Page 129 of Sharpest Court

And my specter surged up in alarm.

“Erik’s soldiers are trying to capture Keil,” I said to Goren.

“Why would they—?”

“Because of me.”

I very much look forward to seeing the ambassador again, Erik had said. He wanted Keil to suffer.

And there was no suffering in death.

“I can find the sword alone,” I said, suddenly desperate. “You need to help him.”

Goren glanced at Keil, then at me, frowning with indecision.

“Erik’s men won’t hurt me,” I pressed. Then, because my specter had begun hardening with anger from that moment atop the cliff, I said, “I can handle the king.”

Goren looked me over, then nodded. He sprinted across the beach, his axe flashing in the firelight. He was still several yards away when Erik’s men began buckling under his power.

I was grimly pleased to discover that unlike Keil, Goren did not fight efficiently. He fought vengefully, throwing soldiers’ limbs back at gruesome angles, pummeling them with his specter before finishing them off with his axe.

With Goren adding his strength to their battle, I believed the Arcus siblings would be safe.

So I took a moment to steady myself, the island blazing around me. I was out of my depth on this battlefield. But with the Unbreakable Blade probably already in Erik’s hands, I couldn’t consider failure.

With a final inhale, I ran—between bodies and over outcrops and through the smog of powdered earth.

Although I was untouchable when facing Erik’s soldiers, I was the prime target when facing Holden’s; the black-uniformed figures gravitated toward me, as though wanting to capture a prize. I knocked them aside with blasts of my specter, uncaring of whether they traced the power back to me.

All I cared about now was reaching the large boats that hugged the western shoreline. My limbs burned as I leaped onto a fresh patch of sand—

And someone slammed against my side.

I hit the ground, winded, sand scraping my palms. I tried scrambling away, but the young man above me—dressed in a gold-threaded uniform—pinned my shoulders.

“My lady,” he said, breathless. “Stay dow—”

My specter flared out, shoving him off me. Were Erik’s soldiers trying to capture me now, or had this man gone against the king’s orders in tackling me?

As I caught the glint of a blade now lodged into the rockface above me, I had my answer. Stay down, he’d been about to say.

Because he’d been protecting me.

I barely had time to whip my head around before Holden hauled the young soldier up by the collar and dragged a knife across his throat.

Horror held me still as blood sprayed the sands, hot droplets catching my blouse.

Then Holden dumped the soldier to the ground, and I scrambled backward, finding my feet as I faced the general for the second time tonight.

The fall of the chandelier may not have killed him, but it had stripped him raw, until he was all oozing fury and red-hot resentment.

“I live in a community of highborns,” he growled, breathing hard. “Do you know how many of them have ever made a fool of me? None. Because they know what I would do if they tried.”

“Monologue at them?” I asked, sneering.

Holden kicked the soldier’s body aside and lumbered forward, meaning to corner me against the rock face. “You are alone,” he said. “You are without your protectors. You should be begging me for mercy, you stupid, arrogant girl.”

I huffed a hard laugh. When he’d wanted to coax me into his bed, I’d been an intelligent woman. Now I was a stupid, arrogant girl.