Page 178 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

But all conversation stopped when two of my guards forced their way through the knot of bodies, their burden slung between them. Even under the sheet they’d covered him with, I could see that the assassin’s limbs hung loose with the unmistakable weight of death, his head lolling with each step. A dark stain had soaked through the front of the sheet.

The crowd recoiled as they passed. Some turned their faces away. Others leaned in, hungry for a better look at the man who’d nearly killed the king. At least he’d gotten what vengeance he could by talking. I’d find a way, somehow, at the end of this, to save his daughter.

My arrival seemed to quiet the whispers a little.

But then a disturbance rippled from the far end of the corridor. One of my captains broke through the press of bodies at a near run, breath short, expression grim.

“Dowager wing,” he said, not even attempting formality. “The Duchess’s apartments have been sealed by a ward from within. I have battlemages battering at it. Nothing is working.”

Ice slid down my spine. The timing of both events had to be tied. Instinct urged me to return to Lunette, but she was safe. I’d made certain of that. Reina was the one threatened now because they wanted their damned device back.

The chaos that had been around the entrance to the dungeon caught on to this new excitement and moved to follow us to the dowager’s wing. There were far too many gawkers, but we were in far too much of a rush to stop them from following.

As I approached Reina’s door, the air ahead of me warped and buzzed with an unnatural, rhythmic hum that made my skin crawl. My shadows stirred, responding to the wrongness of it.

Two Assembly mages stood, hands raised, expressions the picture of concentration as their magic felt at the barrier. One I recognized as a mid-ranking evoker with careful eyes—probably the glorified bodyguard of the group. The other was younger and doing a worse job of appearing neutral to my presence.

Everything in me wanted to remove them as a danger immediately. To search the castle and go one by one through the entire mage conclave with an axe. The moral implications of murder faded from my mind, leaving only the perception of it as the correct action. A single thought was all it would take for their heads to tumble to the stone floor.

Except I couldn’t do anything until I had proof of the Assembly’s treachery—not without starting a war. I wanted to break the walls down in frustration. What made the feeling worse was that not a single yellow and red tabard had followed the mass of gawkers.

What is Lord Coryanthus up to now?

If he was bothering Luna in any way, I wouldn’t stop at cutting off his balls. I’d flay him alive then strip his family of its lands and title.

“Prince Regent.” The senior mage inclined his head with a precisely perfect degree of deference that conveyed nothing whatsoever. “We were alerted to the ward and came immediately. It’s a complex construction. We’ve been attempting to identify the anchor points, but—”

“Move,” I ordered brusquely.

He hesitated one breath too long for Camrick’s patience. My best friend shoved the mage roughly out of the way and didn’t apologize for it.

“Treat our guests with care,” I drawled, utterly insincere.

I put my hand against the door. The buzz traveled up through my palm. I couldn’t pick apart the structure of the ward in the way Lunette seemed to see into bodies, but I had enough training to feel where the magic failed to account for intrusion.

I sent my shadows to search along the seams. They moved into the gaps between things, forming a picture of the structure of the ward. It was intricately layered, designed to keep people out, not to hold them or anything else in.

Pulling it apart was going to take time. Especially when I had to be careful because I had no idea where Reina and Richart were in the room. Anything destructive I tried might put them in harm’s way.

I was dimly aware of the gawking courtiers edging closer. Of Camrick placing himself two steps to my right, facing outward, as my personal shield. Of the murmur that ran through the gathered lords like wind through dry grass at the height of summer. I didn’t need to see all that was happening to understand how easily a spark could set it to flames.

I moved deeper in my search. The ward pushed back. I worked at the edges, trying to pull it apart carefully. Brute force would break it, yet it might also injure my observers.

Behind me, the younger of the two Assembly mages shifted his weight—the unconscious adjustment of a man waiting for something rather than doing something about the problem before him. But my hands stayed on the door instead of wrapping around his neck like they should have.

It was only then that I thought to ask myself why the Assembly would install something so complicated. They were stalling. I was nearly certain of it. But why…

The answer arrived like a bucket of ice water to the face: they were likely hitting multiple places at once.

I couldn’t protect Reina, Lunette, and Berian simultaneously. And where I went, Camrick followed. Every step we’d taken toward one piece on the board had been a step away from the others. The Assembly had planned for it when they’d built this entire afternoon around diverting me.

Before I could even begin to work out what to do about it, a terrifyingly familiar surge of dark magic—far more potent than anything I’d felt from her—built on the other side of the ward.

Oh shit.

There was no time to move everyone. Nocthel instinct overrode planning. My only choice was to prevent catastrophe.

The magic working to break down the ward snapped back to me instantly. Then it thrust outward, weaving itself into an impenetrable obsidian wall that surrounded the courtiers, guardsmen, and mages just as the world tore apart. The stone wall dividing the dowager’s apartment from the corridor exploded outward in a spray of debris.