She pulled herself out of her thoughts. “Yes, I’m here. Where else would I be?”
o;You and me, Kurtis, we’re all alone up here. No councilmen, no guards are going stroll by and help you out.” He sliced downward along Kurtis’s spine, making him whimper in pain. “You will tell me what I need to know swiftly, or I promise I’ll have you begging for death when I start carving off body parts.” Magnus grabbed a handful of Kurtis’s hair, yanked him backward, and brought the sword’s edge to his cheek. “I think I’ll start with your nose.”
“No, don’t! Please!” Kurtis shrieked. “If—if I tell you, you will promise to let me leave the palace, alive and unharmed.”
“Very well. And if you lie, I will hunt you down and make you suffer like one of the stray cats you adored so much as a child.”
Kurtis swallowed hard. “The princess has been taken to my father’s castle, where Amara and your father are staying.”
“Much gratitude for the information, Kurtis.”
“Now let me go.”
Magnus pulled his sword away. “A promise is a promise.”
Kurtis reached for the door handle, but before he could turn it, Magnus interrupted him.
“That’s the hand you used to strike her, isn’t it?” Magnus said.
“What are you—?”
Magnus swung his sword, severing the kingsliege’s right hand at the wrist. Kurtis screamed, his eyes wide and wild with shock and pain.
Magnus grabbed him by his shirtfront, turned him around to face him, and slammed him against the wall. “By the way? I lied about not killing you.”
Just before he could plunge his sword into Kurtis’s soft belly, a servant appeared in the hallway, shrieking, pursued by a Kraeshian guard. Magnus turned to look, and Kurtis slammed his head against Magnus’s forehead before tearing off down the hallway, dripping blood in his wake.
Magnus roared with anger and immediately ran after him, but when he turned the next corner, Kurtis had disappeared.
He charged down the stairs and pushed through the palace doors, frantically searching outside for his enemy. The light snowfall of this morning had now become a storm, the skies thick with dark clouds, making it difficult to see more than twenty paces away.
The Limerian palace had been captured. Amara’s army was in control, her guards swarming the grounds like ants. And Magnus was trapped.
He knew he had to fight for his people, to destroy his father and Amara, to take back his kingdom before it was too late.
But right now, at this very moment, all he could think of was Cleo.
CHAPTER 29
LUCIA
PAELSIA
Downstairs at the inn, Lucia forced herself to eat some bread and honey, chewing each piece slowly and methodically before swallowing.
“Rough night?” the server girl asked as she brought some cider to Lucia’s table. “Had a bit too much to drink, did you? I know what that’s like. Stick with Paelsian wine and you won’t have to suffer the next day.”
“I appreciate the advice,” Lucia replied as the girl left to attend to another table of travelers crossing the barren plains of Paelsia.
She’d tried to deny it at first, but now she knew it to be true.
She was pregnant with Alexius’s child.
And she had never felt more confused, terrified, and alone in her entire life.
Kyan slowly approached her table and took a seat across from her. She sipped her cider, not bothering to spare him a glance.
“I need to apologize to you, little sorceress.”