Chapter 40
Forty
To commit treason is to be sentenced to death.
This will break her.
- King Richard
I rip my knife out of a woman’s stomach.
Spinning with the momentum, I embed it into another woman’s chest. Seeing my queen exit safely, a bit of the tension leaves me, but what if there’s more danger out in the hall?
A war needle flies through the air, barely missing my face.
I pivot towards the direction it came from to see Tanya advancing with a savage snarl.
The woman I stabbed drops to her knees, but she reaches for me, trying to hold me still.
I slice at her hands and kick her in the chest. As she falls back, Tanya rushes me, a knife in each hand.
No doubt each is coated with poison so one nick will see me dead.
I parry and dodge, moving through the dispersing crowd.
Most of the nobles ran out of the hall, and many of the traitors are already dead – cut down by swords and shot by the snipers in the rafters.
Bolts of red energy fly down from the ceiling, precision shots that don’t explode like blasts of magic normally do.
Instead, they cut a hole straight through their target, and the magic erupts inside their bodies.
Any touch of that beam is an instant kill.
The sniper who shot Echo is already dead –a suicide mission deemed necessary to take out the biggest target– so now it’s just our side that’s shooting magic.
I spin and duck to the side, avoiding the swish of Tanya’s blades.
Working my way to Echo, I nudge her body, telling her to stay down.
There’s only a few more traitors left, and I don’t want her secret getting out.
I’ll call Deirdre in to bring her back later because this isn’t a full-scale coup; it’s just the pathetic attempt of a dumb-ass woman.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” I tell Tanya. “You’re not getting out of here.”
Anger flairs in her eyes, and I know she’s been set up. Someone told her they’d attack with her, but here she is, all alone, with only her neck on the line. The rest of the Court is fighting off the attackers, showing their loyalty to me.
“Which Dragons sold you out?” I demand as our blades sing. I kick her in the stomach as she tries to swing for my head. She stumbles back with a grunt, but her lips stay sealed.
This isn’t like her at all. She’s a gloating bitch who does not know when to shut up.
My eyes narrowing, I realise she has taken a vow of silence – so if she or her partners got caught, neither of them would be able to rat out the other, not even under torture.
Whoever set her up, Tanya trusted her to go through with it.
“Was it Petre?”
Her blade nearly slides across my arm, but I manage to twist just in time.
Realising it’s too foolish to interrogate her while she’s attacking me with poisoned blades, I kick her in the stomach and force her back.
With her attention on me, she doesn’t notice Marabel swinging her sword until it’s too late.
As Tanya tries to dodge the new attack, Irin wraps her legs in chains of magic.
She screams behind her frozen lips. She throws her blades at me, the last desperate attempt of a soldier who knows she’s dead.
Dodging them, I lunge for her. Marabel’s sword slides across her back as both of my knives sink into the dragon’s throat.
Blood gurgling out of her mouth, she falls to her knees. Irin’s bright-green magic releases her. I turn to survey the rest of the room. There are two or three dozen traitors down on their knees or lying wounded on the floor. No weapons are held in their hands. They’ve surrendered.
As Petre is telling the remaining guards to take them to the dungeons, I raise my voice. “No.” If they’re tried, they’ll be sentenced to a public execution. My voice as icy as the lowest level of Niflhel, I order, “Kill them all.”
I rip out my knives from Tanya’s neck, then slice them in a criss-cross as she falls.
They cut deep into her throat. Then I knee her in the face.
The force, combined with the cuts, has her head snapping back.
The skin tears, the bone breaks, and her head hits the ground before her body does.
Wiping my knives on my trousers, I look at Petre.
Her eyes are carefully blank, even as the traitors scream and beg for mercy. But having given up their weapons, they don’t stand a chance of surviving the slaughter.
“Meeting,” I say. “Now.”