Page 79 of The Dead Saint

“Now,” Adrian said, keeping his voice low while adjusting his grip on the weapon.

The black leather glove creaked, tight across his knuckles. He exhaled slowly, waiting for the man to decide. He would either die with a sword in his hand or without. It was Ivo’s choice.

With a grunt of acceptance, Ivo drew the sword he wore slung across his back. It was shorter than Adrian’s, and the edge was serrated like a carving knife—pain and suffering shining darkly along the blade.

With a cry, Ivo charged Adrian, sword raised, face red.

Adrian let him come, rushing across the space between them. For a split second, their gazes met—resentment, fear, anger, hurt, and love. Love.

There was no ringing steel, not even a fight. It ended before becoming anything more than a swift kill.

With a smooth motion, Adrian drove his sword through Ivo’s heart. The man’s momentum carried him as he slid down the blade until it stuck through his back—a slick, meaty sound and the scent of blood filled the air.

Ivo slumped forward, and Adrian let him fall, pulling his blade free and flicking the blood off it. He turned to each of the Black Tomeis, giving them the option here and now for a quick death.

Thompson exchanged looks with Domenico and Bran. A faint smile hovered around Revenant’s mouth—pleasure in someone else’s pain.

“Take him away!” Adrian roared. “Go!”

When one of their own died, there was no burial, no remembrance of any kind. Dead was gone. Gone was nothing. They’d lost men through the course of this war—to cities and sickness, to the blade of another’s sword, even each other’s at times.

And now, to Adrian.

Sorcha stood beside Epona, a hand on the horse’s neck, watching him from a distance. Her face was shuttered—emotions locked tight.

* * *

The empress gasped, sucking in air, fighting death. She stared wide-eyed into nothing—concentrated on some inner image, witness to an inner beast. One hand curled into a fist as her lips pulled back to reveal clenched teeth and bloody gums. Pink-tinged saliva pooled in the corners of her mouth as a low animal sound filtered through.

No one in the room moved. The space was full of advisors and handmaidens, physicians and mystics. Servants stood motionless in the periphery, bearing trays of medicine, tinctures, oils, and basins of cool water. Incense clung to the ceiling—the heavy scent unable to cover the sharpness of crushed herbs and sickness.

Each person had been entrusted to care for the empress. And yet, she’d been poisoned.

Whoever had done this— imprisoned her in a rotting body consumed by pain, whether asleep or awake—would die. He would make sure of it. Her death was coming—almost here. They all knew it. She knew it. And he raced against it, searching for relics and believing Adrian would find them no matter what. The Saint would bring the empress back. He would rip her from the underworld to place her once again in the court that loved her.

The court that feared him.

Eine could feel their eyes as they dreaded the rage that would follow. He welcomed the anger, embraced it, because it would drive the hated fear away and his inability to change the situation. He turned away from his mother and strode from the room. Her labored breathing followed, and a low murmuring from the advisors broke out.

“Get Adrian,” he said to the short man scurrying after him. “At once.”

“He is traveling with the woman, my prince.”

“Find him. I wish to personally impress upon the woman that time is running out.”

“But my prince, if you recall him, it will waste time.”

“I am not the one wasting time.” Eine turned, eyes hard. “She needs to understand there is no other way forward but the one I’ve given her.”

The advisor swallowed and nodded.

Behind them, a wail broke the air, shuddering down the halls, filling Eine’s head. Another voice picked it up. A woman sobbed. A priest began to chant a prayer to a foreign god—the words echoed and built upon themselves, becoming a chant of many voices. A white-faced servant stumbled from the room, eyes wild with fear. He fell to his knees before the prince, arms outstretched, tears streaming down his face.

“Have them killed,” Eine said, jerking his chin toward the room, ignoring the man at his feet. “All of them.”

* * *

The messenger found them on the road to the next relic.

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