“Left! Left!”
He brings his dagger up at the same instant the basilisk swings its head around to bite him. A lucky strike. He buries the knife deep into its eye. The creature rears back with a deafening roar.
“Run!”
Alistair flings open his eyes and charges straight at the balcony. He shouts and leaps from the railing onto a chandelier, knocking lit candlesticks to the floor below.
Safe enough. For now.
The blinded, enraged basilisk’s skull cracks the mirror.
Apparently, you can’t believe everything you read in books. The mirror should have petrified it, even with one eye gone.
Rolling up, I lift my broadsword and shove it deep into the basilisk’s neck. Blood spurts upward, hitting me in the face. Warm. Sticky. It tastes of iron and victory.
Satisfaction delves deep into my bones. Adrenaline courses through me, useless now that our foe has been vanquished.
I kick the dead beast onto one side, bad eye down. The story that it can turn a man into stone may be a myth, but I never trust a monster. Not even a dead one.
“If you’re done dispatching the beast, I’m a bit stuck and could use some assistance.” Alistair’s complaint interrupts my examination of the dead basilisk. I find a second staircase and trot down to discover the crown prince dangling from a ring of iron suspended from the rafters.
I can’t not laugh.
“Either help me, or shut up,” he growls. “Ideally both.”
The rope holding up the chandelier parts with one swing of my sword. Easiest thing I’ve hit all day. He crashes down in a wreckage of candle wax and curses that would make a soldier blush.
I offer my hand. Wincing, he takes it and rolls up to stand.
“Your bride’s over there. Best go and awaken her before anything else comes along to eat us.”
He strides to the nave, silhouetted in its eerie phosphorescent glow, stripping off his chainmail shirt along the way. It clatters to the floor.
There’s no sign of the old woman.
At the base of the short stairs into the nave, Alistair hesitates.
“Toss me the pack.”
It takes me a minute to find it. When I do, I toss it down from the balcony. He catches it easily and bends. A low chuckle, barely audible even to my ears, rumbles through me when I realize what he’s doing.
5
Killian
Alistair takes out his blue velvet coat, flicks the braid on the shoulders straight, and straightens his collar. There’s nothing to be done about the dirt stains and torn seam at his shoulder, but he looks dashingly prince-like, if a bit worse for wear.
I scrub my forearm across my face in an attempt to remove the bloodstains drying there. It’s not that I care about my appearance. It’s itchy. That’s all. I’m not a fop like Alistair. Dressing up to make his special moment, after risking our necks to get here, the fool.
He mounts the three steps into the clerestory. I follow, some distance behind. He circles the glass coffin in the center. Blood-red roses surround it. After a hundred years, they should be dead and wilted, but they’re fresh, in full bloom.
I don’t like this. Any of it. The magic that animates this place is powerful, and we have no way to counter it. Anything could happen once he opens that coffin. I’ve never been one to disturb the dead.
Yet I cannot deny feeling the keen edge of curiosity press against my better judgment. I want to see the woman whose fabled beauty nearly started a war.
Now that Alistair has his prize within reach, he won’t be dissuaded from having her, no matter what hell he unleashes. I know him. We’re as close as kin—or at least, he is to me. To him, I’m only a servant willing to get my knuckles bloody on his behalf.
I owe him everything. He owes me nothing but this fucking castle and release from my sworn oath.
