Page 51 of Blood On His Lips

Numair eyed the grim, angry faces of our enemy Houses as we approached. A warrior from Wyvenne nodded to Numair and joined my guards.

“It's the Faronne halfling Heir,” someone muttered.

I ignored an angry swell of talking and knelt at Tybien’s side as Juliette and the Wyvenne warrior pushed people out of the way.

“Did anyone call for a medic? Someone get a fucking medic!”

A Montague peeled away and dashed off at a full sprint. The fighting had more or less stopped with the blood of Tybien on the ground. It was said he was one of the favored younger cousins—he would have to be, to have been granted the title Lord so young.

“Don't touch him,” Vervain Labornne sobbed.

I curled a lip at her. “If I were you, I would leave.” My voice was cold, so cold. I wanted to strangle her. “If I ask my people, who will they say insulted me first?” I raked the dwindling crowd with an angry look. “If this boy dies, it's your fault. All of you. Fisticuffs the Lords would have addressed with a slap on the wrist if you all attested it was mere entertainment. But youfoolsunsheathed blades. Who did this?”

“We didn’t see,” a Montague girl said finally. She wore her long dark hair in a single braid, her whiskey eyes fierce but worried. “I saw a Faronne.”

“None of mine were near him,” I said. “We got the last of them off the field before Tybien went down.”

I glanced down at him. Tybien looked up at me, dark eyes glazed with pain. A glance at his wound told me enough. A Fae his age wouldn’t be able to heal these stab wounds. He would bleed out before a medic got to him.

I took his hand, squeezing it, and forced my expression to calm. “You’ll be fine, Lord Tybien. Try to slow your heart rate.”

I didn’t know if he heard me. The boy lay bleeding on the ground in a macabre reenactment of Embry’s death.

“We have to leave,” the Wyvenne warrior said reluctantly. “Lady Aerinne—”

“There are witnesses,” I cut her off. “Fleeing will do nothing. It’s too late.”

“Aerinne,” Numair said, “what about our own dead?”

My throat closed for a moment. “Bring them here. Bring everyone who died or is too injured to walk away here.”

Grief and fury entwined, once again, an unceasing coil as the two other bodies were laid out a respectful distance from Tybien, who yet lived.

I glanced once at the empty Faronne face. One of the younger trainees I hadn’t known well. But I still mourned.

I noted that the only people on the field were Montague, Vervain with two of her guards, my guards, and Wyvenne warriors. Twenty in total, a fraction of those who’d been fighting. The cowards had fled.

Then what I feared came to pass.

An icy wind, a bite of old power.

We waited as the White Guard marched silently towards us, their presence felt rather than heard.

“What,” the Prince said, words chilling in their calm, “is this?”

ChapterSixteen

The sky was darkerthan the bowels of a grave, the rumbling thunder a reaper’s bellows. I looked to the forest acres, the shadows looming, monstrous shapes lurking just beyond the treeline to await the unwary.

Lightning flashed; I almost embarrassed my House by jumping.

Sharp wind whipped our hair as the first drops of lavender scented rain lashed our faces, spilling faux tears down our cheeks. Anyone who could take shelter already had; none of the combatants moved. Fae were beautiful even with hair plastered to their cheeks and clothing soaked to their bodies like second skins, their ethereal otherness pulling on my own internal despair. I would never truly be one of them, not with my mortal blood, my human weaknesses, no matter what platitudes Darkan spewed.

I stood, mud soaking the front of my pants, reluctantly releasing Tybien's hand. “The boy needs a medic. Will you send for Ishaan?”

“No.” His eyes flashed.

I ground a few choice words between my teeth, then swallowed them. “The boy is young, my Prince, and he—”

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