Page 116 of The Half King
In the moment before the pain came, it struck her how graceful Nina looked in death. Even with the curse broken, she could still stare at Nina for hours and never get her fill.
Then the grief hit.
It started as a pinprick of pain at the base of her throat and spread in both directions—up into her face, where it pressed her eyes and squeezed her temples, and down into her chest, where it stretched her ribs until she feared they might crack. Something inside her shifted and broke. Instinctively, she knew she would never be whole again. Part of her life had ended. The sweetest part. The time of love and light and laughter was over. Now she existed in the dark, with nothing but emptiness all around.
She hadn’t simply lost a mother or a sister. She had lost the sun and every star in the sky.
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Cerise stumbled away from Nina’s body.
“Mother Shiera, mistress of worlds,” she heard herself say. Her voice broke. She couldn’t finish the prayer for the departed. She wasn’t ready to recite the words. Praying for Nina would mean admitting she was dead, and she simply couldn’t do that. Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Noises and flashes of light surrounded her, muted as though she were underwater. From the opposite end of the prayer room, the motion of fabric and the sound of shoes told her the priests had breached the sanctuary. Kian materialized by her side, naked and flinching with the shock of the chaos he’d appeared into—smoke in the air, bodies on the floor, General Petros unconscious, Father Padron wounded, and the priests scurrying to his aid.
“What in damnation?” Kian asked her. “Whose blood is this? What’s happening? Did you break the curse—is that why I’m here?”
Yes, she had broken the curse. Along with her own heart.
She faced away from him. She couldn’t look him in the eyes. The logical part of her knew that his command had saved her life. Father Padron would have killed her if she’d surrendered, and he probably would have killed Nina, too. But she also knew that her survival had come at a price.
It had cost her the sun.
Kian pulled her back to him, wrapping both arms around her waist and tackling her to the floor. The blow jarred her senses into place.
She glanced up and watched magic rend the air where she had just stood. Father Padron had made it to his feet, swaying visibly as he clutched a scarlet gash low on his abdomen. Blood flowed between his fingers. Sweat covered his face, his gaze shifting focus, but like the feral beast that he was, his wounds were bound to make him even more dangerous.
Cerise pushed to her knees and prepared to defend her king. From behind her, she heard Kian order Father Padron to stand down—impotent words that went ignored. Father Padron released a bitter laugh, and the next thing Cerise knew, she tasted energy, and her body stiffened where she knelt on the floor. She hadn’t defended herself in time. Her grief had made her slow, but not Father Padron. He had already paralyzed her, starting with her limbs and ending with her lungs. Unable to move or breathe, she saw Kian in her peripheral vision. He was trapped under the same enchantment, frozen beneath Father Padron’s glare.
“You don’t command me,Your Highness,” Father Padron spat. “And you never will again. By this night’s end, I’ll make you wish you had surrendered into the shadows for all of eternity.”
Grief gave way to fear. Cerise ached to breathe, but she couldn’t reach her own energy. Padron had somehow paralyzed that, too. He closed the distance between them and then leaned aside as much as his wound would allow, bending to look her in the eyes, to savor her suffering. A smile had barely curved his lips when something struck his shoulder hard enough to spin him around. Cerise heard the tearing of flesh, and his enchantment broke. All of a sudden, she and Kian were free.
She drew a breath and glanced behind Father Padron to find Delora holding a bow, already nocking a second arrow. Two priests used their magic to disarm Delora, and in a flash, she was face down on the floor with her wrists behind her back—but Blue charged ahead, snarling at Father Padron.
Padron cast a shield around himself, and Blue skidded to a halt and clawed at it. When Blue couldn’t penetrate the magic, he loped to Cerise and whined in agitation. The violence in the air had triggered his predatory instincts, and he didn’t seem to know what to do with himself. From somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled to summon the royal guard, and Blue tipped back his head and released a savage howl.
“Let her go,” Kian ordered the priests while pointing at Delora. “Your high priest has committed treason. You will assist me in taking—”
“You will do no such thing!” Father Padron called to his priests. “You will kill the emissary, her beast, and anyone who stands in your way!” He yanked the arrow from his shoulder and then thrust it toward her. “Cerise Solon is a heretic and a sorceress!”
At once, Cerise cast a shield in front of herself, Blue, and the king. Hiding her magic was no longer an option.
Kian had torn a strip of fabric from the curtains and tied it around his waist. “You will stand down,” he repeated to the priests. “And assist the royal guard in—”
“Kian Mortara no longer commands you,” Father Padron shouted. “Your chains are broken. Test your magic and see! You are beholden to no layman—and to no false king! This is the day I have promised you! The day we reclaim our divine right to rule after a thousand years of oppression!”
Daerick shouted from the sanctuary entrance, “The royal guard is coming, and so is every man and woman in the palace capable of holding a blade. I don’t think any of you want to fight a bloody battle in this room tonight—I know I don’t—but unless you bend the knee to your king, that will happen. People will die here. I guarantee some of them will be you.”
Daerick had just finished his warning when the first squadron of the royal guard arrived. Dozens of uniformed soldiers armed with swords and bows gathered outside the sanctuary, seemingly unsure if they should enter. Through the crowd, Cerise could see servants, stable hands, and cooks, each of them bearing a makeshift weapon of their own—a shovel, a kitchen knife, a pitchfork. The workers looked to one another in confusion. Kian extended a palm to hold them off.
“Choose your next actions carefully,” Kian told the priests, who outnumbered his royal guard. Even if more guards arrived, their swords and arrows couldn’t match the combined magic of the Order.
Daerick had been right. People would die if the priests turned against the king. Cerise’s body went numb as her gaze was drawn once more to Nina.All of themmight die if the priests turned against the king.
“The penalty for treason is death,” Kian continued. “Obey me, go and stand with my guard, and all will be forgiven.”
