Page 7 of A Shattered Kingdom of Steel

Recenter yourself, Ceren’s voice urges in my head. Find your balance.

I try, but I can’t seem to shake the dizziness that keeps thwarting my attempts.

I lunge again but miss.

One of the assailants moves to my left, while another blocks my right side.

I keep my twin blades drawn, eyeing them. The short, coppery-haired female on my left wields twin hand axes. Her muscular build makes up for what she lacks in height. The male on my right has his sword drawn. His curly golden-blond hair falls over his forehead, but it doesn’t spare me from the pointed look in his light green eyes.

I peer over the chestnut-haired male’s shoulder. Not far in front of us, stands a female with silvery-white hair that’s cut just below her chin, framing her face. Her brows are pinched tight—with focus or anger, though I can’t tell which—and she points the arrow that’s strung in her bow at me.

Angling down a little, I turn my head so that my chin is almost parallel with my shoulder and use my peripheral vision to see what’s behind me. Unsurprisingly, there’s another body at my back. A male with shaggy jet-black hair about a step’s length away. His arms are wrapped with swirls of black ink that go from his wrists, all the way up to his shoulders.

I can’t see his weapon, but the sharp edge to my back tells me he has one.

“There’s five of us, and one of you,” the chestnut-haired male says, leveling his stare. “And something tells me that by now, you can’t even walk straight.”

“You don’t know anyth—” I step forward, but wobble, losing my balance yet again.

My assailants move closer on all sides, making my head spin.

What in the gods’ names is wrong with me? I shouldn’t be so lightheaded. So dizzy, so disoriented. It feels as though I’ve been drinking, even though I haven’t touched a goblet of wine in months.

Perhaps years.

Something else is to blame.

Gods, I’ve been drugged.

That’s why I didn’t hear the bloodshed. Why I slept for so long. How did I not realize this sooner?

I swing one of my blades, but the male to my right grabs my wrist, holding my arm in place. I struggle against his grip, but he squeezes tighter, forcing me to drop my sword. The motion has me swaying toward him, and my other sword slips from my hand.

Hands grip my shoulders from behind, and I unwillingly go limp. Anger boils in my chest, but the disappointment that sinks in my stomach is much stronger. I should have been smarter. More careful. Somewhere along the line, I let my guard down, and now, good, loyal members of the Guard are paying the price for my carelessness with their blood.

How could I have let this happen?

The chestnut-haired male takes another step closer. The last thing I see is his fist quickly approaching my face before everything goes dark.

Chapter Three

Agony burns in my forehead when I come to. It’s a dull, deep kind of pain. A pounding that seems as though it will never cease. I’m not usually one to complain. When I became Captain of the High King’s Guard, I didn’t need anyone to tell me that pain came with the position. Bruises, gashes, and scars are common marks upon the skin of a warrior. Rites of passage, as I like to call them.

Sharp, sudden pain, the kind that is over with quickly, is manageable. But dull, steady, long-standing pain?

That, I’ve never handled well.

The last time I woke up with a headache like this, Myrdin, Viridian, and I had nearly drank ourselves under the table at the winter solstice ball. That was one year before my appointment. At the time, I had been training under Ceren for a few years. We stayed at the ball long enough to make appearances, as dictated by custom, and then took a few bottles down to the kitchens once all the servants had retired for the night. If Ceren had any suspicions about what the three of us had been up to that night, she never voiced them.

Good times.

But this headache has a very different cause.

Disoriented, I rise to a sitting position, pressing my palm to the side of my head when I do. Confusion settles in for a moment, when I can’t remember what happened, where I am, or how I got here.

I don’t even know where here is.

My last memory is of the ambush. My guards’ blood soaking the ground. Enemy combatants surrounding me.

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