Page 1 of A Court of Truth and Thorns (Royal Scout #2)

KALI

T he king is dead and I’m pulling his son into the woods before his head joins his father’s on the palace’s flagpole.

My mind is numb. Screams and the clashing of blades echo in the air, which is thick with the copper stench of blood. The palace courtyard before us is a killing field, with Bishop Bahir’s red-clad holy guards butchering the royal court.

Minutes ago, Prince William, Luca, Trace, and I were all in Questioner Calvin’s dungeon, where a pair of young girls had implicated Trace in smuggling whisperers to Everett.

A serious accusation that threatened to lead to accurate questions about Trace’s loyalties.

Minutes ago, I was fearing for Trace’s life.

And then, within the time it takes to slice a sword through flesh, none of that mattered any longer.

Prince Wil of Dansil pulls back against my grip. “Wait.”

“King Firehorn is dead ,” I tell him again, my heart pounding. The sooner I can get Wil to safety, the sooner I can return for my sister, Leaf, who’s still caught in the besieged palace. “It’s a coup. Bishop Bahir is taking the palace by force, and you need to move.”

Wil twists about, blood draining from his face as he sees the bloody head I wanted to protect him from. “Father.”

“We’ve no time for this.” Trace grabs the back of the prince’s tunic and drags him around to the back of the palace, toward the North Wood that’s to be our refuge.

Considering who Trace truly is—the long-believed-dead Prince Rune of Everett, masquerading as a guardsman of the Dansil king—Trace’s commitment to protecting Wil even now is. .. interesting.

Everett and Dansil are at war over Sylthia, a piece of land that Everett captured two dozen years ago, but this attack is not Everett’s doing at all.

While Dansil was focused on Everett, Bishop Bahir and his Order of the Goddess following have been infiltrating the Dansil court.

Seizing power. Allying with the Viva Sylthia terror mongers to get us to this day.

Luca, Calvin, and the girls—Alexa and Jasmine—are at the North Wood already, moving in deeper when they see us coming. We make an odd crew, but there is no time to choose company when a coup strikes. Cold wind and sunlight whip our faces, beech and ash branches reaching out to snag our clothing.

Pushing my way to the head of the group, I take the lead to guide them on the path of best concealment. A trained scout, I’ve spent enough time here in the persona of Kal, a male guard trainee, to know the woods inside and out.

“In there,” I say, pointing to a tight cluster of trees where long-needled firs droop their branches low and thick.

The group obeys, and a few heartbeats later, we enter the small, covered clearing.

Calvin and the girls are breathing hard, the older man bracing his hand against a tree trunk for balance.

Good enough. Turning away from them, I creep back toward the thick branches, pushing the needles aside carefully to survey my return path.

I’ll have to move quickly if I’m to make it to Leaf in time.

“You can’t go back now, Kal, if that’s what you are contemplating,” Trace says behind me. “Not for anyone.”

Trace’s sister, Raza, is still in the palace, I realize. Wil’s sister, Violet, too—she’s somewhere in Delta. I’m not the only one with a beloved sibling still inside the slaughter.

But I will be the one going back. The others can make their own choices. “Let them catch their breath, then keep going,” I murmur over my shoulder. “I’ll catch up.”

Trace’s iron grip clamps on to my shoulder. “I said no . It’s suicide.”

I twist toward him with a snarl. “I wasn’t asking you, Trace. Let. Go.”

He doesn’t. Blood rushes to my face, my muscles pulsing with rage.

Twisting free from Trace’s hand, I break through the fir branches and sprint back toward the palace.

Images of what the Holy Guard could do to my whisperer sister overlap with promises of what I’ll do to Trace for wasting precious seconds.

I pray to the stars that Leaf hid in the passage below our suite. If she had enough warning, if she moved quickly enough, if she was in the room at all, if the passage wasn’t compromised. Too many ifs.

A body slams into me from behind, forcing me face first into the ground.

Dirt and twigs grind into my skin, sliding into my mouth and nose as I gasp against the weight now on top of me.

Trace’s familiar musky scent identifies my attacker even before he speaks roughly into my ear.

“You can’t go back for her now. You won’t make it ten steps before the Holy Guard cuts you down.

And if you do, you won’t make it out. The best thing Leaf can do now is hide or surrender, not race through battlegrounds with you. ”

I buck under his weight, glaring between the trees toward where I know the palace stands. “Not your call.”

“It is when you can’t think for yourself,” Trace growls. His silver hair brushes against my cheek, a cruel mockery of the last time our faces were this close together.

“Go to hell.”

Something sharp pricks my ribs. A knife.

“You may come with us voluntarily or in binds,” Trace says.

“That is the only choice you have.” I coil in on myself and slam Trace with the back of my head, the scrape of skin against his blade negligible beside the fury pounding in my chest. Trace grunts but holds.

“As you wish,” he says, seizing my wrists and twisting them behind me.

The pressure on my shoulders forces me up to my knees.

I hear a rip of fabric and Trace secures my wrists together, keeping my joints strained until the knot is secure.

“Let me go,” I say, trying not to shout. My heart thumps against my ribs, my skin flushing with a toxic mix of rage and betrayal. “Let me go, or I’ll tell everyone who you are. We’ll see which of us ends up in binds once I do.”

Trace leans down to whisper in my ear again. “Go ahead. How long do you imagine the princeling will live if his guards kill each other off?” Ignoring my curses, Trace marches me back into the tree-covered cove, the others staring wide eyed at my binds.

“Someone important to Kal is still at the palace,” Trace offers by way of explanation. “He is having some trouble differentiating between ‘planned rescue’ and ‘pigheaded killing-spree suicide.’”

Luca winces at my binds but nods understandingly at Trace’s words. The angles of his normally smiling face look sharper in fatigue and fear; even his unruly reddish-brown hair looks tired.

I cut Trace to bloody pieces with my glare.

He cocks a brow. Told you so.

“I guess when you have experience leaving others to die, it’s easier to swallow,” I hiss at him, knowing I’ve hit my mark as his face settles into cold stone.

“This way,” Trace says, motioning the group out the back end of our refuge. “The more distance we can put between us and the palace right now, the better.”

We hike through the green silence for six hours, our quick pace hindered only slightly by Calvin, Alexa, and Jasmine.

The sweet scents of sap and earth, once so comforting to my scout-trained nerves, now grate on my lungs.

Every time I blink, I can see my sister, each image more noxious than the last. Leaf screaming while a guard drags her down the corridor, her crippled foot banging on furniture.

Leaf dead, the blood from her slashed body soaking the palace’s marble floor.

Leaf chained and herded to Bahir. I vomit twice and make three attempts to flee, until Trace grabs ahold of my bound hands and force-marches me ahead of him.

The rage blazing through my blood threatens to torch the world.

But the world could not care less.

Finally, Luca points out that with the setting sun and Calvin and the girls’ growing fatigue, half our party won’t be able to keep upright much longer. “I’m not sure we can call the escape successful if we kill them in the process,” he tells Trace, who growls in reluctant agreement.

“We’ll stop for the night. No fires.” Trace tugs on my wrists. “Give me your word that you’ll stay put, and I’ll cut the binds.”

“Cut the binds, and I promise to leave without slitting your throat. ”

“As you wish,” Trace says, tying me to a tree. He pulls the binds tighter than strictly necessary over my chafed wrists. Luca surveys us with a weary glance and disappears into the woods to sweep the perimeter.

Sitting on the cold ground, I survey our motley crew.

The campsite Luca chose is as good as can be found here, with a small stream for drinking water twenty paces off, a bit of rock-free ground to sleep on, and plenty of wide-branched trees to provide some shelter and concealment.

Not enough to keep us dry should rain come, but better than nothing.

Except for Trace, who is checking our scarce supplies, the others sit together in an exhausted huddle.

The girls clutch their small bundles to their chests.

Calvin spreads his coat over their shoulders, then leans down to massage his feet.

Wil stares into nothingness. I call his name softly, shifting into a more comfortable position. He turns to me, his wide eyes and pale face making him more ghost than boy. His blond curls are matted to his head with sweat.

“Are you all right?” I ask Wil.

“No,” says Wil. “I imagine none of us are.” He picks up a stick and begins to whittle the bark with the small knife he keeps in his boot. “Who did you leave behind?”

I lean my head back against the trunk. Leave behind sounds too final, too complete an action. With six hours between us and the assault, the truth of it hits deep. “My sister.”

“I didn’t know you had one.” Wil’s eyes stay on the curled pieces of bark beneath his knife, the blade continuing to move with a steady swish, swish, swish.

“I left mine too. Though I don’t think she would have come, even if she could have.

In fact... I’m certain of it.” His throat bobs, but he masters himself without shedding tears.

“I’m sorry,” I say, which is stupid and inadequate, but all I have. “I’m sorry about your father too. ”

Swish. Swish. Swish. Wil’s knife continues its whittling. “Do you want me to untie you?”

My jaw tightens. “I want the bastard who bound me to untie me.”

Two paces away, Trace turns his head toward us. “Keep your voices down. We’ve enough trouble as it is.”

The next hour passes in silence, broken only when Luca reappears with a report of a clear perimeter and a pair of cooked rabbits. The smell of crisped meat makes my mouth water—until the illogic of the meat’s existence registers.

“Was there a merchant peddling rabbits in the woods?” Trace demands.

“There was.” Luca grins, setting the rabbits on a stone. Taking out a knife, he hacks the meat into juicy pieces and holds the first morsel out to the girls. “She was pretty too.”

Trace pierces Luca with a glare. “You caught and roasted a pair of rabbits without worrying that a fire would signal our whereabouts to anyone with eyes?”

“The rabbits were cooked when I caught them,” Luca calls over his shoulder as he cuts the next small piece and holds it out to Wil.

“Plus, did you see a fire?” The prince—I can’t think of him as the king, not yet—looks at the meat blankly and shakes his head.

“You should eat,” says Luca. “No point in all this effort to keep you alive otherwise.”

“No point in wasting dinner on someone who is likely to lose it,” Wil’s flaccid voice replies.

Filtering out both the conversation and the overbearing aroma of rabbit meat, I tune my ears to the sounds of the forest. A cold shiver runs through me.

Warranted caution or reflexive paranoia, I don’t know.

But Trace is already doing the same thing, his eyes surveying the dark trees.

A movement in the periphery steals my breath.

Before I can utter a word, Trace snaps to one knee beside me and slices his knife through my binds. He holds a hand out to help me up, his other extending a sword’s hilt to me, the polished steel reflecting speckles of moonlight. I take the weapon but ignore the hand.

“It’s a buck,” says Luca warily, following the direction of our gaze. “I saw him wandering around. Look.” Picking up a rock, Luca hurls it into the foliage. Something rustles and runs.

I nod, though my heart fails to slow. Luca hands me my ration of rabbit, which I swallow without tasting.

The buck’s rustling sounds over and over in my head, my pulse jumping each time.

I’ve missed Viva Sylthia’s approach once.

I can’t risk it again. A hand reaches for my shoulder and I spin, my sword in my palm, before I see that it’s just Calvin.

“Don’t touch Kal,” Trace tells him.

“Apparently not,” the older man murmurs.

The heat coming off my face could warm the entire campsite.

“Of all people, Trace, you are the least qualified to offer humanitarian advice.” I take a breath.

“My apologies, Master Calvin. It’s been a—” I cut off midsentence and spin back to the woods.

Something is still there. Watching me. Getting ready to pounce, now that it’s dark.

“Kal?” I’m uncertain who speaks, but it quickly stops mattering as a patrol of six men rush us with weapons raised.