tendril holding his throat.

Reina’s hand stilled against his ribs. She slid her fingers deliberately along the lining of his now-shredded cloak, feeling rather than using her eyes.

She went completely still then drew something free.

It was no larger than her palm, its dark surface veined by silver lines, but it fairly brimmed with magic that felt wrong when rubbing against all of my senses. The assassin must’ve been keeping it in an enchanted pocket that both concealed it and didn’t allow magical resonance to leak out.

Reina stepped back to inspect the device.

With a sneer and a choked laugh, the assassin looked directly at me and said, “Your healer will disappear before dawn if they know you have that.”

For a moment, the mate bond’s grip on my lungs became so suffocating, I struggled to inhale.

Then everything went blank.

The room ceased to exist—stone, torchlight, breath, all of it gone beneath the surge of something colder than anger. I probably could’ve stopped, but I didn’t. The next sound was bone giving way beneath my hands.

The assassin choked down a scream.

I tucked the crack and the scream safely away in my mind, where I wouldn’t have to feel them. Not now. Not while my hands were still moving. Something inside me tried to name what this was—to call it wrong, to make me stop.