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She pressed the blade deeper, cutting my sentence short as it chewed into my skin.
I hissed.
“You will silence your poisonous tongue. All you Cursed do is tell lies. We will be so much better off when you all are gone. Now get walking before I end you right here!” she yelled at me, her voice growing increasingly impatient.
I understood now that there would be no reasoning with her. She was committed to getting me into that room, one way or another. Which left me one last option.
I ran, the muscles in my legs propelling me forward.
“Come back here, you stupid wench!” she shouted as she chased after me, slashing the air behind me—she was a lot faster than I expected.
I knocked a roll of fabrics off a small wooden table they were pyramided on, throwing them behind me, into her path, hoping the obstacle would buy me an extra second. When I reached the end of the room, I realized it hadn’t.
The dressmaker was behind me—damn, she was fast.
She raised the dagger and brought it down with a vicious, bloodcurdling scream—the very sound of pure hatred.
I ducked and rolled, narrowly missing the sharp, long blade as it went sailing on by my head. I scowled at how poor my reaction time had gotten since I had last trained—Ezra would have skinned my hide for it.
Having made it past Aurelius’s crazy ex-lover, I jumped up onto my feet and raced back out into the main part of the shop.
She came tearing after me.
Weaving my way through tables full of fabric and various workstations, I kept my sights on the exit door I needed to make it through to get out into the hallway. I doubted she’d try to slay me in front of other people.
A skitter of tangled feet sounded behind me, followed by the sound of a heavy potato sack being slammed against the floor, telling me something had fallen. I spared a quick glance behind me, but when I saw what happened, I came to an abrupt halt.
I twirled, my mouth falling open.
Blood pooled around her, staining her copper skin in crimson. She made a sort of gurgling sound, her horrified eyes locked on me. She had fallen, faced forward, and somehow managed to drive the blade right through her chest.
I darted back to her side, crouching, my hands flayed in front of me, unsure of what to do. She sputtered some more, like a flame at the end of its wick. How she had managed to impale herself on her own dagger was beyond—
That’s when it hit me, just as she took her last dying breath . . .
She had done it on purpose.
She knew I was going to make it to the door, and so she did the only thing she thought she could do to protect Aurelius—frame me for her death.
As if matters could not get any worse, at that exact moment, in walked the courtesan I had seen during dinner, the one that had fought with the queen.
A horrific scream tore from her when she saw the woman lying dead on the floor. There was no mistaking the similarities between the two now. The long, oval, pretty face or the dark, curly hair, or the petite frame, wrapped in luxurious, copper skin.
The dressmaker and the courtesan were sisters.
I am so screwed.
As if Fate herself agreed with me, she sent the king of Edenvale in next, just to secure how screwed I really was.
He took his wailing lover into his arms as he looked at the body on the floor and then at me—positioned over top of her. His brows drew together, his expression turning hostile.
“Guards!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Seize her!”
Oh, fuck.
Sage
Guards spilled into the room, piling in one after another, like a pack of starved wolves hunting for game. They buried the king behind them, protecting him as they unsheathed their swords—a metalshingggsounding, emitted from a dozen blades.
