Crush the King (Crown of Shards #3)(49)



Paloma stepped over the woman’s body and stopped in front of me, while Sullivan hurried over to me as well. I looked them both up and down, but they seemed fine, except for the blood on their clothes.

I made sure that it wasn’t their blood, then glanced at Auster, who had been battling assassins a little farther away. He too seemed fine and headed in this direction. Finally, my gaze focused on Serilda. Bodies littered the ground all around her, cuts and bruises dotted her face and hands, and blood covered her clothes, but she was still in one piece and limping this way.

A relieved breath escaped my lips. Everyone was more or less okay, and my friends and I had survived another attack.

Normally, the thought of how close we had all come to dying—again—wouldn’t have bothered me. At least not until tonight when I was asleep, and the battle started haunting my dreams like so many others did. But for some reason, the sight of the last assassin’s blood oozing across the stones made me sick to my stomach, and I had to resist the urge to vomit.

Now that the battle was over, the other people in the plaza tiptoed forward, staring at the smoldering carts, the dead bodies, and especially me and my friends in the center of it all. The Bellonan guards finally broke through the crowd and flanked us, but they couldn’t shield me from people’s words.

“Is that the Bellonan queen?”

“Is she hurt?”

“I wonder who tried to kill her.”

“It had to be the Morricones. Everyone knows how much their king hates Bellonans, especially the Blairs . . .”

The speculation and the comments went on and on. Each one made more and more guilt flood my body, adding to the sick sensation in my stomach. Maximus had been trying to kill someone else for a change, although he’d only gone after Serilda because of me. Once again, I thought of Diante’s words back at Seven Spire. She was right. I would much rather put myself in danger than be the cause of it for my friends.

Auster reached my position, although he kept glancing around, scanning the crowd for other threats. “There could be more of them. We need to leave.”

I slowly slid my sword back into its scabbard. The light tearstone blade suddenly seemed strangely heavy. “Okay. Just give me a minute to get my breath back—”

“What is the meaning of this?” A voice rose up from the direction of the Mint. “Out of the way! Get out of the way!”

People stepped aside, and Driscol hurried in our direction, along with the DiLucri guards who had stood by and watched the battle. Seraphine trailed along in their wake, as calm and serene as ever.

Driscol stopped a few feet away from me. His gaze flicked from one dead assassin to the next, his face getting redder and redder all the while. He was probably embarrassed that they had failed, just like the geldjagers he’d sent to Bellona had failed.

He fixed his angry gaze on me. “What is the meaning of this? This is supposed to be a peaceable island!”

I stared him down. “Then perhaps you should tell that to the assassins who tried to kill my advisor. Oh, wait. You can’t because they’re all dead.”

Driscol opened his mouth, probably to yell some more, but Seraphine glided forward and touched his arm.

“Now, now, Driscol,” she cooed in a soft voice. “The only thing that truly matters is that Queen Everleigh and her friends survived and the assassins didn’t.”

Driscol eyed her, and she looked right back at him, that bland smile still firmly fixed on her face. The two of them must have reached some silent understanding, because he nodded, and some of the redness leached out of his face. “You’re right, sister. You always are.”

It was like a beauty taming a beast in some old fairy tale. Seraphine smiled at him again, and he turned back to me.

“Please forgive me, Queen Everleigh,” Driscol said, a faint groveling note in his voice. “I meant no disrespect.”

He sucked in another breath, as if to expand on his fake apology, but my cold, disbelieving glare must have made him think better of it because he clamped his lips shut.

In the distance, I could see more guards streaming out of the Mint and heading in our direction. In another minute, Driscol would have enough men to surround me, my friends, and the Bellonan guards. It was definitely time for us to leave, but for some reason I remained rooted in place, standing in the shadow of the coined-woman statue. My breathing had finally slowed down, although my heart kept pounding and pounding, even as this strange lethargy spread over me.

“Evie,” Paloma said in a low, warning voice. “You’re bleeding.”

I glanced down. The gash that the last assassin had sliced into my left forearm was oozing blood, and the drops hit the cobblestones like soft scarlet coins. Plop-plop-plop-plop.

I had been so focused on just staying alive that I hadn’t realized exactly how deep and gruesome the wound was—or that it was poisoned.

Perhaps it was the overpowering stench of the ogre’s fried flesh and singed hair still filling the air, along with the acrid aroma of the charred fish, but I hadn’t sensed the poison on the assassin’s dagger. Otherwise, I would have tried harder not to let her cut me with the blade.

The poison had a harsh, coppery scent, along with a cold note, as if someone had somehow mixed blood and frost together. It was an unusual aroma, and the poison didn’t have a caustic burn like wormroot that would tell me exactly how strong it was—or how quickly it might kill me.

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