“I told them when you arrived we should have just ended you,” he said. “I warned them this turn would come. When you learned the truth of it, and the spoiled, squalling brat you truly are showed herself. Always you thought yourself better than this place. Always.”
“So why didn’t you kill me?” she asked.
Behind again now …
“Cassius wouldn’t hear of it,” Solis replied. “‘Little sister,’ he called you. Supposing some kinship in the dark between you, though he knew nothing of what he was. ‘The Black Prince,’ he called himself.” The Shahiid scoffed. “Prince of what?”
“Why did you hate me, Solis?” she asked. “It wasn’t just that scar I gifted you.”
And then he saw it. The way to make her stumble. To hold her still long enough to get his fingers around her throat.
“I never hated you,” he said. “I just knew it would always end this way. I knew you’d eventually discover it was the Red Church who captured Darius Corvere and handed him over to his killers. I knew Scaeva’s shit would end up on our boots.”
He tilted his head and smiled.
“But did you never wonder, Mia?”
“Wonder?”
Moving right. Back and forth with no pattern.
Clever.
“Wonder who it was who stole into Darius Corvere’s encampment?” Solis asked. “Wonder who snatched up him and his lover and handed them over for execution?”
Solis held up his left hand. Running his fingers over the scars notched in his forearm.
“Thirty-six marks,” he said. “Thirty-six bodies. In truth, I’ve ended hundreds. But I only branded myself with those kills I was paid for, in blood and silver. Even the ones where I never actually wielded the blade.”
He ran his finger over a notch near his wrist.
“This one is General Gaius Maxinius Antonius.”
He heard a scuff on the stone as she stopped moving.
“And this is Justicus Darius Corvere.”
Solis turned milk-white eyes toward her soft gasp.
“You…”
And then he lunged.
Mia moved, slipping away quick as shadows. But not quite quick enough. His fingers closed on a lock of her hair and he seized tight, heard her yelp as he wrapped it up in his fist and dragged her in. Fingers closing around her neck. His face was twisted, rage boiling in his chest at the thought this fucking slip had blinded him, mocked him, caught him unawares.
He slammed a fist into her jaw, sent her reeling. Dragging her back in to punch her again. Slamming her like a rag doll into the wall, fingers sinking deep into the flesh of her throat. He’d gotten too soft. Too predictable. When this little bitch was dead he’d—
A blow to his chest.
Another and another.
It felt as though she were punching him, and he sneered at the thought. She was two-thirds his size, half his weight. As if her fists could hurt him …
But then he felt pain. Warm and wet, spilling down his belly. And he realized she wasn’t simply hitting him. Her knife was just too sharp for him to feel.
Both hands were at her throat now. Blind eyes open wide as the agony started creeping in. They stumbled, falling back into the bath. As they crashed into the water, he felt her blade slip into his back half a dozen times, the pair of them sinking below the surface as he strangled for all he was worth. He’d killed a dozen men this way in his time. Close enough to hear the death rattle in their lungs, smell the stink as their bladder loosed when they died.
But the pain …
Rolling and tumbling beneath the water. Hard to keep his grip. Pulse rushing in his ears. Spilling from the dozen wounds in his chest, his back, his side. Arms like iron.
She’s killing me.
The thought made the rage flare bright. Denial and fury. Kicking and stabbing, flailing and cursing. They surfaced, bright light in his blind eyes, gasping. The pair crashed against the edge of the sunken bath, her spine cruelly bent, his face twisted. She was still flailing at him, cursing, spitting. Stabbing his forearms, slicing his cheek, lost in her own frenzy.
He couldn’t feel his hands. Was he still holding her?
It didn’t hurt so much anymore. Dull impacts. Chest. Chest. Neck. Chest.
“Bastard!” she was screaming.
Is
“You!”
this
“Rotten!”
how
“Fucking!”
it
“Bastard!”
ends?
He felt his knees give out. His grip slithered away from her neck. The water was warm, but he was so cold. Hard to breathe. Hard to think. Slipping deeper, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back beneath the surface, allowing himself to float for a handful of minutes.