Page 6 of Esperance

The room exploded into chaos.

Guards shouted. Across the floor, men and women leapt up from their chairs and bolted toward the exits. The emperor’s bodyguards rushed to surround him, and screams echoed as more crossbows were fired.

Amryn was frozen. Her heart seized in her chest, the emperor’s pain lancing through her.

A bolt slammed into the arm of the newly married man seated next to her, and his gut-wrenching howl snapped her out of her frozen state. She shoved to her feet, but almost immediately Carver snagged her wrist. He hauled her down to the floor behind the table, the shivering black tablecloth a feeble shield from the rest of the room.

Her new husband’s jaw was tight as he crouched beside her. “Stay down,” he ordered tersely, “or you’re going to get yourself killed.”

Amryn’s stomach clenched. The fear in the room was a raging storm. The man who’d just been shot—she thought his name was Ivan—was stumbling to his feet, blood dripping from the bolt stuck in his arm. His face was set in a silent snarl and he grabbed up his dinner knife before darting out of view.

Still hunched beside her, Carver reached blindly onto the table, and when his hand came back down, he clutched a dinner knife as well. Palming the cutlery, he cursed under his breath. “Saints, I miss my blades,” he muttered. He looked to her, his blue eyes severe. “Stay here.”

He didn’t wait for a response, just vaulted onto the table. Dishes clattered as he leaped to the other side, charging in the direction the shots had come from.

Amryn’s fingers dug into the stone floor, a knot tightening her throat. Was this the Rising?

Immediately, she dismissed that possibility. Why would the rebels recruit her for a mission in Esperance, only to attack now?

The chaos in the room nearly robbed her of breath. She looked up and down the length of the table, noting that some of the couples had scattered, though a few of the newlyweds remained huddled beside the table. One of the brides made eye contact with Amryn—she thought she’d heard someone at the table call her Tam—and the woman’s shock and fear punched into Amryn with near physical force.

Amryn hadn’t known many empaths; after being hunted for years and executed by order of the church, most empaths were either dead, or too good at hiding to reveal their secret. But even without the ability to compare, Amryn was certain she felt things more intensely than most empaths. Sometimes, if she had warning, she could brace herself and better handle the emotions that slammed into her. But in a sudden and violent situation like this, the emotions were crippling.

Terror, shock, rage, bloodlust, horror, and pain. It was everywhere. Overwhelming. And when she felt the first death, she shuddered.

Feeling a life end was an indescribable horror. She’d experienced it before, and feeling it now brought her back to that long ago night. The helplessness she’d experienced. The fear. The grief.

She would not be that terrified little girl again.

Gritting her teeth, Amryn pinched her eyes closed. In her mind, she sat behind her cello. Her hand encircled the smooth wooden neck, and her fingers pressed against the taut strings as her bow dragged out deep, resonant notes. As always, the act of imagining the creation of a familiar song—willing it from memory—soothed the tension in her muscles. Created a buffer between her and the emotions that tried to flood her. It was a trick Rix had taught her. Something that her mother had done, when her empathic gifts had become too much to bear.

When Amryn opened her eyes, she could breathe. She could think. The emotions in the room were still frenzied, but she’d created a shield of sorts.

Still crouched by the table, Amryn twisted, searching for the nearest exit. Carver had told her to stay in place, but every instinct screamed to flee the room.

She trusted her instincts far more than she trusted him.

Across the dais on her left, she spotted an open doorway. There was no one between her and that escape, so she gathered her flowing skirt in one hand, but hesitation caught her before she ran. She glanced toward the surface of the table.

As an empath, fighting was nearly impossible. Even if she had time to brace herself, hurting someone would still cause her pain.

Pain, however, was survivable. Death wasn’t.

Keeping her head ducked behind the table, Amryn blindly searched for a knife. Her fingertips brushed the cool, rounded edge of a plate, then the crisp fold of a linen napkin. With a little fumbling, she finally grasped the thin blade she wanted.

The shouting in the room had reached a fevered pitch. She thought she heard Rix bellow her name, but her uncle was too far from the head table; she couldn’t wait for him, and it would be foolish to risk plunging into the seething crowd to reach him.

She tightened her grip on the knife and looked toward the doorway again. From the corner of her eye, she saw the other huddled bride—Tam—suddenly lurch to her feet. The woman was small and fast, but she only made it a few steps before she was tackled by a large man. He wore the garb of a servant, but he wielded a large dagger in one hand and grabbed a fistful of her brown hair with the other, jerking her head back to expose her throat.

Tam’s scream was swallowed in the other battle sounds, but Amryn felt her spike of pain. The brutal claws of her fear.

Amryn darted forward, the knife burning her palm as she stabbed the man’s back.

The blade didn’t penetrate as easily as she thought it would; the tip pierced his flesh, but he was already whipping around with a roar, and the dinner knife clattered to the floor.

The slash of his echoed pain nearly brought Amryn to her knees. She stumbled back a step, her pulse hammering.

The man glared at her, a silent snarl twisting his features.

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