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  But that didn’t make sense — he’d been killed by an arrow, not a sword.

  There was a shout from behind me. Struggling to control my horror and confusion, I lifted my sword and spun around to see Damian rushing toward me with his own sword lifted, his eyes blank.

  “And now you will die,” Damian said, a sneer curling his lips.

  My whole body trembled and my head ached as I stepped back. “No. This isn’t real. You aren’t real!” I remembered the way Rafe had disappeared when I’d tried to attack him, and instead of continuing to retreat, I stopped and lifted my sword. “You aren’t real!”

  “Are you quite sure about that?” Damian laughed scornfully. He lunged at me, and when I lifted my sword to parry his attack, the sound of steel on steel clanged through the darkness.

  That was no mirage — that was a real sword. Had Damian escaped the guard? Could Manu be controlling him?

  With a gasp that was half dread, half desperation, I continued to block his assault. There was more screaming, but it sounded as though it were coming from somewhere far away, echoing through the swirling darkness as if we were in a cave or a tunnel. Damian continued to smile, his eyes terrifyingly empty as he attacked again and again. How did this happen? Was Rafe back? Had he done this?

  I choked on a sob as I deflected his hits again and again.

  “Come on, Alexa. You’re supposed to be better than this. I admit, I’m disappointed,” Damian mocked, his voice not quite ringing true for some reason. “You’re making this too easy.”

  But then I heard something else. My name, being shouted, a terrified, desperate sound — a voice I’d know anywhere. But that was impossible, because I was fighting him in front of me. How could he be shouting for me from somewhere else?

  I shook my head, trying to clear my hazy, confused thoughts. I could barely breathe as Damian with the blank eyes pressed his advantage and managed to nick my forearm with his blade before I spun out of reach. I tripped and nearly fell over a body, but when I glanced down, it wasn’t Papa or Marcel on the ground — it was General Ferraun, lying in a pool of blood, his eyes open, unseeing.

  With a gasp, I jerked up my head, and Damian’s features blurred for a second and then snapped back into focus. The cloud had lightened slightly; I could see shards of daylight again, and understanding suddenly struck me. This was not Damian. It was some sort of illusion — or hallucination. But if it wasn’t Damian … who was it?

  “Don’t quit on me now,” not-Damian taunted, swiping his sword toward my abdomen, but I jumped back just in time to avoid being gutted.

  “I never quit.”

  “Good. Because I don’t, either.” He pressed his advantage on me, his lips pulled back in a snarl. I realized he was herding me toward the door. “My king wants you alive, but that doesn’t mean you have to be functional. Perhaps even a simple vial of your blood would be sufficient, since I may have no other option.”

  “Alexa!” I heard Damian’s voice again from behind me, closer now.

  “No, Sire, you can’t go after her!” someone else shouted.

  “I will not fail,” not-Damian growled, and finally clarity rushed in. I realized who I was fighting. My grip on my sword tightened, despite the blood running down my wrist and dripping off my hand. I leaped forward with a cry of rage. Not-Damian’s eyes widened, but so did his grin. He met my attack with a sudden increase in skill. Had he been toying with me?

  I moved as fast as I could, as the cloud grew thinner and thinner around us, and slowly Damian’s features began to melt away from the man I fought, revealing eyes with abnormally large pupils and thin silver irises.

  “You made a mistake,” I grunted, as I parried another hit from him and took a step back.

  “Oh?” he lunged forward again, aiming for my sword arm, but I deflected him and spun around, slicing my sword through the air so quickly it whistled as it arced toward his body. He barely managed to block me, then used his sword to push me away and lunged toward me once more, aiming for my stomach. “I think not. You left me no choice except to attack now. But I never make mistakes.”

  “Yes, you do,” I shouted as I jumped back, just enough to let his blade slide by me. Before he completely missed, I grabbed his wrist with my free hand and twisted him around, using his own momentum to propel him past me. Before he could react, I spun and impaled him from behind. The same way he’d killed our man only minutes before. “It was a huge mistake to think you could ever beat me.”

  With a swift motion, I pulled my sword back, and he crumpled to the ground, just as the last of the fog cleared away, revealing the real Damian standing a few feet away, staring at me, his face pale, Deron and Mateo at his side, still holding him back.

  Our eyes met. I wanted nothing more than to have him rush to me and take me in his arms, but he stood still, watching me, motionless.

  When I looked down to see Manu lying next to the general, the adrenaline drained out of my body, leaving me trembling as I remembered I’d seen other bodies in my hallucination. Which meant …

  Dread pounded within me as I slowly turned. When I saw what was behind me, a sob tore through me. Lenora lay on the ground, her throat slit, her eyes open and unseeing. And beyond her was Oliver, one of the newer guards. Jerrod knelt beside him, his sword bloody.

  Jerrod looked up at us, his face drained of color. He kept shaking his head over and over. “I … I didn’t know. I thought … it wasn’t him. I swear I thought it was —” His voice broke and he stood up abruptly, throwing his sword to the ground with a clatter, and rushed from the room.

  “Jerrod!” I shouted, stepping forward to follow after him, but someone grabbed my arm.

  “Let him go.”

  I looked up to see Damian staring down at me, his eyes haunted. His gaze moved past my face, down to my sword hand. “You’re hurt.”

  “Just a scratch.” My whole body was beginning to shake.

  “What happened?” His voice was low and controlled. He was trying to hide his emotions from me.

  “It … it was terrifying. Some sort of sorcery that made me hallucinate. I saw … I saw …” Flashes of what I’d seen surged up: Iker, Rafe, my family lying dead around me — when it was really my friends and allies. The acid in my stomach surged up into my throat.

  I turned away from Damian to look back at the general and Lenora. Tanoori now knelt beside her friend. She held Lenora’s limp hand in hers, pressing it to her tear-streaked cheeks.

  Pulling free from Damian, I walked over to where Lenora lay, silent and still. When I touched Tanoori’s shoulder, she jumped and looked up at me with wild eyes.

  “It’s all right, it’s just me. It’s over now.” I tried to comfort her, even though the remnants of horror still lingered in my own veins, making my legs weak beneath me as I knelt beside Tanoori.

  “I heard her screaming. I heard her … but I thought I was in that … that place again. I thought the men were coming for me.” Tanoori’s voice cracked, and she crumpled into my lap, her shoulders shaking with sobs. “I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t … I couldn’t …”

  “We need Lisbet,” I heard Damian say from behind me. “She’s going into shock, and there are others who are injured. Mateo, you and Asher go find help to prepare the bodies. We will honor them tonight at sunset.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” the other guards murmured, but I didn’t look up. I just wrapped my arms around Tanoori and held her, trying to hold back my own tears.

  It seemed as though almost the entire palace had gathered in the courtyard, but despite the mass of people, there was a hush as Deron lit the torch and slowly moved his way down the funeral pyres. There were more than three — Manu had left a trail of bodies on his way to the throne room, starting with the new keeper of the keys, found with his throat slit in the cell Manu had been locked in. First one, then another, and another, and another, down the row until Deron finally reached General Ferraun’s. I stood next to Damian in a clean uniform, my forearm wrapped b
ecause there hadn’t been a chance for Lisbet to heal it yet. She’d been too busy taking care of Jerrod and Tanoori, sedating them both with an herbal concoction because they were so distraught.

  She’d also worked on Eljin a bit more, healing him enough that he was able to get up and move around. But he’d chosen to sit with Tanoori until the time came for the funerals. Now he stood beside me, his mask still missing. Two scarred sentinels beside our stoic king.

  Damian had hardly said a word since the attack. He stood stiffly now, staring at the flames as they rose higher to meet the last dying streaks of sunlight across the sky of Antion, above the massive palace wall and the jungle beyond it. His face had set into a stony facade, reminding me more of the Damian I had once known — or thought I’d known, before he revealed his true self to me. The firelight flickered across his face, sending his eyes into shadow, making the gold of his crown flare in the falling darkness. With a shiver, I looked forward again. The sight of the burning pyres was almost too much; it brought back the memory of another night, another time I’d stood here, watching the flames take away all that remained of someone I loved.

  Damian suddenly unsheathed his sword and lifted it up in front of his face, pointing it high, to the stars that had begun to flicker above us. The scrape of hundreds of swords being pulled from their scabbards sounded around us as I, the rest of the guard, and all the soldiers gathered did the same. Tears burned my eyes as the smoke billowed up into the oncoming night.

  Only I was close enough to see how Damian’s hand trembled slightly and the way a muscle in his jaw ticked.

  General Ferraun had been his ally and friend — the man who had taught him how to fight. There were very few people in Damian’s life who he felt he could trust, and now one of the most important ones — his head general — was gone.

  Finally, he lowered his sword, and again, we all followed his lead.

  I’d expected him to say something, and everyone else seemed to also as they looked up at their king. But he continued to stare forward, silent. The only sounds in the heat-drenched night were the occasional cry from a baby and the hiss and pop of the flames that consumed the wood of the pyres and the bodies of the slain. The choking smell burned my nose. I longed to escape, to leave the death and loss far behind me. But there was no true escape for any of us. I surveyed the people in front of me, the women in fine dresses standing next to soldiers in tattered uniforms, a few scattered children, their hands clutched in a father’s or mother’s. All of us, from the poorest soldier to the richest members of the royal court, had slept with war as our bedmate, with death as a constant threat, for most of our lives.

  The women from the breeding house — Lenora’s friends, their cheeks wet with tears — huddled together, some cradling babies in their arms. Which of them had hoped to learn how to fight? If Lenora had been trained, would her body still be on that burning pyre? Or would she have been able to protect herself, as she’d wished? Whatever it was that Manu had created, it had unleashed our worst nightmares upon everyone trapped in it. What — or who — had she believed killed her?

  Tears slipped over my own cheeks, and I swallowed hard to keep myself from breaking down entirely. It seemed as though the death, the pain, the fear and loss would never end.

  “No more.” Damian finally spoke, but it was a mutter. A quiet, cold statement. His sword clanged as he roughly shoved it into the scabbard at his side, then he turned on his heel and strode back into the palace.

  A murmur went through the crowd, a stunned, unhappy ripple of whispers.

  I stood there shocked for a moment, until Eljin said, “You’d better go after him.”

  I met his concerned gaze in the falling darkness and then spun on my heel and rushed after the king.

  I caught up to Damian in the grand entrance, just beyond the massive palace doors, which had been repaired after the fight with Iker and his father, when they’d been burned down. He was rushing toward the stairs, his long strides eating up the ground. I reached him just as he stepped up onto the first stair and grabbed his arm, but he yanked it free and whirled on me, his expression fierce, his eyes lit with fiery anger.

  I stumbled back, shocked. “What’s wrong?” I knew he was upset about General Ferraun’s death, but as he glared down at me, he looked furious, not sad.

  “What’s wrong?” He shook his head and pressed his lips together, until they were little more than a thin line of anger.

  Without another word, he spun and rushed away, taking the stairs two at a time. The doors behind us banged, and I glanced back to see Deron and a few other guards looking at me questioningly, but I shook my head.

  “Make an announcement that the king is feeling unwell but will address his subjects tomorrow, when he’s had time to process the shock of the events of this day. Station the guard at the bottom of the stairwells leading to this wing, and don’t let anyone up. He needs some space,” I instructed, making Deron’s eyebrows lift.

  “Who made you captain?” Asher groused.

  “Maybe she thinks she can boss us around since she’s going to be a queen now,” Leon piped up from behind Deron.

  “Enough,” Deron thundered. “You heard Alexa. Do as she said.”

  Our eyes met across the expanse, and he nodded, his expression grim. Something was very, very wrong. Damian was a consummate actor. He never let his emotions show like this.

  I turned and ran up the stairs after him.

  When I hit the landing of the second floor, it was just in time to see him turn the corner into his rooms and to hear the echo of his door slamming shut.

  “Damian!”

  I ran down the hallway and tried the handle, only to find it locked. “Damian!” I pounded on the door, my throat tight with fear. When he didn’t answer, I pounded even harder. “Damian, please let me in! You’re scaring me!”

  The door suddenly swung open, and I stumbled into his room. It was dark; there was no moon visible through the skylight. He turned and walked away, through the outer chamber and into his actual bedroom. I followed him, my heart thudding against my rib cage.

  “How does it feel?” he asked, his voice low, once I closed his bedroom door behind me. He stood a few feet away, a tall, shadowed figure in the nighttime.

  “Feel?” I echoed, confused and unaccountably nervous.

  “Yes. How does it feel to be scared for someone you love?”

  “You know very well what it feels like.” The humidity was stifling, making it hard to breathe. Or maybe it was the anger in his voice that made my lungs tighten, stealing my air.

  “Yes, I do.” He spun away from me, shoving his hands into his hair and crossing the room to kick the chair behind his desk. My eyes widened. I hadn’t seen him like this in so long — not since he’d stopped the act of playing the spoiled, petulant royal brat he’d portrayed for so long. “You nearly died today,” he said to the empty fireplace, his back to me. The anger was suddenly gone from his voice. In the darkness, his shoulders sagged.

  And I finally realized what was going on — he was mad. At me.

  “No, I didn’t. He barely even hurt me.” I hurried over to Damian to put my hand on his shoulder, but he flinched and moved away from my touch. I pulled back, hurt and confused.

  “Only because he couldn’t get to you fast enough!” Damian slammed his fist against the wall and then turned to face me, his eyes wild in the dim light, his hair askew. “Tanoori told Eljin what it was like. She told him what that poisonous vapor did to you all. What did you see in there? Who did you think you were fighting?”

  He searched my face, his expression stony, brooking no patience with lies.

  “You,” I whispered, my heart in my throat. “I thought I was fighting you again.”

  “Then I was right. You almost died.”

  “No, I wasn’t —”

  “You were going to let me kill you rather than hurt me the other night. And that’s what would have happened again, if that cloud hadn’t begun to dissipate
before it was too late. You weren’t actually fighting me, but you thought you were, so you would have given up rather than hurt me. The only difference was that man wouldn’t have made himself stop like I did.” Damian spoke in a rush, stepping closer to me. “And he would have killed you.”

  I stared up at him, struck silent. “But he didn’t,” I finally repeated quietly.

  “You pushed me away. You had them drag me out of there — away from you.” He lifted one hand as though he wanted to stroke my face, but he paused before actually touching me, his fingers shaking in the space between us. “How could you do that to me? I had to threaten them with their lives, as their king, to get Deron to let me go back in. I had to use my sorcery against my own men.” He closed his hand into a fist and let it drop to his side. “It made me sick to do it, but I was sure I’d lost you. And I was sure that when I finally reached you, I would find a corpse, instead of my fiancée.”

  “I’m your guard, Damian! It’s my job to protect you! When are you going to learn that and stop risking yourself for me?”

  “When are you going to learn that you are not just my guard?” Damian finally touched me, but it was no gentle caress of a lover. He grabbed my shoulders, his fingers digging in to my muscle and bone. “You are to be my queen.”

  “I —”

  “I love you, Alexa.” He cut me off, his voice urgent and tinged with hopelessness. “You’re all I have, and yet you throw your life around as though it were worth nothing, and I can’t take it. I can’t take the thought of losing you.”

  “Damian, I’m —”

  But then his mouth covered mine, stopping my words with his kiss. He crushed me to him, his lips hungry and desperate. I clung to him, my own fear and love surging through my body at his touch. His hands twisted in my tunic, pulling it up to expose the skin of my back. When his fingers brushed my spine, skimming the scars from the wounds Lisbet had healed, I shivered. A want I could barely understand swelled through me, making me feel both weak and strong at once. I threaded a hand through his hair, pushing against him, molding my body to his. He backed me up until I was pressed against the wall. He kissed my jaw, moving down my neck. I couldn’t breathe as his hands kneaded their way up my back, pushing my shirt up higher, exposing my stomach so I could feel the fabric of his tunic against my skin.