Page 16 of Crown of Wrath

“That’s all we need. We just need to get behind Casimir before he can see us. Leave the rest to me.”

I turn back to Jasper. “Now, one last question, Jasper. Where’s the trap?”

He blinks, and his eyes dance down to the blade pressed against his arm. “What do you mean?”

There’s hesitation there. He understood what I was asking, and he didn’t give an answer. He’s hiding something. The blade that’s never needed to be sharpened cuts further into Jasper’s arm, and he screams again.

I’m not kind as I flay the skin from our prisoner, but I’ve seen what High Fae can heal from. There’s no doubt that Jasper would make a full recovery without even a scar if I let him go right now.

“Fine, stop!” he screams.

I don’t. I just keep cutting, slowly stripping another two-inch long strip from his arm. The river of crimson runs down his hand to drip onto the gray granite at our feet. It had started with soft splashes, but now that it’s a steady stream, it’s almost quiet.

Jasper Wren’s pain doesn’t matter to me. Something inside me feels… wrong, but it disappears as quickly as the desire I felt for the Shade earlier. I savor the feeling of his struggle. Hispain is something that I can latch onto. It’s something real and undeniable.

When the strip of flesh falls to the ground with a meaty flopping sound, I look at him and smile again. “Where’s the trap for us, Jasper?”

He shakes for a moment, and I press the knife tip against his bicep hard enough that a single drop of blood wells up around the steel. “Fine. Prince Rhion checks my wrist every morning for my debt. If I tell you anything, the mark will be gone. It’s not a mark that can be fabricated with House of Steel magic.”

I remove the knife from his arm, and the pinprick heals almost immediately. I wipe the steel against his guard’s uniform and slide the blade back into its sheath. “And what happens if that mark is gone?”

Jasper’s face scrunches up, but before I’ve even moved my hand, he says, “Then he knows you’re trying something. I’m just the alarm system.”

I nod and release him before sitting down in a chair. That’s when I see Lee staring at the two pieces of Jasper’s flesh and the puddle of blood on the floor. “Darian and Lee, figure out what you need to know.”

My head is swimming, and I have a hard time concentrating. There’s something about that image that pulls at me. Memories of someone screaming. Missing flesh along someone’s arm. A puddle of blood. Dark lines. Shadows.

I get lost in the image, and instead of seeing Jasper’s face, I see Cole in a cave.

Darian asks questions, and I only give them enough attention to tell whether Jasper’s lying. The rest of my attention goes to this strange feeling that’s flooding my body—to this strange confusion that’s taking over my mind.

Instead of Jasper wearing his Steel uniform, I see Cole on the top of a mountain looking out at the clouds. The roomis gone, and my eyes are focused on those two bloody lines. Twin revulsion shadows wrap around Cole’s arm, cutting deep swathes into his skin. Part of me wants to scream, to call for help, to do something to save him. But that’s not me. That’s Maeve. That’s the Wyrdling, not the Queen of Earth. The Queen of Earth can’t care about that.

She can’t care about anything, even as the shadows climb Cole’s arm. He lied to me. He’s the reason Hazel is dead. Shouldn’t he die? Shouldn’t he…

Then it’s all gone again as the wounds heal, the blood drying on his arm under fresh pink skin.

“I think that’s all we need,” Darian says.

I try to pull myself out of the memories of that vision. I have to be present. We’re trying to steal Casimir away from Gethin, and I can’t let memories of my past get in the way. I shake my head to clear the vision and focus on Lee as she argues with Darian.

“Now we just need a place to put him until we’re done. Can we tie him up in here?” Lee’s voice is low and reminds me of the day I walked in on her and Cole arguing about secrets in Aerwyn.

“No, we need to take him somewhere else. There’s no tying up a member of the House of Steel.”

They bicker, and I ignore them, my eyes moving to Jasper. His wounds aren’t bleeding any longer, and I know that his pain never mattered.

Which only reinforces the idea that I need to trust myself. I stand up, and no one notices. Even Jasper is paying attention to what Darian and Lee are arguing about. The Shade turns as I approach Jasper from behind.

The knife is out of its sheath and in my hand in the blink of an eye. Then there’s a wet, hissing sound as the knife pierces Jasper’s back. The air in his lungs sprays out in a pinky froth as the knife continues to slip past rib bones and ends up in his heart.

I leave the knife in his heart for a few moments as the life leaves him. I saw Rhion heal a severed spine in seconds, and only a steel knife prevented it. A pierced heart will end in death quickly, but I don’t know how fast Jasper can heal.

When Jasper’s final breath leaves his body, I let him slump to the ground, and I finally notice Darian, Lee, and the Shade staring at me. “What? This is simpler.”

“But he hadn’t done anything wrong?” Lee says.

“He was just a guard. He wasn’t even a soldier,” Darian says.

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