Page 121 of A War of Crowns

An image of his current quarters flashed into his mind. He swiftly recalled its layout. There should be the writing desk and chair just behind him. The hearth to his right. A window to his left.

The desk was his best option.

Three steps.

Aldric counted them in the midst of his retreat, his glaive swiping away the assassin’s blade two more times as he went.

Two steps.

His torso burned. His parries grew even slower. He was swiftly running out of room to maneuver.

One step.

He would have just one opportunity to survive this.

There.

Aldric threw himself to the floor, teeth gritted. All air swept straight from his lungs when he crashed onto his back and shoved himself beneath the desk for cover. The assassin hesitated.

And Aldric took his chance.

He thrust his glaive upward and pierced the figure straight through.

The assassin’s death was a silent one—as soundless as their initial arrival in the room. Only the muffled thud of their dagger falling against the rug beneath punctuated their passing.

But now Aldric was pinned.

There on the floor, he strained against the weight of a body hanging limp off the end of his weapon. His arms shook with the effort. His jaw clenched from the strain.

He tasted blood in his mouth. Was it his own?

Aldric braced his right shoulder against the floor and sucked in a breath. He couldn’t worry about that right now.

His muscles screamed. His torso burned. Even so, he flung all his weight into the effort of rolling to the side and shoving the corpse off his glaive.

For a few moments, he simply lay there beneath the desk, breathing. Each inhale lanced painfully through his chest, but the air was sweet.

He was alive.

His nightshirt clung to him with a telltale wetness that left him rumbling with fresh irritation, though. Within the darkness, it was difficult for him to get a visual read on the wound the assassin hadinflicted. But a quick probe with his fingers reassured him it wasn’t deep.

Rolling to his hands and knees with his left hand pressed against his abdomen, Aldric slid closer to the dead body. He soon added insult to injury by ripping a large swath of the assassin’s shirt free to use as a bandage for his own wound.

She tried to kill me.

That reminder struck him with all the force of a lightning bolt as he wound that makeshift bandage around his middle. She had just tried to killhim.

Foolish minx. Idiotickirei.

Under his breath, he cursed her in every language he knew. The common tongue. Ancient Drakmori. Kunishi.

The Kunishi had particularly poetic curses.

She had nearly fooled him there for a moment with those tears of hers. With all her self-righteous sorrow for her wounded knight. With all of her talk of wanting to know if he was her ally or her enemy.

And now here he was, bleeding all over himself for it.

Idiot. He was the idiot. He knew better than this.

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