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Kessily finally gathered herself and rose, her face filled with fury. “This is your fault! You didn’t come back here because you care about Zehr, because you care about the Scourge. You just wanted to save your people!”
“I just want to end this for all of us,” I corrected her. “Tor didn’t want to continue this half-life down here. It’s his chance to be free. For all of you to be free.”
“You don’t give a damn about us.” She swiped at her tears, leaving ash marks across her pale skin. She started toward me with violence in her tear-streaked eyes. Her gaze fell to Zehr. “And neither did he. You’re right, he trapped us down here and Tor hated it… hated it so much he’d rather die and leave me alone to rot for another hundred years--”
Her gaze fell to Zehr’s dagger, laid on the nightstand. She lunged for it.
I wasn’t sure if she intended to kill Zehr or me, but either way, I wasn’t in the mood for fielding murder attempts. I leapt over Zehr’s bed and slammed into her, just as she wrapped her fingers around the hilt. I carried her away from Zehr. The two of us struggled for control of the knife.
I slammed her hand into the hard marble floor, over and over again. She let out a furious cry as she finally released the dagger. In a second, I had the blade at her throat.
“What were you going to do?” I asked furiously. “Kill him? Unleash the Scourge completely?”
Her gaze met mine defiantly. “He can’t stop the Scourge anymore, and neither can you.”
“We’ll see. Stay away from both of us.” I let her up, backing away.
“I could be their queen,” she said in a fierce rush, as if she were speaking with the last of her courage. “I was nobly born, a long time ago. I have just as much of a claim as you do.”
She gave me a wounded look—she should be grateful not to be more wounded after her antics—then turned and fled the room.
When she was gone, Zehr said weakly from behind me, “You should’ve killed her, Honor. You’re leaving too many enemies behind your back. Kallus, Joachim… my own Scourge.”
“I’m not going to become a villain like you.”
He let out a silky chuckle. “We’ll see how well that works out for you.”
As I stalked toward the door, he called out, “I won’t forget that you saved my life!”
As much as I needed to get away from him and from the tension that vibrated under my skin, I couldn’t go far if I wanted to keep Zehr alive.
“Honor,” he called, and his voice had changed, grown solemn.
I turned back. Before I could ask him what he wanted, a raven flapped its wings as it landed in one of the arched windows. It cocked its head to one side, watching Zehr and I with its beady eyes.
“Your uncle’s messenger,” Zehr said. “Kallus wants a word.”
“He’s going to get more than a word,” I promised.
Kallus was going to get a war.
CHAPTER4
Branok
The bells began ringingthrough the academy, the same bells that had always signaled Scourge in the tunnels below.
Except the tunnels had been filled.
Lynx ran into my room, with Fangs slinking at his heels, as I was pulling my sword harness on. He answered the question before I could ask it. “The Scourge are inside the city, and they keep coming. The gates are open.”
Those gates should have been shut before the bells even tolled, even if it cost the guards their lives. A vision of the bloodshed that must have happened flashed before my eyes even as I was heading toward the open windows for a glimpse of the stark reality.
“We’ve got to get those gates closed, first of all.” My windows looked over the academy’s arena below and the city beyond. People thronged in the streets. The electric tension in the city seemed to flow through our rooms
“We’ve got to lead the students to protect this city.” Lynx’s voice was taut behind me. “The knights and guards can’t do it without them.”
“You lead them.” I bounded onto the railing, taking a page from Honor’s book. The way she’d always leapt so wildly from balcony to balcony, her red hair streaming behind her and a cheeky grin written across her face; that image was burned into my blood. “I’ll get the gates closed. You clean up the mess.”
