pain of his bleeding wounds, hope fluttered in Ramson’s chest. He realized that none of Kerlan’s Affinites were trained fighters like Linn.
Over twenty paces from them, Kerlan clutched his expensive doublet, his face pale as a sheet. Interesting, Ramson thought, that a man who aimed to inflict so much pain could bear so little. Kerlan motioned to his bodyguard, who was bleeding profusely from his own wounds. The bodyguard stooped and wrapped a giant arm around Kerlan’s waist.
Abruptly, they turned and hobbled away.
Linn’s hands went to her thighs, and two more knives appeared in her fists. She crouched by where Ramson lay, her eyes trained on the yaeger. The man waited across the hall by a broken marble pillar.
Kerlan and his bodyguard’s fading footsteps were smothered by another sound: a rhythmic rumbling that echoed across the domed ceilings and broken marble façades. Ramson recognized these—he had heard them many, many years ago, at the Blue Fort. These were the footsteps of an army. He racked his brain for the security protocols of the Salskoff Palace. In the case of an attack, the Palace guards held the first line of defense until the reinforcements came. And the reinforcements were not just any ordinary guards. These were the Empire’s elite fighters and strongest warriors.
The Whitecloaks were coming.
“Can you move?” It took Ramson a moment to realize Linn was addressing him.
He pushed himself up, and his chest felt like it was on fire. A groan escaped from deep in his throat. “Yes.”
Linn plucked something from her waist: a small leather pouch, camouflaged among all the weapons. The contents inside clinked gently as she slipped it into Ramson’s hands. “Bring these to Ana. They are the evidence she needs.”
“You don’t expect me to leave you to fight alone?”
“Go,” she replied, without looking back at him. The yaeger advanced on them, swords held at his sides, reflecting the light from the chandelier above.
Ramson climbed to his feet, the broken pieces of marble and crushed flooring crunching beneath him as he stood. His chest bled where Kerlan had stabbed him, but the wound wasn’t deep enough to kill him.
He would live—at least until he reached Ana.
He glanced back. Linn remained in the same defensive stance, her knives steady in her hands, her gaze focused with sharp intent on the approaching yaeger.
It was a fight between a sparrow and an eagle.
For a moment, Ramson thought of calling back to Linn with a Kemeiran blessing. But blessings and prayers were for the fainthearted, and Ramson had never believed in leaving your fate to the gods.
Besides, he would thank her in person after all of this.
Ramson turned and sprinted down the ruins of the Hall of Deities.
A stunned silence filled the Grand Throneroom. All around, expressions of confusion and shock were mirrored across the faces of Imperial Councilmembers and guests alike. Ana stared at Luka, struggling to process his words.
Only, instead of the sunken and gaunt shell of a man her brother had been a second before, Luka was sitting up straight, his face alight with triumph. And he was looking back at her. His grin widened to a full-on conspiratorial beam as he put a finger on his lips, and then, just for that moment, they were small children again, protecting each other from a world of cruelty. It was their act of defiance. Their secret.
The Throneroom burst into cacophony. Imperial Councilmembers stood in their seats, some leaning over the mahogany banister, calling out to Luka and Morganya, whose expression was frozen in a look of horror. The remaining guards at the dais appeared just as dazed as they raised their hands to placate the crowd.
We won.
The thought stunned Ana so much that she could only stare at the scene unraveling before her. Morganya would be tried for treason and murder; the poisons that would indict Morganya and the antidote that would save Luka’s life were in the apothecary’s wing.
The guards holding Ana looked just as uncertain; they shifted their stances, lowering their blades slightly from the now-heir to their empire.
Ana wrapped her Affinity around them and pushed. She straightened and stepped forward. The din quieted, and every pair of eyes in the room watched as she walked across the aisle to the dais.
A cry sliced through the air. “Stop her!” Morganya stood by the throne she only moments earlier was confident was hers. She had one hand clamped across the back as though she wanted to both protect it and to hide behind it. “Guards!”