Page 119 of Rise of the Vicious Princess

“Look out!” Tal yelled as she skidded around a corner and nearly crashed into another Rakuuna.

She ducked, flowing naturally into the seven rathmas, her feet taking her just out of reach as the monster slashed at her with his unnaturally long, talon-tipped fingers.

“Go!” Reuben yelled as he came up behind them. “Get to the king!”

Most of the palace was deserted—the staff had been given the night off for the festival—but they found the butler, four maids, and a page still alive on their way to the east wing. Yelling at them to follow her, Charis sprinted for her father’s chambers, her boots slapping against the stone corridor that led to his rooms.

He was going to be all right. He was going to be all right. Please let him be all right.

His door hung askew.

She slammed into the doorframe and launched herself into his chambers. “Father! Ilsa!”

The sitting room was empty. His sofa was torn to pieces and a lamp lay shattered.

Panic hit, stealing her breath, seizing her chest.

“Father!” She leaped over the broken pieces and ran into his bedroom.

The dresser he’d received as a gift from the queen of Solvang lay on its side, an enormous hole smashed into its lacquered wood. The covers were torn off the bed, and one of his heavy bedposts had snapped in two and lay across the mattress like a broken ship mast.

“Where is he?” She scrambled over the dresser, her hands shaking, her heart aching, desperation clawing at her. “Father!”

She turned to his bath chamber, but it was perfectly intact. Perfectly empty.

Turning, she raced back into his bedroom as Tal shoved the dresser aside and ran toward the bank of windows on the opposite side of the bed. When he jerked to a halt, his entire body vibrating as though he’d been struck, the desperation that had been clawing at Charis seized her throat.

She ran, every step an eternity, every second an infinity.

“Charis,” Tal whispered, and the grief in his voice was her undoing.

She made it past the bed, past the cheerful yellow-and-gray rug Ilsa had made during long winter nights three years ago, past Tal frozen in place, and then stopped.

Father lay crumpled on the floor, his eyes staring sightlessly at the wall, Ilsa’s broken body an arm span away from his.

Charis made a noise like a wounded animal and rushed forward. “Father? Father, look at me.” She dropped to her knees beside him and put shaking hands to his cheeks. Blood dripped from a wound in his neck in a steady stream.

“You’ll be all right.” She snatched a torn sheet and pressed it to his neck. “See? It’s all right. Everything is going to be all right.” Her voice broke over the words, and tears spilled down her face. “Father, please. Please.”

“Oh, Charis,” Tal said softly as he knelt beside her. His voice shook. “I’m so sorry.”

He reached out to gently close the king’s eyes. A yawning darkness opened within her, and she clung to her father.

He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to have more time. More dinners. More hugs. More moments when the person who’d always loved her best made her feel that she was the most precious thing in the world.

A tiny meow came from under the bed, and then Hildy crept out and onto Charis’s lap.

“This isn’t . . . he’s not gone.” She looked up at Tal and found tears in his eyes. “He can’t be gone. I wasn’t ready.” Her voice broke.

“I’m so sorry.” He gathered her close. “So sorry.”

Something whispered behind them, the faint sound of steps skittering along the staircase closest to the king’s chambers, and Tal snapped into action. Rounding on the few staff members they’d collected, he motioned for them to run for the door that led from the king’s chambers to the garden.

“We should go with them, Charis,” he said as he carefully pried her hands away from her father and pulled her to her feet. She clutched Hildy to her body. “You can’t do anything more for him now.”

He was right, and she couldn’t bear it. Darkness spilled out of the corner of her heart and swallowed her grief, leaving a shell in its wake. She leaned against Tal, her feet refusing to walk away from Father on her own.

Tal wrapped his free arm around her and helped her toward the door, his sword held steady in his other hand.

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