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He’d never dealt with heartbreak before, but West assumed that that was what he felt at that moment. A loud splice, a splintering agony and a flash of white light that tore through him without warning.

Forty Eight

It seems you wantproof.

Fine, I’ll give it to you.

Where oh where, would those darling

blades of yours go, Red Lyric?

C.

The letter had been left on her pillow, on her side of the bed in an ominous way. She scrambled towards West’s desk, towards the drawer that she’d kept them in. Her hands fumbled for the golden hoop that pulled it out. She yanked it hard, harder than she truly needed but she didn’t care. Her heart was a mess of anticipation, nerves and horror as she stared down into the drawer. Terror and sweat licked down her spine, coated her skin and danced in between her clammy fingers.

Where her fighting knives, Red Lyric’s daggers had been, remained the empty bag. No sign of smoky steel, no scarlet handles, nothing.

The bells began to chime in tragedy.

She heard the whispers from the opened door.

Someone killed Osira.

The Empress, she’s been murdered!

Muse is gone.

Crimson knew then, that her whole world had been turned upside down. Because her blades were missing, and the Empress was dead. The entire Empire called for her head and she knew that Altivar would stop at nothing to get it.

Forty Nine

Crimson heard the footsteps first. Heard the softclickof expensive boots on the rough hewn ground, and the tapping of manicured fingers against a soft velvet fabric as someone appeared in her sightline. There was only one person who dressed like that, who would casually stroll through the cells as if it were a fine row of shoppes instead of damp steel cages.

Altivar.

She didn’t move as he paused before her.

His intrusive, probing scan was long, lingering and was all together unwelcomed. It made her throat clog up in anticipation and he studied her like she was one of his creatures in their glass confines. Whatever he was here for, whatever he was about to say, it wouldn’t be good.

“Good morning, Crimson.” Altivar drawled at last after a moment of unnerving silence had passed between them. He clicked his tongue in disappointment as he noticed the amount of crust dirt layered on her like a second skin.

Four days.

That’s how long she’d been here.

Four days in the dungeons of Tazali, and anyone would not be looking up to par. She didn’t answer him as he awaited a response, nor did she meet his gaze. She pressed even further into the corner, knees huddled up to her chest.

He frowned, tilting his head with vexation. “That’s not very polite of you. Even if you’re from the slums of the Bronze Gate, I expect you to have a semblance of manners. Let’s try that again, shall we?” He jerked his boot tip against the metal bars twice to catch her attention. “Withoutignoring me, pretty little Saint.”

Crimson blinked through the scorching sunlight up at him, through her dark lashes that were damp with her previous tears. “What do you want, Altivar?”

She didn’t use any of his titles, didn’t give him an ounce of the respect that he usually commanded from others. She wouldn’t show a kernel of like towards the male who she suspected was the sole reason for her surprise capture.

They’d just dragged her away, without letting her explain her sides of things as West roared for them to let her go. It’d taken five men to hold him back, hold him down as they swarmed her.

“I’d say that’s an improvement on your lack of manners, even if it’s just the barest of one.” Altivar smiled down at her. There was true delight, pure amusement and undiluted joy in his ivory teeth. One that made her uneasy, for a good reason.

Nothing about this male screamed trust.