King Opus could have saved himself, but ultimately he was a man who believed he would do better than anyone else in any given task—including saving the life of Princess Johanne, the living link of Caberwill’s alliance with Embria.
Everything happened very quickly after that.
The assassin raised a dagger to throw at Hanne.
The king lunged at the assassin, his knife gleaming.
Hanne dove out of the way just in time; the assassin’s dagger flew through the air, missing her by a breath.
Then, in the same movement, the assassin drove his remaining dagger deep into the king. The blade went into the chest and under the ribs, where it twisted—and the king’s fate was sealed.
Hanne, however, was not idle during this exchange of blades and blood: she hurled her own dagger straight into the assassin’s throat.
The assassin was dead before he hit the floor. And that was it. The king. The Ivaslander. Tons of guards—
Oh burn it, the guard. Hanne pulled the assassin’s dagger from the wall behind her and ran into the hall.
“Sir!” she screamed, concealing the dagger in the folds of her dress. “Come back!”
The guard was at the other end of the hall, not quite to an intersection. He stopped and looked at her.
“The king has killed the assassin, but His Majesty is injured! He says he needs your help.”
“Of course!” The guard ran back as fast as he could, not noticing that Hanne wasn’t as frightened by all the bodies as she should have been; no, his focus was clearly on getting to the king in time to save his life. “Go find Stella Asheater, the grand physician,” said the man as he reached the office again. His dark eyes were wide, his unshaven face sweaty. “And—and tell her to bring sheets.”
Hanne nodded, but as the guard turned, she drew the stolen dagger and thrust it into his kidney, twisting the blade to make sure he died immediately. She’d have liked to give him a death without pain—she wasn’t a monster, after all, and he was only trying to protect his king—but she imagined being stabbed in a vital organ hurt quite a lot.
“Sorry.” She held onto the dagger as the man dropped. “I just couldn’t allow you to tell anyone I was here.”
Hanne stared at the mess of bodies.
This was all so unfortunate. She’d come to talk, and instead there’d been a massacre.
On the bright side—because Nadine would encourage Hanne to look on the bright side—Opus wouldn’t be sending any armies into the Malice. No. The entire kingdom of Caberwill would be galvanized against Ivasland.
But first she needed to rearrange things.
Quickly, she moved the bodies and the weapons into positions that would indicate all the guards had been the assassin’s victims, and that the king and the assassin had killed each other. With everyone in place, she yanked her own dagger from the Ivaslander’s ruined throat. It was time to leave before the watch changed, or anyone happened by and saw the river of blood.
* * *
Miraculously, she made it to the east wing unseen. When she heard guards patrolling, she ducked behind a column and waited until they’d moved past. Then, she slipped into Nadine’s quarters.
Lady Sabine was gone, and Nadine was sitting on the sofa, reading a sheaf of papers. She rose instantly. “Hanne, what happened? You’re covered in blood!”
“I should be. I just killed two men.” Hanne frowned at the floor, heart and mind racing now that she was out of danger. “And I had to take off my shoes so there wouldn’t be tracks.”
“What?” Nadine helped her replace the blood-covered dress with a plum-colored dressing gown, then pulled her to the sofa. “Tell me what happened. Are you all right?”
“Ivasland is trying to kill me.” Hanne looked at her cousin and told her everything.
“The assassin killed the king,” Nadine murmured.
“And I killed the assassin—but made it seem like the king did.”
“All of Caberwill will be furious. There’s no chance of the army going into the Malice now.” Nadine took Hanne’s hand, hardly seeming to notice the blood transferring to her own fingers. “But what about the other thing? Have you thought about that yet?”
“What other thing?”
“The king is dead. That means Rune is king. And you are queen.”
31.
NIGHTRENDER
Nightrender had been carving out a firebreak all through the evening.
She had to ensure the razing of Small Mountain did not spread flames beyond the boundaries she set. Hauling away deadwood and other brush was heavy work; without Dawnbreakers, she had to do everything herself. But tonight, she preferred that. The work distracted her from the decision she didn’t want to make: what to do with the information she’d acquired.
This was why she hadn’t wanted to get involved with a prince. This situation exactly.
Well, not exactly, perhaps. She hadn’t anticipated her prince getting married to a princess who’d been involved in the construction of a mal-device. But the sort of situation forced her to choose between remaining an impartial fourth party to the war—or becoming an involved fourth party.
Royalty made everything more complicated. But Prince Rune was her only friend, and he was married to the woman who’d caused this.
Is he your only friend because you are a monster now? murmured the voice. You can’t even purify malice without blinding pain. Do you think the Numina have sensed the darkness in you? Do they know what you did four hundred years ago? Perhaps they are trying to burn you away, too.
Nightrender gritted her teeth and continued working, but she couldn’t argue with the voice’s logic. It merely put words to her fears.
Was she a monster?
It was midnight by the time she went from building to building, dousing them in kindlewater. She poured it everywhere, but especially on the place where the mal-device had been, letting the liquid soak deep into the earth.
That was where she started the fire.
With only a flick of her fingers—and a shock of bone-deep pain—she sent a spark of numinous fire into the puddle of kindlewater.
Blue flames burst from the ground, and Nightrender took off into the sky, her wings fanning the fire as it burned along the row of rotten potato plants within minutes.
It was the only way to thoroughly rid the world of what had happened here.
Nightrender flew higher as heat rolled upward, and black smoke boiled the air. The inferno spread across the field and raced toward the town, a cleansing light that devoured everything in its path.