Page 49 of The Crimson Throne (Spy and Guardian #1)

Samson

There was an explosion. I know that much.

Not outside only— in me, an iron box locked in my chest gone to bits and rubble, and out of that box comes the rampaging monster that overtook me at Stirling when I attacked Alyth.

The one I’ve fought every moment of my life, even when I didn’t know what I was fighting.

But my body’s all pain, riddled with injuries. My instinct’s wild in the aftermath—protect, fight, defend—because there’s an enemy somewhere, only I can’t see it, so I’m on alert, veins surging with blood gone to boiling, heart hammering a death march that rocks through my whole body.

There are people around me.

Innocents?

No.

No one is innocent.

They all had a hand in this, and even if they didn’t, they will suffer and die for this attack. No one attacks me. No one—

“Samson—”

Fight, fight, get up and fight now .

I cry out, back arching, pain flaring in every nerve, rippling in tremors up my spine and crashing over my head in stabs of agony.

I roll away—away from something —and brace on my hands and knees, fingers clawed into cold dirt, the air around me scorching.

“You are not a mindless fighter.”

That voice—I know it.

Know her .

But she’s not here. She’s not here because I tried to kill her, and the next time I see her, she’ll end all this. All this pain. All this fear.

She’ll end me.

So I know she’s not here, because if she were, I would be dead.

My chest splits apart, and I scream with hunger so potent, it’ll eat the world around me if I don’t feed it.

Fight, fight, FIGHT NOW—

“ You— you —are still inside that body of yours—”

A shape forms near me. I don’t even know what it is, but I lunge at it, rearing back at the last second because no, STOP, I don’t want this .

Only I do.

I’m a fighter.

I have the kind of power no one in this country, in this world , can counter, and I can unleash it and feast on the remnants I leave behind.

Why have I stopped? Why have I fought this so hard?

Because I’m pathetic.

Because I’m scared and weak and wanted to stay those things.

I bend double, forehead to the slick grass, and scream.

“You are going to fight it,” she says. She’s not here, my mind’s fraying to insanity, but even made-up, she’s an anchor in this hurricane. “That’s what you do, Samson. You fight.”

There are different kinds of fighting, ain’t there?

Southwark. After Ma died, I scraped in a workhouse. I stole. Lied. Cheated. Survived. Survived every damn day. Bowed to Cecil, not because I was weak but because I was fighting.

All that.

Every moment.

I’ve been fighting .

And it’s not because I’m a Red Cap. It’s because I’m me.

So this anger? This rage? This consuming hunger to lash out and conquer and consume?

I really have been living with it all my life.

And I’m done fearing it.

Air wedges into my lungs, and I don’t realize until I gasp mightily how shallowly I’ve been breathing. Air floods my system, and on the next shake of my head, my vision settles, seeing the world now, albeit through smoke and ripples of heat.

Pain’s there, waiting for me, and my head damn near cracks in two with the force of the ache that splints across my skill.

I gag over the grass beneath me.

“Samson?”

Her voice.

Am I still in delirium? No, no—

I look up, wincing at the motion.

And I see her.

Alyth’s crouched on the ground not two feet from me, one hand extended hesitantly, like she’s wanting to reach for me but isn’t sure what she’ll touch.

That was real.

Everything she said.

That was her.

My eyes snag on her chest, the long red line of a cut. A cut I made.

And she’s still here anyway. She didn’t kill me.

I pulled myself out.

I’m scrambling across the grass to scoop her into my arms before I can think otherwise, and we sit there with me clinging to her, knees interlocked, my arms knotted around her and my face in her neck, breathing, breathing .

She smells like smoke, everything does, but beneath it, she still smells like wild greenery and open skies and freedom.

“I’m so sorry,” I tell her. “I’m so bloody fucking sorry. Darnley, he’s got some way to control me. It wasn’t me, I swear, Alyth.”

Her hands go in my hair, stroking, fingers gentle and calm. “I know,” she murmurs into my neck, the soft brush of her exhale feathering across my skin.

I lean back so I can see her. “You didn’t kill me.” My mouth is dry. “You swore you would. You said—”

“I said I’d take care of you.” Her eyes are teary, her face blotchy red and streaked with dirt. “I swore that if you became a danger, I would take care of you. And I did, didn’t I? Until you could pull yourself out.”

Just like there are different types of fighting, there are different types of taking care too.

I shake my head, too strung out to laugh just yet. “Tricky girl,” I say.

She smiles.

Chaos still around us, flames heating the night air, I cup her cheek and coast my thumb along the delicate skin behind her ear.

I kiss her.

Kiss her with every part of me, tell her in that meeting of our lips that I’m sorry, I’m hers, over and over, repetition that deepens when our heads slant and she returns the kiss, fingers gripping the back of my neck.

The estate’s still burning behind us, and—

I launch back from her, gasping, one arm still looped across her back. “Darnley. He was in the building. Is he—”

I look over my shoulder at the house and the people hauling buckets in an effort to douse the flames.

Alyth shrugs. I feel the motion against me. “It’d be one good thing to come of this night.”

That draws me back to her. And I see the heaviness in her features now, the weight on her shoulders, ever on her shoulders.

Let me carry some of it, I want to say.

“Darnley arranged for me to—” I can’t say it. But I have to. “To kill you tonight. Which means likely—”

“That the Red Caps are moving on the wall as well.” Alyth draws in a resolute breath and rises to her feet. I follow her up, moving my hand to interlace with hers; I can’t not touch her now.

“Do you know where?” I ask, looking south toward the border.

“No, but I have to ride for the—”

Her eyes flick over my shoulder.

And her demeanor stiffens. Tension runs across her face, and she goes battle ready in an instant.

I whirl.

To see Darnley, standing in the yard, facing us.

He’s coated in soot, bleeding out one arm, his clothes ripped and ruined. He’s discarded his doublet, and his white undershirt is streaked with black grime.

“The washerwoman’s shirt,” Alyth whispers, her eyes wide. I have no idea what that means, but Darnley’s livid, huffing and panting, shoulders hunched, hands in fists.

My arms splay in front of Alyth, and I brace for him to run at us.

But his head cocks to the left, like he’s listening for something, and his face goes vacant, unfocused. I stretch my awareness, but I don’t hear anything beyond the crackle of flames and the shouts of people trying to stop the destruction.

Darnley’s eyes roll back in his head. And that angle of his neck—he’s not listening, not confused.

His neck’s snapped.

His body plummets to the ground.

Before I can think beyond that, before I can make any sense of it, a figure’s revealed a few paces behind Darnley.

Cecil.

One hand outstretched, fingers curved.

“He outlived his usefulness,” Cecil says, eyes on me, and lets his arm drop to his side.

I thought I’d have time to form a plan before I saw my father again. I’d be able to summon a reaction and tell him exactly what I think of him—and drive a blade into his heart.

His is the only blood I’ll let myself hunger for now.

I square myself in front of Alyth.

He snapped Darnley’s neck without even touching him. What else is Cecil capable of?

Is he the High Blade Alyth mentioned? He must be—he’s been in control of everything from the start.

And if he’s the High Blade, what does that make me?

Alyth puts her hand on my back. She’s not shaking. She’s steady and sure, and I lean on that confidence.

Cecil clocks my stance, Alyth behind me.

He scowls. “Have you outlived your usefulness as well, Samson?”

My jaw clamps, stomach souring. I don’t want to play my hand until I’m sure where he’s standing, what he thinks of me, so I just hover, watching him.

“I’d have been more useful,” I snap, “if you’d told me what the hell was going on from the start.”

Cecil smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “You figured it out, then?” He looks at Alyth. “How much?”

I don’t want him looking at her.

I can feel her hands moving behind my back. Is she forming some kind of magic to get us away from him? I’ll buy her time.

“You used me as a test for that amulet getting through the barrier,” I tell him. “And you must’ve had more to get across. How long have you been here? Another Red Cap in Scotland.”

Cecil’s smile is true now. Wide and pleased.

“I’ve been here long enough to know that Darnley failed.

Our power was always too much for him to handle.

But you—you’ve proven more adaptable than I gave you credit for.

” He says it like I’m trash under his shoe, like I’m Darnley’s dead body lying between us. “She will have further use for you.”

Alyth stills behind me. It kicks through me as I process Cecil’s words.

One word.

“She?” I frown at him.

Alyth steps up beside me, out from what feeble protection I can offer her, but there’s a determination in her gaze that stops me from hauling her back behind me.

“You”—Alyth faces Cecil, her jaw high, her eyes steady and sure—“aren’t the High Blade.”

Not Cecil?

Who is the High Blade, then?

She…

A slow, taunting smile crawls across Cecil’s face. He looks back at me with a glint in his eyes.

“I see you haven’t figured out everything,” he says. He nods at Alyth. “If you want to live to see the High Blade, you’ll finish what Darnley set you up to do.”

My hands fist. I’m gonna refuse, and he knows it; he cocks an eyebrow.

“Prove your usefulness to the High Blade,” he tells me, “and kill the barrier guardian.”