Page 42 of The Crimson Throne (Spy and Guardian #1)

Samson

It’s not hard to find out where Darnley is—one question to a passing servant, and she points me to his rooms. I don’t miss how she shudders when she says it and gives me a distrustful, fearful look until I dismiss her.

I’m one of his lackeys. Rumor’s already spreading. Lord Latimer’s secretary went out hunting with Darnley and helped the drunk bastard to his room after the ball last night. I’m part of his group now, and people fear me.

They should.

It’s good if news spreads that I’m dangerous.

I tell myself that, repeat it over and over like saying it is a penance.

I’m dangerous. Each lash of those words cuts deeper until I’m all internal bleeding, but I can’t afford to forget.

Can’t afford to get complacent. It’s a responsibility, what I am, and I ain’t about to let it get away from me, not now.

I stop outside Darnley’s chambers.

How do I wanna play this? Go in, pretend to be his loyal supplicant still?

Nausea is potent and tart, grabbing my stomach in a lurch.

Just one more time. Swallow it down, so I can bring him down.

The only thing I gotta focus on is getting Darnley to confess what Red Cap weapon he’s fixing to use so we can stop Mary from being killed.

A slow breath does nothing to soothe my disgust or calm my racing heart. My hands are shaking, muscles sore from the ride or maybe just from how tight I’m holding myself.

I knock once. A beat passes, and a voice calls me to enter.

Inside, Darnley’s in the middle of packing, overseeing servants putting his shit into chests. He’s barking at a man who’s bent double in apology, the whole atmosphere of the room tense with discomfort, waiting for a blow to land.

Darnley whips a scowl at me.

The last thing I expect is for him to grin. It’s like whatever he was upset about vanishes instantly, and the full brunt of his sudden happiness feels like a hand around my throat.

I can’t shake the overwhelming feeling I just walked into a trap.

Before I can say anything, Darnley snaps at the room, “Leave us.”

The servants hop to obey. In a flash, they’re gone, shutting the door in their wake.

It’s just me and Darnley. My eyes go to the fireplace, where a low flame burns. Is Kitty here or one of the other brownies?

My throat scratches as I swallow. “Sir?”

Darnley’s smile goes a bit cruel. A sick, obnoxious twist. “We heard you were out with that Leth bitch,” he says, and my hands ball into reactive fists that I keep locked at my sides.

“She offended you last night,” I try, saying it through my teeth. Hopefully he takes my anger as on his behalf, the self-centered prat. “I thought I could get in with her, figure out what she—”

“Get in with her,” he echoes.

Then he’s laughing. Hysterical, giddy laughter. Holding his stomach, howling to the floor.

My jaw drops. Unease prickles up my arms.

Darnley sobers, wiping away tears. “Look at you, positioning yourself just so without even being told. You are the only weapon we have ever needed. Perfect, Samuel. Perfect.”

My whole body goes stiff.

Weapon.

No.

Oh no.

“We are leaving for Kirk o’ Field,” Darnley continues. He smooths a wrinkle in his sleeve. “Now is the time—you will finish this for us tonight. Do you need incentive, or are you equipped to proceed yourself?”

“You want me to—”

“Kill her. Yes.” Annoyance mars his face now, and he nods at the door. “Go. Finish it.”

I see all my errors now. Every single one rippling up around me in a knotted rope of my own stupidity.

I’m the tool Cecil mentioned in the letter.

I’m the weapon.

My jaw sets, body seizing against the shaking in my muscles. I won’t let them go.

“I’m not gonna kill your wife for you.”

Darnley freezes. His own muscles lock up. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not. Killing. Your wife.” I say each beat behind my teeth.

Guess pretending to supplicate to him is done.

“I’m not gonna do anything for you,” I tell him. “I’m done being used, by you or Cecil. I’m not your bloody weapon.”

The look in Darnley’s eyes is cold and detached, the most I’ve seen him be manipulative and not infantile.

“You would refuse us? You were supposed to die, you realize. After you crossed the border, we arranged to kill you, as you were useful only in testing the crossing. But you proved yourself, and we decided to keep you. So that is your glorious purpose now: you are still alive to serve us.”

The attack on that village at the border. The birds, not-birds, whatever they were. It was meant to kill me?

I turn for the door. “I’m done with you—”

Something shatters against the wood before I can open it. A vase or a wine bottle.

I look over my shoulder in time to see another object flying my way—this one definitely a wine bottle. I duck, but it clips my temple, and when I drop to my knees, it isn’t just pain that lances through me.

It’s fury.

He’s actually attacking me.

This foolish arsehole who’s allied with my father.

This drunk moron who’s been fumbling an assassination because he’s too insecure to rule beneath his wife.

He’s attacking me.

I straighten. Slowly.

Everything in my body is calming. There’s only a sizzle, a single flame in the center of my stomach.

I won’t slip into a rage because of this man. He isn’t worth it.

“It’s over, Darnley,” I say, level, flat.

He’s panting, holding a small box, delirium in his eyes, frantic hunger. “Yes. It is.”

He releases the box. It spins through the air, but I see it coming and step aside—

Only for another object, one I didn’t see, to smash into the side of my head.

More pain.

More anger .

No. No.

I grit my teeth, muscles spasming with the strain, hands in fists. No. Darnley won’t get to me this easy.

“You will obey us,” Darnley snarls, holding more items, poised to throw.

“It is all you are good for. You think your father would find another use for you? A Red Cap who refuses to kill. You are nothing. Bet you did get in with that Leth bitch, didn’t you?

She spread her legs, and you fell for that—”

Black spots swim along the edges of my vision, hinting at an abyss, just beyond the horizon.

The next thing I know, I’ve got Darnley pressed up against the wall by the fireplace, my hands in his doublet, my face contorted in a snarl.

Darnley titters a frantic laugh. “Ah, there you are. That Leth girl really did do a number on you, didn’t she?”

“Stop talking about her,” I demand, but Darnley only grins, unfazed by my grip on him.

“Oh, we don’t think we will. See, we need you angry. So maybe we should tell you of all the ways we’ve imagined finally breaking that Leth bitch?”

I thrust my hands against his throat, briefly choking him. “Stop calling her that.”

“She’s stubborn for a woman,” he says. “Breaking her would have to be slow. Take a while. We have a room just for it in one of our manors—thick walls. No one would hear her screams.”

Darkness sweeps over me. A heavy, resolute weight. And for a moment, I let it settle, let it conform to my shape and soul.

But Darnley’s speaking still.

I can barely hear him. There’s only the beat of my pulse. The rush of blood in my ears and my veins and everywhere, the rush of blood in his veins—I could empty them all.

And the moment I realize that—

The moment I think that—

I want it.

I want every drop of blood in his body. I want to lay it all out and stand over it like a dragon over its hoard.

The wanting’s been there all along, and I never knew it, never listened to it because I feared it so much.

Distantly, I think this is why I feared it. Because it’ll eat me raw.

“—the High Blade used it to control the Red Cap armies,” Darnley’s saying. “Otherwise, what good are mindless droves of bloodthirsty warriors if we can’t direct them? Learned that lesson with the red mist stone. I got the rebels to attack, but they killed a worthless secretary.”

My head shakes. Attention focuses. “What?”

“The way the High Blade controls the Red Cap armies,” he says smugly. “Your dear father sent us that little bit of information for this very moment. We can control you. We merely needed you to be angry first, and you will kill her for me. Now.”

I release him only to wind my fist. I’ll break his face to pieces. I can see it already, the carnage smeared across the stones; they’ll never be able to get them clean.

STOP , I scream at myself. This is what he wants—he wants me mad, wants me to break—

I hold, my fist wound, sweat prickling across my scalp and down my back.

Walk out of this room. Walk out and regroup with Alyth. LEAVE.

But Darnley starts speaking.

Reciting something, words I hear but can’t make sense of, the way the writing swam on that letter I found. It’s a spell, magic draped around sweet nothings, and suddenly I’m rearing away from him, hands on my head, pain screaming through my skull.

No, no , NO—

I lunge at Darnley, but he keeps speaking these not-words until I collapse to the floor.

The black spots widen, grow and grow; all that anger he stoked in my body is like kindling to this spell, sparks catching and spreading and feeding .

“I won’t kill her,” I grit out, hands digging into my temples, pulling on my hair. Strain makes everything both rock-solid and brittle. I think my teeth crack with the effort of trying to hold on, trying to resist the inferno within and without. “I won’t kill Mary, I won’t—”

Darnley crouches in front of me. I want to attack him again. Rip him to shreds with my own fingers, but the will and the action are disconnected.

Something else is there already.

A new task. A new focus.

My vision fades, black falling over me like a veil before I blink and shake my head, fighting. I can’t pass out. I won’t.

Darnley smirks at me. “Who said anything about killing Mary?”

The shock of it has my last feeble foothold in reality going slack.

If not Mary, then—

Darnley speaks again, his lips moving, and that spell wraps around me, weaving all sorts of grotesque, wonderful promises. It’s whispers and sweetness and torture and all things I never let myself have.

I’m gone.