I almost struck out with a killing blow, but Hadriel said, “Finley, wait—”
Govam rolled off me and then yanked me up, now whipping me around. He held my elbows like usual, pointing my front toward the mess of guards in the room. What I saw left me speechless.
The guards were fighting each other! Not with whips or sticks or the usual weapons we were accustomed to, but with swords. Well, some of them had swords, at any rate, and they were rushing the other guards and running them through. Guards fell quickly, yelling and groaning, grabbing their middles.
“I had intended to do this at the boats,” Govam said urgently, watching the scene. “You see, the demons who patrol the boats don’t know how to work them. It ensures no one can overcome them and escape.”
Two quarreling guards stumbled over each other’s feet and tipped over the edge into the lava. Another guard was thrown after them. Sonassa, still glammed up in her red dress, slashed down with a dagger and opened the chest of her new enemy. When blood splattered across her face, she smiled.
“You would’ve been stranded there until another patrol came and found you. Your escape attempt would’ve ended in the same way as all of the others. Dolion is very good at trapping his prisoners. He’s just as good at trapping his subjects.”
The melee in the large room slowed, then mostly stopped, the surviving guards breathing hard, only those with swords or daggers left standing. After a beat, a few of them started picking up the fallen and throwing them into the lava.
“This will actually be quite handy for cleanup.” Sonassa sauntered forward before brushing her hair off her shoulder. She smiled at me. “Hello, princess. I haven’t seen you in a while. I’ve been monitoring your sad sack of a betrothed. I figured you wouldn’t leave without him. I ensured you didn’t have to. Forgive me for blaming the change in the parties on you two, but…it was the quickest way to the finish line. You understand.”
Govam released me before stepping back quickly.
“What’s happening?” I asked softly.
“And you…” Sonassa grinned wickedly at Hadriel. “You and your gal pal.” She laughed. “Perfection. You accomplished what should’ve taken months—years, even—in a matter of weeks. Genius.”
“Yes, what is happening?” Hadriel said. “You were always incredibly terrible to us.”
“Of course I was. People would notice a leopard without spots.”
The sound of pounding feet echoed down the hall. Govam jogged quickly to the other side of me, and Denski let Calia go and did the same.
“Hear me out, Finley,” Govam said in the same urgent tone. “Hear me out. If you don’t like what I say, then kill me. I know you can. I’ve never held any pretenses. You’ve always been the most dangerous of the dragons.”
Micah filled the doorway, his olive skin slick with perspiration and his muscles flaring. His deep brown eyes held rage and vengeance and destruction, and his power punched into the room like a solid force, his dragon clearly right at the surface. He stopped when he saw the state of the room as the other dragons and then wolves filled in behind him, ready to burst into the room and do serious damage. They didn’t care about the odds—they never had.
Govam raised his hands in the air. The rest of the guards did likewise, except for Sonassa, who stepped back a ways. She alone had the ability to control the faeries and shifters, and she was making it clear that she had no desire to.
“What is happening?” I repeated, louder.
“You said I should work on overthrowing the king,” Denski said, a step behind Govam, nearly at the bridge. “We are. We have been. But we can’t do it from within. Dolion and his minions are too powerful. We need the other kingdoms to step in. That’s where you come in, princess.”
“This sounds like a trick,” Micah said. “Or a trap.”
“They just killed a bunch of guards and threw them into the lava,” I told him. It also struck me that they were now using Dolion’s name and not his title. To Govam, I said, “Explain, quickly.”
He marginally lowered his hands. “The people in your kingdom aren’t the only ones who are stuck, Finley. We are trapped”—he gestured to the guards behind him—“within the current king’s rule. We are treated as second-class citizens—”
“Second class would be an upgrade,” Sonassa mumbled.
“—and we are killed without thought. Our lodgings are sparse, our food tasteless—we take what we are given or we are killed. It is a life without hope. We have always hoped a prisoner escape would lead to Dolion’s comeuppance, but it was starting to seem unlikely. Until you came along, Finley.”
“Except there have been escape attempts in the past, and you’ve stopped them,” I said.
“Yes. Because we were ordered to.” Govam lifted his eyebrows. “You might not see the officers, but they see you. Remember me telling you that? They caught on quickly with past attempts, and they always call the guard first. They’d rather let us die. But this time…” His smile was faint. “How’d you poison them all?”
Denski chuckled. “That was quite the shock when I was taking you back.”
“You knew?”
“Yes. I’ve dealt with them for years. Decades. They do hibernate after the ritual, but even then, they don’t look like… Well, like they are dead. On the way back, I checked to make sure.”
I shook my head a little, the pieces fitting together. “And the obice?”
“Forgotten on purpose,” he replied.
“We didn’t realize you’d already found a way to take care of that.” Govam nodded to Calia. “Very clever. You didn’t need our help at all.”
“The meeting with Dolion?”
A shadow crossed Govam’s face. “And that is where I showed my hand, as it were. He did want to see you. About what, I don’t know. I was instructed to get you. You were prepared as requested, and then I summoned Denski so I could leave and make an excuse about why you couldn’t be seen. I told him the officers had whipped you to the point of incoherence. He has a host of dignitaries coming in tomorrow who will remain for a few days. After they depart, he’ll call for you again. That’s when he will discover you are gone, the shifters with you, his officers are dead, and half of his best guards servicing the dungeons are missing.”
“What about the guards you just killed?” I pointed to the lava. “Won’t he notice they’re gone?”
“There was a large shake-up after that last party. A great many guards were killed, many more beaten. Several of our people are healing in their rooms… Besides, the guards who are with me, and those who are in there”—he pointed to the lava—“service the dungeons. He won’t try to call on us until the guests leave.”
He took a deep breath and then continued.
“As of now, I am a dead man walking. Everyone in this room is. If we show up alive, he will either guess we had a hand in this or punish us for not stopping it. Either way, we’d die. Our lives are now in your hands.”
“How did you know she was going tonight?” Hadriel asked. “I put most of those pieces together, but how did you know tonight would be the night?”