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“You’ll live, assuming you keep your blade clean,” I told him, shuffling him back behind a pillar and then propping him on his ass out of sight from the doors. “Just sit here a while. I’ll send someone for you.”
He glared, unconvinced and about to yell for help the moment I removed my hand.
“Fine.” I tore a strip of silk off my coat with my teeth and stuffed it in his mouth, then tied it off. Leaving him behind the pillar, I scooted through the temple door. The pyramid had dwarfed us all earlier in the evening, but now empty, the yawning space defied words. The art Razak mentioned painted giants in red and black all over the walls—battles and bloody weapons, weeping people, rivers of blood. No wonder Razak had admired it.
A central spire rose up behind the white sandstone altar where Arin had pledged himself to Draven. The crown wasn’t in the spire, and there were no other structures inside. The altar might hide it. It was large enough, and a significant focal point. I set my wine cup down, plucked off my gloves, and ran my hands along the altar’s smooth sandstone surface. With no obvious handle or levers, perhaps there was a hidden switch. If the crown wasn’t here, then I was all out of options—
My finger slipped into a dip in the stone. I stroked over it, eyed it up close, and pushed. A click released the button, and then the hiss of falling sand accompanied grinding stone. The altar top fell away, and there she was, an obsidian crown encrusted with rubies, each frond a vicious point, like the sharpest of the desert plants. It was nothing like the simple crown Ogden wore, and nothing like the soft gold and pearl crown of Love. I reached in, hooked my fingers under the crown, and eased it off its bed of red silk.
Razak had called it cursed. Itlookedcursed. Only Umair’s crown had sharper points and a razor’s edge.
The temple door heaved open.
Voices rose. I’d planned to hidewiththe crown, taking it out of Razak’s reach long before he got here. But that was no longer an option.
With nowhere to hide, I did the only thing I could.
I placed the crown on my head.
CHAPTER32
Arin
How Lark had gotteninto the temple before us, or how he’d found the crown, I couldn’t even begin to imagine. But there Lark was, propped on the altar, War’s crown sitting lopsided on his head, legs crossed, and a cup of wine—I assumed it was wine—in his hand, as though he didn’t have a care.
Draven stumbled to a halt. “What the fuck?”
Razak laughed then clapped and ambled toward the altar. “Oh brother, you always know how to entertain.”
I had no words. What was this? A trick? Had they planned this together? Noemi had told me Lark had meant to do good with his words, that he’d been tortured and was suffering, and I’d begun to believe her. So what was this, a fresh betrayal? Too startled and confused to be angry, I focused on the one real fact here:
The Prince of Pain couldn’t leave this temple alive. And if Lark had been a part of this, neither could he.
I glanced at Draven. He caught my eye, nodded, and slipped both daggers from their sheaths.
Lark circled his free hand in the air. “Any treasure so poorly guarded deserves to be stolen.”
“How does it feel, Brother?” Razak asked, breezing toward him. “A crown of blood atop your head?”
Draven started forward, stalking Razak from behind. I watched Lark’s face for any indication he’d alert his brother. Lark tilted his head, dislodging the crown some. He adjusted it while still holding his cup, continuing his performance. “I fear it does not fit me as well as it would you.” Lark plucked the crown off his head and turned it over in his hand. “I do believe you’re right, however. It is cursed.”
Draven was close to Razak now; just a few more strides and he’d be close enough to stab him in the back. I moved too, drawn forward, enthralled, hungry for blood. These would be Razak’s final moments. No man had ever deserved a dagger in the back more. Assassination wasn’t the way of War, and certainly not of Love, but it was a fitting an end for the Prince of Pain.
Razak stopped. He thrust his hand out behind him and without looking back said, “Land those daggers, Warlord, and everyone in your court dies.” He turned his head and smiled over his shoulder. “Was this really the best you could muster, Arin? Your dull blade of a husband to murder for you?”
“Do it, Draven,” I snarled.
Draven took a step forward.
Razak pointed a finger. “There’s enough poison in every cup inside the feasting hall to kill a man ten times over. Kill me, and your every wedding guest, and the king, will die before morning.”
“Liar,” Draven growled. He lowered his daggers. “We’d have seen you.”
“Me?” Razak laughed. And touched his chest, as if offended. “I’m a prince, I don’t blatantly poison people. How crude. But my brother here, he’s something else entirely… Aren’t you, Zayan.”
No. Lark wouldn’t have.
Lark popped the crown back on his head and hopped off the altar, spilling a little wine from the cup in his left hand. He reached inside his coat with his gloved right hand and withdrew a small glass vial. He held it up to the torchlight and gave it a shake, confirming it was empty. “Alas, ’tis true.”
