19 #3
“Shit!” I dart to the nightstand and grab my weapons belt, struggling to buckle it. I’m only wearing bandages, underwear, and garters, but I don’t have time to get dressed. Earlier I spotted a cloak hanging in the closet, so I swirl it around myself in case we end up outside.
A scaly snout bursts through my bedroom window, shattering the glass, and the white curtains billow into the room. Two arrows jut from the wyvern’s skull, so it’s probably dying—but its head is still swiveling atop its long neck, and its jaws clash perilously close to my bare calf as I run past it.
“Vawn!” I scream, dashing into his room.
He joins me, half-dressed, wielding a golden candlestick.
“What are you doing?” I stare at the candlestick. “Why do you have that?”
“Better than nothing?” He winces. “I lost my other knife.”
“Here.” I hand over one of my amontite knives. “Stay behind me.”
I unbolt his bedroom door, lick my shield glyph, and charge through, my hand upheld to ward off attacks.
General Tana Centune stands in the hallway, fully dressed, wearing a breastplate and bracers. “Come with me, your Highness. I can get you out of here.”
“Lord and Lady Kaenan?” Vawn demands.
“In their safe room. You know where it is.”
“Yes, and I know they wouldn’t have gone there without me.” Vawn’s tone darkens with suspicion.
“They didn’t have a choice,” the general explains. “Hurry!”
A thud resounds behind us—booted feet hitting the floor of my bedroom. That sound can only mean that the wyvern’s rider has climbed through the broken window into the suite, which means we should probably flee with the general.
I take a quick look in both directions. To my right, at the far end of the hall, there’s a dark pile on the floor. The lamps are out in that area, so I can’t tell what’s lying in the shadows, but it could be bodies.
Severin speaks up. “general, if I may ask, why are you in full armor at this time of night?”
“Do you want to listen to a piece of babbling fabric, or do you want to live?” the general snaps. Then her gaze shifts behind me, and she gives a single commanding nod.
Like she’s signaling to the wyvern’s rider.
I spin, shoving Vawn aside and lifting my shielded hand. Energy rebounds off my palm, stopping the rider’s attack.
I whip my tongue across another glyph and send a paralytic pulse at the rider, then whirl back just in time to catch the full force of General Centune’s blade against my palm.
The shield glyph has just enough energy left to fend off her sword.
I dodge backward and draw my claw knives.
But I can only twirl the one on my left hand, and the whirling dance of the weapon doesn’t deter the general one bit.
She charges at me, dealing a massive blow that I barely avoid.
Without hesitation, she barrels forward again, smashing into my shoulder with hers.
The impact jars my entire body, including my worst wound.
If I was alone, I might be in trouble—but Severin sweeps forward, whipping his tassels in the general’s face.
Vawn cuts the back of his wrist, activates his own paralytic glyph with the blood, and directs the magic at the general while she’s trying to stab the carpet.
The general’s eyes go wide, curses escaping her mouth as her body locks up. With a final push from Severin, she topples backward and crashes to the floor.
Vawn leaps astride her and wrenches her weapon out of her stiff fingers. He holds the sword to her throat.
“The glyph I used on you is a special one, perfect for interrogation.” He speaks softly, as though he’s crooning to a lover.
“It paralyzes every part of you except your mouth and eyes, but you still have all your senses. Any pain that happens to you, any torture I choose to inflict, you will feel. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she hisses.
I turn my attention to the fallen wyvern rider, who’s wearing a crystalline helmet. He’s a Redeemer, one of the Exemplar’s assassins.
“I’m going to finish him off,” I tell the carpet, who’s hovering nearby. “You might want to move back in case of blood splatter.”
Severin glides a short distance away and flattens himself against a nearby wall.
I reach beneath the edge of the Redeemer’s helmet and drag a claw blade through his throat.
I hate the drag of the blade through flesh, the first spurt of the artery, and the slow glug of the blood that follows.
The sensory aspect of death bothers me more than dispatching a faceless attacker.
I should be thankful that they wear helmets. It makes killing them easier.
Perhaps I should feel guilty for what I just did, but the foremost thought in my mind is that this knife will need sharpening soon. It’s becoming dull.
I walk down the hall a few steps, until I can see that the dark pile is indeed the bodies of the guards.
The general probably called them together and they came to her, trusting her rank and her loyalty, only to be swiftly slaughtered.
She must have done it quietly, too, perhaps using silence or stealth glyphs.
Walking back to Vawn, I check the glyphs on the general’s immobilized fingertips.
As I thought, she bears silence and stealth glyphs on both hands.
They all have short timing serifs, each lasting about a minute.
Fairly harmless, by all appearances. Nothing too dangerous or powerful that might have made the castle guards suspicious when she arrived for the party.
Through the broken window in the suite, I can hear shouts, the beating of wings, and whistling sounds like great arrows being shot or stones being flung.
Anyssir Castle is indeed under attack, but so far, the worst of it seems to be happening outside the walls, not within them. But that could change quickly.
“Vawn, you should hurry,” I urge him.
“First question, General.” He leans over her. “Are the Lord and Lady still alive?”
“Yes,” she says through clenched teeth. “I locked them in their room. They are old friends, and though their loyalties are misplaced, I don’t wish to harm them. And I wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“Yet you killed several guards, and you would have killed me as well,” I point out.
“If you didn’t want people to be hurt, you should have given yourself up to the Exemplar,” says the general.