Page 56 of A Reign of Roses
They’d just barely reached the clean-cut edge of the gray rug.
With the last dregs of strength I had, with cords of muscle I hadn’t ever used before, I wrapped my hand around that thin edge andpulled.
“Goodbye, my boy.”
Lazarus hefted the sword up and brought it down just as the Blade of the Sun’s hilt kissed the skin of my palm.
And in that moment, the one in which the blade met my flesh—
All noise hollowed out to a single ringing silence. The ground beneath me spider-webbed out with jet-black shadows—my shadows, folding and constructing themselves into mywings. Metallic lighte filled my nostrils as I sucked in the first deep breath I’d been granted since the moment Arwen jumped from that platform in Hemlock.
And then I was beautifully, horribly, mercilessly ripped apart.
15
Arwen
Back in the baths, Lazarushad said I was different. Or that I thought myself as much. Well—he was right. I was different now. Braver, less trusting—stupider maybe. Whatever it was…I never ran for that alleyway.
I’d stood, in my horrid gilded dress and bare toes, hiding in the bushes where Kane had left me. I’d told myself,Just long enough to see him come back out with the blade.
And when I couldn’t hear my own thoughts over my raucous heartbeat a minute longer, I’d gone after him.
“Excuse me,” I said to the first guard I found on the cobbled road, making my voice sound innocent and lost. “I’m looking for my king?”
He only eyed me, sweaty under his bloodred visor, sizing me up. Another strolled over, hand on his pommel, shiny in the moonlight. “Fae girl, did you run?”
“No.” I shook my head, willing my eyes as big as dinner plates. “I got lost. This corset is just so tight.” I shimmied around in it,pressing my breasts together. “I only needed some air. If you would just bring me to my king…”
They were silent as they studied me, attempting to make sense of my vaguely flirtatious babbling. Another, more stately guard with a prominent mustache wandered over, and the three clustered around me like moths to a naive, busty flame.
“Take her to the king,” Mustache said. “He’s on his way back to his wing now.”
Jackpot.
Inside the palace the candelabras were dimmed, the music had ceased, and the faint peals of laughter and singing had been silenced. The ball was over, and any remaining members of Lazarus’s court were upstairs, waiting to watch me be defiled. We sped through an arch that looked out onto a courtyard, and ashy night air called to me through the glass.
I’d been free. Now I was back in this nightmarish, poisoned palace. I should have listened to Kane. I’d surely be deposited right back into my suite, trapped once more.
Do not panic now. Find Kane. Work together.
Freedom outside these walls while a mortal Kane suffered inside them was not any freedom I was interested in. I just needed to get to Lazarus’s wing. I’d use my lighte then. I still had some rolling through my veins. Enough to defend myself.
Finally we arrived at Lazarus’s atrium with all its strange doors and their symbols.
“Is he in there?” The sweating guard beside me called to the other armored men in the atrium. I counted five. More than I could likely take alone, but with Kane’s help, wherever he was…
“Indeed,” one replied, intrigue drawing him nearer. “Is that the girl?”
“Yeah, she—”
A single crash rang out from Lazarus’s bedroom. Like glass shattering. The guard beside me stiffened, reaching for his sword.
Shit.Shit.
That was Kane. It had to be. In there, mortal, with his father—
I moved before I could think.
