Gathering Darkness (Falling Kingdoms #3)(93)

He stood in silence, looking from the sawdust at his feet to the princess before him, considering his options. They were few and far between.

“Are you finished with your interrogation, your highness?” Cronus asked, his sword flashing in the entryway.

Magnus looked to Cleo. Her eyes flashed with fear as she realized how this was to end.

“That’s right,” he said evenly. “You’ve been sentenced to death by the king for being under suspicion of aiding a rebel. We will carry out the execution immediately.”

She began to tremble. “No, don’t do this. You’re better than this, Magnus. You’re not like your father. You’re capable of good, I’ve seen it in your eyes. I know it in my heart!”

“In your heart?” He laughed, a dry, brittle sound that hurt the back of his throat. “Those are rather flowery words for a time like this, but you should save your breath. It’s time for this to end.”

As soon as the words were out, Cronus shifted his expression into a battle mask: his eyes cold, serpentine, and free of emotion, just as they’d been the day he slayed Gregor. Even when tasked with executing a helpless sixteen-year-old girl, he didn’t flinch.

The futures of Mytica, the king, and of Magnus himself—they all depended on Cleo’s death here and now.

She struggled with the rope binding her wrists as Cronus drew closer, as if she had any hope of freeing herself. But even in the face of imminent death, she didn’t cry out. She didn’t scream, didn’t beg.

Cronus raised his sword, preparing to thrust it through the fine silk of her bodice. He would make it a quick death without excessive pain and suffering—over fast, in the blink of an eye with only a moment of pain to endure.

But before Cronus could send the blade through Cleo’s heart, he halted for a mere fraction of a second.

Because another blade found his heart first.

Cronus gasped, looking down at the tip of the sword impaling him from behind. He dropped his weapon and fell to his knees on the dungeon cell floor.

Magnus yanked his weapon back, letting Cronus drop fully to the ground as he hissed out his last breath.

The second guard grappled for his weapon, but Magnus got to him first, his bloodied sword nothing but a flash of metal in the flickering torchlight as he struck him. The confused guard dropped soundlessly and was dead before he hit the floor.

Magnus, muscles tense and blood dripping from his blade, studied the body for a moment. Slowly, he turned to look at the princess, who was staring at him with shock etched onto her face. A shriek finally escaped her throat as he raised his sword and hacked through the ropes above her head.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her across the room, kicking the door open.

“What are you—?”

“Shut up,” he hissed. “Do not talk.”

“You killed them!”

He had had to. There was no other way this could have ended today. He’d run out of options. He’d gone against his father’s direct orders and murdered the king’s most trusted guard, whom Magnus had known since he was only a child.

Cronus would be missed, but he’d had to die. He wouldn’t have obeyed Magnus’s command to stand down over the king’s order to execute Cleo.

He closed the door behind them to hide the carnage inside and they hurried down the dank and narrow dungeon corridor.

Very few in the palace knew who was being held in that private cell. With the wedding soon to commence and servants and guards scurrying to accommodate the last-minute arrangements, Magnus reasoned that it could take hours before anyone would learn the truth.

He had some time. Not much, but he hoped that it would be enough.

They finally cleared the dungeon and were outside. Magnus turned to Cleo, who was staring up at the brilliant late-afternoon sky as if she’d never expected to see it again.

“You said you know where Lucia and Alexius have gone,” he said.

She nodded. “I must confess, it’s only a guess. But I’m certain it’s the right one.”

“Where?” When she didn’t answer right away, he took her by her arms and nearly shouted it. “Where?”

“Limeros,” she finally replied.

Limeros? His homeland was far from here; it would take days to reach by ship. “Why Limeros?”

Instead of gazing at him with gratitude for saving her life, Cleo glared at Magnus with her same old defiance. “Because the water Kindred can be claimed at the Temple of Valoria. Lucia told me this only today, just before the guards took me. If I’m right, and if Alexius wants more from Lucia than her hand in marriage, then that’s where I think they’re headed. And what better way to lure her away from her family than with the promise of eloping to the home she’s missed for months?”

Another crystal uncovered and ready to be claimed. Magnus’s gut told him Cleo was right about everything.

“Then that’s where we’re going,” he said firmly. “To Limeros.”

She gasped. “We?”

“Yes, princess. We.”





CHAPTER 28


NIC

AURANOS



Five hundred invited guests attended the wedding of Lord Gareth’s daughter, held at the Auranian palace—those of importance in this kingdom who’d pledged their loyalty to its new king, and those who’d made the journey here from Limeros. An invitation to such an important event could not be ignored.