Page 159

“Fierce Rubobostes,” Memnon begins. “We have come to you with a proposition: ally yourselves with our nation, and together we will defeat our mighty and common foe, Rome.”

The Dacian king laughs. “Ally?” He leans forward, his wooden chair creaking. “Lions do not ally withswine.”

“And yet we lions do so like pork that we thought we might proposition you anyway,” Memnon says.

Rubobostes’s pale cheeks turn blotchy and red.

Do you have to goad him?I say, biting back a laugh.I thought we were trying to win his support.

I can’t seem to help myself.

“Seize them!” Rubobostes thunders.

Immediately, the guards in the room that Memnon hasn’t bewitched close in on us, grabbing both me and him by the arms.

This is going really well, I say.

Flattered you think so, Memnon responds.

The Dacian king’s eyes narrow on Memnon. “YearsI have waited to exact my revenge on you for my father’s and brother’s and nephew’s deaths. I will carve out your entrails and ruin your wife in front of your dying carcass.”

Those are the wrong words to say.

They always are.

Memnon’s power explodes out of him, lifting his hair and blowing back the guards holding us captive. His power coils around the other individuals in the room, pinning them in place. They’re lucky he doesn’t attempt more.

My soul mate’s eyes glow as he stalks up to Rubobostes, who is trying and failing to rise from his throne. Only I can see the indigo magic that pins him in place, bands of it roped around his arms and thighs.

Memnon rounds the back of Rubobostes’s throne, and withdrawing his dagger, he presses the edge of the blade to the Dacian’s throat. “I already dethroned one king this year. You think it would be hard to remove you, old man?”

Rubobostes stares at me with blatant loathing in his eyes. To come within the fortified walls of his city and enter his palace and threaten him with death while he sits on his throne—there is no greater insult.

“Howdareyou come into my home as a guest and try to strike me down,” he growls.

“Are we guests now?” Memnon says.

The king manages to spit. “I will dance over your rotting corpse?—”

Memnon drags the blade across Rubobostes’s throat, blood arcing through the air and splattering on the carpeted floor. The room’s remaining occupants shout and writhe against the bindings of Memnon’s magic as the aging king slumps forward, then slides off his throne and onto the ground, his circlettoppling off him as his blood soaks into the woven carpet beneath him.

Memnon comes around the throne, his eyes still glowing as his gaze sweeps over the room. “Anyone else wish to challenge me?” His magic deepens his voice, raising the hairs along my arm.

The room is quiet; even the shouts have fallen to silence.

“Who is next in line to the throne?” Memnon demands.

No one speaks.

“Answer me,” Memnon commands.

“Dapyx,” says the man Rubobostes was laughing with when we entered the throne room. He’s somber now.

“Get him,” Memnon commands.

His power releases the guards in the room, and once freed, several of them rush out to search for the heir to the Dacian throne.

We wait only a short, tense span of time before a broad, heavyset man who bears a striking resemblance to Rubobostes strides into the great room. Immediately, his eyes drop to the dead king.