Page 230 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Stay for the sweep, please. Make sure any weapons found down there are brought to the barracks. I need to make sure she gets any of hers back.”

Mikael knew how many things of hers came from Bronson, birthday and solstice gifts and the like, and he didn’t think that was a blow she’d be able to handle. He had a feeling the times they were about to face would be trying enough on their own.

“Of course, I’ll— Oh, oh gods, alright.” Gunner looked downright terrified as Mikael eased Cyril into his arms and she groaned in discomfort. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Those protesting, unhappy noises continued as Mikael mounted his horse and Gunner helped to haul Cyril up in front of him. Not an ideal mode of transportation by any stretch of the imagination, but with a horse lead tied around them and his arm across her chest, holding her firm to him, Mikael was ready to get the fuck out of Brynnhold.

Gunner patted his arm and walked the few steps back to the group gathered just outside the warehouse door.

“Get her home safe, boss,” he said, splaying his hand over his heart.

Salutes went up as Mikael nudged his horse into motion and rode like hell.

Chapter 60

The steel and sandstone pillars of the palace gates were still at least a hundred feet away, a flurry of night-shrouded activity happening behind them, when a white-haired, uniformed body came barreling down the path.

“Mikael, what the fuck?!”

Kaia always was remarkable at sprinting.

“Is she—oh gods. She isn’t…? Nononono.” Kaia came to a stumbling stop beside Mikael’s horse. “She’s okay?”

Her wide hazel eyes darted between him and Cyril’s limp body, but Mikael didn’t stop riding. He honed all of his focus on getting Cyril inside the walls that he could see now, on getting her warm and clean and dry as soon as possible.

It killed him to jostle her battered body around on horseback, but options weren’t plentiful. What was he going to do? Carry her to some shady inn for the night and then haul her back in the daylight, when she was conscious and far too aware of the scale of her injuries?

That would have been unfathomably cruel after all she endured.

“She’ll be okay,” Mikael said, his voice far more uneasy than he wanted.

His words were something he didn’t entirely believe yet, despite Wren’s reassurances. Healing magic of the scale Wren administered—bringing someone back from the brink of fucking death—came with no shortage of side effects, and Cyril was in store for a brutal recovery.

“Come with me to the doors. I’ll need help to get her down.”

“Of course, I…” Kaia kept pace, jogging alongside his horse, but the look of disbelief never left her face.

There was a tinge of guilt in her eyes too, the same as Mikael was sure sat in his own—that they did this to her. That they were the ones that gave her everything she needed to nearly get herself killed.

“Mika, what…” Her attention lingered on Cyril and she shook her head—an act of composure, he knew. “What happened to her…?”

“She found something she shouldn’t have. Nearly bled out.”

It came out so cold, so callous, but that was all he knew.

And truthfully, he wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to know the finer details of what happened for her to sustain injuries that grievous.

“…but who attacked her? Do we know…are they still…?”

Kaia was not usually a woman who struggled with her words.

“She killed two people. I…that’s all I know. A contingent is there cleaning up…everything.”

Kaia nodded and didn’t say another word as they crested through the gates and cleared the last stretch of the road. Right past the slew of gawking and wide-eyed guards and officials scattered through the courtyard.

The hopes he had of getting Cyril upstairs with any privacy were gone.

At the base of the stairs, he tipped her head back, choosing to ignore the shocked breath Kaia sucked in as she took in Cyril’s bloody and battered face. A ring of black bruises had already bloomed around her throat.