Chapter 32 Carver #2
All the pieces slammed into place. The guard was a traitor.
He’d let the assassins in. The open balcony door had been a ruse.
Something to make it look like that’s how the assassins had entered and escaped, so the guard’s treachery wouldn’t be discovered.
Carver had no idea where the second guard was.
Dead, drugged, or part of the conspiracy as well?
Another blow—this one to his temple—made Carver grunt. His vision blurred and his fingers clenched desperately around his knife as he fell to the side. The assassin landed on top of him, driving the air from his lungs. The man raised his knife, aiming it for Carver’s heart.
Amryn screamed his name.
He gritted his teeth, slashing out with his own weapon. It sliced deep into the assassin’s vulnerable stomach.
The man howled, nearly drowning out Amryn’s cry of agony.
Carver’s breaths were uneven. Sweat streaked his face as he kicked the dying assassin off him, scrambling to get Amryn back in his sight. Had she been in pain because of the blow he’d dealt, or had the guard gotten his hands on her?
If he had, he would lose them.
But when his frantic eyes landed on his wife, she was paces away from the guard. She’d kept distance between them, just like she should have. She was doubled over once more, panting, her face pale as she grappled with the pain of the assassin’s stomach wound.
The guard was peering at Amryn in shocked confusion. “What’s the matter with you?”
Carver refused to let the man figure it out. There was no way he could keep him alive for questioning, now. Not if there was the slightest chance he’d realize Amryn might be an empath.
Carver lurched to his feet, his temple still throbbing, his knife drenched in blood.
The guard seemed to realize that his friends were dead or dying, and he alone faced the wrath of the Butcher. His eyes rounded as he stumbled back. “I didn’t hurt her! I didn’t even touch her!”
Carver dove forward.
The man didn’t get a chance to draw his sword before Carver had buried his blade in his heart. It was the quickest death he could give, for Amryn’s sake.
Behind him, he heard her retch.
Another shadow filled the doorway. The other guard.
Carver snarled in wordless fury, his grip on his blood-streaked knife clenching as he braced to kill again.
The shadow reared back. “Easy!” Berron lifted both arms, though only one hand caught the moonlight. “It’s me. I heard . . .” His attention landed on Amryn, who was still vomiting. Berron tensed. “Is she hurt?”
“Get Father,” Carver growled, his voice still roughened by sleep. Saints, one of the rare times he actually fell asleep, and this happened.
He was never going to sleep again.
Berron ignored him. He rushed into the room to kneel at Amryn’s side. She’d fallen to her knees at some point. Probably when he’d killed the guard.
Berron’s good hand clamped down on her shoulder, his other arm hanging uselessly. “Where are you hurt?” he demanded.
Amryn only retched again, her entire body shaking.
Panic clutched Carver. Her pain wasn’t diminishing—
A hiss of agony drew Carver’s gaze to the assassin he’d gutted. The man was still alive. Carver cursed himself. Of course he was still alive. A wound like that wasn’t quick.
The assassin was curled in on himself, his hands clamped over his weeping gut. He was shaking with the pain.
Pain Amryn was feeling, too.
Carver stalked forward.
The assassin gaped up at him, tears streaking his drawn face as he blubbered and tried to scoot back. “No! Please don’t kill me. I’ll tell you everything, I swear. Just help me and I’ll tell you everything I know. Please.”
Carver clamped a steadying hand on his shoulder, then shoved his blade cleanly through his heart.
“Blazing Saints!” Berron swore, tightening his hold on Amryn when she shuddered and vomited again. “What on the Scorched Plains is wrong with you?” his brother snarled at him. “Can’t you stop your butchering long enough to see you’re sickening her?”
Carver’s entire body shook with excess adrenaline as he met his brother’s glare.
For the first time, he noticed Berron’s eyepatch wasn’t in place.
The gaping hole where his eye had once been was a disconcerting sight.
Carver hadn’t seen it since the days immediately following the eye’s removal.
It had looked angrier then. Now, only scar tissue remained.
Carver forced himself to focus on Berron’s good eye. “I told you to get Father.”
“Burn on the Scorched Plains,” Berron sneered. “Did you even think of sparing his life so you could learn from him? No, you just killed him in cold blood because that’s what you are. A cold-blooded killer!”
“Stop it,” Amryn rasped, cradling her stomach with her arms. She was no longer heaving, but she looked like she might again at any moment. Berron’s hand on her shoulder seemed to be the only thing keeping her upright. She was unspeakably pale in the shadowed room. “Please . . . don’t fight.”
Carver’s fingers curled more tightly around his blade. He could feel the wetness there. He didn’t have to look down to know what sight would greet him.
His hands had been slicked with blood before.
He kept his gaze on Berron, knowing if he looked at Amryn, he wouldn’t be able to remain focused. “Do you have a knife?”
“Of course I have a knife,” Berron snapped.
Carver wasn’t surprised. His brother was a Vincetti, after all.
An internal war raged inside him as his gaze was pulled to Amryn. He needed to make sure the threat was truly over, but he also needed to go to her. Hold her.
The wetness on his hands kept him focused.
“Don’t move from her side,” he ordered Berron.
Amryn’s terrified eyes cut to him. “Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t,” he assured her. He moved to the open door, shouting down the hall for his father, Ford, and more guards. He remained in the doorway, unwilling to put any more distance between himself and his wife.
Behind him, Berron murmured, “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
“No, I’m all right,” Amryn said, a tremor in her voice. “I just . . . The blood . . . Seeing someone killed . . .”
Carver gritted his teeth. Because she was lying. She had been hurt, even if no blade had touched her.
But they could have. Assassins had made it into their room. He hadn’t heard them. Hadn’t sensed them creeping closer. He’d been utterly vulnerable, and he’d left Amryn vulnerable, too. If she hadn’t woken, hadn’t alerted him . . .
A door banged open down the hall, and Carver glanced up to see his father tearing toward him in rumpled sleep clothes. A knife was in his hand, his hair mussed but his eyes alert. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Assassins,” Carver bit out.
Ford—who had just emerged from his room looking sleep-rumpled but deadly—cursed. “Is the immediate threat over?” he asked.
Carver nodded, aware of pounding footsteps coming from the stairwell. Guards, responding to his call.
“Is Amryn all right?” Cregon asked.
“Yes.”
Behind him, Berron snorted.
A muscle in Carver’s jaw ticked. He kept his attention on his father and Ford. “One of the guards on duty tonight let them in. I’m not sure where the other one is.”
Fury darkened their faces. Cregon peered into the room, revealing no surprise at seeing Berron kneeling beside Amryn.
Ford noted the dead bodies. “You didn’t keep any of them alive?”
“No.” Carver didn’t bother to explain himself. If he said it was out of necessity, Berron would argue the point, which would only lead to more questions. Let Ford think what he would.
Concern filled his friend’s eyes, but luckily the reinforcements arrived before he could say anything.
One of the responding guards was not only able to identify the dead palace guardsmen, but also reported his assigned partner for the night had become violently ill after eating dinner.
The guard had promised to find his partner’s replacement for the night, which of course, he hadn’t.
Carver had no doubt that an investigation would prove the guard had tainted his partner’s dinner. He hadn’t wanted any witnesses.
For all his trouble, the traitor would never get to spend the heavy purse of coins they’d found in his pocket.
More soldiers arrived to help carry out the bodies, and servants came to change the bedding and clean up the blood.
Berron had moved Amryn out onto the balcony before they’d begun the gruesome task.
Elowen entered the room soon after, a robe thrown over her nightdress.
After she made sure Carver was all right, she’d gone out to the balcony to join them.
Carver shifted to keep them in sight through the open doors, even as he answered questions from the captain of the guard who had been summoned.
When he finished his report, Cregon—who hadn’t left Carver’s side—said, “Guards should be sent to each of the Chosen. We don’t know the reason for this attack, but I think we can assume none of the Chosen are safe now. ”
His stomach cramped. They’d assumed, since Jayveh alone had been targeted since coming to the capital, that someone had just wanted her dead. But if this attack had been ordered by the same person, all of the Chosen were now targets. The ambush on the road might have been the actual first strike.
Ford’s jaw worked. “I can check on Jayveh.”
“Thank you, Ford,” Cregon murmured.
Ford nodded, then eyed Carver. Saints only knew what he saw there, but he placed a hand on his shoulder. “You did well,” he said quietly. “She’s safe.”
His friend knew him too well. And yet, his words didn’t even touch the violent storm inside him.
Ford’s grip flexed once, and then he was gone.
Cregon watched him too closely. “Why don’t you go wash up?”
Carver knew the blood on his skin was drying, because it was tacky in some places and brittle in others. He still hadn’t looked at his hands. Hadn’t loosened his hold on the knife he was strangling.
His eyes flicked to Amryn, where she sat on the balcony between Berron and Elowen.
“I’ll watch her,” Cregon murmured. “No one will hurt her. I swear it.”
Carver’s chest rose and fell too quickly. He needed to clean his hands before he could touch Amryn. He also knew he needed to get away from his father’s scrutinizing gaze before he fell apart. He swallowed hard. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”
“I won’t,” his father vowed.
Carver sent one last look at Amryn before he turned on his heel and marched to the washroom. He closed the door, noting the flecks of dried crimson that clung to the wood after he’d touched it. His hands were shaking. He didn’t think it was from adrenaline anymore.
He turned to face the basin, not bothering to pour in fresh water as he sank his bloody hands into the shallow bowl.
“You just killed him in cold blood because that’s what you are. A cold-blooded killer!”
His hands curled to fists, tendrils of red rippling out to stain the water. He could face more blood on his hands, if it meant Amryn was safe.
He just wasn’t brave enough to face himself in the mirror.