Page 168 of A Touch of Poison
“Katherine.” My legs gave out, and I didn’t even care that one of my guards had to catch me.
Becauseshe was alive.
Pale and wearing manacles as well as a shirt several sizes too large instead of her own, butalive.
She eyed me, frowning. “Are you all right?”
Of all the things, whenshehad been shot through the chest.
“I thought you were dead.” I finally let myself think the word I had been avoiding since she’d been hit.
She flashed a small smile. “So did I. They have healers who operated on me.” Her gaze fell to her hands, now unstained, and the smile faded. “Someone touched my blood and died.”
There she was, thinking of herself as a monster again.
I reached for her. “It’s all—”
“Silence.” A guard blocked me, then the doors swung open.
A long space. Originally a formal dining room, most likely. Glazed doors lined one side, facing the setting sun, casting the room in an orange blaze. I catalogued it all as the guards hustled us inside.
Kat was alive. That meant my plan wasn’t one for revenge anymore, but escape.
Even with the weakness in my limbs, I carried that idea in my chest, a beacon that filled me.
Gardens outside, but overgrown with ivy and shrubs that might have once been clipped into topiary. They’d provide cover.
“Well, look who it is.” A woman’s voice rang out across the room.
The blood in my veins froze.
That voice. Like Braea’s but higher pitched.
I knew that voice and the laugh that followed it.
The world shifted in and out of focus as I blinked at the table the guards led us to.
Behind it sat Princess Sura.
64
Bastian
“Ikilled you.” I didn’t mean to speak, but the thought came out as though saying it would remind the universe that fifteen years ago I had beheaded her. I swayed as a cold weight dragged on my stomach and the world spun out of control.
“Clearly, you didn’t do a very good job of it.” She bared her teeth and shrugged.
Wide-set black eyes like her mother’s, with paler golden skin. She’d tied her midnight curls into a high ponytail—a style I’d never seen her wear in Tenebris. Other than that one detail, she was just as I remembered.
That was the same head I’d taken. How? A changeling? Something else? Maybe this wasn’t even her. My mind tripped over itself, sluggish from the iron.
“Are you going to stop staring and introduce your little friend—bring her up to date?”
I swallowed and worked my tongue around my mouth, that sick feeling still coating my throat, thanks to the iron. “Katherine, this is Princess Sura.”
Slowly, her eyes widened and she dragged in a breath. She understood.
“Such a pleasure to meet any friend of Bastian’s.” Circling out from behind the table, Sura’s smile was too bright, too cruel.
