Page 119 of Born of Starlight
Asterie.
“No…” I had no breath. “No, fuck—no!”
“Fenris, don’t…” Sybilla tried to catch my arm, but her hand slung back with a hiss as my skin ignited. I’d burn anything between me and Asterie. “Fenris, wait!”
Her words blurred behind the roar in my ears as I launched through one of the crenels of the south wall and began to scale my way down.
Down to kill the bitch that dared to lay a hand on the most precious thing to happen to me.
Firose would pay for whatever she had done.
Chapter35
Queen Sybilla Wymark
That crazy motherfucker was going to kill the newly appointedQueenof the North. As Fenris scaled down the jagged stone wall with adrenaline-fueled precision, all I could do was watch in horror.
I was on the upper south wall—I’d requested to be alone here. If the palace was to be sieged, it would be among the first walls to fall. With me dead, or captured, I hoped the attack would relent and soldiers would not kill those in the Keep behind me or the tunnels below.
My breath hitched and my heart clenched at the sight of Emmerick in the chaos below. Seeing him chained made me seethe. It made me root for the warlock even more.Let him set her aflame.
Emmerick’s rage felt like cold tacks dragging along my spine. It tasted metallic, like blood slipping between a split lip. He looked at the tower and pushed through my carefully built mental blocks. It wasn’t hard to focus on his thoughts alone—they were so loud.
“My Queen.” His voice soothed me. His next thoughts made my heart stop. “How long have you known?”
All that bitterness wasn’t entirely aimed at his adversary.No, some of it was aimed atme.
Shit.Emmerick knew.
“Since the first time that I kissed you.” I pushed that admission into his head.
My father would have been proud of me for not disclosing a truth that could have threatened our Corridor—for holding it from Emmerick all these years.
“Come here and sit.” My father pulled me by my hand to sit on the sofa beside him. It was our first moment alone since traveling to the North Corridor. He’d been furious with me for inviting Emmerick along—but I’d needed a groom for the horses. At sixteen, I’d entered the age that selecting my own staff for long travels from home wasn’t out of the ordinary.
There were so few of them whose thoughts I could endure.
My father and I awaited King Mattock, our Corridor’s long-time ally. We sat in his study in the Castle of Helos. The walls were weighted with so much gold it burned my eyes.The Sun King.Every inch of his study reflected the sun’s rays. The castle was built atop the highest peak of the Hussa mountain range—the closest point to the sun in all the realm.
“The stable boy. It is okay that you are friends, but you must promise that it is friendship alone. It can never surpass that. He has work to do. And you have a Corridor to rule.”
Was he seriously lecturing me about Emmerick before we were to meet with the North King?
“Father.” I rolled my eyes.
“Sybilla.” His tone was serious and gruff. He wasn’t fucking around, and I knew he could make this visit a miserable one. Since I had not earned any bruises on this trip yet, I conceded to choose my battles. “I mean it.”
My father had always liked the stable boy, allowing him to teach me how to use a bow and arrow. Emmerick had access to me that no other boy two years my senior would be caught dead with.
Suddenly, the reality of that set in. He trusted Emmerick with me more than he trusted me with Emmerick.
“I’m offended by your insinuation that I lack self-control. Have you asked this of him too?”
“He understands his place in my court. And it ismycourt until my dying breath—”
He was interrupted by his own fit of coughing.
Mattock entered, cutting my father’s cough-filled tirade short.
