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I strain my eyes in the darkness, making out a few figures on those docks. The longer I stare, the more figures amass, all of them silent as the grave.

Something’s wrong.

Deeply, deeply wrong.

Memnon? Why won’t you answer?I plead, more to myself than to him.

Does he know something is afoot? Could something have happened to him?

No. I refuse to believe that. I sense him on the other side of my bond, even if his end is subdued. He lives still.

Moving away from the window, I pad to the chest at the foot of my bed. I open it, and by feel alone, I grab a tunic and trousers. I don’t dare illuminate the room as I dress in case my worst fears have come to pass.

We have enemies. We have always had enemies. Never more so than now. Memnon has made sure to be one step ahead of them, but I don’t believe he anticipated a possible siege like this.

As I finish pulling on my boots, there’s a soft rapping near the portiere, the curtained doorway to my room.

“Roxilana!” a masculine voice whispers urgently. It takes me a moment to recognize that it belongs to Zosines. Another insistent rap. “Roxilana! Wake up!”

I’m crossing the room to draw back the curtains when Ferox growls softly. I go still.

Very slowly, I glance at my panther, feeling that disquiet in my stomach. I can see little beyond Ferox’s general form, but as I stare at him, I can just make out that his eyes are fixed on the portiere.

I follow his gaze. The wards that cling to the curtained doorway like cobwebs now shine faintly in the darkness, as though they’ve been activated. Zosines must be trying to get in—and he cannot. That threshold is warded against malevolent intent.

Chills skitter down my spine.

I glance back down at Ferox, my body steeped in unease.

“Roxilana!” Zosines calls out again. His voice is louder, more panicked and insistent.

My panther lets out another low growl, then drops soundlessly to the floor, prowling forward like he’s homing in on a kill, his belly low to the ground. I slip down our bond and into Ferox’s head, curious about what is alarming him.

I’m not even fully seated in his mind when I scent blood. So much blood. The acrid tang of it is ripe enough to taste.

“Roxilana!” Zosines pleads. “We’re about to be under attack! We need to get you out now!”

I touch the closed curtains between us lightly, imagining the tall warrior in my mind’s eye. Zosines and Memnon have been fierce friends since they were children; the two are bound by a blood oath and many, many battles. My mate trusts him with his life.

But intuition and observation are telling me something else altogether.

“Asphyxiate,” I whisper.

I don’t see my magic wind around Zosines’s throat, but I hear his surprised chokes and then the clatter of something heavy, followed by the thump of his body hitting the floor. Only once he’s sufficiently distracted do I dare push aside the curtained partition.

On the other side of it, Zosines claws at his throat, trying uselessly to pry away my power. Those who don’t wield magic cannot stop it. Next to him lies a wicked-looking dagger, one he must’ve been holding when he called for me.

Wordlessly, I command my magic to draw the blade to me. The weapon rattles against the ground for a moment before it streaks across the space and into my hand.

I kneel next to Zosines and indolently press the blade to his throat.

His dark eyes glare up at me.

“What are you doing?” he rasps.

I honestly don’t have the faintest clue, but panic still laces my blood, and my intuition has never steered me wrong.

I command more of my power to wrap around him, tethering him in place. The last thing I want is for Zosines to get away now that I have him in a vulnerable position.