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“Not ever. I only wanted to give you the option.”
I nod against his bare chest.
“You and your happiness are everything. You need only tell me your desire and it will be done.”
“Thank you, Luka.” After another moment of hesitation, I find my resolve. “I wish to see it through.”
“Okay.” He motions to Noé, who somehow knows exactly what Luka wants and wrenches Dulat up by his bound arms. The difference in their sizes is almost comical as Noé doesn’t even have to strain himself to keep the smaller man upright.
Luka leans down and tests the temperature of the dagger’s handle. Deeming it acceptable, he pulls the smoking blade from the fire. “The flames are not hot enough to make it glow,” Luka explains, offering it to me. I’ve told him of my experience with Dulat, how I feared the glow of the blade. “I’m sorry that we don’t have time to do this right, but we must get back.”
I take the knife from him. Even the hilt, which is made of bone, verges on too hot for my hand. Moving toward Dulat, I feel the nausea returning and I make a snap decision. One step. Two. And I drive the knife straight into his eye. It sinks in with so little resistance that the side of my hand, wrapped around the hilt, comes into contact with his face.
“Ohh!” Noé yells as I immediately let go and stumble back into Luka’s arms. I dry heave a few times before I’m finally able to get a deep, calming breath into my lungs.
“Now that’s how it’s done,” Noé laughs, letting the body fall. “Straight to the point.”
Behind me, I feel Luka’s chest shake and I look up. He, too, is laughing, albeit silently. “That was quite . . . deadly, wife. I thought you would make him suffer a bit first.”
I exhale long and loud. “I didn’t want to experience the smell or the sounds again.”
“Fair enough. Let us go home.”
Chapter 27
Luka
Iset a brisk pace on the way back.
“What do you mean you just left?” Rina asks as the stronghold comes into view. With everything going on, she’d assumed that I’d finished off my challenger before I came for her.
That is not the case.
“I could do nothing else,” I claim. Though I’m not as at ease as I’d have her believe, I don’t want to worry her. She’s been through a trial and killed men for the first time. “When Ion exposed the woman next to Kharon as an imposter, nothing else mattered but getting you back. Without you, little raven, my life would be empty. Without you, there is no point to any of this.” I gesture vaguely at the stronghold before us.
“You should have seen it,” Noé says, addressing her with a familiarity born of his new-found respect for her. “He didn’t even hesitate. He just beat that great thug of a man down long enough to give himself a chance to run for a horse.”
“But, Luka,” she breathes. “What will happen?”
“Since I don’t hear anything from the direction of the clearing, I assume that Eldon is now deve.”
Or Eldon may be dead. That great ‘thug’ was a very skilled warrior.
At the gate, the duty guards give off a nervous energy that I don’t like, and I almost insist they tell us what’s happened. But I don’t want to appear weak. Whatever the situation in the stronghold, I’ll deal with it. My greatest priority now is Rina and the babe she carries.
The courtyard is mostly deserted, but as we ride the horses right up to the steps of the Great Hall, I can hear the drone of conversation coming from within. We dismount and enter together, hand in hand, to find the room packed. They part like a wave, giving us a clear view all the way to the dais.
Mother have mercy.
It’s not Eldon who sits upon it. It’s Gray.
A cold wave of anxiety starts in my throat and slithers its way down into my guts.What the fuck?I don’t see Eldon anywhere.
Beside me, Rina murmurs a desperate, “No,” and I squeeze her hand, hoping against hope that this isn’t what it looks like.
I move forward, leading my wife by the hand. Head-on is the only way to face this.
Gray gets to his feet and jumps down. As we stride toward each other, I see him as the deve he should be; powerful, poised, and filled with self-assurance. I have to squash down on the rising idea that this may not go my way, especially when I notice Kharon standing at the base of the platform, wrapped in an air of patronizing triumph.
