“Really, Princess,” the Chancellor said, shaking his head, “I thought groveling was beneath you. We all know who the real traitor is. You’re a declared enemy of the realm. Your blood runs so cold that you killed your own brother—”
“I did not kill him! I—”
“Seize her,” the Chancellor said, stepping aside.
The guards came at me, but instead of running away, I lunged forward, and in a blurred second, one of my arms had hooked the Chancellor’s neck, while the other held a knife to his throat.
“Get back!” I ordered.
The guards paused, swords ready to strike, but they didn’t retreat.
“Step back, you fools!” the Chancellor yelled, feeling the sting of my knife pressing into his flesh.
They backed up cautiously, stopping against the opposite wall.
“That’s better,” I said, then whispered in the Chancellor’s ear, “Now, what were you saying about being afraid?” Though I loved the feel of his racing heart beneath my arm, I heard footsteps pounding down the hallway toward us. More guards had already been alerted, and I probably had only seconds before all my exits would be blocked. I pulled him back with me toward the physician’s door, and when it was only a step behind me, I shoved him so he stumbled forward. I slipped inside the room, barring the door behind me. In seconds the guards were ramming against it, and I heard the Chancellor screaming on the other side to break it down.
I went to the window and threw open the shutter, but there was no ledge for escape. I looked down to a balcony directly beneath the window—it was a twenty-foot drop onto hard stone, but I couldn’t see any other option. I eased myself out, hanging from the window by my fingertips, then let go. I rolled with the fall, but the impact still sent splitting pain up my leg. I fled, limping as I ran, my route now a wild and haphazard one, darting into rooms, hallways, redirecting my steps when I heard the pounding of footsteps in pursuit. I raced down a dark servant’s stairway, and then an empty hall, the shouts getting weaker, their search still confined to the upper floors. I was at the back of the citadelle, heading down a long dark passage for the rarely used servant’s entrance that Pauline and I had escaped through. I had just slid the latch open when I heard a metallic chink, and I spun toward the sound. A strange keening whir filled the air and then a loud thunk, thunk, thunk.
A hot jolt exploded in my arm. My vision flashed with pain so bright I couldn’t focus. When I tried to pull away, my breaths shuddered in my chest. I couldn’t move. I looked to my left. Two long iron bolts were embedded high in the door, but a third had pinned my hand to the wood, piercing the center of my palm. Blood dripped to the floor. I heard footsteps and tried frantically to pull the bolt loose, but the least movement sent sickening pain convulsing through me. The footsteps grew louder, closer. I looked up and saw the silhouette of a figure walking leisurely toward me. I recognized the swagger. My knife lay on the floor at my feet. I drew my sword, a pathetic gesture, because I knew I couldn’t fight with one hand pinned to the door. His face came into view.
Malich.
A crossbow unlike any I had ever seen dangled from one of his hands. I trembled with pain as he drew closer. Every sound was amplifed, his footsteps, the tip of my sword scraping the floor, my own breath wheezing in my throat.
“So nice to run into you, Princess,” he said. “I understand Kaden is here too. I never should have let him slip away from me that day when we fought on the terrace.”
The smug grin. The one I’d sworn he would pay for.
“I wish I could say it was nice to see you too, Malich.” I lifted my sword as a threat, but even that small movement magnified the painful stab in my hand. I tried to mask my agony.
He easily knocked my sword away with his crossbow, sending it clattering across the room. The jerking twist of my body sent blinding jolts shooting up my arm, and I couldn’t restrain a scream. He grabbed my free hand and pressed his body against mine.
“Please,” I said. “My brothers—”
“Just the way I prefer you, Princess, begging and with both of your hands restrained.” His face still bore the lines of my attack, and his eyes glowed with vengeance. He leaned closer, and his free hand circled my throat. “The bolts are courtesy of the Komizar. He’s sorry he couldn’t be here to deliver them himself. Sadly, you must settle for me.” His hand slid from my throat to my breast. “And after I’m finished with you, I’ll carve up your face with marks like the ones you gave me. He doesn’t care what you look like when I hand you over.”
His grin widened and that was all I could see, all I could feel, the assured expression that said he owned the world. It was a grin that churned memories to the surface. I saw my brother weeping. I saw the arrow in Greta’s throat. I saw a baby’s lace cap burning and curling into ash. That was easy, he had boasted. Killing her was easy.
His breaths were heavy in my ear as his hand slid lower, fumbling with my belt, jerking at the buttons of my trousers. Easy. I felt the crunch of bone as I forced my pinned hand to twist, turn, grab hold of the bolt. Blood rushed down my arm. Groans shuddered up from my throat like animal sounds, thick and wild. I used the pain the way a fire consumes fuel, burning hotter and hotter, and with my hand gripped around the bolt, I forced my arm to shove against it, loosening it. My fingers burned like they’d been set ablaze, the iron bolt becoming rage in my hand, and I pulled, loosening it further, my groans only adding to Malich’s satisfaction. His eyes gleamed, looking into mine as if he already knew where he would carve the lines. Easy.
“No fainting on me now, Princess,” he said as he jerked the last button of my trousers free. His hand slid beneath the leather, down along my hip, his grin widening. “I keep my promises, and I told the Komizar that you would suffer.”
I yanked on the bolt, twisting it as it sprang free, the sudden release adding velocity to my swing, and it plunged into Malich’s neck, the pointed end emerging through the other side. His eyes widened.
“And I keep my promises too,” I said.
His lips parted as if to say something. He was unable to speak, but I saw it in his eyes. For a few glorious seconds, he knew—he was a dead man, and it was by my hand. While he could still hear me, I whispered, “I hate that it feels so good and so easy to kill you, Malich. Rest assured I will never beg you for anything ever again.” I pulled the bolt free and blood spurted from his neck before he thudded to the ground. Dead.
I stared at his crumpled body, the blood running slowly from his neck, trickling into lazy red rivers across the cobbled floor. His eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
His grin was gone.
It was then that a thunder of footsteps closed in from all sides. Six guards surrounded me—again ones I didn’t recognize. The Watch Captain stood among them. He was the member of the cabinet who oversaw the citadelle guards.
He looked down at Malich’s body with recognition and shook his head.
A nauseous wave rushed through me. “Not you too,” I said.