72. MURDER IN THE GREAT WOOD #2
Quicker than a blink, Killian snatched the king’s hair with his other hand, yanking his head back and baring his throat to the sky.
He slid a dagger from his waistband and slowly brought it up to Broderick’s neck.
“Defiant until the end. You know, I always admired how courageous you were—never one to fear anything. Always thinking deeply and moving with intent. Turns out those things didn’t work in your favor after all. ”
The king stared up into the impersonator’s eyes. Pain was now stitched into every line on his face. “How?” he struggled to say against Killian’s tight grip.
“Oh, I’ve been spying in your court for quite some time. Since before your son succumbed to his wounds.”
The king snarled.
Killian grinned, then turned his head toward me.
“It was Ramil who approached Lyceius, wanting to strike a bargain for power. After glimpsing all he could obtain with the Alatyr, he grew greedy and wanted more. And when he came to me and offered me a place at his side, I happily accepted. We were to bring the realms down from within, until you showed up and threw a kink into our plans.” He scoffed, then scowled.
“The Bringer of Light. I had you in my fucking grasp.”
He withdrew the dagger and pointed it at me. “I knew there was something different about you at the tournament. And when you crossed The Veil, that made me all the more suspicious. But even though you managed to get away, it all worked out in the end. You’re right where we want you to be.”
The king shifted on his knees beneath Killian, prompting the High Lord to turn his attention back to him.
“And as for you . . .” Killian brought the blade back to the king’s throat.
“Your son was my key to gaining a stronghold in your territory. When he died, I seized my opportunity and became him. All your secrets, every plan you’ve ever shared with me—thinking I was your beloved heir—were compromised from the start.
And when you brought me into your private counsel to tell me what you’d found in the archival texts beneath the castle, what the human kings before you had been doing, I knew your time was at an end.
You questioned too much. You would have exposed everything.
But don’t worry, your faithful son and heir will lead in your stead now.
The report of your death will be due to a ‘sudden fever.’ I’ll mourn for only a little while—for appearances’ sake—and then everything will continue as planned, and no one will ever know. ”
The king, still powerless beneath Killian’s grip, jerked in protest, drawing a sliver of blood as the blade’s edge pressed into his skin.
“What do you think, Your Highness?” Killian asked, angling his weapon. “Shall I wear your son’s face while I slit your throat?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the queen move. She stepped forward, her voice thick with worry as she pleaded, “Please—please don’t do this.”
Her hand was buried in the pocket of her cloak, fiddling nervously with something, but she did not reveal what.
Killian gave a half-hearted glance at the queen. “Auren can surrender at any moment, if she so chooses.”
He was right. I could. But I had come in the hope of helping to free the king from whatever creatures held him here at Lyceius’s will, not to surrender.
If I surrendered, they would kill the king anyway.
Lyceius already wanted him dead for what he was about to expose to the world.
He wasn’t going to change his mind and let him live just because I handed myself over.
The queen met my conflicted stare, and I could tell that she had drawn the same conclusion.
There was no easy way for this to end.
The king was a dead man, and she knew it. We all did.
Skadi stepped up to Killian and placed a hand on his shoulder, as gently as a lover would. “Give me that,” she said into his ear.
Killian hesitated, but he straightened and withdrew the blade from the king’s throat, passing it into the goddess’s grasp.
Corinne shifted anxiously on her feet. “Wait!” she called out. The hand she kept in her pocket twitched, as if she were about to pull something forth. But she hesitated. “If you have any sliver of mercy in you, goddess, let my husband go. I beg you.”
Skadi made a show of contemplation, as if she were truly considering the queen’s appeal. She looked down at the king, dragging her fingers across his bearded jaw as she circled him. When she came to a stop behind him, she lifted her eyes to Corinne. “Pity. I have no mercy.”
With the flick of a finger, a shadow came forth on her command and punctured Broderick’s neck like the strike of a serpent. Blood gushed, flooding his torso, and within seconds, his body sank to the dirt.
Weston cursed under his breath. Leather groaned as the other Dionach stiffened and drew closer to the queen, who let out a shriek of agony as she fell to her knees.
The king, who’d invited me to his tournament to compete for a spot in his guard—a guard that was probably put in place because of the very things he had discovered—was dead.
He was going to fight back against everything that had been done.
He was going to expose all the lies and bring their corrupt agenda to light.
And they murdered him for it.
The queen was shaking, her stark-white face bracketed with a pain I’d only witnessed once before. It was the same painful expression that had been etched into my mother’s face as she lay dead on the floorboards of our home, alongside my father.
Skadi smirked as she twirled the unused dagger in her hand. “Lyceius says that the price to pay for defying him or those in his company, is death.”
“You will pay for this,” the queen hissed through her tears.
“Oh, I do hope you make good on that promise. I already planned to slit many throats in this war. Yours can be added to the tally.”
The queen tried to stand and lunge for the goddess, but Weston and the other Dionach hooked their arms around her, holding her back.
Killian remained in the form of Alston for a moment longer, looking blood-drunk as he watched the queen fight her restraints.
“Auren,” Skadi said, her tone mockingly calm. “Come. Lyceius is expecting us.” She stretched out her hand, just as she had done the first time she approached me at Calledan’s northern gate.
“Not a chance,” I said.
Beside her, Killian shifted back to his natural body, then disappeared into thin air.
This was my moment. I needed to get the queen away from here. If I could get to her, and port, I could take her to Calledan where she would be safe. But before I had a chance to move, Killian reappeared, and he was dragging someone behind him.
“Not even for him?” he mused.
I saw mousy-brown hair first . . . then . . . familiar, brown eyes stared across the space, finding mine in an instant.
My stomach plummeted.
It was Liam.