30
The sun still hadn’t risen when I woke up. I lay very still in bed, listening to Liam’s steady breathing. Even through the blankets, his warmth wrapped around me like a cocoon. But I would not emerge from his embrace a beautiful butterfly.
I had killed a man. Not by passing a means of execution on to someone else. I had held the knife, and I had cut into his body, making sure he would die.
I remembered the warmth of his blood on my hand, yet somehow my part in his death didn’t seem real. The whole thing was too quick, too absurd. As accustomed as I’d grown to the swift brutality the Guilds called justice, it was hard to make myself believe that I, Ena Ryeland, had ended up in a magical stronghold and been ordered to kill a man.
I nestled closer to Liam. He stirred and tightened his
