Page 145 of An Empress of Fire & Steel

She skidded to a halt as two guards stepped through the door. Two guards that were not Torin Blacksteel or Artem Stryker.

“Run,” Magin’s blood-filled throat croaked out, like her grandmothers once had. A horrible flashback consumed her. “Fight.”

Run? Run? Why was she to run? She was safe here.

A bitter taste crept back into her mouth, coating her tongue, and she tried to swallow it down.

Something was so horrifically wrong.

One of the guards withdrew a dagger from Magin’s back and he fell to his knees.

“No!” she screamed. She could have screamed a few times after that, but she couldn’t hear anything for the dizzying rush of terror that had engulfed her mind.

Magin, paralysed and unable to defend her, pleaded, “Forgive me.” A single tear ran down his cheek before his body slammed into the ground, blood gushing from his back that she hadn’t seen before now.

He had been stabbed multiple times, Emara realised.

Pure, staggering fear froze her.

The guards had done this. The guards who had just walked through her door.

Hunters. His brethren.

Confusion and betrayal burned in the back of her throat, causing an uproar of heat to pass over her. Her magic was tingling. They were not just any guards, she realised; they were the Supreme’s guards. The ones who had baited Torin in the alcoves of the passageway, and the ones who had escorted her to the watchtower—Easton and Silas.

Why would the Supreme guards have done something so horrific to Magin?

A sweeping chill ran through her.

They were not here for Magin. He had been the only one standing between the door and her. They were here for her.

This was it.

This was Kellen’s vision. It had to be.

You were taken.

She stumbled to the side, her heart unable to beat any quicker without bursting in her chest. Every part of her magic ran cold and tense in her body. She tried to gather it, to channel it into something of use, but she was still training. It took time to build it into something controllable.

“It’s okay, little empress,” Silas said with a smile so acidic that it burned her. “We are not going to hurt you.”

“If that’s the case,” she spat, “then why did you have to stab my guard?” She looked to where Magin lay on the floor, still gurgling on his own blood.

A slow death.

A man who had dedicated his life to protecting the Air Coven had been betrayed by his own kind. If she could just reach him, maybe she could heal him, take his pain.

But the Supreme’s guards were not going to allow that.

“Are you not going to answer my question about stabbing my guard in the back?” Emara tried to have the same cruel calmness that Torin did. She tried to scan the room for an escape. She had to keep them busy to buy herself time.

“The Supreme would like some time with you,” Easton said, his eyes dark, just like his skin.

The Supreme? The Supreme was behind this?

Emara’s heart sank to her stomach.

“Alone.” Silas let a vile snigger fall from his mouth, his white-blond hair falling around his shoulders. “No guards allowed.”

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