Page 117 of Threaded
Which meant she could focus her own attention in that moment on what she truly sought.
“Matheo.” His bright hazel eyes snapped up to meet hers, his hands drenched in Trefor’s blood. “Get him back to the palace and to a healer. Now.” Matheo nodded once before pulling Trefor up from the ground, slinging his uninjured arm over his shoulder, and with Feran’s assistance, hoisting him back onto his horse. Trefor gripped the saddle horn with likely the last of his strength. Matheo grabbed the reins of Trefor’s horse, mounted his own gelding, and took off down the street in the direction of the palace. As her eyes followed them, she noticed Ryenne and Ksee, surrounded by Ryenne’s Armature, swords out and eyes alert. The queen was on the ground beside Cedoric’s body, her harsh wails still echoing around the courtyard. The people who’d gathered to watch the parade were also dispersing, panicked shrieks and wails added to the jarring discord of the square as they filed quickly down the streets, city guards rushing from their posts to shepherd them to safety.
As she watched the movement in the square, Mariah felt as Sebastian moved up beside her, dismounted from his horse, and reached for Kodie’s reins.
“Mariah, you have to get out of here. They’re afteryou. Go back to the palace,now—”
“No.” Mariah’s voice was firm as she cut him off. A distant part of herself, a part that didn’t currently govern her, whispered that he meant well. But the part of her in control, the wild darkness she’d given free rein, was nothing but annoyed.
She snapped her gaze to the remainder of her Armature, their expressions steeled and expectant, the fervor of the moment bright in their eyes.
Good.
“Feran, you will stay here with Sebastian, Ryenne’s Armature, and the Ladies of both courts. Get them all back to the palace and protect them at all costs.” She saw Sebastian open his mouth, trying to protest, making a second attempt to shut her down, to get her to run, but she steamrolled over him as her skin flashed again with silver-gold light.
“Drystan, Quentin, you’re both with me. We’re going hunting.” Two grins from the two best fighters in her Armature answered her, their expressions nothing short of feral.
A prickle across her skin had Mariah turning to meet Andrian’s familiar gaze. He’d dismounted his stallion and now stood on the other side of Kodie’s head, his sword already drawn, a wickedly defiant look in his tanzanite eyes. Mariah thought she could hear his words, whispering to her on a shadowy wind.
Tell me to stay behind, nio.I dare you.
She swung her leg and jumped down from Kodie’s back, landing softly in the grass in front of him, refusing to break from his punishing stare.
“Don’t get in my way.” Her voice was cold and foreign.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, princess.”
Mariah ignored him as she turned back to Drystan and Quentin, who’d also dismounted. The pair moved to flank her, Andrian standing at her back. As she walked past Sebastian, he tried a final plea to get her to stay, to send Drystan and Quentin alone, that she didn’t need to go herself.
She ignored him with a final, icy glare.
She wouldn’t stand idly by when her life was threatened. When the lives of those around her, those who’d become a second family to her, were also threatened.
Red, the color of Cedoric’s and Trefor’s blood, flooded her vision again.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
They hurtled up the stairs of the building where Mariah had spotted the assassin, swinging around banisters and hauling themselves over railings.
Mariah would’ve been thankful for all those mornings spent training if that otherworldly power hadn’t been thrumming through her veins, a power that whispered of how this was barely scraping the surface of what she could do.
They slowed only slightly as they reached the top of the stairs, a solid wood door before them leading to the rooftop beyond. The building was silent, strangely deserted, its occupants—if there were any—all out on the streets below, part of the disorganized chaos that reigned in the city. It had created the perfect opportunity for the assassin to steal up to that roof uninhibited, free to carry out this mission against her life.
Her vision again flashed red.
This assassin would not live another day on this earth.
She halted just outside the door, drawing her grandfather’s dagger smoothly from its new sheath on her hip. She reached a hand behind her, a silent command, and felt Drystan press one of his favored shortswords—of which he always carried at least three—into her waiting palm. It was only then, with her teeth bared back in a silent snarl, unearthly wildness filling her veins, that she kicked the door open and stepped onto the rooftop beyond.
It was silent. Empty.
Mariah turned in a slow circle, her eyes readjusting from the dim stairwell to the brightness of the clear winter day. Wind bit fiercely at her face, her long hair whipping and snapping like a caged beast.
He was still here. He had to still be here, there was nowhere for him to go …
A flash of black out of the corner of her eye had her leaping forward, Drystan’s sharp hiss behind her the only sound of his surprise. The assassin was at the very edge of the roof, running, about to make a flying leap off the flat edge and onto the tiled surface of the neighboring roof—