The pain returned to my chest.
“I would like to know with whom I have the pleasure of speaking, however. What is your connection with my uncle?” Damian addressed Lady Vera.
“Of course, Sire. How silly of me not to announce myself more properly. I am Lady Vera Montklief. My father is the duke of Montklief and your uncle’s most trusted advisor and friend.” She curtsied again but kept her eyes on Damian. Was I the only one who caught the calculating gleam behind the flirtatious veneer?
“Interesting that he would send his daughter to bear a message from my uncle and not someone more …”
“Masculine?” Vera supplied, with an amused tilt to her lips. “My father and King Armando were concerned that you might not be as welcoming to a male guest from Dansii, after the unfortunate turn of events with Iker. We were all dismayed when we learned of the wicked deeds that Hector and Iker got themselves involved in. King Armando and my father had hoped that you would be more open to their message if it came from a less threatening source.”
“Such as a beautiful young woman, like yourself,” Damian said, nodding slightly.
Even though his words were true, it still stung to hear him call her beautiful.
Lady Vera inclined her head, a small smile playing on her lips. Her bright green eyes gleamed in the sunlight. “Indeed, Sire. And thank you.”
I didn’t believe her for one minute — I couldn’t believe that Armando would have had no idea what Hector, his own brother, and Iker, the man Armando had sent to be his brother’s closest advisor, had been up to for the last fifteen years or more. The two kingdoms had been allies ever since Hector and Armando had invaded Antion together and overthrown the previous monarchy, killing them all and placing Hector on the throne. And allies, not to mention brothers, were usually quite aware of the other’s dealings.
But Damian was smiling at Vera, some of the tension leaving his body.
“Excuse me, Your Majesty,” a servant spoke from the side of the room, near an open door, “if the lady will follow me, I will show her to her room.”
The servant’s head was bowed as she waited for Lady Vera to follow her.
“Thank you, Your Majesty. I will look forward to speaking with you as soon as I am refreshed from my journey.” She looked up at the king through her eyelashes. “Perhaps at dinner?”
Damian descended the stairs and took her hand, lifting it. The pain flared again — a sharp, fiery stab in my gut — as he softly brushed his lips against the white skin of her fingers. Skin that hadn’t been tanned and abused by sun, wind, rain, and sword fighting. “I would be happy to have you join me at dinner. I will send someone to show you where to go this evening.”
“Thank you, Sire.” She curtsied again and he let go of her hand.
As Lady Vera turned toward the servant waiting for her, the doors at the far end of the hall burst open yet again. A man dressed in uniform rushed into the room and hastily bowed to Damian.
“Your Majesty, a small squadron has arrived from Blevon, seeking audience with the king,” he said as he rose to standing again. “My captain sent me to ask you if we should allow them in or detain them.”
I couldn’t see Damian’s face to measure whether he was surprised or not, since he stood below me, facing Vera. No one had mentioned a possible visit from the Blevonese army to me. I wondered if General Tinso was with them. The thought brought a surprising amount of relief and excitement. Surely he would help Damian see that even though Lady Vera was a “beautiful young woman,” she could still be a threat. I wasn’t beautiful like she was, but I was a young woman, and if I were sent into the belly of King Armando’s palace to deliver a message, he’d better believe I was the worst threat he’d ever come into contact with.
I could only hope Lady Vera wasn’t as dangerous as I was.
“Yes, you can have your captain bring them in,” Damian replied to the messenger. “I’ll receive them here.”
The soldier pressed his fist to his chest, bowed his head in acknowledgment, then turned and hurried back the way he’d come.
“You may go, Lady Vera,” Damian said, turning to her. “I will see you at dinner tonight.”
“Yes, Sire. I look forward to it.” Lady Vera curtsied once more, and this time when she turned to leave, no one interrupted her. Her men fell into line behind her, including the one in the long robes and Felton, the runner. I hadn’t failed to notice that she hadn’t introduced the man in black. Was it on purpose? Who was he?
Only when they had all exited did Damian finally turn back to us. The coldness of his expression caught me off guard.
“Deron, I want Lady Vera watched at all times and her every word and movement reported back to me. Alexa, you and Rylan will stand guard beside me tonight at dinner.”
Relief coursed through me as I realized he hadn’t completely lost his head after all. He’d been playing yet another part. I should have known. Embarrassment that I had believed his charade as readily as Lady Vera wormed through my body. I knew Damian — I knew that beauty didn’t blind him. He’d had his fair share of stunning women fighting to catch his eye for years, and he never once pursued any of them. Only a handful of weeks ago, he’d claimed to love me, one of the least beautiful women he knew.
He looked at me right then, almost as if he knew my thoughts — as if he knew what a struggle I’d been waging against myself from the moment Lady Vera had walked in. His eyes held mine for a long moment, and I nearly lost myself in their brilliant blue depths. That is, until the echo of the doors being thrown open and banging against the walls made me flinch.
“King Damian, I present the soldiers from Blevon.” The same man bowed before the king again and then stepped aside as a line of Blevonese soldiers marched into the room. Damian strode back up the stairs to his throne while they entered. I watched eagerly, hoping to see General Tinso, but when the entire group had filed in, he was not among them.
There were ten of them, and as they marched toward the king, I studied their faces. Every single man stared straight ahead, face neutral, devoid of emotion. I glanced over at Eljin, to see if he was smiling in recognition or welcome. It was difficult to tell with his mask, but it seemed like he was frowning. His eyebrows were pulled down over his eyes as he watched them approach.
The ten men divided themselves into two rows of five and then halted. One tall man, with hair so long it was tied back at the nape of his neck, stepped forward.
“King Damian of Antion, we come bearing a message from Blevon.” He spoke in our language, but his voice was heavily accented.
“You are most welcome here, and I will gladly hear your message,” Damian responded from next to me, also in our language, though I knew he spoke Blevonese.
When the man looked up at our king, a shiver stole down my spine. His eyes looked strange — hollow. Something was very wrong here. I tensed, unsure of what to expect.
“You have brought peace between our two nations at great cost,” the man said in that same voice, chillingly empty of emotion.
“The cost, though great, was worth the result, I hope,” Damian said, sounding a bit more cautious.
I hazarded a glance at Eljin again to find him staring directly at me. He shook his head infinitesimally and widened his eyes. A warning.
“If you believe the result was peace, you are mistaken,” the man responded, and my head snapped forward again.
The expressionless void was still in his eyes as he stared up at Damian, but he adjusted his stance, tensing slightly, and my blood ran cold. I began to pull out my sword but I was too late.
“There will never be peace for you or your kingdom.” He whipped out his sword and lunged so fast that Deron, who had reached for his own sword a second too slow, was unable to deflect him. The blade sliced through Deron’s bicep as he threw himself backward to avoid being run through. “The blood of your people will water the jungle floor!”
ALL TEN BLEVONESE soldiers were suddenly running toward us, swords lifted.
The shock of being attacked in Damian’s throne room by our new allies quickly mutated into fury. I dimly heard Eljin shout at Damian to stay where he was as I vaulted over the railing in front of me, along with the rest of the guard, my sword raised. I slashed it down through the air as I landed. My blade bit through the shoulder of the soldier who had been below me, and his sword fell to the ground with a clatter from his suddenly useless hand. I left him behind now that he was no longer an immediate threat and rushed forward to the man who had sliced Deron’s arm and was advancing on him again. The sounds of fighting echoed all around me as the rest of the guard and the sentinels from the doors fought to protect our king.
“Hey!” I shouted, making the Blevonese soldier stalking toward Deron pause and glance at me. That tiny moment of distraction was all I needed. I spun and brought my sword down hard. He barely got his own sword up in time to deflect my hit with a crash of our blades. Deron backed away, clutching his bleeding arm. His sword arm.
The man advanced on me now. Next to me, I could see Eljin fighting two men, but none of their blows got through; I could feel the pull of magic as Eljin summoned his sorcery to block their hits.
The soldier who had attacked Deron was strong but not as skilled as I expected. The only way he had managed to land a hit on Deron was with the element of surprise. The soldier lunged at me, and I easily spun away, avoiding his sword. He wasn’t nearly fast enough, and he left his back unprotected just long enough for me to swing my arm around and embed my sword between his ribs, deep into his lungs.
“That’s for Deron,” I growled as I yanked my sword back out of his body. He dropped to his knees, looking up at me with those horrible blank eyes. But as I watched his life drain out of him, the strange emptiness vanished. He blinked, and when he looked at me again, his expression was one of fear and pain, and his eyes were full of tears. He said something in Blevonese — it almost sounded like a plea. But I couldn’t understand him. He tried again, but his voice gurgled as blood filled his lungs and throat. My stomach twisted and I had to swallow hard.
Finally, his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed to the ground. Dead.
“Alexa!” Damian’s cry made me start and turn in time to see a sword arcing toward me. I threw myself to the floor, barely avoiding the slice of the blade. The Blevonese soldier advanced, chopping down at me again. I flung myself to the side, rolling away, and the steel clanged on the stone floor of the throne room.
Gripping my sword, I rocked back onto my shoulder blades and then launched my body forward, landing nimbly on my feet, blade up and ready, but the soldier was standing still, his face purple. His sword lay on the ground, and he grabbed at the air around his throat, as though invisible hands were choking —
With a jolt of realization, I spun to face my king. Damian stood in front of his throne, his eyes flashing, his hand extended. It was all too easy to let myself forget just how not helpless our king truly was. He was not only an adept sword fighter but also a sorcerer.
There was a thud next to me, and I turned to see the man crumpled on the ground, unconscious or dead.
When I looked back at Damian, his chest rose and fell rapidly, his eyes on mine. He let his hand drop back to his side, but our gazes remained locked. When someone touched my arm, I jumped and spun to lift my blade, only to see Mateo next to me, his hands raised.
“Whoa. It’s me.” He stepped back. “Just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped. “I was just fine.” I raised my voice, hoping Damian heard me. Though the end result had been the same, I hadn’t needed his help. The kingdom was still unsure of how it felt about sorcerers, let alone the new king being one. I didn’t like him demonstrating his skills unnecessarily. The people’s trust in him was a tenuous, fragile thing, and I was afraid that one wrong act on his part would cause it to break.
“Sorry.” Mateo held up his hands again and backed away. I glanced around to see all ten Blevonese men lying motionless on the floor. The members of the guard stood over the bodies, swords bloodied and chests heaving. Eljin was closest to me, staring at the man I’d killed before Damian’s unnecessary “rescue.”
“What did he say?” I asked urgently, remembering the way the man’s eyes had cleared just before he had died, and the words he’d said. “Did you hear him — what did it mean?”
“He said, ‘I didn’t mean it. It wasn’t me,’ ” Eljin explained quietly, lowering his own bloodied sword.
“Are they all dead?” Damian’s voice directly behind me startled me. I spun around to see the king staring down at the man at my feet, his face a mask.
“Yes, Sire. All of them,” Rylan answered from somewhere to my left.
My anger at Damian’s intervention drained away as the reality of what had just happened sank in, leaving me shaken. “Why would they attack you?” I whispered. “We are supposed to be at peace with Blevon.”
“Something wasn’t right.” Eljin also stared at the man I had struck down. “I couldn’t sense any sorcery when they walked in, but that was no ordinary attack. As he was dying … that man almost seemed as if he … well, as if he regretted attacking us.”
“Of course he regretted it — he was dying,” Jerrod snapped from a few feet away, his face flushed and his sword bloody.
Damian was pale when he looked sharply at Eljin. “What are you suggesting?”
“I don’t know, Sire.” Eljin shook his head. “But I believe we just murdered innocent men.”
“They tried to kill us!” Asher protested. “Look at Deron’s arm — if he hadn’t moved so fast, he’d be dead on the ground like the rest of them.”
Eljin was silent.
“We defended ourselves and our king from a group of men who intended to kill us,” Deron spoke up. “From now on, no one from Blevon is allowed into the palace unless they can prove they bear no harmful intentions to our people or our king.”
“So much for the peace treaty,” Leon, one of the newer guards, muttered.
“The peace treaty still stands. And we will not start turning away the people of Blevon because of this,” Damian said at last, his voice harsh. “I don’t know what happened here, but I agree with Eljin. Something was wrong with these men.”
I agreed with Damian and Eljin, but I also agreed with Deron. We couldn’t risk Damian being hurt — or killed — if anyone else from Blevon came supposedly bearing a message, then delivered it with a sword. Still, I couldn’t get the image of the man staring up at me, the sudden change in his face — from blank to filled with emotion — out of my head. Fear. Desperation. Confusion. As blank as his eyes had been, as soulless as he’d seemed, in the moment before he died, he looked like an entirely different person. One who definitely had a soul — and who had claimed he didn’t want to fight us.
So why had he come here and attacked?
“Someone ring for help. We need to get these bodies out of here and this mess cleaned up,” Deron ordered.
“And you need to have your arm seen to,” I interjected. “Mateo, go find Lisbet and have her come at once. Asher, tear off a piece of your shirt. We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
Asher grumbled, “Why my shirt?”
“I’d do it, but I’d rather not expose myself,” I pointed out with a glare. “Now shut your mouth and help him before he faints from blood loss.”
Without another word, Asher quickly reached down and tore off a long strip of fabric.
“Your Majesty, perhaps you should return to your rooms and —” Whatever the rest of Rylan’s suggestion had been was cut off when the doors opened yet again and General Ferraun, whom Damian had placed in charge of his entire army, strode into the room.
He froze, his eyes wide, when he saw the carnage and all of us standing in a sea of bodies and blood, including the king. “What happened here?”
Damian sighed. “I really don’t know — yet.”
General Ferraun’s eyebrows lifted, but he remained silent.
/> “Was there something urgent, or can it wait, General?”
“I’m very sorry, Sire, but it can’t wait.”
The grim look on his face sent a shiver of fear down my spine. What now?
“A border village has been attacked.”
“Attacked?” Damian repeated. “Where? How?”
General Ferraun gave the king an apologetic look. “It was on the northwest edge of Antion, on the Blevonese border. A black sorcerer killed the men and even some of the women.”
“A black sorcerer?” Eljin cut in. “Are you certain?”
“He killed them with the unholy fire that Iker wielded,” General Ferraun explained.
Damian stared at him in shock. “Where are the orphans? They must be brought here, for food and shelter.”
“Sire, there’s more.” General Ferraun grimaced.
“More?”
“The sorcerer didn’t act alone. He was leading a group of soldiers.” The general paused. “Blevonese soldiers.”
LIKE I SAID, so much for the treaty,” Leon said again.
“If you don’t close your mouth, I will permanently close it for you,” Asher threatened, taking me by surprise.
Damian hadn’t spoken yet. The blood drained out of his face, and he seemed to age a year in a matter of moments before my eyes.
“Sire?” General Ferraun prompted him.
Damian shook his head slightly, as though trying to clear it. “We must convene a council immediately and discuss what we should do. I’ll meet you in the library in thirty minutes, General. Please bring anyone who witnessed or brought word of this massacre.”
General Ferraun saluted Damian sharply. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said and turned on his heel to march back out of the room.
“Asher, take Leon and Oliver and find help to clean up this room. Mateo, go get Lisbet and bring her here immediately to see to Deron’s arm.” Damian continued to issue orders in rapid fire. “Deron, go sit or lie down before you faint.” Then he turned to Eljin, Rylan, and me. My sword still hung at my side, the blood of the man I’d killed drying on the blade. “You three, please accompany me to the library.”