Page 241 of A Touch of Poison
That had only come when he’d cut me from chin to gut.
He’d let me land a blow after that.
Let me. Like he’d had a taste of hurting me and realised he didn’t want more.
I swallowed and squashed the memory. This might be another attempted coup by Sura, but it wasn’t the time to dwell on my father’s death.
Years separated us now. Just like guilt and hate separated me from myathair.
I scowled down at the second guard’s body and the slash across his chest. My Shadowblade had cut clean through his leather armour, consuming the little power remaining from when it had been a living thing. The cut edges crumbled like ash, revealing the hydra embroidered on his shirt.
I blinked at it, something off now I took a moment to look more closely.
Gold glinted amongst the red stitches and blood, the same as the patch from the prisoner captured at the Solstice.
With a flick of my dagger, I cut away the embroidery. Thread made of gold and red entwined, whereas all the insignias and banners I’d seen at Sura’s palace depicted red hydras with gold eyes.
If she was telling the truth about the Solstice attack…
I scraped my thumbnail over the smooth, even stitches. Good quality, like Ari had said.
Ascendants had stolen swords on their raids… but there was potentially a “missing” order of guard weapons, too.
Was all thismeantto look like Hydra Ascendant when actually someone else was behind it?
I didn’t have enough pieces of the puzzle to tell.
Whoever it was, they were still here, and I still needed to reach the king.
No matter who killed him—the result would be the same.
They’d blame Dusk.
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Kat
Ari held the insignia up. “It’s the same as the one you brought me after the Solstice attack. Are these the same people?”
I blinked at the glittering hydra. Based on the information most people had, that seemed a safe assumption. There weren’t likely to be two separate threats, after all.
But most people didn’t have all the information, Ari included.
Sura had told me she hadn’t attacked the city, and I believed her, even if Bastian couldn’t bring himself to. Someone else was taking advantage of her rebel group to cover up their own identity and motives.
And if that wasn’t her, it meant this wasn’t either. “Thank you,” I muttered as Ari pressed the patch into my hand.
She went to help Ella tearing up curtains for Perry’s bandages. Meanwhile, Fluffy stood guard as Rose examined the door, planning out loud how we could barricade ourselves in, since Perry couldn’t be moved.
I checked the other bodies and cut out their insignias. If this attack wasn’t by Hydra Ascendant, who could it be?
Queen Braea? My mind skipped there a little too quickly, perhaps because of what Sura had told me about her sister’s death. How might this benefit her? Was I just being uncharitable?
Who else?
King Lucius? A way to frighten people into giving him more power? A way to persecute Dusk folk, like he had with those executions?
But Perry had said the archers in the ballroom were aiming at him. Though, they had missed. And fae were good shots… It could be a ploy to make him look like a victim.
