Page 104 of Down Comes the Night

“Of course it’s not true!”

“I can’t risk it.” There was a confession in his eyes. It was bright as a golden coin shimmering at the bottom of dark well water. Its intensity—its finality—frightened her. “I can’t risk you. It’s exactly as he said. If you can’t indict him for murder, you and I will be tried for conspiracy against the crown.”

“But if you surrender now, you’ll die regardless. The queen will execute you for war crimes.”

With the droop of his shoulders and the deep crease in his forehead, he aged years before her eyes. “I know. But if both of us take the fall here, there is no hope for peace.”

“There has to be a better way.”

His silence was answer enough. He’d given up.

But the look on his face didn’t shatter her. It angered her. Maybe he was right. Maybe his surrender would give them the only chance they had at taking Lowry down. But Wren refused to let him sink into despair. No matter how miserably the odds were stacked against them, no matter what she had to do, she would fight for him. Forthem.

She took him by the shoulders. “Listen to me, Hal. You’re not dying—not as long as I draw breath. As soon as the Guard comes, I’ll demand to be taken to the queen. I’ll tell her everything, and if the evidence doesn’t convince her, I’ll go to Parliament. Andif they aren’t appalled or afraid of Vesria retaliating against us, I’ll…”

She’d find a way to appeal to the Goddess herself if she had to. She’d do anything if it meant he’d live.

“I’ll get you home. I swear it on my life,” she said. Maybe every promise she made him was naïve and reckless. But for once, even as tears stung her eyes, she was not ashamed of it. “Tell me you believe me.”

“I believe you.”

“Good.”

Wren couldn’t be sure which of them moved first. He crooked his finger under her chin, tipping her face toward his. She lifted onto her toes. His fingers were cold against her face, but the whisper of his breath against her lips set her ablaze. She had never wanted anything more than this last inch of space between them to disappear. She wanted to bottle that look in his eyes, so longing and desperate—for more time, forher.

“Check the east wing!” someone shouted.

They jumped apart, and Wren felt as if she’d plunged beneath the surface of an iced-over lake. The world flooded back, cold and dark. There was no more time.

The tapestry was rent from the stone archway with theshushof heavy fabric and clattered to the ground like a felled fortress wall. Light from the grand hall blinded her, and when the spots in her vision cleared, she saw Una, flanked by two Guardsmen, one hand on the pommel of her sword. Wren watched them absorb the scene piece by piece.

Lowry, unconscious on the ground.

Hal, his hands raised, Lowry’s bloodied knife dangling from his fingers.

Her, standing bare inches from him.

A hush fell like an executioner’s blade.

“Hal Cavendish,” someone hissed, drawing his sword with a high ringing sound.

“Stand down,” Una snapped. “Silence.”

Her subordinates shifted restlessly, awaiting their next orders. Una, however, regarded Wren coldly before her focus locked onto Hal. Her hand did not drift from her blade. “Talk. Now.”

“I wish to confess,” Hal said quietly, “to the attempted assassination of Alistair Lowry. I surrender myself into your custody.”

She jerked her chin at Wren. “And her?”

“I was about to dispose of her before you came,” he said in a voice that chilled Wren to the bone. “It is because of her that he still lives.”

“Don’t listen to him, Captain,” one of her men shouted. “Let me—”

“I saidsilence,” Una barked. Wren knew that tension in her shoulders. It was the stress of a leader deciding what to do for the safety of her squad, for the good of her home. “Drop your weapon, Reaper.”

Hal let it fall with a clatter onto the stones.

Una’s eyes slid from the knife to the blood still drying on Wren’s arm, as if trying to make sense of what had happened. “I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time. I’d only hoped you would put up more of a fight.”