The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,175

hand away from her arm when I’d stumbled into her. I had been careful in my movements when I was around her, conscious in a way that had become tiring. It was like I was standing on a log in a wrestling match again. One misstep, and I would be up to my waist in mud. When we were busy with tasks that needed to be addressed, it was easier—we simply worked together—but in those unplanned moments like when I stumbled into her, everything was unsettled, teetering, and I had to renavigate the space between us, remembering not to do what had been so natural before.

“Sentry,” I called, when I reached the east wing, where the prisoners were held. “Colonel Haverstrom passed this way?”

“Yes. Some time ago, Your Majesty. He’s still down there,” he said, nodding toward the stairs at the end of the hall.

No doubt he was chewing off the captain’s ear now, instead of mine. I would owe Azia.

I entered the passage, and the stairs were dark. Night had crept up quickly, and the guards had failed to light the lanterns. Only the flickering torches from the lowest level provided any light at all. Just a few steps down, I sensed a pervading quiet, a silence that seemed too deep. There were no murmurs, no clatter of metal trays or plates, though it was the dinner hour. My hand went to my sword, and when I turned at the landing, a body lay facedown, sprawled at the bottom of the stairs. It was Sven.

I drew my sword and ran.

I rolled him over, and that’s when I saw another body, and another. A soldier. A servant with trays of food spilled around him. Their eyes were open, unseeing. The cell doors were all ajar. My blood raced, trying to attend to Sven and look for danger at the same time.

“Sven!” I whispered. His abdomen was soaked in blood.

“Guards!” I bellowed up the stairwell. “Sentry!”

I turned back to Sven. His breaths were shallow, his lips barely moving, as if he was trying to speak. I heard a noise and spun. Another body lay in the other direction. Azia. I crept down the hall toward him, my sword raised, and bent to feel his neck. Dead. It was the trickle of his blood into a drain that I’d heard.

I peered into the first cell. The court physician lay in the center of the room, his throat cut wide open. The next cell had another dead soldier. The rest were empty.

Guards trampled down the stairs, Lia right behind them. “They’ve escaped!” I yelled. “Call a physican! Sven is still alive!”

But barely. I pressed on the wound. “Come on, you old curd! Stay with us!”

“Close the city gates!” Lia shouted. “Alert the guard and camp!”

She dropped to my side and helped me press on the wound, but it seemed there was no way to stop it. Blood oozed through our fingers. Kaden ran down the stairs, taking in the grisly scene. He pushed past us, his sword drawn.

“They’re gone,” I said. “I should have let you kill the bastard when you had the chance.”

I pulled off my jacket and used it to help stop the bleeding. Lia’s and my hands were both soaked with blood.

“Stay with him until the physician comes,” I told her. “Don’t let him go!”

And I ran up the stairs to hunt down the animals who had done this.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

Every corner, every tunnel, every passage, every ledge and chamber in the citadelle was searched. Rafe, Kaden, and I—along with hundreds of soldiers—were up all night, scouring the city, door to door, sewer to sewer, rooftop to rooftop. Civica was locked down, even as it came alive with torches. The search went past city gates into the surrounding hamlets. Not a single clue or missing horse was found. They had vanished. Trackers were dispatched.

The prisoners’ empty cells turned up piles of dirt and empty wooden boxes—weapons that had been buried long ago, a backup escape plan in the event they were ever found out. Now I understood why they had risked dragging me in the open all the way to the armory instead of imprisoning me here. They feared I would sense their secret stash. Even with the weapons stowed, they had bided their time, waiting for the right moment. For turning on the Viceregent, the court physician had paid the ultimate price.

Kaden, Pauline, and I waited outside Sven’s chambers. Rafe was inside with the physician. The day had raced away