I quirk an eyebrow just as we reach the fountain and bench where I was practicing my gold the other day. “And that...bothers you? That Osrik is at the base a lot?” I try to ask as nonchalantly as possible, but I think I fail miserably, because she stiffens up.
“Why would it bother me?” she asks defensively, arms crossed in front of her as she stands before the fountain. “He’s a lout and a ruffian. An army base is the perfect place for him.”
“Mm-hmm.”
She swings her head in my direction, narrowing her eyes and opening her mouth to deliver some retort.
Yet whatever she was about to say gets cut off suddenly when we both hear a noise behind us. I turn just in time to see my guard suddenly fall to his knees. I rush over, thinking he’s choking or passed out, but then I see the second figure behind him. The one holding the knife.
Eyes wide, I watch the guard fall flat on his face with a gurgling noise that twists my stomach. Fear pounds in my veins, and then I hear, “Auren, watch—”
I whirl around at Rissa’s warning call, and I freeze in place. There’s a man I don’t recognize holding one hand over Rissa’s mouth and the other pointing a dagger right at her heart. Her blue eyes are wide and terrified, the color drained from her face.
Just as I lurch toward her, something smacks into my temple. Not enough to make me pass out, but enough to send a shock of pain and dizziness through me, throwing me off as I stumble back.
I call upon my gold, but since it’s night, all I have at my disposal is my bracelet. It melts against my wrist, dripping down my hand to collect in my palm. It’s a tiny amount, too tiny, but it’s all I have. If I can get it to the man who just hit me, to sharpen it like a needle and stab him through the eye, then I could—
A putrid smelling cloth is suddenly slammed over my nose and mouth. I sputter and cough, inhaling something sharp and bitter and consuming. It coats my tongue, sticks to my throat, burns my eyes, flares in my chest.
No, no, no!
Panic is a scream in my head, blaring through my ears, pounding through my veins. But with the blow to the head and this dizzying drug trapped against my face, I immediately slump, unable to hold my weight, unable to do anything.
I can’t move my legs. Can’t control my arms. My fisted hand tries and fails to get the gold to help. It slows and clogs against my palm like mud in a bog, too thick and gluey to move.
Someone catches me before I collapse, and it’s all I can do to hold up my head. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open. It’s like looking through a vortex, everything moving, everything violent and blurred. The cloth is just thin enough to let me breathe in and out, but it’s forced and suffocating, making my heart race.
My mind, however, seems to be slowing down. So are my blinks. I’m trying to stay awake, trying to make sense of what’s happening. The gold is dripping off my hand like drying paint, just as drugged and paralyzed as I am, and it falls from my fingers in a useless drizzle onto the lush grass.
Rissa is struggling, muffled screams against the cloth, her terrified eyes locked on mine. And I have nothing. No other gold around to help us, my magic too tainted from this poison to use it even if there were and my body weren’t incapacitated.
And then two people walk forward. One of them is an unfamiliar man wearing a long white robe. A robe—and a large necklace hanging down with the emblem of Second Kingdom. My heart splits in fear, but then, my eyes fly to the second person moving out of the shadows.
Manu.
“It’s nothing personal, Doll,” he says quietly, dressed in blue so dark it’s nearly black, his arms bare, hair tied back tight. “But I am loyal to my sister.”
“And to the law of the Divine,” the robed man says.
Manu nods stiffly. “Let’s go. We can’t afford to be anywhere near here when Ravinger gets back.”
I try to scream against the cloth, but all that comes out is a blustering breath.
“What about this one?” someone asks—the man holding Rissa. “She’s just a saddle.”
It’s getting so hard to keep my eyes open. So hard to hold up my head. Rissa doesn’t look away from me, though. So I don’t look away from her either.
“Just knock her out and leave her,” Manu says.
Relief trickles through me, though the drug has even affected that, making it murky in its echoing gurgle.
But then the robed man shakes his head, and my entire body tightens. “No. We can’t afford loose ends. Kill her.”
My stomach roils. My lungs feel like they’re melting in my chest, continuing to pull in polluted air, but my bitter-stained tongue is too leaden to let out a cry of protest anyway.
When I see the man holding her start to plunge the dagger through her chest, time speeds up. Like it’s trying to get this over with, like my body and mind are far too slowed down for what’s happening.
I try to scream, but all I get out is the faintest of whimpers, and my vision starts to go black, my head pounding.
I watch as Rissa’s eyes flinch with pain and shock as she’s stabbed through.
Fast. Too fast I can’t stop it. Too fast that I can’t do anything.
The blade goes in, stuck through her body as easily as someone skewers a piece of meat. Her mouth parts in shock, gaze still locked on me, and then that shock turns to something else.
Something finite and fatal.
She slumps, and I slump with her.
Her body is tossed onto the garden grass with carelessness. There’s a bloodstain blooming amidst the flowers right there on her white dress, the blade still sticking up from her chest.
And it feels like a blade sticks right through my own heart, while a silent scream rends through my head.
Then, everything goes dark.
CHAPTER 59
SLADE
In just a week, the whole base has been saturated with the smell of shit and leather. The underground pipework has gotten clogged from overuse, so new latrines had to be dug. The rationing has been a nightmare to regulate too. There are still some soldiers sleeping in tents, even with the base putting up new buildings as quickly as we can make them, and there are nearly two hundred soldiers that Hojat and the other army menders are treating for travel wounds and sicknesses.
Morale hasn’t been the greatest. Not with the reduced food. Not with the tight living quarters and the fact that no one’s going to be dismissed to return home any time soon.
Queen Kaila and the other monarchs want to be difficult. Want to spread this narrative of Auren being a villain. Of me harboring a traitor. Of making Midas into some kind of martyr.
It’s all fucking noise.
But they can spread their sounds as much as they want. The queen may be a master of words, but I’m an expert at ignoring the clamor. I’m not the type of male to be swayed by sensationalized commotion meant to sway a populace.
Rot is silent.
So they can be as vociferous as they want, but at the end of the day, I will lay them to silent waste if I need to.
Across from me, Ryatt finishes up his reports. Things have been strained between us, but for all his bluster, he’s been carrying out every order. He looks wrecked though, eyes red from lack of sleep, his frown more pronounced than usual. His hair is still sweaty from wearing his helmet outside while he got updates from the list of volunteers who’d agreed to leave Brackhill to go and source more food.
So he might not agree with my decision, but he’s doing what needs to be done. When push comes to shove, he always does.
Aside from him, Osrik is the only other one sitting in this meeting. Judd and Lu left a week ago. Lu flew to Sixth Kingdom to get me a better handle on what’s happening there, and Judd has gone to First Kingdom.
“...And we’ve got forty more going up to the plot of land Barley suggested,” Ryatt finishes.
“How soon are they estimated to arrive?”
“I signed them off on a timberwing rotation. They’re taking them ten at a time—half of our Perch, not counting our own beasts. Once they return, we’ll switch them out, sending the next ten, and so on, giving the timbers plenty of time to rest before the next batch.”
“Good.”
“But it’s not enough,” Ryatt warns.
I nod my head, because that’s true. Or it would be, except... “First Kingdom took the deal.”