Crush the King (Crown of Shards #3)(54)
I still wasn’t sure how Maximus had sensed the arrow streaking toward him, given all the people and chaos in the arena, but Serilda had done everything I had asked, and I reached out and squeezed her hand. “It’s not your fault. Perhaps it’s mine for not coming up with a better plan. I thought we could beat the Mortans at their own game and take Maximus by surprise by attacking right away, but I was wrong.”
Serilda squeezed my hand back, then rose to her feet. “It was a good plan. It almost worked.”
Unfortunately for me, almost wasn’t good enough when it came to the Mortan king.
“So what do we do now? Even if we did somehow get close enough to attack with our weapons, Maximus could always kill us with his weather magic,” Cho pointed out. “He could easily bludgeon us with his hailstones the same way he did that arrow. Or freeze us to death with his cold lightning.”
We all fell silent, contemplating those horrible possibilities. I leaned back against the pillows, trying to ignore how tired I still felt.
“Maximus isn’t the only one we need to worry about,” I said. “We need to be careful of Driscol too.”
“Why?” Paloma asked. “Driscol is just Maximus’s lackey. We all saw the two of them whispering on the terrace. We all know that Driscol is working for the Mortans instead of being neutral like he’s supposed to be.”
“I agree that Maximus probably told Driscol to send those assassins to kill Serilda in the plaza.”
“But?” Serilda asked.
“But just because Driscol is working for Maximus doesn’t mean that he’s not playing his own game and furthering his own agenda,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Cho asked.
“Maximus might have wanted those assassins to kill Serilda, but I don’t think that’s what Driscol ordered them to do. At least, not the last woman, the one who cut me. I think she was trying to capture me, just like the geldjagers tried to in Svalin.”
Auster frowned. “Why would you think that?”
I gestured at my healed arm. “Because she used blue sperren. If she had truly wanted to kill me, then her dagger would have been coated with wormroot or amethyst-eye or another deadly poison, like some of the other assassins’ blades were. Blue sperren can be fatal, but more often than not it just paralyzes people until you give them the antidote.”
“Blue sperren,” Sullivan muttered. “Of course. Helene told me about it once. I should have recognized it as soon as your lips turned blue.”
Helene Blume was a childhood friend of Sullivan’s and a powerful plant magier, so it made sense that she had encountered blue sperren.
Serilda’s eyes darkened, and the scent of her magic gusted around her. “Evie’s right,” she murmured. “I don’t think that last assassin wanted to kill you. Not unless you gave her no other choice. Otherwise, she would have rushed at you sooner and tried harder to immediately cut you down. But what was Driscol planning to do with you?”
“Ransom?” Auster suggested. “Maybe he wanted to trade Evie for a quick payday. Maybe he got greedy and thought his men could kill Serilda and kidnap Evie at the same time.”
“The DiLucris already have plenty of gold,” Paloma pointed out. “Their whole bloody Mint is covered with coins.”
“Maybe they wanted to sicken Evie so we would turn to them for help,” Serilda suggested. “Maybe they thought we would be stupid enough to let her out of our sight. Maybe they hoped to steal her away in the confusion. Or maybe Driscol thought Maximus would give him an even greater reward if he brought her to the king alive. The possibilities are endless.”
“Endless, maybe, but they all end pretty badly for me,” I muttered.
“I can make Driscol talk,” Sullivan snarled, blue lightning crackling around his clenched fists. “Get him to confess his scheme.”
“It wouldn’t do any good,” I replied. “Fortuna is like a kingdom unto itself, and the DiLucris are well protected on their island. Besides, they’ll be expecting us to retaliate, and Driscol will be even more well guarded now. We can’t afford to go to war with both the DiLucris and the Mortans at the same time, especially not this far from home. No, we stick to our original plan of trying to kill Maximus. He’s still the biggest threat to us, to Bellona. He might have escaped our first trap, but we can set another one for him.”
My friends fell silent, but the scent of their collective dusty resignation slowly filled the tent. They knew that we couldn’t strike back at the DiLucris. Not without making the situation even more dangerous.
“Well, Driscol and Maximus and whatever they’re plotting are problems for tomorrow,” Auster said. “I need to send a messenger over to the island to tell the other royals that you’re too ill to attend the ball.”
“Oh, I’m still going to the ball.”
Paloma, Sullivan, Cho, and Auster looked at me with surprise, but Serilda nodded, a thoughtful expression on her face. Her magic must have already told her that I still planned to attend. Well, that and the fact she knew how stubborn I was.
Sullivan surged to his feet and threw his hand out, gesturing at the bed I was still sitting on. “Twenty minutes ago, you were unconscious. You should forget about the ball, stay here, and rest.”
“Believe me, I would much rather spend the evening in bed, but I have to attend the ball, and I have to participate in the kronekling tournament. If I don’t go, then everyone will realize just how close that last assassin came to killing, kidnapping, or whatever she was trying to do to me.”