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Her fingers tightened on the metal bars. She wanted to say something, to cut him with words. But…
“Look how your cheeks redden when I talk aboutkillingyou,” murmured Rune, almost as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “And your eyes… your pupils are enormous. What are they doing to you in this place?”
He moved closer, and Elma’s heart hammered in her chest. She could smell him properly now. Not just blood and filth but another scent, something deeper and wilder.
Then he shifted slightly, a small, subtle movement. And before she understood what it was, what he was doing, he lunged for her. Somehow his arm was free, and his body was against the bars, his arm reaching through and grabbing her by the waist, pulling her into the bars.
She knew then what he was after — the dagger in her belt. His hand was deft, as if he knew exactly where to tuck his fingers in and pull. In the work of half a breath, the dagger was in his hand.
A half second longer, and Elma would have been dead.
But strong arms grasped her, and Luca hauled her away from the cell bars at the same time Rune slashed out with her dagger. She felt the displacement of air against her throat. Stumbling back against Luca, she lifted her hand to her neck. It came away clean, but for a tiny droplet of red.
If Luca hadn’t seen what was happening…
“Get the queen to safety,” Luca said, his words clipped,authoritative. “Bring her to her rooms, and do not let her leave without my order. I’ll deal with him.”
Elma stared at Luca, her hand still hovering at her neck. “Thank—”
“Just doing my job,” he snapped, holding out her knife. “Take better care of this.”
Several more guards had gathered at the cell and were clearly waiting for Elma to leave before they exacted punishment. Luca joined them as Elma watched, unable to turn away until the prison guard with the torch was forced to take her arm and drag her out of the dungeon.
The last glimpse Elma caught of Rune, just before Luca’s fist met his face, was a wicked grin.
Nine
Grey-blue sky cut through the overhang of clouds, glazing the great arena in a frozen shimmer. Elma’s reign had been blessed with little snow on the morning of the Death Games. At least, this was what the courtiers told her when they came to pay respects at the arena, bowing low and offering her skins of wine and herbal concoctions, gifts of good luck to wish her an auspicious life on the throne.
She accepted each gift with a strained smile. If it had been snowing, she might not have been so cold. As it was, the chill air cut through her furs and thick woolen layers. Elma could not seem to stop shivering, even with a hot brick in her lap and a goblet of steaming wine cupped in her hands.
A roar rose up from the arena’s crowd, a deafening cacophony, as the first set of warriors strode onto the packed snow. They bristled with weaponry, though their armor was minimal. These were the Death Games, after all. Bloodshed was the attraction.
“Try not to look so miserable,” said Godwin, similarly swathed in furs. He leaned toward Elma, resting his bearded chin on his fist. “There’s no danger here. All entrances arefortified. The assassin is being watched. He’ll be gone soon enough.”
There shouldn’t have been danger in the dungeon, she thought, gripping her wine with half-frozen fingers. “I know,” was all she said.
She and Godwin were alone in the royal box. Courtiers and nobles were permitted to pay respects, and then quickly ushered away. Elma’s safety was paramount, and only Godwin was trusted enough to sit with her. The other advisors had their own seats nearby, where they huddled looking dire. Only Lord Ferdinand seemed interested in the Death Games, an eagerness about his countenance that seemed out of place in the wake of Elma’s second brush with death.
“Try to enjoy it,” said Godwin.
But Elma wouldn’t enjoy anything until her father’s would-be killer,herwould-be killer, was dead. Until he was crumpled on the snow below in a pool of his own blood.
Trumpets blared a fanfare, announcing the start of the Games. The warriors below were arranged in two lines, facing each other across the arena. And as the trumpets sounded, the warriors rushed forward. Almost immediately one of them fell, a hand severed, another warrior’s sword buried in his gut.
Elma knew these were criminals, thieves or rapists or murderers. Yet a vague unease curdled in her belly as she watched them brutalize one another. And as she watched one man take hold of another and draw a blade roughly across his throat, watched the red gush down his body and onto the white snow, her chest tightened.
That blood could have been hers, in the wagon in the dark. Or it could have been hers last night, in the torchlit dungeon.
Luca hadn’t spoken to her since the incident. She had tried to apologize for her own lack of caution, but hewouldn’t hear it. He blamed himself. She thought if he’d had his way, he might have ordered himself whipped in the training grounds.
As Elma watched the slaughter unfold below, she couldn’t keep her thoughts from drifting back to the dungeon. To the assassin’s fingers in her dress, deftly lifting her dagger as if she were nothing but a game to him. No one could understand how he’d freed himself from his chains. Had he dislocated a thumb? Picked the lock? Or, Elma wondered, had he turned to snow and fog and simply let the shackles fall?
As if summoned by her thoughts, a deep horn blew in the arena, signaling the arrival of the next tournament contestant. Elma had barely noticed the first batch of warriors falling, one by one, until only one was left — a tall man wielding a blood-stained flail. He seemed to be all muscle, rippling with each movement. From this distance it was hard to tell, but Elma thought his beard dripped with red as if he’d bitten living flesh.
But her attention was only on him for a moment. From a black, arched doorway on the far side of the arena came Rune. He carried a sword in one hand, a wicked dagger in the other. And despite his imminent demise, he strode toward the other warrior with a cocky arrogance that made Elma’s blood boil.
After everything, he still thought himself a hero.
