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One
Ivy
Aonce exalted general is pointing a sword at me—and somehow that feels like the least of my problems.
Stavros’s grip on the sword tightens enough that his light brown knuckles pale in the dim twilight. He takes a wary step up the curving staircase of the tower toward me.
Toward the woven vines I’m standing on that fill the gap where daimon smashed several of the stone stairs. The vines that my monstrous magic called forth.
The same magic twitches in my chest, tugging at me to let it push Stavros away, shatter his sword—defend me.
I clamp down hard on the urge. Releasing my power is what got me into this mess in the first place.
There’s got to be a way we can all walk down from this tower alive.
My hand starts to lift toward the torn folds of fabric on my chest where a fall ripped open the bodice of my dress. Stavros twitches both his head and the sword.
“Don’t move an inch,” he says in a voice so low and dark it sends a shiver down my spine.
I suppose it wouldn’t do any good to cover up the bare skin he’s already seen—the smooth flesh between my breasts where nearly anyone else would bear a godlen brand. The absence of a brand means I shouldn’t be able to wield any magic at all.
Other than the kind that’ll get me executed, that is.
The massive man has always cut an imposing figure, but I’ve never felt so close to death, not even when he held a sword right against my throat. Through the rattle of my frantic pulse, I register that the sword he’s holding now isn’t his usual blade, which is still sheathed at his hip.
No, it’s the short sword with the royal crest on its hilt that he gave to me just hours ago, when he told me all he wanted was to keep me safe.
As tense as I already am, my stomach balls even tighter.
I’m never going to hear sentiments like that from Stavros’s lips again.
He takes another step, his gaze sliding past me for just a second. For long enough that even his unsteady vision will be able to pick out the body slumped on the platform just above me.
The man I nearly killed.
It wasnearly, not completely. I can take a shred of pride in the self-control I held on to, even if the former general won’t see the situation that way.
The words tumble out of me. “I didn’t kill Wendos. I only— He was summoning daimon to attack the city.”
I sense one of those spirit-creatures flitting past me with a ripple of my skirt, and then it’s gone. The several daimon that pinned me down on Wendos’s orders all appear to have fled.
“I had to stop him,” I go on. “But the Crown’s Watch will still be able to question him, find out… find out who he was working with.”
My voice falters with the hardening of Stavros’s expression. I hadn’t thought his stunningly chiseled features could get any fiercer than they already were, but I was wrong.
“What exactly did you do?” he demands.
My hands clench at my sides. I can’t help glancing past him toward the other two men poised farther down the staircase.
Alek has managed to straighten up a little, though his bronze-brown hand is still braced against the wall as if he needs the support. It’s always hard to judge the scholar’s reactions with his polished leather mask covering most of his face, but his full lips are set in the stiffest line I’ve ever seen.
He jerks his hand down his front in a shaky gesture of the divinities—three fingers tapping forehead for sky, heart for sea, and gut for earth before they all fist over his sternum. I restrain a cringe at the thought of any more godly attention being drawn to us.
Casimir—the man who welcomed me from the start, who treated me like a friend and sometimes more—simply stares at me. His gorgeous face has drained of color, leaving his normally peachy skin as sallow as my own. None of his usual grace shows in his rigid stance.
They all know. They know what they’re seeing, what this scene must signify.
Denying it will only make me look guiltier.
