Page 38 of The Crimson Throne (Spy and Guardian #1)

Samson’s body lunges for me, fingers crooked like claws, and I react instantly, calling my magic to slam him against the wall of Moyra’s cottage. The plaster cracks from the force of my blow.

Samson snarls and writhes, trying to break free, but my magic doesn’t stop. I just hold him there against the wall as I stride forward.

“You can hold his body, but your power is nothing compared to ours,” the High Blade says in a low voice. “When we tear down your wall, girl, you will be the first to bleed.” Samson’s lip curls, exposing his teeth. “Or we might just kill him in front of you first. Would you like that?”

Rage makes my voice quake. “Get out of him.”

The High Blade tips Samson’s head back and howls. I thought it was meant to be intimidation at first, but then I see his shoulders shaking.

This is laughter.

As suddenly as it started, it stops. Samson’s body sags against the wall, my magic propping him up a yard above the floor.

Moyra moves behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “The potion’s worn off.”

I don’t let his body go.

“He’s a Red Cap,” I say, forcing the words out.

Because no fae could possess a Leth unless they had an affinity for them.

The High Blade accessed Samson’s body only because Moyra’s potion lulled him to a hollow point, but the High Blade couldn’t have possessed him without sharing the same type of magic.

And as the High Blade said, they’d been watching Samson. Closely.

“He’s a Red Cap,” I repeat weakly, hoping to will myself to not believe what I am certain now is true.

“I know.” Moyra’s voice is sympathetic.

Something unintelligible rips out of me in a scream, but Samson’s body is still, immobile, hanging impossibly on the wall. Tears choke me. This is everything—everything—I have trained my entire life to avoid.

The High Blade.

Not just Red Cap weapons.

Not even Red Caps themselves.

No, the fecking High Blade is back. Ready to tear down the wall and invade.

I turn my blurry eyes to Samson.

He’s one of them.

A Red Cap.

A Red Cap who breached the wall and walked into Scotland.

“What are you going to do, lass?” Moyra asks in a soft voice.

Power wraps around my fists.

“You have to kill him.” Moyra speaks practically, I know.

I think about the needle.

I think about the way the man looked at me just before he died. That man, the one I killed, had been using a Red Cap weapon to call the Sluagh and terrorize an innocent village.

This man, the one hanging in the air in front of me, is a Red Cap.

He didn’t know.

That doesn’t change the truth.

But by every god, old and new, my heart breaks.

Because he’s been used. Born to be a tool.

Like me.

His father, Cecil, must be a Red Cap too, working under the High Blade.

There’s still the possibility that Cecil is the High Blade—there’s ample evidence now that the High Blade is accustomed to English language and traditions, but since the Red Caps have been banished, that’s not enough proof.

But Cecil whelped Samson with some hapless woman, purposefully breeding his vile blood to make a Leth.

Someone he could use. Why? How?

Samson moans, but he doesn’t yet open his eyes.

“You have to do it soon.” Moyra clutches my arm, and I want to shake her off, but I’m frozen, so deep in my own thoughts that it feels as if I’ve left my body.

Darnley’s family is involved. Gave Samson the amulet. The amulet that suppressed magic. Samson couldn’t see Kitty before; then he could. Couldn’t see magic.

“If the amulet shielded his vision from magic, maybe it also shielded magic from seeing him,” I mutter.

“What?” Moyra says. She grips my arm. “He’ll wake soon, lass. You have to act.”

I shake my head, waking up from the fog of my own thoughts. “He’s innocent.”

“He’s not innocent, child. He’s a Red Cap!” Moyra shouts at me.

“He’s…good.”

Moyra grabs my shoulders, forces me to look at her. “He’s a Red Cap.” She speaks slowly, enunciating the words. “He can’t be good.”

Was it all an act? He seemed so…so kind. Like he cared for me. I shake my head more forcibly.

It wasn’t all fake, my treacherous heart whispers.

And oh, I want to believe it. I have never once trusted my heart. I have acted with logic, not feelings, all my life.

Just as my father wanted me to.

But this? No. I cannot listen to the phantom commands of a man who won’t even acknowledge me.

“Your one job,” Moyra says, forcing me to focus on her, “is to protect Scotland from the Red Caps. Your whole life, you have done nothing but ensure the wall holds. And he is going to help tear it down!” She throws her arm out toward Samson, whose head is lolling now as he tries to wake up.

“You know what you have to do.” Moyra doesn’t sound happy about it. But her words drip with expectation.

She knows Samson must die.

She’s just waiting for me to do it.

I have heard the Red Caps rage like the berserkers of old, blacking out all knowledge of the world as they kill, kill, kill. I have always thought that was what made them terrifying—the inhumanity of it, the desire for nothing but hot blood.

Isn’t that how Samson described it before? Blackout rages, waking up in the aftermath, looks of horror from all around.

I should have known then. It was never a curse, only his heritage.

It would be easier if I could be like him, if I could cut off any sense beyond murder.

I did not want to kill the man with the needle.

I do not want to kill Samson.

But—

I have to.

It doesn’t matter that I’ve grown to trust him. Like him.

To…

It doesn’t matter.

All along, he was the enemy I was born to kill.

“I was born to protect the wall,” I state flatly. “And to let no Red Cap breathe Scottish air.”

“Do it before he wakes,” Moyra orders. “He’ll be harder to kill after.”

I know. Because his bright green eyes will blink up at me, all soft and caring. Samson wouldn’t struggle, not against me. He trusts me. It will make it so much harder, like slaughtering a lamb.

“Red Caps are bloodthirsty, murderous vermin,” Moyra spits.

My gaze focuses on her.

Oh.

She meant that it would be harder to kill Samson when he awakes because he’d be stronger; he’d fight back and kill me.

“He wouldn’t do that,” I say aloud.

“Wouldn’t do what?” Moyra shakes her head. “Lass, he’s waking soon. Kill him before he kills you.”

“He wouldn’t. He would never hurt me.” I don’t know where such certainty comes from.

But I cannot deny it.

“Alyth, it’s in his blood! The High Blade is coming—”

“And the High Blade would not have used Samson if they did not want me to know they were coming,” I say, my voice stronger. And what did Beira say? An unlikely pair. She knew what he was.

And she didn’t demand I kill him.

“Then he’s just a tool they see no more use for, but if you don’t kill him now, the High Blade will use him again,” Moyra counters.

“You let this man get close to you, lass, but even if he doesn’t know, the other Red Caps do.

All they have to do is kill you, and all that magic you ensure powers the barrier will disappear. ”

She’s right. At my death, guardianship would pass to the next highest-born Leth, but that transfer of power is an unpreventable vulnerability of the magic, especially with the Red Caps waiting to exploit a chink in the armor that protects the realms. Besides, the next Leth in power is a Highland boy younger than me, removed from the fae by three generations.

My father bred me for power. A tool he’s used to both realms’ benefit.

“If you fall, the wall falls,” Moyra says, her eyes beseeching me to agree. “You can’t let a Red Cap be beside you, not when you’re gambling with everyone’s lives.”

And…shite. She’s right. Lady Lennox’s threats, Darnley’s smug attitude. Now that they know they can get Red Cap blood across the border, they’ll do it with other Red Caps. Full-blooded ones, like Cecil.

Like the High Blade.

Samson was just the first. An unwitting test subject.

But still a Red Cap. And if they can control him enough to make him kill me, they won’t even need amulets to get them across the border.

I should kill him. I should cut off his head and throw it into the Seelie Court and warn them that the Red Caps know how to breach the wall.

I should kill him.

I should .

“Alyth?” Samson croaks.

Moyra and I both spin around, look up at him. He’s still pinned against the wall.

“Alyth, what’s going on?”

I touch my face. It’s wet with tears.

Samson watches me with those bright green eyes peeking out from between his messy locks.

If he fought me, I would fight back.

I would win.

I would kill him.

I know this. It is a certainty that lies within my bones. Red Cap blood or not, if he attacked, I would defend, and I would win.

But just as sure inside me is the knowledge that he would not attack me.

I drop the magic holding him in place. Samson lands on the floor with a thud and an audible oof .

Moyra stares me, not quite gaping but still surprised. “You would doom two worlds for one man?” she asks in a voice so low, Samson can’t hear it as he scrambles to get up.

I meet her eyes without hesitation. “Yes.”

I have spent my entire life following duty. Bolstering the wall, vigilant against the threat of Red Caps.

But I don’t want to choose duty anymore.

I want to choose him.