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Just as Luren predicted. Damn, she’s good.

“Majesty!”

“Father!”

The prince, princess, and Stellis all spring into action, lunging toward the attacker. The cloaked Majors huddle closer to the king. None of them reaches for their deck. Does he keep them unarmed? Disgust, but not surprise, courses through me.

Three assassins emerge from the crowd. Some students fumble for their decks with clumsy fingers. Most are frozen solid by panic and shock.

“Stay back!” Ravin shouts to the students and initiates, moving around the king and toward the first assassin. Ravin’s attack comes so fast it has me sucking in a sharp inhale. The prince’s movements are flawless and well trained.

Dagger. It’s the one word that seems to encapsulate him: Elegant. Deadly. Hidden up the king’s sleeve until the moment he’s needed.

Leigh is also in motion, her falcon launching off her shoulder as she draws her sword to engage with the second assassin.

Without the bird’s interference, the assassin would’ve launched another card at her.

But the bird shreds the card easily with his talons, and Leigh nearly gets a hit in with her heavy sword.

The final assassin engages with the Stellis who were at the rear. Even outnumbered three to one, the killer makes the Stellis look as helpless as the students. Whoever these people are, they’re positively lethal.

No sooner have Ravin and Leigh joined the fight than movement to my left catches my eye.

Time slows, and the chaos is muffled and a moment of lucidity overtakes me.

With each breath I take, the scene expands before me and details sharpen.

Fingers tightening around the silk-wrapped card, I rip my hands from the king’s grasp and throw the card into the inner pocket of my coat.

A fourth and fifth assassin make their move.

The king makes some kind of gruff objection to me taking back the card, but I don’t hear it.

Action and instinct override my hesitation.

I slam my hand on the table. The impact throws the cards on my table upward.

A Four of Cups glows, bursting into a haze of fog that makes its targets sluggish and sleepy.

One of the assassins staggers. The second resists and readies an attack.

I use the momentum to jump up onto the table, tucking my legs under me. The strength I’ve regained from my weeks of training propels me forward. A card lifts from the deck at my hip—but it vanishes midair.

My opponent cast a Ten of Swords—which has the power to instantly destroy another card.

Damn it, she’s powerful, too.

My fingers twitch as though I’m flipping through an invisible deck. Pointer and middle finger come together, selecting a card. The Five of Swords barely has time to blink into existence before a sword materializes from a whisper of wind and I grip the summoned saber.

And my blade is hungry for blood.

Keeping clear of the king and the Majors, I slash through the air, aiming for the assassin closest to me.

She’s still swaying, eyes blinking heavily, trying to overcome the effect of the Four of Cups.

The other woman—the one who resisted my fog—intercepts me with a dagger of her own, parrying my blade.

Muscles strain, weapons quiver, and stares link; there’s something in her eyes that can only be described as recognition.

But her clothing bears no markings, and her face is completely wrapped in unadorned fabrics, nose to chin, brow to the back of her head, so that I can’t see anything but her eyes, and I can’t recognize her from that alone.

“You…” she whispers.

I grit my teeth and say nothing, trying to twist her blade from her grasp.

“ You would defend the king ?” Her snarl underscores her shock.

I’m even more horrified by it than you, I wish I could say.

I wish I could tell her their mission is futile.

That even if they managed to kill the king, he’d be revived within minutes by one of the Majors at his side.

That I’m defending him because the best chance we all have for abetter future is keeping him alive and letting him think that I’m on his side so I can get the World, or, at worst, Kaelis can. But there’s no time.

Perhaps, though, more than anything, I wish I could ask, Do you know me? She is looking at me with such familiarity…and an equal amount of disgust. But I can’t risk being associated with the assassins in any way—even talking to them is too much.

Metal shrieks against metal as we disengage.

“Your majesty!” Jura’s voice cuts through the chaos. I glance back as I spin. She pushes the king out of the line of attack of the other assassin, who has now shrugged off the Four of Cups haze.

“No you don’t!” Yet another defender enters the fray. Alor. She immediately engages with the other man.

I need to end this quickly before the chaos becomes too unwieldy…

and before anyone else can get too much credit for saving the king.

The woman lunges for me again. I dodge, my muscle memory and training taking over.

My deck swirls with power, but since I’m an initiate I limit myself to only the first five cards of each suit.

There’re too many eyes here to risk using anything more advanced.

Magic flies and sparks. I predict almost every move the assassin makes, and that ultimately gives me the upper hand. My blade eventually finds its mark, skewering her abdomen.

She grips both my hands, leaning over me, impaled on the sword that, its job complete, will vanish at any second. “Be careful, Clara Chevalyer…don’t forget…who you are.”

The words are the woman’s dying gasp. No sooner do they register in my mind than her whisper is taken by the wind. The blade vanishes, and her hands go limp. She falls to the ground, eyes wide.

I want to rip the wrappings off her face.

To figure out who she is and how she knows my true name.

I didn’t tell her. Given her age, I doubt Arina had…

Did Mother? Did I just kill one of Mother’s dearest friends?

Because that’s the only explanation I can think of for her knowing my true name.

A thousand questions blur through my mind, but I push them all aside. The battle isn’t over.

My eyes dart to Alor. She’s fighting desperately but is outmatched by the other assassin.

Since she’s an initiate who’s able to manage only a handful of cards in a day and can’t wield anything greater than a five, the battle is wearing her down.

The king, for his part, has stepped back and is allowing the scene to play out before him with little more than slight amusement illuminating his eyes.

Jura hovers next to him, looking for an opportunity to capitalize on the chaos.

The Stellis—well, they’re down to one Stellis—Leigh, and Ravin have almost finished with their assassins. They’re now two against one.

A spike of magic jolts my attention back to Alor.

She’s been backed into a corner. Her face is desperate and unfocused.

She raises a card, and I can feel it before my eyes settle on the image—she’s reaching for a level of power her body has not yet been trained for.

Volatile magic crackles off her shoulders like bolts of lightning.

If I hadn’t seen a card reverse mere weeks ago, I might not be able to recognize what’s happening.

“Alor!” Emilia shouts over the chaos. She runs up with a group from House Swords, pushing through the crowd. But it’s too far, too late.

I race forward.

The card Alor holds is a court card—the Knight of Swords. The magic is reversing. Crackling miasma lifts from her shoulders and takes the shape of a phantom sentry looming over her. Its sword is lifted, but it wavers. A growing storm sweeps up the dirt around her feet.

Alor lets out a primal scream. It’s the sound of her every muscle tearing from her bones. The color drains from her eyes until they are completely white.

This isn’t like Luren taking one step beyond her comfort zone. This is several steps too far. It is going to tear Alor apart.

Damn it all . I skid to a stop opposite Alor, the assassin between us, king at my right.

I reach to my right hip with my left hand and swing it across my body.

The Ten of Swords flashes out of my deck.

A thousand tiny slashes of light and wind wrap around the card clutched in Alor’s trembling fingers.

The card is shredded, along with some of her skin—a minor casualty.

My power rolls like thunder, like the crash of waves against the massive pillars of the academy’s bridge and surrounding cliffs.

I reach for another card with my right hand—the Eight of Swords.

As soon as it evaporates into the air, eight spectral swords forged of light and shadow cleave through the assassin and pin him to the ground.

He screams in agony, but there is no blood.

Even as reality rushes back in, the aftershocks of the explosion of power ripple through my body. The magic is so potent that it leaves my fingertips sizzling and courses through me like liquid fire—pain and pleasure. I’m exhausted, and yet I’ve never felt so alive.

Ravin has made it over to Alor, and he catches her before she falls. Isn’t he the very image of a knight in shining armor? I sway. At least Kaelis looks the part of the void-born. I’d rather a man who shows you who he is on the outside and isn’t a tyrant in a hero’s outfit.

I’m about to stumble as my exhaustion overtakes me. An arm wraps around my middle; another pulls my arm around a pair of sturdy shoulders. I’d been half expecting it to be Sorza. Maybe Jura…But it’s Emilia.

Her expression is cold and harsh. But she holds me steady while I regain my footing. Power still drains from me to the magic swords pinning the last assassin in place.

“Well done, using the Eight of Swords.” But the king is praising Ravin, not me.

Even though I know he must’ve seen me use the card.

He can probably even sense that it’s my magic fueling the swords keeping the killer in place.

But the king protects me by not drawing attention to the fact that I’m skillfully using cards I shouldn’t be able to wield as an initiate, giving credit to the prince. “Now, kill him.”

The assassin says nothing. I can’t even see his expression as Ravin passes Alor to Leigh and crosses over to the assassin. In a moment, it’s over. I breathe easier as the drain on my magic vanishes.

King Oricalis rubs his temple with his right hand, looking like all of this has been some great trial on him even though this is the first time he’s literally lifted a finger all battle.

Then, he slowly turns to me. Emilia releases me and steps back to join a group of Clan Tower knights and additional Stellis quickly approaching, a minute too late.

At its head is a man covered in plate. Perhaps she moves away because she can feel I’m steadier on my feet without the draw on my magic.

Or she wants to be nowhere near me for whatever judgment the king is about to render.

The king now looms over me. I know the look of someone trying to be intimidating.

But there’s something about the king that makes it almost, almost work.

A tiny curl of fear unfurls in the back of my mind.

He hardly moved the entire battle, and yet, somehow, it almost seems like that was for the best—that seeing the king attack would have been akin to watching a living nightmare.

His hand reaches out, and, for a second, I brace myself for a blow, though I’m not sure why.

That large palm meets my cheek, but not in a slap—instead, it’s a gentle pat. It would be fatherly if not for his sinister smile. And that same hungry glint in his eyes.

“It is clear what my second son sees in you,” he says softly, for only me to hear.

Though I suspect Alor is close enough that, now that she’s coming to, she’ll pick up on his words as well.

Leigh helps her to Emilia’s side. “Come, Clara Redwin, claimed heiress of Clan Hermit, and allow me to show you my gratitude with my hospitality so that you might recover from these labors in comfort.”

The king steps away, and I am left to drag my feet behind him.

I swing wide to sweep the remaining cards from my table, barely exchanging a look with Jura.

So far as I can tell with a glance, she’s fine.

Her hand raises to the center of her chest, and she bows her head.

The movement is just odd enough that I know it is a signal of some sort.

But what she’s trying to communicate is lost on me.