3. Chapter 3
Chapter three
Cyrus roared. He fumbled for another bond. “ Feran! ”
“ I’m here; where are you? ” came Feran’s call, and Cyrus dropped into him.
“ Where’s Thane? ” Feran asked.
“ We lost him. ”
Suddenly, Raze appeared, joining them. Alone.
“ Where were you? ” Cyrus snapped at him. “ And where are the rest of the men? ”
“ I told you—the Northman. ”
Cyrus was confused. “You lost three men to one Northman? ”
“ We’re not bloodsport fighters. We’re men of stealth—we get in, we kill, we get out. ”
As they turned the corner to her hall, they nearly ran into the queen. She held both a sword and dagger now.
Time to finish this.
“You keep surprising me,” Cyrus told her.
“Who are you?” she yelled at him.
“As I said, an old friend. But not a friendly one.”
She shook her head. She was confused. Good.
“ Don’t play ,” he told Raze and Feran. “ She’s dangerous. ”
Feran, to her left, attacked first. She jumped back and swung a counter, then turned and broke past, fleeing down the staircase.
Fuck the gods. If they lost this woman…
Feran and Raze both tore after her. Raze caught her at the bottom. She wrenched free but didn’t run again. Instead, she clenched her blades and faced them.
“ I don’t think your brother’s here ,” Orion’s voice cut through.
“ He is! His blood touched her. ” He’d felt the bond with the queen. He’d seen her. Only with his brother’s blood would that have been possible. Alexander was here with her. “ Keep searching. ”
Feran and Raze were now both fully engaged with the queen. She stood with her back toward the wall, her eyes darting back and forth between them. He could see her panic creeping in.
And he couldn’t resist.
“ Salara ,” he said through Raze on her right. “Not queen of Aleon. Even I didn’t realize the vision of you on the Shadow throne meant a marriage to the Shadow King.”
“You’re from Aleon?” she asked bitterly. “You’re here for revenge?”
“I’m most certainly here for revenge,” he said through Feran now. “But I’m not from Aleon.”
Her eyes darted between the assassins again, then they narrowed. “How are you doing that?”
Her lip quivered, and her nostrils flared, and she attacked. The assassins faltered. This woman was fast, he’d give her that, faster than both of them, and she sliced her sword across Raze’s side. He fell to his knees, but it wasn’t a fatal wound.
She spun to meet Feran, and their swords clanged as he delivered a counter.
“Why?” she shouted as she fell back a few steps. “Why have you come?”
For blood. For Rael. But most of all, Cyrus had come for revenge.
“They’ll suffer, as I have suffered,” he seethed. “Especially Alexander.”
Her eyes flashed, and she bared her teeth. “You won’t find him here. He’s gone.”
She smiled. She was lying. Rage rippled through him.
“He’s here!” he snarled back at her. “His blood touched your skin.”
Raze was on his feet again and moved together with Feran toward her.
She lunged forward, throwing her dagger at Raze, hitting him squarely in the shoulder, then swung her sword with full force at Feran.
He met her with his own blade in a counter, and she slipped to the side.
He heaved another swing, and she dodged, knocking his shoulder and using his momentum to drive him sideways.
Then she bolted into the dining hall. Feran followed her.
“ Cyrus ,” Orion called again. “ I’m telling you, I don’t think your brother’s here, and we have a bigger problem. The Shadow King is back. We need to get out of here. ”
Fuck the gods. All of them. All the fucking gods.
“ Where is she? ” he snapped at Raze, who had finally managed to get back onto his feet again. He didn’t need to wait on an answer as the queen tore back out of the dining hall. She slid to a stop when she saw Raze.
Feran stumbled back out into the main hall behind her, blood streaming from a cut across his temple. She darted down another side hall.
What was even happening? “ Finish it! ” he snarled at them both. “ We’re out of time. We have to go. ”
Feran and Raze chased her down the side hall to a single chamber at the end, and she ducked inside. Finally. There wasn’t an outlet here. She was trapped.
“ Be quick ,” Cyrus told them.
Feran pushed open the door, and both men stepped inside, closing it behind them.
The queen stood in the center of the room, backed against a large bed, facing them. There was no escaping now.
But the fear that had been in her eyes before was gone.
“Cusco! Cavaatsa!” she hissed.
Feran chuckled. “Do you call for your gods?”
“I call for your blood!”
And before the assassins could react, two giant beasts jumped from where they’d been crouching on the sides of the bed, tackling the men.
All went dark in Cyrus’s mind, and he bellowed into the void.
“ What’s going on? ” came Orion’s voice.
Cyrus was nearly shaking with rage now. “ Get out of there ,” he snarled at him. He followed the bond to see where Orion was and caught a glimpse out the window of the Shadow King entering the castle. “ Get out! ”
“ I’m working on it. Did we get the queen? ”
“ No ,” Cyrus gritted out. “ How many are still with you? ”
“ Still four of us ,” Orion said. “ Where is everyone else? ”
“ There is no one else. ”
Orion’s silence was deafening.
“ If they’re coming in through the side, maybe you can slip out of the front ,” Cyrus told him.
“ I know how to get out of this fucking castle ,” Orion snapped back, not bothering to hide his own anger.
“ Are you all together? ” Cyrus asked.
“ Shut up. I’m trying to concentrate. ”
Cyrus quieted and tried to simply watch through Orion’s eyes.
Shadowmen ran past the alcove he was tucked in with his men.
“ Watch out ,” Cyrus said.
“ I said shut up. ”
More Shadowmen swarmed the halls. In mere moments, they’d find the assassins.
Cyrus’s pulse raced faster. “ Can you make it back to the— ”
He lost his vision.
“ Orion! ”
No answer came.
“ Orion! ”
He searched for the bond but couldn’t feel it.
“ Orion! ”
Cyrus tore open his eyes to find himself in his study again. Kord, Everan, and Essandra scrambled to their feet. They’d been sitting silently the entire time, not sure what was happening but still there, waiting anxiously to see if the mission was a success.
“What happened?” Everan asked.
Essandra wrung her hands. “Are they out?”
But Cyrus was so angry, he couldn’t speak. He paced the floor, his chest heaving.
“Cyrus,” Everan said.
Still, he couldn’t answer.
Essandra stepped closer. “Cyrus?” Her voice was thick with worry.
Then came a pull.
Cyrus flung open his mind, desperately searching.
“ I’m here ,” Orion said, but his tone was short. “ We’re out. ”
A breath of relief escaped him. He felt like he needed to sit down. “ Where the fuck were you?! ”
“ You were going to get us killed, distracting me. Probably like you did the others. ”
Cyrus put his head in his hand, digging his fingers into his temples until it hurt.
“ We’re on our way back ,” Orion said coldly. Then the bond went dark again.
He opened his eyes back to his study.
“Cyrus,” Everan prompted.
What an absolute fucking failure.
His throat was dry and raw. He picked up a chalice from the sideboard, but he couldn’t bring himself to drink.
“Did they get the queen?” Everan asked.
Slowly, Cyrus shook his head.
“What about your brother?”
Again, he shook his head. In a flash of anger, he flung his chalice against the wall, and it clanged to the ground.
He’d lost.
He’d lost eight men, and he’d lost his chance.
Cyrus leaned his weight over his desk in silence. He’d been so sure about this. So confident.
So wrong.
“Orion has a couple men left,” he said finally. “They’re out. They’re headed back.”
Essandra gave a breath of relief.
Another pull tugged his mind. Not Orion.
He opened his mind. It was Jaem, who was still keeping an eye on Bravat, the troublesome bloodsport fighter that refused to return from the Mercian outer reaches.
“ What? ” he said shortly. He wasn’t in the mind to hear updates. He certainly wasn’t in the mind to hear about whatever Bravat was up to.
“ Hey, I just thought you’d want to know—a Mercian company passed through the Free Cities today, coming home. Guess who was with them.”
If this was news about Alexander, Cyrus was going to absolutely lose his mind.
“ The Mercian lord justice ,” Jaem said.
Cyrus roared as he swept an arm across his desk, scattering books and parchments to the floor.
Fuck Alexander. Cyrus would kill him. And when the opportunity came again, he’d do it himself.