The crowd cheers as, in front of me, Eogan whips toward the king. His eyes narrow to slits, and I’m close enough to hear his feral growl over the crowd’s rabid hollering.
I take the final step behind him and the woman and lean in to inhale Eogan’s scent. A rush of horror and heartache finds my stomach, my nostrils, my throat. It burns and trickles and digs into that part of me that knows, without a doubt, that Eogan is already gone and I am saving our people once again.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper anyway.
Four, five, nine seconds I count before I grip the handle tighter and, with a quiet sob, shove my blade in my trainer’s back.
CHAPTER 4
NYM!”
I freeze.
Eogan’s broad shoulders stiffen, then he turns. His amused expression morphs into a glower aimed at my face as Princess Rasha floats over in her Cashlin-styled, glossy red gown, her dark brown hair twisted in a single spiral down to her delicate elbow.
“Nym,” she says again, in that whimsical tone that sounds as if she’s on herbs.
I frown and glance over to find her eyes riddled with shock and ringed with the glowing scarlet tint that indicates she’s using her Luminescent ability, which, when focused enough, reads people’s intentions.
Suddenly the weight of the knife in my hand feels awkward even though it hardly connected with Eogan’s skin. I doubt it even drew blood. I pull back and attempt to hide the blade against my thin skirts.
Until I realize her look of alarm is not for me.
Rasha’s gaping at Eogan, her gaze glimmering stronger.
Abruptly she clamps herself to my side and wraps her hand around my arm as the audience breaks into applause. The larger candelabras are reigniting and the dwarf’s ending his story to louder cheering than I’ve ever heard the legend met with.
Eogan-who-is-Draewulf scowls at Rasha as if he’s quite aware of her ability—as if he knows she can see into him and who he really is—before he turns to resettle his glare full on me. His lips twist. “Pushing your luck, aren’t you?” He juts his face near enough that his damp breath fuses to my hair. “Don’t make me tire of this, pet. You’d hate to be . . .”—his gaze darts in the direction of King Sedric—“the cause of any unfortunate accidents.”
My blade is thrusting for his stomach before he can blink, but Rasha’s hand stops mine. “Nym, wait.” Her grip becomes insistent, forcing my retreat. I turn to demand an explanation but she’s still staring at Eogan with an expression that’s gone beyond horror. Her sunburn-colored skin has drained to pale.
“Nym—”
“He’s Draewulf, I know,” I whisper. “Now let go.”
“But Eogan—”
“I know.”
Her fingers dig in as she turns to look me full in the face, her eyes willing me to understand. “He’s still Eogan.”
“Yes, now—” I frown. Blink. “What?”
Eogan dips next to me again, so close his suit brushes my bare shoulders and a musky wolf scent fills my lungs. He reaches for a wineglass from the lady who, up until a moment ago, was flirting with him but now appears to be trying to distance herself from the lot of us. He hoists the drink above his head and snorts hot breath in my face.
“Your Majesty!” he says, and turns. “A toast to you!”
“Hear, hear!” The requisite cries swell throughout the Hall as the lights flit off the mirrors to focus first on Eogan, then Sedric. “To the king!”
“King Sedric!”
I spin on Rasha. “I don’t understand. He’s Draewulf.”
“Yes. But Eogan’s not fully dead yet.” Her voice wafts its high pitch. “Draewulf’s still in the process of taking over.”
No.
“Like butterflies sharing the same chrysalis.”
I step back.
Oh hulls, no.
I look around with no idea how to be in this moment. What to be in this moment. Because if the discovery of Draewulf shifting into Eogan’s body was unbearable, this . . . this is the undoing of my spine.
The grave I’ve spent the last hour trying to seal up while keeping the final pieces of me from falling apart has just opened to reveal the person inside isn’t quite dead. Only half dead. Half consumed. And now I will watch his final remnants fade as the monster who killed Colin, and is now devouring Eogan, gloats.
I brace for my Elemental curse to itch and surge, to exact revenge for what’s been done, but it doesn’t. And the realization crashes in all over again that I no longer have it. That I am merely a carved-out, angry-as-hulls girl.
I think I’m going to vomit. “Rasha—”
“And to you, King Eogan,” King Sedric speaks up. “And your kingdom of Bron, Faelen’s new friend and ally.”
“Hear, hear!” Eogan joins the audience’s cheers, his tone mocking, turning my stomach sick with what he’s about to do. I lift my knife again to the low of his back.
Rasha’s hand slips down over the bandages on my fingers and grips the blade handle. “I said wait,” she whispers.
“And to the kingdom of Cashlin!”
“To Cashlin!”
“And Princess Rasha!”