Page 70 of A Promise of Lies (Shadows of the Tenebris Court #3)

69

Kat

H e stood in the doorway, little more than a shadow now the sun had vanished entirely. Darkness pooled around him, snapping, agitated.

“Bastian.” Braea’s smile was bright as she turned and twisted me in her grasp so my back was to her chest. The knife never left my throat. I couldn’t even swallow without making it dig into my flesh. “My grandson. My blood. How didn’t I see it before?”

His gaze fixed on her arm around my waist. “I said, get. Your. Fucking. Hands. Off. Her.”

“She went for me. I only drew a blade to protect myself. My darling, it doesn’t have to be like this. She’s already killed one king. Do we really know she wasn’t involved with Lucius’s death?” Shaking her head, she walked me towards him.

She went slowly, voice soft, like he was a wild animal that only she could soothe. “Can’t you see what she’s done to you? To us ? To the realm ?”

His eyebrows pulled together as his eyes flicked to me, like he could see the chaos I’d caused with my desire for change.

“We were always a team, weren’t we?” she crooned. “Solid. Stable. Always working towards what was best for Dusk Court. And now?” Her face was inches from mine, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears.

She released the arm around my waist, but I was trapped between them, trapped by a sinking feeling that dragged at my bones.

She took his hand. “Now you’re looking at me like you want me dead. Stars above, she’s done a good job of poisoning us, hasn’t she?” She laughed softly, thick with sorrow. “But you can end this, Bastian. We can go back to how we were. Better. You don’t have to be king and take on all that heavy responsibility—the attention you don’t want. You could be my heir. I can bring you into the light, prepare you gradually to be Dusk’s hero rather then my Shadow.”

Slowly, his chin dipped.

Was that a nod?

At the edge of my vision, shadows crept in. “No, Bastian. Pl?—”

The press of her blade cut me off. Warmth trickled down my neck. Any further and I’d be dead.

I stared at him, willing him to see the lie hiding amongst her words.

Sure, she believed what she was saying. And maybe she would do everything she promised. For a while.

But how long before Bastian put a foot wrong and did something that went against her wishes? How long before she suspected him of lusting for her throne?

How long before she killed another heir?

His eyelids fluttered as though he reached a decision. This time it was a firm nod. Sure. Decided. “So much has changed. Things I never wanted.” In the tight space between us, he squeezed her hand, then let go. Gently, he wrapped his fingers around the dagger’s hilt. “Let me finish this.”

She surrendered it to him, and I could feel her smile against my cheek before she shifted back just enough to watch as Bastian took over holding her blade to my throat.

I had space to swallow, staring up at him. He couldn’t mean this.

A sad smile flickered on his mouth—already mourning. His other hand pressed against my hip as if to hold me still.

My pulse leapt, pushing against the blade.

“I am sorry, you know.” His gaze slid to hers. “You say you want to bring me into the light. But you had fifteen years to do that, and you didn’t. You kept me in the darkest places, doing your dirty work. Now, someone else has beaten you to it.”

Out the corner of my eye, Braea frowned and the push of her chest against my back eased off. “What are you?—?”

His hand at my hip snapped out.

She gasped, grabbing my shoulder, but Bastian dropped the dagger at my throat and moved me to one side, out of her reach.

Every part of my being fought to understand the scene before me.

He had her by the shoulder, a knife in her stomach, angled upwards. “I could take having to make hard choices, the sacrifices made for the greater good, the times I had to torture our enemies to get information that would keep our people safe.”

It had been a ploy. He’d only played along with her to ensure I was safe and to gain the upper hand.

I sagged against the wall, sudden tears burning my eyes as I caught my breath.

He walked her across the balcony, and she staggered with him. “I, of all people, could understand killing a loved one to protect something you truly believed in. I gave you a chance with the shapechangers, with my athair , with Cyrus. Always, I thought I was doing the right thing. Stability above all. And I believed you meant stability.”

She choked as she hit the balustrade and arched back, like she could get out of his grip. But she stared up at him, face frozen as though the real terror was hearing in stark terms the litany of wrongs she had done to her people.

“Even after I found out you’d provided them with the book that summoned the Horrors.” He blasted out a heavy breath, brow drawn low as he shook his head. “I believed that if I’d been there all those years ago, I could’ve talked you around. Every time, I told myself you didn’t realise the full extent of the harm you were causing. I made excuse after excuse for you.”

He fell still, holding her gaze a long time, before going on in a voice as soft and final as death. “But what I could not— will not abide is you laying a single fucking finger on Katherine.” There was a terrible wet sound of flesh rending as he twisted the knife. “And that is why I cannot suffer you to live a moment longer. You will not poison anything else in my life or in my kingdom. I am your Shadow no more.” He took a half step backwards, yanking the blade out, and braced his hand on her shoulder, clearly ready to push her over the balustrade.

But he didn’t give her that last shove.

Instead, she smiled up at him, blood on her teeth, and he flinched, grunting. He staggered back and that was when I saw.

The hilt of a knife neither of us had spotted. The blood spilling from him.

He stared at it as she pushed him backwards, and the world spun, slowly at first, then faster, faster.

“No. You will not take this from me. You will not have my throne. My palace. I’ve worked too hard to secure my power. Traitor. Traitor .”

Kat . It was my voice in my head, even, sane, commanding. Move.

She pushed him off her blade, letting him slump to the ground.

I rushed forwards and slumped alongside him, heart beating so hard it hurt. “Bastian?”

His eyelids fluttered as I pressed on the wound, his blood slicking my hands. There was so much of it, pooling around us.

“Your double. He’s safe, right?”

“No time to split… came as soon as I heard you out here. Needed all my focus to make sure you were safe.” His mouth curved a little as he slowly reached up and cupped my cheek. The glow in his eyes dimmed. “If I split now, he’ll be as injured as I am. Kat, I… I…”

His eyes sank shut. His hand fell.

He moved no more.

“Bastian?”

Nothing.

No. No. No.

He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t…

I shook my head, this awful, sickening energy flooding me, making me stand. I couldn’t stay still like him. If I kept moving, maybe that meant he could…

From the other side of his body, Braea’s shoulders heaved as she stared at him, brow low, eyes wide. I swore she had this tiny smile on her face like she was glad.

After all, she’d killed another heir.

And that was when it sank all the way in like she’d pushed the blade between my ribs.

He was gone.

She had killed him.

I searched for a weapon.

I had nothing. Only myself. My body. Fat and muscle and bone, nerve and sinew, mortal and frail. The last thing I had left to try and change anything.

I ran at her.

A roar came from me, something deeper than rage, deeper than hurt, an unending vein of primal fury that surged through me. I charged past Bastian’s still form and I did not stop.

I didn’t stop when I slammed into Braea and dug my fingers into the wound in her stomach.

Her screech of pain was a vicious victory.

It put her off-balance, letting a weak little human like me carry her away from him. I wasn’t tall, no, but I had strength in my thighs and for once in my life, my weight was an advantage.

I didn’t stop when we hit the balustrade and the world tipped.

The queen fell.

I fell.

This was it. No surviving. But it was worth it. She’d killed Bastian. Nothing else mattered. I would join him in the Underworld.

I let her go and willed my eyes open—I would watch every moment of this finale.

Red mist clouded the air as her feet hit the veil that separated Dusk’s part of the palace from Dawn and the outside world.

She screamed.

And then she couldn’t.

Because, inches from my face, she disintegrated into a haze of blood that sprayed my skin.

It been less than a week—too soon for her to split. She was dead. For good, this time.

I would be next. I braced for it. At least it would be quick.

Except, then, everything stopped.

Breathless, I stared at the ground below as what was left of the Night Queen splattered into it. But gravity didn’t seem to be working on me.

I blinked down at my body.

Shadows held me.

I was only just level with the bottom of the balustrade, and gently, they pulled me back over it.

They gathered me to Bastian, who sat on the stone floor of the balcony in a pool of his own blood, holding the wound in his side.

I let out a wordless sound, part whimper, part sob.

Because he was looking back at me, expression strained like I had inconvenienced him by flinging myself over the balcony.

And if he was looking at me and pulling a face, then that meant he was alive.

His shadows set me down, and I grabbed him. “I thought you were fucking dead.”

He only save a soft grunt as he wrapped one arm around me. “I’ve had a chance to gather some strength.” The world around us did feel depleted—quieter, like he’d drawn from its magic. “It’s all right. Asher’s healed worse.”

“Can we please stop testing Asher’s healing abilities?” I squeezed my eyes shut to try and erase the image of him falling off Braea’s blade and buried my face in his neck, hating how the metallic, dirty stink of blood tainted his scent. For a long moment, we stayed there, chests heaving together, a mutual reassurance.

We had survived.

I dragged myself away and called for the guards to bring a healer—he’d drawn a little strength from Elfhame’s magic, but he was still wounded.

When I sank to his side, I buried my face in his shoulder. “For a minute then… I thought you were actually going to kill me. But… you saved me.”

He pulled back, shaking his head as he cupped my cheek, palm slick with blood. “Katherine. My beautiful idiot. I would choose you over her—over anyone —a thousand times in a thousand lives. You have saved me .”