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“There is no need, Your Majesty.”

“Wha—" The kiss of steel at my throat kept me from turning, my body realizing what was happening even as my mind grappled in disbelief.

“I am sorry, Majesty. But your reign ends now.”

74

ARRAN

As I ripped out throats, I took the measure of the attackers.

A powerful elemental whose blood tasted like the wind. A terrestrial who shifted into a leopard and tried to run away at the sight of me. His flesh was particularly sweet between my jaws.

The force they’d assembled was a mix of elemental and terrestrial, some skilled with blades, some skilled with magic. They’d attacked the court while they slept. How had they snuck in, without raising the alarm?

The same way the humans had the night of Arthur’s murder, my animal instincts told me. Whoever had plotted his murder had orchestrated this massacre as well.

I passed more than one palace guard, battling valiantly. The invading force hadn’t dispatched them through poison, which had been my first thought. The secret entrances… that was possible. Likely, even. Veyka had shown me two. Did she know of more? Even if she didn’t, it wasn’t far-fetched that there might be others she didn’t know about.

The elemental courtiers fought, on and on as the hours dragged towards dawn. I recognized the faces of the terrestrial delegation, fighting at their sides.

The goldstone palace would not fall. Not today.

I didn’t see Veyka or her Goldstones, but some instinct buried deep inside of my beast growled that I’d know if some grievous injury befell her. So I fought on, tearing through courtyard after courtyard. With every kill, I expanded my sense of the battle.

I fought across one courtyard, then took a flight of stairs in a single bound before leaping on the shoulders of an attacking water-wielder. Instinct alone told me who was friend and who was foe. After three hundred years on the battlefield, I knew better than to question those instincts.

The attackers were being beaten back. Slowly, but steadily.

They were disorganized, no sort of rank that I could discern as my eyes scanned while my beast tore out throats. They didn’t seem focused on advancing toward a particular place. They weren’t even trying to take the palace, I realized as I bounded through the deserted entry hall where Esa had greeted me on my first day in Baylaur.

Which meant this attack had another purpose.

A distraction.

Veyka.

I never should have left her alone. A fool’s mistake, to trust her guards. We could not trust anyone. Perhaps not even those in the little cadre we’d assembled. The very ones I’d trusted to guard her and keep her safe while I killed my way across the goldstone palace.

I had to get to her. I didn’t pray to the Ancestors; not after three hundred years of being ignored. But I sent out entreaties to whatever beings might exist in this realm or the human realm, begging them that Gwen was still at her side, still keeping her from harm.

Finding her in this melee would be hell. Where would she have gone? Who would she have chosen to defend in a court of treachery and lies? But even as my mind tried to scramble, my beast caught her scent on the wind.

Four powerful legs churned beneath me.

Hold on, Veyka.

I’m coming.

75

VEYKA

Did I deserve this?

When the blade touched my throat, the sharp edge pressed against my jugular with only a thin veneer of my pale skin to stop it, that was the first thought that sprung to my mind.

The next was shock. Deep, plummeting through my heart and stomach to the depths of my soul, as I realized who held the blade to my throat.