Page 156 of A War of Crowns

She utterly ignored his words. “I propose a truce.”

But the very idea of a truce with such a creature drove Edmund into pressing his attack further. “I decline your proposition.” He lunged toward her yet again, seeking to stab her straight through the belly.

But she danced out of the way of his rapier at the last second. “You are alone,” the witch taunted further, still smiling as if this were all just a game. “I own the guards posted outside this very door.”

“Then I will have them hanged for their treachery after I finish with you.”

Edmund saw a fresh opening, and he took it. For a third time, he lunged in close. His left hand shot out, and his fingers tangled into the locks of the witch’s hair to wrench back her head as he brought the length of his blade alongside her throat.

When he paused, panting for breath, he took in the sight of her smirk and glanced down to find the tip of her own blade poised right over his heart.

“Bite me and I bite you, darling,” she whispered within that nearness, and Edmund’s lips twisted into a frown.

He had a better opportunity to study that dagger of hers now that she was so near, and he didn’t like the look of it. It was dark in a way that metal could never be dark, with an oddly luminescent jewel embedded into its pommel. He had never seen one in person, but he had certainly seen his fair share of drawings.

It was a witchblade.

“So, what now?” Edmund hissed, not seeing any immediate way out of his current predicament, unless the Lord on High sent him a miracle. Or his mother.

But the latter seemed like a grave impossibility in that moment, considering he had just put her under house arrest.

He supposed he was waiting for the miracle, then.

The sight of the amusement crinkling the corners of Mariana’s golden eyes was enough to sour his mood further, though, when she purred, “I believe this is the part where we are supposed to kiss.”

“I will pass,” Edmund declared without hesitation, earning a smile from the witch.

“I came to offer you an alliance today, you know,” the witch soon continued. “An alliance to end all alliances.”

But Edmund was quick to point out to her, “I already made an alliance with your father, woman. You, in exchange for my aid with reclaiming Mysai.”

“Truly a bargain.”

“I am beginning to think your father got the better end of the deal,” Edmund dryly observed.

“What if I let you in on a little secret?” the Arathian Princess asked next.

There was something so very inviting about her smile and the smoky rasp of her voice that Edmund couldn’t help but want her to keep speaking simply so that he might bask within the decadent richness of it just a little longer.

He hated that.

In response to this talk of a secret, she earned for herself a harsher press of his blade against that elegant throat of hers.

But she answered in kind with the tip of her dagger digging into his chest, further ruining his doublet.

The witch continued as though nothing at all had just passed between them, saying, “What if I told you that thereisno King of Arath?”

Edmund thinned his lips and cocked an eyebrow at the woman. What did she take him for? A fool? “I’d name you a liar.”

The witch’s smile deepened, revealing a dimple etched into her right cheek.

Edmund hated that, too.

“What if I told you that I am the true power within Arath? That I already hold the throne?”

“I’d name you a liar twice over,” Edmund sneered, swiftly growing tired of this game. “Get to the point, witch. This rapier is heavier than it looks.”

“Marry me—”

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