Page 108 of A Kingdom of Lies

“They will kill him!” I said, knuckles white as I stared the tracker down. Kayne’s disdain for me was palpable, and his tall body acted as a barrier, preventing me from saving Duncan.

Kayne hesitated, the lines creased across his forehead softening for a moment. My breathing became shallow as I watched his mind turn behind his narrowed eyes. He was captured in his own internal war; then he replied, jaw tightening as he spoke through gritted teeth, “I’m going to fucking regret this.”

Kayne spun, grunting as he brought the hilt of his sword down on the back of one of the Twins’ heads. The crack could have been heard over any level of noise. She dropped, and her narrow body crumpled in on itself. Her counterpart screamed, her entire focus on her sister, who lay in a heap upon the floor, ignoring everything else around her.

Duncan took his chance and joined my side. “Brother,” Duncan panted, facing Kayne who still held the sword determinedly in his fist. “Glad to see you’ve found some sense.”

“What has he done to you?” Kayne whispered, sweeping his sweaty, ginger curls out of his eyes. “Give me a good enough reason not to put you down right now.”

“You won’t do that because it isme,” Duncan replied. “I can’t tell you what has happened because I don’t know.”

“It’s not right, Duncan. None of this is right.”

“Then help us,” I interrupted, aware that the crowd was thinning and the gryvern would soon be focused on us. “If we don’t get out of here, all of us will die.”

I could see the hesitation in Kayne’s gaze as he looked between Duncan and me, then to the blood-soaked room.

“By helping you I go against the Hand and Duwar. We have been warned about your kind’s trickery. Duncan has been too weak to see it but–”

Sparks of light reached for Kayne as Duncan’s sudden anger exploded around him. “It has all been lies. Kayne, see it for what it is.”

“We really don’t have time for this.” I wanted to tug on Duncan’s hand and draw him away from here, but his power frightened me, and it was still crackling in the air around his body. Even now I felt the lingering pain from his touch; the burns in my shirt were enough warning as to what would happen if his charged touch met mine again.

Elinor cried out, capturing our attention. She pulled back on the arm of the queen who was being dragged by the claws of a gryvern. Her cry was one that would inspire war. Powerful and determined, Elinor did everything in her strength to hold on without the help of the cowering king at her feet.

Kayne sprung to action before we had the chance to help. He raced forward, sword held with two hands above his head. With a great leap he swung it downwards, aiming for the gryvern’s claws. But he was too late. Elinor let go, tumbling from the momentum until the back of her head hit the slabbed floor. The human queen was ripped into the air, thrown into the claws of another gryvern who treated her more like a toy. Kayne’s sword slapped into the ground, sparks emanating from the collision. With the strength of his strike, I was surprised the floor didn’t split in two.

I raced to Elinor’s side, helping her up. “We need to leave.”

She grunted her response, reaching for the back of her matted curls with a wince. “I tried to help her.”

“I know, you did all you could,” I replied, witnessing as Kayne consoled the human king. “But now is our chance to run. Do you think you can manage it?”

Elinor nodded, stern and resolute. “I would rather die by the hands of my husband’s children than visit the prisons again. We leave, or I die happily.”

Husband’s children. In that one comment she confirmed what I’d learned after seeing Erix’s transformation.

“There is far too much that is required from you in Wychwood,” I told her, gritting my jaw as I pulled her to her feet. “Dying is not on the cards today. Not for any of us.”

“Fine,” Kayne shouted. “We leave together. Now. Before I change my mind. Those doors will take us out into the belly of Lockinge. I need to find Lucari and she will scout the skies for the safest time to leave.”

Lucari, as Duncan had explained, was the hawk I’d seen nestled upon Kayne’s shoulder.

There was no time for further discussion. Kayne took the human king, arm draped over his shoulder, and I helped Elinor as we left the room together. The gryvern were growing restless. They’d successfully picked through the crowds, toying with the dead flesh of the humans with growing distaste. Without living humans to feast upon, it was likely they remembered why they had come all this way. For me.

Duncan led the way, an illuminated torch of power. He kicked open the door, boot leaving a scorched mark across the wood. Into the dark corridor beyond we ran, Kayne forced to close it behind him.

Something heavy thumped into the other side as Kayne lowered the slat across the door, locking it in place. Then another. And another. Gryvern flew into the door, straining the wood until it groaned and snapped beneath their weight. Even the aged wall around it shuddered, fluttering dust upon us like snow.

All we could do was run.

“Don’t let go of me,” I said to Elinor.

“Never,” she replied, breathless. “I did with your mother and vowed I never would again.”

Her words kept me going, each step less of a struggle as the memory of my mother raced through my mind. Even with the heavy, draining echo that the iron collar left upon me, I felt close to her, with the hand of her friend enclosed within mine.

Duncan led us blindly through the castle. Every now and then Kayne would shout a direction. It was clear the Tracker had been within these walls before. It was a maze of darkness and stone for the rest of us. Putting my trust in him to guide us to safety wasn’t my first choice, but I was out of others.

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