And clattered to the ballroom floor. The servant’s blue eyes blinked in shock, blue blood sliding from both nostrils as he crumpled. Lord Pell, standing behind the man, yanked his blade from the body. My other attackers were completely immobile, as if someone had stopped time. I glanced at the two Frostbloods holding me, a man and a woman, both encased in ice, their hands frozen around my arms. The fire on my sleeves was out, my dress in blackened tatters at the edges.
My head jerked up to check on Arcus. He stood on the dais, his hands thrust out. He had frozen my attackers in a single burst of frost. There was murder in his eyes, and for a fraction of a second, I saw his brother in him. The rage and hatred, the thirst for death. As if the Minax preyed on him now, twisting his fears and hurts and dusting away his pain to make him into someone who was incapable of mercy. I honed in on Arcus’s eyes, half expecting them to be pure shining onyx. But they were still blue.
He blinked, his eyes focusing on me. He mouthed my name. And then he swayed, his eyelashes fluttering.
I pushed out heat into my arms, broke free of the ice, and ran to him, stepping over bodies along the way. I reached my arms up and caught him as he fell, giving a surprised oof as I was crushed under his muscular bulk.
“Arcus,” I groaned. How ironic to survive the fight only to be flattened under the unforgiving weight of the person who had saved my life. A hysterical giggle bubbled up but came out as a strangled gasp. The laughter fled as I realized he wasn’t moving. “No,” I whispered, struggling to free myself.
Hands slid around Arcus’s arms and for a second I panicked, expecting more enemies, but it was Lord Pell and Lord Manus, both of them bloody and stern-faced, gently pulling Arcus to his feet and holding him between them.
I sucked in a relieved breath and stood, moving my hands to Arcus’s cheeks. “Wake up, please. Arcus, please.” My words were whispered prayers, frantic and raw in my burning throat.
His eyelashes fluttered open. “Thank Fors you’re all right,” he mumbled, his mouth twitching up at the corner.
I turned to Lord Pell, drawing myself up. “He needs a healer now!”
Arcus laughed weakly. “You give orders like a queen.” His eyes slid over me as Lord Pell and Lord Manus moved toward the ballroom doors, which now stood open.
“You’re unhurt?” Arcus slurred as I followed him toward the exit.
I scanned for Marella and Brother Thistle, relieved that neither were among the prone forms on the floor. “I’m fine.”
“I got blood all over your gown,” Arcus said rather irrelevantly.
“It doesn’t matter.” I noticed a bearded man in robes who must be the Safran ambassador—alive and unharmed, talking with a few other delegates. Thank Sud. His murder would have meant war.
“If my blood were red like yours it would match your dress,” Arcus rambled. “You should have worn blue. Oh, stop spinning, I don’t want to dance.”
I looked at him sharply, then met Lord Manus’s eyes. “He’s delirious.”
“Couldn’t find you,” Arcus muttered, his eyes closing. “Worried.”
Lord Pell chuckled, though I heard the tension in his voice. “The king nearly lost his mind when he couldn’t find you during the attack, Lady Ruby. I’ve fought alongside him in battle and I’ve never seen him so close to wetting his pants.”
“Quiet, Oliver,” Arcus murmured.
“You were outside?” Lord Pell asked me as we reached the doorway.
I told a brief version of events about Lord and Lady Regier, Drake and his revenge, and what he’d said about the Blue Legion.
“You fought them all off by yourself?” Lord Manus asked.
The guards crowded around us now, offering help. I wasn’t about to say anything about Kai. There were too many people here. “The king needs to be in bed.”
A crooked smile spread over Arcus’s face and his eyelids fluttered open. “Why, Ruby, I didn’t know you were so eager to get me into bed. Wish I’d known sooner.”
Lord Manus’s cheeks darkened with the blue-tinged Frostblood version of a blush. I was sure my complexion was thoroughly pink.
“Come now, friend,” said Lord Pell, motioning the guards to help carry their king, “before you give the guards far too much to talk about.”
Arcus muttered something barely audible and stumbled, but the steady hands of his men were there to carry him. I had never seen him look so weak.
“What a night,” said Lord Pell as we moved into the hallway toward the stairs. “The glorious dawn of our peace talks has ended in attempts on our lives.”
“The dignitary from the Aris Plains!” Lord Manus exclaimed, as if just remembering. “We couldn’t find him!”
“He was with me in the garden,” I said now that we had more privacy, although I couldn’t quite bring myself to admit that he wasn’t the dignitary at all. “He ran off during the attack.”
“Well, we’ll have to find him and grovel on our knees for all this. Thank Fors he wasn’t killed. The assassins seemed to be targeting delegates, particularly the ones who’ve shown a willingness to sign the peace treaties. Which is probably why Arcus threw himself in front of the dagger meant for the Safran ambassador. Typical. He’s calm and focused when defending himself, but he’s a fiend when he’s protecting someone else.”
“He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”
“The healers will tell us more shortly. Though it probably didn’t do much good when he yanked out the blade so he could search for you.”
I groaned. “I’m going to kill him. And then I’m going to find out the names of every man and woman who had a hand in this attack and”—there were so many things I’d like to do, and they all involved my fire—“express my extreme displeasure.”
Manus chuckled. “Leave that to me. Your job is to go make him rest, since I doubt anyone else could.”
FIVE
I SAT ON ONE SIDE OF ARCUS’S BED, and Brother Thistle sat on the other. A fire had been lit, though somehow the heat didn’t penetrate the massive space. Plush royal-blue curtains covered wide windows that looked down on the castle courtyard. All the luxuries of the king’s bedchamber—carved wardrobes, thick rugs, wingback chairs with delicately curved legs—were painted a soft yellow by the glow from candelabras.
I watched helplessly as the healers, a man and woman with similarly long, serious faces, checked the king’s pulse and washed and dressed his wound.
It was deathly quiet after they left. Arcus lay in the bed, silent and still, his skin almost as bleached as the sheets, the covers pulled over his bare chest up to his bandaged shoulder. When I touched his cheek, he was frighteningly cold, even for him.
“Will he recover?” I asked, as if the monk, with all his scholarly knowledge, would know the answer to that question, too.
“He must.” Brother Thistle’s expression was openly worried as he stared at Arcus. He loved him like a son, that was clear. Surely we would make Arcus better with the force of our affection alone.
“Where were you when it happened?” I asked.
“I left the ball early and returned to the library.” He offered it like a confession.
“You couldn’t have known. This is more my fault than anyone else’s.” A wave of guilt swept through me. The so-called Blue Legion, apparently a network of bitter nobles, all hated the king because of me. Or at least what they perceived as my influence over him.
“The timing was deliberate,” I observed.
“Of course.”
“And the targets were anyone who supported the peace accords.”
“That much is clear.”
“Who is behind it?”
He rubbed his temples. “I fear there are many more suspects than we’d first thought.”
I told him what Lady Blanding had said, her veiled threats that she had decided to leave us to our fate, and my suspicion that she’d known about the coming attack.
He didn’t look surprised. “Arcus has promised to give the Aris Plains back to the farmers of the southern provinces once he assures peace. I was surprised that he didn’t see more direct opposition from his court, many of whom were given that land by Akur and Rasmus. Now we know why.”