Prince Emory holds me in his arms and smirks down at me as we rotate around the dance floor. Clearly he thinks he’s won.

  I mirror his smile. Just wait and see what the rebels have done. As soon as Farnell is safe, I’ll never return to this place. I’ll be rid of this pompous prince forever.

  Better yet, I’ll help the Disciples tear him down.

  The song ends, and a different tune picks up. One that’s quieter and simpler. Not a dancing song. I attempt a step back, but Prince Emory releases me only so far as to tuck my arm in his.

  The crowd grows still and stares. A few shield their mouths to whisper. Others clutch their fans to their chests.

  Clara stands at the edge of the crowd ringed around us, smiling, pleased. Everything about her face and posture says the same thing the Prince’s does: she’s won.

  Bong. The palace clock strikes midnight, echoing off the high arched ceiling of glass.

  Prince Emory leads me through the parting attendants towards the dais. A chill trickles down my arms. Before midnight. Abel said before midnight. Something’s wrong.

  I search for the High Guard, but he’s here, following a few steps behind us, his gaze downcast.

  “Prince Emory,” I begin, trying to resist his pull on my arm. This isn’t right. The chaos. The distraction. It’s supposed to have happened.

  Emory mounts the steps at the side of the dais and pulls me along with him, his grasp unrelenting. With each step, my chest grows tighter and tighter into a smothering ache. Not me. He’s not picking me. Any claim would make quietly disappearing impossible. Abel can’t ask for me. If I run, I’ll no longer be a missing Gold, I’ll be a missing princess.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Prince Emory says as he pulls me to the center of the dais and turns us towards the crowd. The music stops. “I’m sure you all share my sentiment when I say this has been a spectacular summer.”

  The crowd cheers in agreement.

  No. No, no, no. I scan the crowd and the perimeter of the ballroom for the Disciples. For Abel. This can’t be happening. They can’t have failed. Something’s gone wrong. Their raid thwarted. Farnell lost. Abel killed.

  Then I see him, standing at the back of the room.

  Founder Lord Rael. Leader of the Apostate’s Disciples. My love.

  Abel.

  He’s dressed as impeccably as at High Court. His expression ever the warrior; determined, fierce, stoic. My heart lifts at the sight of him. Abel who I’ve given all of myself to. If he’s here, then everything is in order. He’s alive. The rest of the rebels will burst into the ballroom at any moment.

  “It is my great hope that, after today, the Kingdom of Kheovaria will be blessed even more spectacularly by the addition of a new member to the royal family.”

  My body seizes. My heart stops. The sounds of the crowd fall away. They become only a blur of color haloing Abel at the back of the room.

  And he just stands there. He’s not intervening.

  Something bites into my arms, turns me, forces a break in my sightline to Abel.

  It’s the Prince, beaming at me like he assumes I’m in a state of delighted shock.

  I see it all anew. The marble of the dais under my feet. The rise of the serenely smiling King and Queen from their thrones to stand beside me and their son.

  Prince Emory’s beaming face. “Lady Aubrey Gallant…”

  It’s not stopping. No distraction. Only the Prince’s voice echoing back from the expanse of the room.

  “My love, I have already spoken to your stepmother. With every honor of the crown, with every fiber of my heart…” He flourishes his cape and drops to both knees, clutching my hands in his.

  No, not just his hands. Between our clasped fingers, he’s procured a chain. A thick, gold chain covered in pave diamonds and tiny glistening rubies. An engagement chain.

  “Accept my claim for you, forevermore.”

  The rest of the ballroom rushes back to my senses. Hundreds of eyes upon me. The expectation of my acceptance. The suffocating sweetness of gardenias and roses. The gasps and following silence over the room as every single person waits to hear the moment I answer him. For the only answer anyone can give.

  Any other answer would be public humiliation. For him, for me. For my family. Such a thing is unforgivable, unallowable. A death sentence.

  I turn my head to Abel. He has to be about to act, about to save me. But his face has changed. Resolution gone. Determination gone. No stoicism or passion.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  It’s sad. Apologetic.

  Pitying.

  He nods his head. Such a tiny movement, it’s almost imperceptible.

  Deep in my chest, something twists and snaps in a flood of pain and horror. He intends for me to say yes.

  An arrow whistles past my head and—thunk.

  The arrow protrudes from the King’s left eye, his smile still suspended on his face. A trickle of blood dribbles over his cheek. His remaining eye takes on a strangely glossy, empty glint.

  Screams erupt, muted by the pound of blood in my ears.

  A whistle whips past me again and another arrow thunks into the King’s opposite eye. Warm blood splatters across my face and I jerk back.

  The King slumps to the ground.

  His face and hands, limp and lifeless against the black dais, take on the silvery sheen of wyvernmail peeling away from its host.

  We became invincible, except only for our open eyes. Oh Skies, the book isn’t philosophical. It’s literal. Eyes are the Wyvernmail’s weakness. I handed Abel that very page in the stack I gave him.

  Abel used it to assassinate the King with nothing more than a well-aimed arrow.

  An arrow that came from…

  There, perched at the corner where the stained glass ceiling meets the high corner of the wall, is Red. She tucks her crossbow under her arm and ducks back into the shadows.

  People scream.

  A roar breaks across the crowd.

  Filthy, soot-covered men explode into the ballroom.

  Women run.

  The Founder Lords draw their swords—even Abel.

  A prisoner impales himself on Lord Vale’s sword. Maurus cuts into another with a vicious stab of his blade. Other prisoners lunge at the nobles still standing dumbstruck on the ballroom floor. One tears at jewelry, while another begins beating a middle-aged nobleman with the chain still attached to his arm.

  Everywhere, screaming.

  I just stand there, staring all around me. I cannot move. I cannot breathe.

  Prisoners flood the dais, and the High Guard springs into action. Silver armor swirls with flashes of his red tabard as he moves effortlessly through the men charging up onto the dais. Each drop in his wake as he swings a long sword in either hand and backs towards where the Prince clutches his fallen father. Swift swipes, never losing momentum, never pausing, just clean, simple killing strokes.

  A block, stab into the gut and rip up out of a man’s chest, bringing with it blood and a flash of white bone. A clang of sword against blackened chain, a swift cut across the neck. Bright red blood sprays in a torrent. Spin, thrust, parry, cut. As if he’s doing nothing more than orchestrated practice, a simple routine. A dance, encircling and drawing ever closer to the Prince still hunched over his father’s body.

  A man cries out from behind me.

  I spin around.

  A soot-covered prisoner shoves a guard off the dais. He stalks straight towards me, angry bloodshot eyes filled with rage. His skin almost glows, it’s so sickly pale, like he’s been in the Pits a very long time.

  I back away. He can’t know I’m partly responsible for his release, that I’m aligned with those who freed him. He only sees a gold-marked noble, dressed in finery, standing with the monarchy. I’d hate me too, if I were him.

  I glance around for help. The High Guard has nearly reached Prince Emory—his charge and I’ve already backed halfway across the dais, too far away. The Queen has been sequestered against the wall by a surround of guards.

  Only I stand stupidly out in the open.

  That tortured prisoner comes for me with a smile that bares blackened and broken teeth. Skies Above, surly Abel will come for me. He orchestrated this. He’ll be here.

  The man’s fist collides with my face. Pain explodes across my cheek.

  I hit the dais with a brutal bang of elbows and knees onto stone and a slick sheet of blood.

  The prisoner cackles out a laugh, clearly happy to die killing me. He reaches after me.

  I kick his knee and use his flinch to grab his arm and yank him down onto the stone beside me.

  I try to scramble away, but he grabs onto my dress and yanks me back. The fabric rips and I fall, sliding through slick, warm blood.

  The man claws after me, hands finding my throat with the power and rage I’ve felt only once before. When Maurus attacked me after cutting off Ray’s finger. When we’d both been burned by Wyvernfire. When my father died.

  Hate, I understand hate.

  But for me to make good on mine, I can’t die today.

  I fumble for the fan tucked in my skirt pocket. Its hard edges are palpable through the fabric, but I can’t find the pocket opening.

  My vision spots black and the pain of his grip on my throat nearly cripples me.

  There, hard and solid against my fingertips. I don’t wait. I find the secret latch and thrust the fan’s blade into his side, up under his ribs. Right where Abel taught me.

  The hands on my neck slacken and then tear away as the man is ripped from me.

  With my vision still blurry and dotted with black splotches, I’m certain it’s Abel.

  Except it’s not.

  Ray stands over me, his chest heaving. He takes the fan still gripped in my fist, triggers the mechanism to retract the blade, and shoves it back into my hand.

  A fleet of guards pour onto the dais. They surround me, Ray, and what’s left of the royal family.

  I’d killed that man. Killed a person. Just like that. Killed one of the very people I want so desperately to free, to protect. My entire body shakes. My head swims.

  Ray hoists me up with an arm around my waist. I stare up into his eyes, those steely dark eyes I should have recognized from the moment I saw them. And, for a beat of my heart, it’s just me and him, again. Us two, against the world. Saving one another, like old times.

  And then we’re being jostled away from the edge of the dais.

  Farnell. I twist to scan the room for any sign of his red hair.

  Except red is everywhere.

  The ballroom is a sea of carnage. Red pooled on the floor. Red splattered the walls. Bodies of soot-covered prisoners lay everywhere. Red. Red. Everything soaked in red.

  It stains my dress. My hands.

  Only a few scattered colors in the mix indicate fallen nobles. The Founder Lords—men who can’t die, except apparently for a perfect shot to the eye—stand with bloodied blades in their hands, panting as they survey the scene.

  A massacre. The prisoners hadn’t any hope at all.

  At the far side of the room, Lord Rael stands. My Abel, bloodied sword in hand, watching me. He’s even killed the prisoners he arranged to free. He shakes his head at me, one last time. One final time.

  Think of all the good you can do.

  He isn’t here for me, after all.

  You mustn’t get attached to me, or this, you know.

  Abel and the rebellion have used me.

  You and I don’t have the luxury of love.

  He isn’t going to save me, never was.

  By any means necessary. Remember that about me.

  No one will save me.

  With a great, shuddering crash, a massive beast slams into the domed ballroom ceiling and shattered glass rains down.