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Kellan came to my defense. “He’s lying, Conrad. Don’t—?”
“The prince has seen enough,” Toris said. “Get him back to the campsite, daughter. I’ll take care of these two.”
“Wait! Don’t take him. No—?” I felt the point of Toris’ knife between my shoulder blades.
Lisette helped my brother onto her horse, casting a look of pitiful disappointment at me from over her shoulder before riding away with him, back the way we had come.
“Now, then,” Toris said, knife raised. “I’ll be needing the documents, if you please.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” At that moment I didn’t.
“Come now. Simon Silvis wouldn’t have sent you to Achleva without a way to cross the wall. The documents. Now.” His knife pressed a little harder into my back and marched me to my horse; the blade had breached the fabric of my dress. One wrong move and it would break the skin.
I pulled the parchments from my satchel. “This is what you want? I’ll give them to you. But only if you bring Conrad back to me and let us all go in peace.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Kellan carefully advancing.
“Conrad does not want to go with you,” Toris said. “He ha
tes you, in fact. You don’t have many friends, do you, my dear?” He tilted his head. “It hurts you greatly to lose even one, doesn’t it?”
He moved fast, ducking underneath the swing of Kellan’s sword and grabbing him from behind before yanking his head back and laying the knife against his neck. Hands up, Kellan relinquished his hold on his sword.
“I wish I didn’t need the invitations, but I do. Magic can be so irritating. That’s why the Tribunal’s work is so valuable; it keeps things orderly. Now. Give me the documents. I will not ask again.” A drop of blood left a thin trail down Kellan’s neck.
I swallowed and considered . . . then held the parchments over the river chasm. “Put the knife down or they are gone for good.”
“We’re not negotiating here.”
“Put it down,” I stated, stronger.
Displeased, he loosened the knife from against Kellan’s neck. I stepped slowly forward and laid the documents down on the ground by the cliff’s edge. The knot-stamped seal shone dull red in the moonlight. Toris dragged Kellan with him, and only released his hold on him to swipe up the invitations.
I dashed into Kellan’s open arms. From over his shoulder, I could see Toris’s smirk return as he deposited the acquisitions into his jacket pocket.
“There!” I cried. “You have what you want! Now let us go, like you promised!”
“I never promised any such thing.”
And with a quick flick of his wrist, Toris sank his knife into Kellan’s side.
Kellan collapsed against me. I staggered beneath his sudden weight. “Kellan!”
My knees buckled too close to the drop-off, and I clawed at his cloak to keep from losing my grip on him. I held on desperately as his eyes glazed over and he teetered at the brink.
With one last guttural cry, I dug in my heels and wrenched the cloak with all my strength, but the clasp gave way and his body plummeted over the edge and disappeared.
I gaped at my hands, wrapped up in the cobalt fabric that was now flapping empty in the wind. The only sound was the distant roar of the river far below and my own shallow breathing. The darkness had swallowed Kellan whole. He was gone.
Toris grabbed me by the wrist, yanking me around to face him. His knife, still coated in Kellan’s blood, was poised beneath my chin. He was calm as he explained. “It was always going to end badly for you. You had to have known that.”
My blood ran as cold as the icy river, crystallizing my grief into hatred. “You want to keep Renalt free from Achleva so much, you’d kill me for it?”
“It is for a united Renalt and Achleva that I strive. There will still be a wedding. A princess will still marry the prince. You just won’t be around to witness it. Lisette was always better suited to the role anyway.”
So that was it. Lisette would go to Achleva in my place, and I would die here.
“And Conrad?”
“Collateral. We need him to keep your mother in line. And unlike you, he’s proven himself valuably malleable. It will be an easy story to sell.” He made his voice sound urgent and distraught. “‘?Don’t you see, little prince? We need to stay undercover to figure out the identities of your sister’s coconspirators. The queen’s life hangs in the balance!’” He laughed and brought the knife in closer.
