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They should know that the monster would sendme.
The blankets shifted, the child’s form moving under the covers.
I aimed for the lord’s throat with precision. I forced my eyes to stay open and watch as Lord Landon’s eyes widened, as he choked and gasped on his own blood. I forced myself to watch all of it; the shock, the pain, the fear.
A thousand stones weighed in my chest. A stone for every murder I’d committed in the name of the king. I stepped back from the bed and the dying man in it.
The child hadn’t stirred. He’d slept through the whole thing.
I was about to turn from the bed when a sharp pang of guilt stilled my feet.
Before I realized what I was doing, I was slowly moving the covers back, exposing a child no more than five. Curly black hair clung to his temples, a thin sheen of sweat lining his brow. He must’ve had a nightmare.
If only he knew that the real nightmare had just occurred.
After sheathing my blade, I slipped my arms beneath his tiny frame and brought him close to my chest. He felt so light and fragile in my arms. So easily breakable. I’d never held something so gently, as if he were made of glass.
His soft snores were the only sound as I crept out of the bedroom and down the hall. An open door on the left revealed a blue-painted room filled with bright wooden toys, a single bed shoved into the far corner. Moving beyond the threshold, I placed the boy on the mattress.
He stirred when I brought the thick comforter up to his chin, but sleep was too potent a lure, and his eyes remained shut.
I wondered if he had loved his father. He must have if he’d sought comfort in his room. My own father would’ve tossed me out with a curse and a slap. Shame sent my pulse hammering in my ears, and my eyes prickled and burned.
What was done was done, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to change it now. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway—if Cirian wanted Landon dead, he’d just send another assassin.
Twisting away from the child, I moved back to the lord’s room and to the open window letting in the frigid air of Sciona. With one final glance toward the hall, I climbed over the window ledge. My feet hit the ground without a sound, and I took off into a sprint.
I might’ve spared his life, but he’d still wake without a father.
Tonight, there would be no dreaming of light. I deserved the darkness.
Chapter Thirteen
Kiara
He suspects nothing, though I can see the connection between them grow. Wait for my orders.
Letter sent from Sciona via messenger
to unknown recipient
Adam had been sent to the Patrol.
We’d been informed of his absence the following morning by Jude himself, and many recruits didn’t bother hiding their gasps. The Patrol—a group comprised of the worst of the worst. Men whom society eagerly sent away to safeguard the forests that bordered the Mist. Essentially, it was a death sentence.
Jude made certain to avoid my eyes when he delivered the news. I should’ve felt a twinge of sympathy. But I didn’t. Adam would never change his ways.
“Now”—after relaying Adam’s fate, Jude set out for the same corridor I followed last night, the recruits trailing in his wake—“we will weed out the true Knights from the lot of you. Those who have what it takes to survive out there.”
An involuntary shudder worked its way down my spine at how Jude’s stare sharpened, the beast he was rumored to be replacing the man I’d only begun to know.
Patrick pushed into my bruised side—a reminder of Adam’s cruelty—making the already stifling corridor seem even more smothering. I shoved my gloved hands into my pockets, needing them to be far from his warmth.
“You will be separated into groups of five,” Jude bellowed. “You will line up, right before each of these doors, and when I give the order, you will open them at the same time. I will not do you the favor of telling you what is expected.”
Harlow, Carter, and a handsome man I learned to be Isiah—whose godlike stature had to be well over seven feet—wrangled the closest five into groups, ushering us before each plain wooden door. Carter grumbled the entire time, complaining about the “mess” they’d have to clean up afterward. Isiah scolded him, and the older Knight fell silent.
The word “mess” kept repeating in my head.
