Page 57 of Between These Broken Hearts (Cursed Stars #2)

Misha shoves me in a closet and steps in behind me, pulling the door shut as screams fill the corridor outside the sitting

room.

“What’s happening?” I ask.

“Intruders,” he says.

“But how? There are wards all around the palace gates. How did they get in?”

Misha curses. “Portals. There are portals opening all over the palace.” I don’t have to ask to know he’s mentally communicating

with someone to get that information. “Erith is in the palace. He’s locked himself in Brie’s office with the Grimoricon to

allow the fighters in.”

He turns to face me. I can barely make out his features in the darkness of the closet. “Will you stay here? Hide until I can

send someone to protect you.”

I shake my head. “What? Not without you. Where are you going?”

“I have a gift for portals. What can be opened can be closed.”

“A gift that has been failing you,” I cry.

“I know,” he whispers. “But I have to try or they’ll keep coming. I’ll find my sister. She and I work best together.”

Another wave of screams comes from the other side of the wall.

I curl my hands around his biceps and squeeze. “Please don’t go. Please stay here. You just said Erith is in the palace somewhere. He wants your court. He wants you dead .”

Misha cups my face in his hands and lowers his mouth to mine, kissing me hard. “Stay safe. I won’t be able to focus the way

I need to if I’m worried about you.”

“Misha.” A sob rips from my chest. “Please.”

“Abriella’s entire defense strategy revolved around keeping them out of the palace. If they keep coming, none of us will survive.”

He reaches behind him for the doorknob. “Please stay safe.” He slips out and shuts the door behind him.

Sinking to the floor, I put my face in my hands. Please stay safe. Please come back to me.

I can’t listen to the horrible sounds outside this closet. Can’t think about what could be happening to him. I cup my hands

over my ears and feel tears streak my cheeks as time crawls forward.

I force myself to stay still. To keep myself safe for Misha’s sake.

I jerk awake and knock my head into the wall. I must’ve dreamed because I’m in my true form. My dress is suddenly much too

small and I can barely breathe.

Reaching behind me, I quickly release the laces of my corset and unloop the top button of my skirt. But it’s not enough. Something

feels off in the air, like breathing in a space that’s running out of oxygen.

I’ve been in here too long. Has it been hours? My muscles ache from crouching in this tight space. I can’t just sit here anymore. Erith is the reason all this is happening, and I’m the only one who can kill him. I can’t stand by and let him ruin lives any longer.

I crack open the door and peek out into the sitting room. The windows are dark, the lanterns on the wall flicker and cast

shadows across the room, but I don’t see anyone here.

Slowly and quietly, I slip from the closet and creep toward the hallway door. It’s gone eerily silent compared to before Misha

hid me in the closet. All the shouts sound distant. Because the fighting’s moved to a different part of the palace or because

everyone in this wing is dead?

I can’t let myself think about it.

Even out here the air still feels wrong .

Then I realize what it is. This is how it felt when Misha rescued me from that cell and Konner’s silencer friend blocked our

magic.

The storm continues at a low rumble outside the palace walls. I turn in the direction the queen ran when she found out the

general wasn’t the general at all. Most of the lanterns out here have been extinguished, and I nearly fall on my face when

I stumble over something on the floor.

A body. A friend? I can’t let myself look. I wish I could cast light in front of me, but I know without trying that it wouldn’t

work. I feel the suppression of my magic like a blanket thrown over my face when I’m trying to catch my breath. Maybe it’s

for the best that I can’t. I don’t want to call attention to myself.

I slowly move forward, one hand along the wall, feet shuffling to find anything on the floor before it trips me.

Someone grabs me from behind and puts a hot, sweaty hand over my mouth. “Look who we have here.”

“That’s not the princess,” someone else says. I kick and flail, trying to squirm from his grasp, but he’s huge and his hold

on me is too strong.

“No, but it’s the next best thing. Erith wants this one dead and he will reward me for finding her.”

“What are you waiting—”

The sound of steel slicing through flesh fills my ears. I’m dragged to the floor as the male holding me falls. We land in

an awkward heap, him half on top of me, and blood soaks into my dress.

Someone shoves him off me with his boot and grabs my hand to pull me up.

“Hale?” I’m almost positive, but I can barely make out his silhouette, much less his face. “It’s so dark. How did they know

who I am?”

“Orcs see better in the dark than we do.” He glances back and forth, watching for trouble. “Are you okay?”

No , but I won’t saddle him with that when there are a thousand things wrong with this moment. “I’m fine. You?”

“Fine. I got separated from Jasalyn, though—earlier when the portals opened and all hell broke loose—and now I can’t find

her.”

That’s not the princess , one of the orcs said. “Those orcs were looking for her. You think one of Mordeus’s people took her?”

“They would want to if they could.”

Of course. Because they need to secure the vessel for the king to return. “I’m looking for Erith. His magic is behind so much of this mess.” I wish I could see Hale’s eyes, that I could hold his gaze while we had this conversation. “Hale, if I can find him, I need to do this.”

He finds my hand in the dark. “Don’t worry about me. Any fate that’s going to end me tonight won’t be stopped by you sparing

that sonofabitch.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“He was in Abriella’s office last I knew, but he was guarded by wards. I don’t know if he’s moved since. A few of Konner’s

sentinels are silencers and they’re working together to cut off magic to the whole palace—that scared most of the insurgents

outside. Misha and Pretha are working together to keep wards up around the palace walls so they can’t get back in.”

“I’ll start at her office.”

“I’d go with you, but I need to find Jas.”

I think of the vision the oracle gave me, the image of Hale bleeding out on the ground, and shake my head. “No. It’s better

if you’re not there.”

“Everyone’s gathering in the throne room,” he says. “Come there when you’re ready.”

I take a breath, but I can’t make myself let go of his hand. “Please be careful. Hide if you have to.”

He releases a dark chuckle. “Don’t have it in me to hide, sis. Now get your dagger ready and get out of here.”

Where are you, Erith?

As I round the corner to Abriella’s office, lightning cracks outside, illuminating the hall.

Half a dozen bodies litter the floor in front of the busted-down office door.

My heart is racing, and I focus on steadying my breaths to even it out, waiting for another flash of lightning so I can see more.

I don’t have to wait long before the hall is lit up again. Thunder follows immediately, shaking the floor beneath me. The

storm must be right on top of us. The light lingers just long enough for me to make out a trail of blood, leading around another

corner.

I follow it in the dark, moving slowly and using every fae sense I have to listen for others.

That’s when I hear the voice in the distance. A voice that sends shivers down my spine.

“You are a disgrace to my palace,” he’s saying. “Did you ever ask yourself why I started sending you to do my killing when

you were barely ten and three years?”

A beat of silence and no response. I creep closer.

“I knew you would never amount to anything, never be worthy of ascending. I knew it from the day you were born. Your mother

coddled you.”

I’m getting closer. His voice is getting louder.

When I peek into the next doorway, I find a room illuminated by candlelight.

Erith has his back to the door as he uses his knife to carve into his victim’s skin.

Konner’s skin. I bite back a gasp. Is he doing blood magic? Does blood magic work when powers are muted like this?

Erith jerks his blade across Konner’s gut and my brother releases the weak grunt-cry of someone barely hanging on.

“Tell me where she is, and I’ll spare you,” our father says.

“You know I’ll find her one way or another.

Wouldn’t you rather I end her now, while she’s too young to have spent her life fearing me? ”

“Never,” Konner rasps.

Not blood magic. Torture. Erith knows about Leia somehow and he’s torturing Konner for her location.

I pull my dagger from my boot and curl my hand around the hilt. Konner’s eyes flutter open and he meets my gaze over Erith’s

shoulder. He nods almost imperceptibly. Do it.

I charge forward, ready to plunge my blade into his back, but before I can cross the threshold into the room I’m jerked backward

and thrown against the opposite wall. My skull cracks against the doorframe. My dagger goes flying as I crumple to the floor.

“Look who finally came out to play,” a familiar voice says as I struggle back to my feet.

The room is spinning and my head throbs. I no sooner get my feet under me than they slip out again. Blood, I realize, leaning

my head against the wall while I wait for the world to stop spinning. There’s blood all over the floor.

“Sorry, Lis. I can’t let you fulfill your destiny today. Or ever.” Shae stalks toward me, a sneer curling his lips. “Looks

like this is the end of the road for you.”

“What are you going to do? Kill me?” I say, mustering all the courage that I don’t feel. “You can’t ascend to be one of the

Seven if you’ve killed.”

“I can’t kill you, but there’s no rule about making you wish you were dead while I wait for my friends to come do the job

for me.”