A Court Of Mist And Flames Prologue #2
Sahara stepped slightly in front of me, body angled to shield without making it obvious.
“Stop,” Sahara said, her voice calm, like she was ordering a sparring partner to reset.
The servant didn’t stop.
He kept walking. Kept bowing. Kept pretending.
Sahara moved.
So did the servant.
The cloth snapped back.
Steel flashed, thin and narrow, a blade designed for precision. Not a soldier’s weapon. Not something meant for war. Something meant for a single throat. A single heart.
Sahara lunged into the attack, not away from it.
Her arm slammed into the assassin’s wrist, knocking the blade off its direct line to me. Metal kissed air. The tray clattered, goblets tumbling and ringing like startled bells.
Sahara’s boot kicked forward, hard, aiming for the assassin’s knee.
The assassin didn’t stumble.
He flowed.
That was the part that froze me. Not the blade. Not the betrayal. The way the assassin moved like they’d trained for this corridor, this light, this timing. Surgical intent. No wasted motion. No anger. No hesitation.
Sahara struck again, faster, a punch to the throat.
The assassin pivoted, catching her wrist and twisting.
Sahara’s face tightened. Pain flared across her features, then disappeared behind stubbornness.
She pulled free by force, turned her elbow into the assassin’s ribs, and for one heartbeat I thought she had him.
Then the blade slid forward.
Not wild. Not dramatic.
Just exact.
Sahara’s breath caught, sharp and startled, like the world had slapped her.
The blade sank beneath her ribs.
Time broke.
The corridor didn’t make sense anymore. The stripes of light were wrong. The air was wrong. My body was wrong. Every part of me screamed to move, to do something, to stop this.
Sahara’s hand grabbed my sleeve, hard.
Not for help.
To push me back.
“No,” I tried to say, but my voice wouldn’t shape around it.
The assassin yanked the blade free.
Blood bloomed dark against Sahara’s leather, spreading fast.
Sahara staggered.
I grabbed her, fingers slipping on warmth, on slickness, on the reality that my twin was bleeding out in front of me. My twin who laughed like fire. My twin who moved like a blade. My twin who had always been faster than fear.
Her eyes met mine.
They were still lavender. Still her. Still Sahara.
And there was surprise in them.
Not terror.
Not pleading.
Just surprise, like she couldn’t believe someone had gotten past her.
My stomach dropped so hard it felt like falling through floors.
“Sahara,” I whispered, and the word sounded wrong in my mouth, like it belonged to a different life.
She tried to breathe.
It came out wet.
The assassin turned toward me.
His face was half-shadowed by a hood that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Or maybe it had, and my mind had refused to register it. His eyes were flat. Empty. A job being completed.
The blade lifted.
My body finally moved, too late and not enough. I shoved Sahara behind me, or tried to. My hands shook. My dress tangled around my legs.
The assassin stepped forward.
A ring on his finger caught the light. A small insignia carved into it. A snake encircling a thorned rose.
The Order.
My mind screamed the word even as my lungs refused air.
The blade angled toward my throat.
Sahara made a sound behind me, broken and furious, like she was trying to climb out of death by sheer will.
The assassin’s wrist flexed.
Heat slammed into the corridor.
Not the gentle warmth of sunlight. Not the comfort of a hearth. This was a living force. A breath that turned air into a weapon.
Fire roared down the hall in a narrow, controlled line, striking the assassin from the side.
They didn’t even have time to scream.
Flame wrapped around them with brutal precision, swallowing cloth, skin, bone. The smell hit instantly, sharp and horrific, and I stumbled back, choking on it.
The assassin collapsed, burning fast, fire eating what it touched like it had been waiting.
A red shape dropped from above, wings snapping open in the space between the ceiling beams and the corridor’s stone arches.
Siergen.
He was small in his courier form, but not harmless.
Never harmless. His scales gleamed crimson, as if the fire that had killed the assassin was still trapped beneath them.
His eyes were gold, the kind of gold that didn’t belong to coins or crowns.
The kind that belonged to predators and ancient things.
Onyx pupils cut through the brightness like blades.
He landed between me and the dying flame, talons scraping stone.
His head turned slightly, one eye locking on me.
Not worried.
Assessing.
The fire died as quickly as it had come, leaving scorched stone and the blackened ruin of the assassin’s body. No tapestries caught. No curtains ignited. Siergen’s control was terrifying.
My knees buckled.
Not from fear of Siergen.
From the sound Sahara made behind me when she hit the floor.
I spun.
Sahara lay on her side, her leather dark with blood. Her hand still reached toward me like she was trying to hold on to something. Her lips parted, breath shallow and wrong.