“Do you have any concept of what I had to do to save your life tonight?” He shouted the words, his voice reverberating off the walls. “Do you have any concept of the number of people I killed so that you could live?” Reaching down into the shadows, he jerked up one of the corpses, the small and lifeless body hanging in his hands as he shoved it in Malahi’s face. “I killed her. I remember slicing through her spine while I fought to get to you. And I have to live with it.”
Malahi recoiled from the corpse and it was then that Hacken stepped out of the shadows. “Enough, Killian.”
In a flash of motion, Killian dropped the corpse, slamming his brother against the wall, once. Twice. Three times. All with a cold fury that rendered him nearly unrecognizable to Lydia. Always she’d known that he was dangerous, but never had he made her feel afraid. This wasn’t him.
Something wasn’t right.
Lydia tried to intervene, but Lena and some of the other girls held her back.
“Do you think I don’t know you’re the one behind all this?” Killian shouted. “Do you think I don’t know that you’re the one to blame?”
“Blame for what?” Hacken shouted back, struggling ineffectually. “Putting you in the position you needed to be to win this war? You’re a pair of children more concerned with your feelings than with doing whatever it takes to defeat our enemies, so I took matters into my own hands.”
Sonia chose that moment to shove between the pair of them, her face intent, but Lydia could already feel the rage fading from Killian, his grip on Hacken slackening.
“We are going to go upstairs and gather the High Lords,” Hacken said. “And then you’re going to war against the Derin army. And you’re going to win.”
“Why?”
Killian whispered the word, but Lydia heard it. Knew the real question he was asking.
“Because,” Hacken said. “This is a war between the gods, and thus a war between the Marked. It’s not enough for you to just fight, Killian. You must lead us to our salvation.”
Every instinct in Lydia screamed that the High Lord’s words were a lie buried in the truth. That despite war being at his doorstep, his ambitions for himself were what had motivated him to force this union between Killian and Malahi.
And yet Killian allowed Sonia to push him back. Saying nothing, he went to the ladder, climbing upward and disappearing from sight.
“After you, my lady.” Hacken gestured for Malahi to climb, but the Queen instead turned to Lydia.
“You are a liability,” she said. “Get out of my palace.”
Then she climbed in a swish of skirts and disappeared. The guardswomen followed at her heels, their faces full of apology as they left Lydia alone with High Lord Calorian.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her, wincing as he rubbed what was likely a badly bruised shoulder. “I don’t use people lightly. But surely you see it was for the greater good?”
“All I care about is getting to Serlania,” she lied, her skin prickling. “That’s all this was ever about.”
He smiled. “Smart girl.”
Lydia followed him up the ladder, her stomach twisting as the carnage filled her gaze. Bodies thick upon the floor, but the first face her gaze lighted upon was Brin’s, the dead guardswoman’s eyes glassy and unseeing.
Which was why Lydia didn’t miss it when Hacken Calorian stepped square on the girl’s back as he strode from the room.
56
KILLIAN
Don’t think about it. You’ve more pressing problems, Killian told himself, but repeating the order over and over in his head had little effect. Because it was impossible to forget the rage that had fallen over him in the tunnels. Impossible to forget how close he’d come to killing his own brother.
The group climbed the stairs to the main level of the palace, stepping over bodies and avoiding pools of blood as they went. Spotting one of the men he’d put in charge of securing the High Lords’ safety, Killian waved him over. “We have control of the palace?”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied. “We’ve swept all the rooms. Anyone who shouldn’t be here is dead.”
Dead Mudamorians. People you were supposed to protect. “Start clearing the bodies out front and then burn the lot. Use oil and make sure those doing the work wear gloves. Then burn the gloves.”
“Yes, sir.”
But he hadn’t protected them. Instead, he’d killed dozens of civilians who’d been infected by blight. Not that he’d had much of a choice. The blight turned them