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Did Petra overhear some of what I said? She’s seemed bothered in the past when people repeated the rumor about the daimon being upset with the country’s rulership.
King Konram knows I’m investigating the scourge sorcerers on his behalf, but we purposefully kept that fact quiet from everyone else in court.
Which means I have to worry about making new enemies just as much as turning my existing foes into friends.
Nine
Ivy
I’m shoved around in the dark, blinded by scratchy fabric wrapped across my face. It’s suffocating me.
I can’t draw a breath through it. I can’t tell where I am.
What in the realms is happening?
I have to get out of this. I have to tear free. I—
My feet thud onto a raised surface. Wooden boards. Something creaks overhead.
More footsteps thunder after me, as if on all sides. Their impact reverberates through the boards and into my legs.
I try to suck in air and only drown in the coarse fabric. I can’t feel my hands.
My throat strains with an attempt to cry for help, but my lungs are burning for breath. With another shove, I stumble to the side.
Then someone wrenches the fabric from my face.
It’s still dark—night all around me, glowing with distant lanterns. Voices murmur, maybe hundreds of them, but all I can do is stare at the man whose shadowed face looms over mine.
“You couldn’t keep hiding,” Stavros grates out, and lifts his hands.
All at once, he’s gripping a loop of rope. He jerks it down over my head, his metal prosthetic scraping my cheek.
“No,” I murmur. “No. I swear, I never…”
Never what? Never killed? Never hurt innocent people?
“We both know that’s a lie,” Stavros sneers as if he read my thoughts.
We do.
I always knew I’d end up here.
But my heart thuds madly as Stavros tightens the rope around my neck. The heavy cord digs into my throat.
I start to twist my head, but he catches it between his hand of flesh and his hand of metal. His voice is the darkest growl.
“You’re not going anywhere. Stay and take what monsters like you deserve.”
There’s nothing but ice in his eyes and his tone. It chills me right through to my veins.
He takes a step back and lifts his right hand to give the signal, his lips curling into a triumphant—
“Ivy!”
My body jolts, and my eyes open to more darkness. Darkness that’s also tangled with fabric, although this material is thin and silky, draped across my torso and legs.
I jerk upright, my hand flying to my thigh instinctively, but I’ve woken up here often enough that some part of me already recognizes what happened.
