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“Yes, my lord.”
His head tilted in a distinctively serpentlike manner. “For your sake,” he said to me, “I hope he is correct. My brother seems to think so, but we shall see.”
Lord Arion was so quick, and there was no place for me to go. He was standing before me in a heartbeat, one hand at my throat, his eyes identical to Lord Samriel’s. “Well, let’s not delay this, shall we?”
“What— ?” I gasped.
His other hand flattened against my temple. His lips moved. He spoke low and quick in a language that sounded like Enochian—
A sudden sharp pain darted across the back of my skull, then over the front of my face. Pressure built inside me. I cried out, squeezing my eyes shut as the pain traveled there. Bright white lights exploded behind my closed lids. The agony, it felt like a fire. My legs shook, and I thought I would fall. That I’d fall and be burned from the inside—
Then the pain eased off as quickly as it had started, leaving only a dull ache behind, in my temples and below my brow.
“Open your eyes,” Lord Arion demanded.
I blinked them open, half afraid to discover that I was now blind, but I wasn’t. My eyes locked with the Lord’s.
“My brother tells me you were given to the Priory as a babe.” Lord Arion stared down at me, his lips parted. “He was right. They tried to hide you, but you’re no longer hidden. I see you for what you are.” The grip on my throat vanished. “Our liege will be very pleased that we’ve found him an unboundny’seraph.”
I stumbled back, hitting the settee but keeping my balance.
Lord Arion smiled, turning away. He spoke to the Rae in Enochian. Half of them departed quietly, leaving two remaining.
“Where are they going?” Hymel asked.
The Lord turned his head to him. “They are going to share the good news.”
“All right.” Hymel nodded, a tentative smile appearing. “Then I should go to them, to close out our deal.”
Slowly, my gaze shifted to Hymel, and I knew when I read him moments earlier that whatever deal Hymel had struck with the Hyhborn, it hadn’t been a wise one. He hadn’t laid out whatever terms he’d agreed to clearly. Hewasa fool.
“You did well.” Lord Arion faced Hymel, his cloak fluttering over the floor as he approached him. “Our king will be forever appreciative of your service.” He cupped the man’s cheeks, pressing his lips to Hymel’s forehead. He lifted his head. “It will not be forgotten.”
Hymel’s tentative smile faded.
There was a quiet moment.
Just a heartbeat.
The crack of Hymel’s neck snapping shattered the silence.
I watched as Hymel . . . as he crumpled, just as I’d seen, dead before he hit the floor.
CHAPTER 38
“I think we’re being followed,” Grady whispered in the darkness of the unfamiliar chamber of the Bell’s Inn, somewhere in the Midlands.
We lay facing one another on a narrow, stiff-as-a-board bed, but at least it was an actual bed indoors. We’d spent a few hours the night before camped alongside the Bone Road while coyotes howled and whined as if they could sense the Hyhborn’s presence and were unsettled.
The only reason we were together was because the Bell’s Inn didn’t have a lot of rooms, and the Hyhborn, well, they might have curled their lips at the accommodations, but they weren’t all displeased when they discovered that the owner offered more than food and drink to his patrons. The owner, a thin man who went by the name Buck and didn’t seem all that concerned when he spotted me barefoot and Grady bloodied, also had flesh on the menu.
Just then, a cry of pleasure came from the floor above, momentarily overshadowing the steady thump of a headboard hitting the wall.
The Hyhborn were clearly enjoying themselves.
My gaze flicked up, where thin slivers of moonlight crawled across the ceiling. We were supposed to be sleeping. That was Prince Rohan’s order, but the thin walls did nothing to block sound. We could hear every grunt and moan.
“Gods,” Grady muttered wearily. “Do they ever stop fucking? They’ve been at it for hours.”
