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I thrashed against their grip. I bucked and sank my teeth into flesh.
The world rushed by, as if I were being carried by a rushing tide. Flames popped and fizzed. All at once, I found myself being lifted and lugged over a heap of logs. Ropes snagged around my wrists, binding me to a post, and my frazzled mind registered where they’d taken me.
It was a pyre.
My heart clattered in my chest. My gaze darted across the courtyard, past the surrounding faces, straining for a glimpse of green eyes.
On the fringes, Eliot materialized. Savagery contorted his features as he discovered what they’d done. Bellowing in fury, he lashed his garrote, twisted the wire, and snapped the neck of a noble who tried to block him from barreling my way. With my name tearing from his lungs, he bolted in my direction while slicing the wire across the gullets of anyone who intercepted him.
My ladies poured into the square and screeched. Cadence diced a path through the crowd with her knife, and Posy and Vale kicked and punched their way behind her.
Because the mob had snared me, the remaining crowd began to pack the area, my supporters howling and throwing fists in my defense. Aire raced into the onslaught with his troops. Drawing his swords, he battled a path toward me, combatting a horde of others including Summer’s knights.
But no Poet. And no Nicu.
Not like this. I could not leave them like this.
My heart cracked open. Wheezing, I struggled and jerked my arms. The cords held fast, binding me to the post.
Then my respirations seized up. Out of nowhere, a slender pair of fingers skated over mine from behind, and the left bonds slackened. The knots unraveled and dropped, freeing one hand. I snapped my head to the side, my gaze landing on a pair of golden eyes.
“Flare,” I gasped.
But the young woman just pressed a finger to her lips. Because of the smoke and haze, and due to her petite frame hidden behind the logs, no one had discerned her presence.
The knots had been deftly tightened and should have been impossible to untangle. Yet Flare worked quickly, plucking the cords apart with a confidence that struck me.
How? How did she manage this?
The right bond fell from my wrist. Yet I kept my arm pinned as if I were still manacled, cautious of alerting the crowd.
My chest pumped oxygen. “Thank you,” I heaved. “Thank you, my friend.”
Flare gave a fierce grin, then scowled toward the mob. My gaze followed in her wake, to where a flash of dark blue hair emerged among a pack of Winter knights.
I veered her way. “Now! Quickly!”
The young woman nodded and leaped off the pyre, disappearing for a second time. She’d done what she could. Now the rest was up to me, before the timbers ignited.
I braced myself when a voice shredded through the square. “Briar!”
My head wrenched up. “Poet,” I whispered.
On a murderous roar, the jester blew past the throng like a cyclone. Nobles and tradesfolk launched backward, fountains of blood spraying the air as Poet sliced his way to me. “Briar!”
The front of the crowd brayed. Someone tossed a torch into the air.
I bolted forward, only to yelp and stagger as fire combusted around me. Threads of flame scrolled across the timbers and formed a cage. Heat scorched the logs as the wall grew higher, threatening to engulf my form.
The blaze writhed and snapped, its temperature incinerating the atmosphere. Captured within a corona of fire, I inhaled the scent of roasted fabric, then glimpsed my dress hem, which had split from the tumult, the edges blackening like soot.
Suddenly, childish laughter skipped into my head. Its owner’s smile surfaced like a dream, with Nicu’s face rising before me.
The setting beyond rippled, blurred by the searing blaze. Yet I saw my jester slaughtering his way to me. “Briar!”
My flesh stung, but the vision of him reminded me of other blazes we’d shared. A wick flickering. A taper held aloft by a male hand. Like a fantasy, Poet’s face appeared, that wicked smirk curling across his features as he denied me a candle on the night we met.
A red hot scarlet ribbon. A rose whose thorns could not burn.
