Reign of Darkness (The Prince's Assassin #2) - Ariana Nash Page 0,75

he could replace Vasili’s poison in his head with the rum instead. Tomorrow, he’d decide. Tomorrow, he’d make a choice. The Yazdans or the Caville prince.

Chapter 24

“Elves! Niko! Elves!”

He tore from his bed, stumbled into a pair of trousers, and was out the door, throwing on a shirt, head still dizzy from drink and lack of sleep. Roksana met him in the hallway. She thrust a pistol into his hand and his new sword with its slightly recurved blade and a nasty backward hook at the tip, designed to rip off armor.

“Where?”

“In the grounds… Come!”

“Inside?” That didn’t seem… possible.

“A small force, scouts maybe.” She ran ahead.

The sounds of ringing metal and pistol-fire echoed down the open-sided corridors.

“We assume they came by ship last ni—”

A cloaked figure sprang from a window, lunging at Roksana. She lifted her pistol, but the cloaked mass slammed into her, driving her backward against a column. A small blade flashed at her throat. Roksana brought her arm up to lever the attack away.

Niko freed his sword and swung it with practiced ease, lodging the blade into the elf’s upper spine. It bucked. Roksana kicked it off, and Niko tore the blade free. The elf fell in a motionless heap. Blood oozed from beneath it. Red eyes gazed up, unseeing. Gnarled skin and sharp teeth. There was no mistaking it.

His mind clicked, instincts kicking in.

Niko switched his sword to his left hand and freed the pistol Roksana had been teaching him to shoot. “Lead the way.”

Roksana cast him a grateful nod and they dashed toward the sounds of battle.

Elves swarmed the gardens in the early morning light. All thoughts of why were shoved aside. With no time to strategize, all he could do was cut them down. The pistol barked, but the weapon was too slow to reload. Niko tossed it aside and let his blade sing.

Elves moved like shadows, smooth and fast. They dropped from windows above the courtyards and spilled in from walkways, swarming like ants. Niko swung and parried and slashed and cut through them. Too many to be a scouting force. Years on the front line came rushing back to him, his muscles remembering how to dodge, to swing, to fight like there was nothing else. Just him, his blade, and the elves at the end of it.

Slowly, the sounds of battle began to fade and the elves stopped coming. Niko stood among the dead and wounded. It was over, almost too soon. He spotted an elf crawling through the dirt and made his way to its side. He still crawled on, thinking only of escape.

Niko kicked the elf over onto his side and the elf stared back. If he had a weapon, he didn’t reach for it.

“A live one?” a Yazdan soldier asked, coming up behind Niko.

The elf was bigger than most of his kind, his skin a light green, mossy color. He wouldn’t speak, they rarely did in any language Niko knew, but he bared sharp teeth either in a threat or a grin.

Niko backed up a step as more soldiers approached. “Tie him and take him somewhere secure.”

All around the trampled gardens, the men and women of the Yazdans’ newly trained guards tended the wounded and the dead. Under the blazing sunlight, with the stink of death rising into the air, it still didn’t seem possible that elves had so brazenly attacked.

“Send all available scouts into Seran,” Niko ordered the soldier. If the elves were here, they could be sacking Seran. “Report back immediately.”

He fell into the role of organizing the aftermath of battle. The day passed in a blur, ingraining into his clothes and skin, the smell of blood baking under the sun.

A rider sent word that Seran was safe, no elves. It should have eased his mind but only cemented the concern. Why attack the Yazdans and not the city itself? Why now? Yasir had said elves weren’t fond of the ocean. If they’d come by sea—a direction nobody would expect—then they had a damned good reason. It bothered him more than the blood under his nails.

With the house clear and the bodies burning, Niko descended into the cool caverns honed into rock beneath the house, to the prison where the elf had been kept.

One flame torch flickered in a wall sconce outside the prison cell, making the shadow of the bars dance across the lone elf. Male, muscular, and heavy. Blood had dried on his face. Red eyes held no emotion. He stared back at Niko like