Page 366 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

“We’ll survive,” Moros drawled. He sounded too pleased. Too satisfied. I had the distinct impression I’d delivered a prize he’d been waiting for.

But I couldn’t turn away from the man glaring at me with the hatred of all seven levels of hell. He held out an expectant hand, and the ring of metal told me the guard had given him the key to the manacles.

Adrastos looked like he’d sooner ignite me than free me. Still, he did. Without dropping his gaze from mine, he broke those manacles apart and gave me a shove that sent my knees buckling. Smith’s rough hands clamped around my shaking arms, keeping me upright.

“Walk, pet,” Adrastos ordered at my back, not caring that my legs were trembling so violently I was certain they couldn’t bear weight. Barry seized my other arm, keeping me upright and all but dragging my limp feet across the grass.

“Salt, charcoal, and herbs,” Moros drawled as we neared the edge of the ring, where the onlookers had parted to make a path. “To ensure she remembers to hold her tongue, lest I find it necessary to remove the temptation.”

“Obviously,” Adrastos drawled. It wasn’t until Smith and Barry all but lifted me up the palace steps that he growled, whirling on me.

Hinging forward at the hips, he heaved me into a fireman’s carry that sent my skin screaming and a convulsive gasp tearing up my throat.

Relief and confusion tangled with bone-deep terror, but before either could fully settle in, he pulled me through the shadows. Fading in and out of consciousness, I anchored myself in the sharp angle of his shoulder against my hips, his hands where they gentled on my leg, my back, and the overwhelming scent of wildfire.

We were in his rooms a breath later, but he didn’t release the realm in between, instead keeping us veiled in gelatinous gray.

Jaw clenched, Adrastos shifted me onto his plush bedding, muttering curses as he took in my back. He released me into time itself before vanishing just as quickly. Unable to swallow my whimpers, I rolled from my side onto my stomach, tears and snot pressing into my skin as I buried my face in his blankets. Crying, I turned my head and rested my cheek on his comforter, trying to catch my breath.

Reappearing with his arms full of tinctures and bottles, Adrastos knelt in front of the bed, that same livid set to his jaw still present as Barry and Smith rushed into the room on silent feet.

“Blythe,” Adrastos rumbled tightly, his face a mask, but those dark eyes still burned. For the first time since I’d touched the tether between us, that fury was directed at me. “I need you to scream for me.”

“What?” I breathed as the world spun in relentless circles.

“Scream, Briar.” My eyes unfocused, then refocused on his stony face just in time for those dark eyes to flick over my shoulder. He dipped his chin curtly, snarling, “Do it.”

“Sorry, witchling,” Barry rumbled behind me.

A soft pressure against my back was swallowed by an electric jolt that sent my spine bowing. Pain unlike anything I’d ever known overtook my senses—burning, reaching, growing, a million white-hot needles shredding through my skin.

A ragged, guttural cry tore from my chest. Someone cursed. A gentle hand pushed the hair from my face. When that searing burn faded to a brutal pulse, I pried my eyelids apart, fighting to make out Adrastos’ face as he nodded.

The sound of flesh against flesh cut through the ringing in my ears as he said, “Again.” Another fleshy thud.

This time the pain rendered me silent, a breathless animal sound tearing from my chest. A muscle in his jaw feathered, eyes full of something I didn’t dare name as he brought his broad palm to my face. More agony. More guttural, inhuman noises ripped from me like payment for my crimes.

He thumbed over my cheek, wiping beneath my eye with the calloused pad as he shook his head. Everything slowly faded. The ice encircled my mind. The pain grew distant. Almost as though a veil had been drawn up between me and the wounds. They weren’t gone so much as muffled.

At last, Adrastos’ eyes lifted above me, the three of them going motionless for a long beat.

Evidently satisfied, he looked back at me. Another stroke across my cheek had me relaxing into the bed, a tingling warmth spreading in my chest as cooling magic eased across my back.

“Rest, Blythe,” he ordered, running his rough knuckles down the bridge of my nose and taking the world with him.

SEVENTY-FOUR

THE IDIOT IN THE FAMILY

AUGUST

Five months, two weeks, four days, fourteen hours since they took my wife…

The scrape of steel across my armor filled my senses as I wiped my sword clean a few days later.

This was it.

Over my corpse would Reyna get her hands on Alvara before I did, which meant we had to act—and do so definitively. A spy network like the Bellaton queen’s was unheard of. Freya might’ve been a master of intelligence, but her old contacts were rusty at best and recycled at worst. Her new ones were exactly that—green and untested.