Page 61

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

C assandra drummed her fingers on her chair, wondering what time it was. Wondering if she’d shown her face long enough to leave. She was anxious to get herself and her crew out of this dangerous room filled with their enemies.

No one had discovered Tristan’s presence, bless the Creator. She didn’t even know where he was. Probably still leaning against that column.

Ronin and Mireille twirled past her on the dance floor, laughing and smiling. It heartened Cassandra to see it.

She pushed up from her chair, intending to grab her friends and leave, when a gong sounded from the other end of the hall. The crowd stilled and the dancing pairs paused mid-step.

A hulking Brethren in a shaggy fur cloak banged the gong again. Four strikes. Eight strikes. Twelve.

Midnight.

Cassandra glanced toward Mireille, who shrugged. She didn’t know what was going on either.

Wormwood slithered out from behind a column and joined the Brethren at the gong.

Cassandra’s nerves prickled. Was he going to make another speech? Chant out a final prayer to Vestan? Close the festivities?

Her stomach fell when the Koenig appeared next to him.

With an iridescent white feather clenched in his fist.

Silence blanketed the hall.

“Well, friends,” Wormwood said, “it seems our challenger has tested the boundaries of her blood vow. Challenger Fortin! Come down here.”

Cassandra stepped off the dais, and a tense presence settled in behind her—Tristan. The Fae on the dance floor parted as she progressed toward Wormwood and the Koenig, her mind whirling.

She may have prowled through Aedelmar’s memories, but she hadn’t harmed him. She couldn’t. The blood vow protected him just as much as it protected her.

She stopped in front of the two males, and Ronin and Mireille stepped up to flank her.

“Were you in that room at World’s End with the Koenig and Mistress Valette?” Wormwood asked.

Several Brethren snickered, elbowing each other.

The clank of their weapons chilled Cassandra’s blood. She didn’t have a single one on her person. Neither did Ronin nor Mireille. Tristan had the Typhon steel dagger he’d arrived with, but surrounded by a small army of armed males, it wouldn’t do much. And sure, Ronin and Mireille could call upon their wolves, but there were at least two dozen Beastrunner Brethren who possessed similarly powerful creatures.

Cassandra and her friends were severely outnumbered and underequipped.

“Answer me,” Wormwood barked, his obsequious mask slipping.

“Yes.” Cassandra squared her shoulders. “But he came to no harm by my hand.”

“How can we be sure though?” Wormwood hissed. “The apothecarist addled him. Who knows what you may have done to him in that room? What stories you may have slipped into his mind?” The Brethren crowded closer as many of the regular prisoners—save Silas and the Kennel volunteers—retreated to the edges of the room. “A challenger without integrity does not deserve a fair appeal. And without a fair appeal, the Koenig is not obligated to honor his end of the bargain.”

“Which means what?” Cassandra flared her wings, muscles tensed.

“It means that the Koenig may appoint as many of his own fighters as he wishes.” Wormwood turned to the crowd. “Brethren! Are you with us?”

The roar that burst from the gathered males shook Cassandra’s bones.

“And it means,” Wormwood stepped back, spreading his palms wide, “that your appeal begins now .”

Chaos exploded throughout the throne room as a blur of white wrapped around Cassandra, followed by a streak of copper.

Ronin and Mireille’s wolves circled her, snarling and snapping at any Brethren who attempted to breach their line. They paused only once, to let in Silas, whose dove gray wings streamed behind him as he came to Cassandra’s aid brandishing a stone sword swiped from a Brethren.

“This way!” Silas shouted over the din.

Ronin and Mireille held the line, dodging blows from swords, slices from daggers, and swipes from the paws of other beasts as Silas guided them toward the far corner of the room. To a slim, unguarded archway.

Cassandra peered through the circling wolves, searching for Tristan. He hadn’t appeared yet. Was probably waiting for the most opportune moment to pop out and startle their enemies.

Cassandra tripped on the train of her dress, and as soon as her tailbone cracked against the stone floor, a sleek black panther with ice-blue eyes breached the circle.

Jonas .

His jaws snapped inches from her foot, and she kicked out, ripping her dress. She caught Jonas across the muzzle, and he roared, rancid breath and spittle bathing her as she scrambled backward.

Mireille pounced, tackling the panther bi-form out of the circle, but not before Jonas sank his substantial claws into her flank and tore out a chunk of flesh. Mireille howled, and Ronin’s massive wolf bounded over, grabbing Jonas by the throat.

The violence that Ronin wrought upon the panther shifter was savagely personal.

Cassandra’s only wish was that Mireille could have done it herself.

By the time Ronin was finished, Jonas was nothing more than chunks of shredded flesh and tufts of black fur.

Blood soaked the throne room floor.

Everywhere Cassandra looked, prisoners were fighting off Brethren, distracting them from going for her or Ronin or Mireille. A rush of gratitude overtook her as she shucked off her shoes then stood, her bare feet sliding across the red-stained stone.

Silas was at her side instantly as Mireille and Ronin reformed their circle, weeping wounds matting their hides.

Cassandra could tell they were all flagging, though they’d kept the Brethren at bay. They’d caused a fair amount of damage themselves, tearing off limbs and crunching through throats.

In a spectacularly vicious move, Silas used two swords to scissor a male’s head from his shoulders, then roared, “Through the archway! Now! ”

They’d managed to back themselves into the corner.

And escape was mere steps away.

But where the fuck was Tristan? Cassandra refused to leave the hall until she had eyes on him.

The Brethren didn’t let up. Continued their assault and slammed into Silas and the wolves, who held firm, biting and slashing and slicing.

Each time a weapon was dropped, Cassandra scrambled for it. She managed to assemble an impressive little collection: several daggers, a broadsword, and even a double-headed axe.

She held the latter aloft, arcing into limbs and fingers when necessary, and scanned beyond the wall of fur in front of her for the Koenig.

Aedelmar was across the hall. Out of the fight. And smiling.

He raised a brow at Cassandra, then turned and left the room .

Wormwood was nowhere to be found either.

Cassandra’s back hit the frame of the arch, and she turned to see a narrow stone staircase. If they could get inside, they’d only have to fend off one Brethren at a time.

Cassandra opened her mouth to call out to the wolves—flagging, tired, wounded—when Tristan materialized in front of them.

He flared his wings wide, wielding a dagger in one hand and a broadsword in the other. “Go!” he bellowed. “ Go! I’m right behind you!”

Cassandra’s stomach clenched as the remaining Brethren—at least twenty—swarmed Tristan, eyes wide as a few recognized the exiled Imperial Prince.

The recognition was a blessing, as a few hesitated, allowing Tristan to strike first.

Cassandra stood in the archway, helping Silas and the wolves—who’d shifted back into their humanoid forms—through. Ronin propped up Mireille, who’d taken the worst blow from Jonas. Her left leg hung limply, and her neck and shoulders were covered in blood from a deep gash on her neck.

Ronin’s face was a cold mask of fury. Like he wanted to shift back into his wolf and go berserk on the remaining Brethren.

As soon as Silas, Ronin, and Mireille were through the archway, Cassandra hollered to Tristan, “Come on!”

Ronin scooped Mireille into his arms and covered her neck with a palm to staunch her bleeding. He turned to Silas. “Where does this lead?”

Silas grimaced. “Down into the dungeons."

“Great.”

“But the entrance to the west tower lies beyond them. The only entrance to that tower in the entire castle. If we can barricade it, between the five of us we should be able to hold the door.”

Ronin’s terrified gaze darted down to Mireille. “We need to get out of here. Get back to her shop so she can heal.”

Cassandra frowned. “If we leave, they’ll be on us in an instant. We’ll lose any advantage we’d have protecting ourselves within that tower.”

“And what are we going to do there?” Ronin roared.

Tristan barreled into the narrow corridor. “Wait for our allies to come burn down the wards!”

Silas took the lead as the group raced down the staircase. Cassandra and Tristan were able to stave off the few Brethren who’d given chase.

The group barreled through the dank, empty dungeons and before long, they arrived at another archway.

The staircase beyond all but dead-ended upon the circular room at the top of the tower.

Tristan closed the door and Ronin dragged an empty bookcase in front of it.

And the crew settled in to wait for Cael and a dragon-sized miracle.