The back of Alyea’s tongue soured to a harsh, strained feeling as soon as she set her hand on the latch to the outer door. “Wait,” Fimre said at the same moment. “There’s someone outside.”
Alyea shut her eyes and focused. “More than one,” she told him. “Six.”
Fimre snorted. “They’re not here to be friendly, I’m guessing.”
“No.” She reached out, focusing more intensely than she’d ever known possible. “They’re here to arrest us.”
“Is that all?” Fimre said. “We can handle that. Now, if they had orders to kill us, that would be a problem.” He laughed a little, as though recalling something from years ago.
A bleak, dark rage stirred in Alyea’s chest. “They have no right,” she said, the words emerging deeper and rougher than she’d intended. Fimre studied her with narrowed eyes, shaking his head slowly.
“You tried to kill the king, Alyea,” he pointed out. “That generally upsets the people tasked to guard him.”
“I didn’t—”
Fimre held up a hand. “I know. But that’s what they saw.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Let them arrest us, Alyea. It’s the easiest and safest way to sort this out—”
Fury spiked at the notion of letting herself be chained. “No,” she said through her teeth.
“Aly—”
“We are going to talk to Oruen.” She seized Fimre’s forearm, digging her fingers in hard, spinning options through her head in rapid sequence even as her hand tightened around his arm: Not to the throne room, not to the audience hall, not to the dining hall—definitely not his bedchamber, because if he’s there he’s already dead or dying—
She wouldn’t let herself think about that.
I didn’t kill him. I didn’t. I wouldn’t do that.
She decided on the most likely place, his favorite, most comfortable setting, then jerked Fimre sideways into an infinite instant of inverted movement.
The walls of a familiar small room took shape around them a moment later. Fimre sagged, dry-retching. She let him collapse and turned sharply round to take in the entire room in a fast sweep of awareness.
Guards, of course—two by the door, two to either side of Oruen, and she could feel the presence of armed watchers behind every hidden panel. In the fractional moment before they all began moving, Alyea said, very loudly, “Stop.”
Stillness descended, shock cascading across every expression. Oruen’s face went even more ashen, and he shrank back in his chair, hands up to ward her off.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Alyea said, directing the words to Oruen. She began to apologize, but found the words stuck in her throat. I don’t have to apologize to this human, something whispered in the back of her mind. He should be apologizing to me.
She shook her head, bewildered. Fimre lurched to his feet, rubbing his throat, and rasped, “Lord Oruen. Thank the gods you’re all right.” He glanced around the room, letting out a rough grunt of astonishment. “How in the hells?” he muttered. “Alyea, how did you—?”
Alyea ignored him, more interested in watching Oruen. Mine, said a thready voice in the back of her mind. He is mine, and must give me proper respect.
Oruen didn’t take his haggard stare from Alyea. “I wouldn’t quite say I’m all right,” he said.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Alyea snapped, incensed at the disrespect. After all she’d done for him—
Fimre put his hand on her shoulder, his fingers tightening. “Alyea,” he said in an undertone. “Please. Let me handle this—”
He dares touch me, dares to tell me what to do—Rage rose, uncontrollable and serpentine, threading through every nerve in her body. Her vision blurred. When it cleared, everything had changed.
Fimre sprawled limp against the far wall. A chair lay in splinters, forming a bizarre bread-crumb trail between Alyea and the unconscious desert lord. Four guards stood between Alyea and Oruen, and a panel in the wall behind the king was sliding open, a hand reaching out to tug the king to safety.
“Oh gods,” Alyea said aloud, horrified. “What the hells—what did I just—? Fimre?” She looked at the fractured chair leg in her hand, at Oruen’s retreating back, at the expressions of the guards—at the small holes in the walls where hidden panels had slid back—at the tiny blowgun darts skimming through the air toward her—
Half a heartbeat later, a dozen sharp stings peppered across her body. Two increasingly staggered, thundering heartbeats after that, black silence descended.