and all to ensure her own rise to power was seen as mandated by the gods.
Heart in her throat, Lydia entered the King’s sleeping quarters, approaching the divan. And though she was loath to do so, she put one hand on his bare wrist.
It was warm, his life swirling around her fingertips.
Take it.
The urge to do so hit her with an indescribable intensity, as though she’d been deprived of water for days and a cold cup of the liquid sat before her. One sip wouldn’t be enough.
One life wouldn’t be enough.
Lydia recoiled from the compulsion, landing hard on her bottom and then scrambling backward.
This was not who she was. Not what she was.
All her life she had questioned her purpose. Her role. But in the weeks since she’d been marked, Lydia had discovered the answer to that question. She was a healer, and that meant preserving life at the risk of her own.
Not taking it to save her own skin.
Reaching out, she took hold of the King’s arm once more, but before she could do anything, hands latched on her shoulders and jerked her violently backward.
She slammed against the carpet, gasping for breath as she looked up into the eyes of the King’s healer, inexplicable terror filling her chest.
“What is the meaning of this?” The King had jerked upright from the commotion. “Why are you in here?”
“Please, hear me out!” Lydia gasped, struggling against the healer’s strength. “You need to know. Malahi didn’t send me here to deliver a message—she sent me here to murder you.”
63
KILLIAN
“You stay up here,” Killian instructed, balancing Finn on the saddle in front of him until the boy had clambered into the tree. “Climb up high so that no one can see you, then tie yourself to a branch in case you fall asleep. Keep that blanket wrapped around you so you don’t freeze.”
“I’m not going to fall asleep.” Finn’s voice was sour, the boy not at all pleased that Killian was keeping him out of the fight.
“Just do it.” Killian waited until his friend had complied. “And you stay put until this is over, all right? You wait a good long time after the Derin army has passed and then you follow the Tarn down to the coast. Don’t drink anything but rainwater, do you understand? Don’t eat anything but the supplies I’ve given you. And once you reach the coast, you use the coin in your pocket to book passage to Serlania, not to buy sweets.”
“You’ve told me all this. Three times.”
It was impossible to see in the dark, but Killian was quite certain Finn was glaring at him.
“And none of it matters anyway, because you’re going to win.”
Killian wasn’t going to bother arguing with him. “Take care of yourself, Finn.” Then he heeled his horse back toward the wall, knowing that time was short.
The night was quiet with no wind, the snow falling steadily around them. His soldiers stomped their feet and kept their hands shoved deep in their pockets, a nervous edge to the air keeping all of them silent, necessary words spoken at a whisper. They’d long since ceased glancing skyward at the sound of the deimos passing back and forth, delivering soldiers behind the lines to attack when the moment was right.
And there were sure to be corrupted among them this time.
Killian rode the lines, his armor clicking with the motion of his horse. Waiting. Waiting. Then there was a shift in the air, and he knew it was time.
Clearing his throat, he waited until all eyes were on him, then shouted, “Were I commanding a force of spineless cowards, I would stand before you and boldly sell you lies of our certain triumph. But the men and women I see are not weak, so instead I give you the truth.
“Tonight we fight not for glory, for victory, or even for our own lives. We fight for those we’ve left at home. We bleed in the hope our families will be spared such a fate, that the gods will take our sacrifice and spare the lives of those we love most. Our dying cries will be but the first trumpets of a day that we will never see, but will be the first of many your children see without the dark shadow of war biting at their heels. Let us fight for that dawn, and all the dawns to come. Let us pay the price on behalf of those we leave behind and march toward the gods’ eternal embrace.”