Chapter 10 — The Assassination Attempt
688 Words
The cold bites different tonight. Sharp. Waiting. Like the air itself is holding its breath.
I'm crossing the courtyard alone—Gareth is in a war council that doesn't need a blood bag human hovering—and my boots crunch against frost-crusted stone. The moon is a thin slice of bone overhead, barely enough light to see by, and the torches along the walls gutter in a wind that smells like iron and wet earth.
Twenty feet to the eastern corridor. Fifteen. Ten.
The whistle reaches me before the impact.
A hiss, thin and precise, cutting through the air like a razor through silk. My body registers it before my mind does—I drop, instinct folding me toward the ground, and the arrow punches into the stone archway beside my head with a crack that splinters mortar. Flecks of rock bite my cheek. The shaft quivers, silver-tipped, fletched in black.
I'm on the ground. My palms are bleeding. My heart is a trapped bird slamming against my ribs.
Then he's there.
Gareth materializes out of shadow and fury, coat billowing, eyes already molten gold as he scoops me off the stones. His arms are iron around me, one hand cradling the back of my skull, pressing my face into his chest. His heartbeat is a war drum against my ear.
*He thought: I should have been faster. I should have been beside her. I should have—*
"GUARDS!" His voice cracks the night open. "SEAL THE EASTERN WALL! FIND THE ARCHER!"
Footsteps thunder across the ramparts. Lanterns flare to life. The keep stirs like a wounded beast waking.
Gareth carries me inside, through the great hall, past servants who scatter like leaves, up the spiral stairs to his chambers. He kicks the door open and sets me on the bed with a gentleness that makes my chest ache. His hands are shaking as they cup my face, tilting my head, checking for damage.
"Where did it hit?" His voice is raw. Stripped. "Lyra. Where."
"The archway." My own voice sounds distant. "It missed."
He exhales—a sound that's almost a sob—and his forehead drops to mine. His breath is hot, uneven, trembling against my lips. I can smell the blood on his knuckles from tonight's patrol, the pine and woodsmoke soaked into his coat, the salt of fear-sweat at his temples.
"The arrow," I whisper. "It was silver-tipped."
Gareth's jaw tightens. I feel the muscle jump beneath my fingertips.
"Someone wanted me dead," I say. "Not scared. Dead."
He pulls back. His eyes are black now—not wolf-gold, not human-brown. Black. The black of something ancient and patient and absolutely merciless.
*He thought: They will beg me to kill them before I'm done.*
"Stay here," he says. "Lock the door behind me. Don't open it for anyone except me or Elara."
"Elara?"
"Head of household. She's the only one I trust." He's already moving toward the door, coat billowing, hand on the hilt of the blade at his hip. He pauses at the threshold, glancing back. His face is half-lit by the hearth, shadows carving the hollows beneath his cheekbones.
"I will find them," he says. "And I will make them understand what it means to reach for you."
Then he's gone.
The door clicks shut. I slide the bolt home with trembling fingers. Leaning against the oak, I press my palm to my chest and feel the wild rhythm of my own heart.
*I should be grateful,* I think. *He saved me. He's hunting for the one who tried to kill me.*
But my eyes drift to the window. The eastern tower looms against the bruised sky, its narrow slit of a window dark and watching.
And I saw who was standing there when the arrow was loosed.
Viktor.
Gareth's beta. His right hand. The man who smiled at me over dinner and told me I'd grow to love the North.
The arrow was meant for me. But the message was meant for Gareth.
Someone in this castle wants me dead. And whoever it is, they're close enough to touch him.
- Writer
