Grigor scrawls his signature and steps again.

I step ahead with my lord, holding his elbow. Lord Siarl’s well being has declined with age, and a part of my pretense is to assist him so I can transfer nearer to the empress. Lord Siarl indicators his paper. He shuffles so slowly as he turns, and as I flip with him, that Lord Yorath has grown impatient and brushes previous us.

I sense his urgency and stressed want. His hand lifts, and a flash of lethal steel catches my eye.

The ache might be fast.

I deliberate for this.

Mortals are sluggish. What takes him a second, I do in a single hundredth of the time. I whirl between him and my new empress as he assaults. I really see the tip of the blade earlier than it sinks into my abdomen.

I draw breath and seize the hilt earlier than he can shove the weapon deeper. Although the ache is excruciating, I rip the knife from my abdomen and slash it throughout Yorath’s throat.

His blood spurts. His loss of life is fast. Yorath topples ahead as my knees hit the bottom.

“Assist him,” the empress says. Is she involved for my well-being?

I’m in a tunnel. Wind whips previous my ears.

Purple is all I see.

Is it the empress’s hair?

“Take him inside,” a lady says.

The crimson is from the blood on my palms.

My blood.

3

I groan.

I blink my eyes. There’s black canvas above me.

I’m in a tent. It’s heat. Candles flicker.

I’m not alone.

Motion beside me attracts my eye.

“You’re silly,” the empress says. “I’m immortal.”

“So am I,” I say, except I’m not healed in time. Half-emrys have that benefit, accelerated therapeutic, which is why I didn’t flinch at stepping in entrance of a blade.

Simply to spare her ache.

The empress leans over the mattress—her mattress—that I’m mendacity in. The ornate materials round me, the glowing pillars of gold. That is hers, all hers, and he or she welcomed me inside.

She might kill me.

I might kill her so simply.

I’m positive she’s conscious of that.

“Does it harm a lot?” she asks.

With nice effort, I carry my head.

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