Royal guards.
Splatters of blood all over the walls. Long shapes on the floor. Guns. Machine guns? I gasped, inhaling the scent of death. Who would do this? Pirates use machetes. Skía use blades. Both use pistols, but no handgun caused this. This is a slaughter.
I couldn’t draw enough breath. All I could manage were panicky little gasps that left me feeling lightheaded.
“Welcome home, Highness.”
I whirled. A large man sits on the throne, but I recognized the voice that spoke. It wasn’t my father’s.
“Bashir? Oh, thank the goddess, you’re alive—”
The pale glow from my stick revealed my father’s head tilted at a strange angle. There’s a long shape sticking out of his—
“Bash, what have you done?” I whispered.
He emerged from the darkness behind the throne, demon-like.
“Where’s your little knight, Princess?” he sneered.
I said nothing. My eyes bounced between my father’s body, pinned to his throne, and the man I believed was a friend.
In his big paw was a square remote like the one I used to test the Sentinel legs. Like the one Raghnall used to control the demonstration Sentinel.
The insider.
Bashir. The jovial, pot-and-beer movie fan who pined for Raina.
Traitor.
Murderer.
I run.
