Page 88 of A Deception of Courts

Kayne’s lips were moving as he whispered something to Lucari. Then, when his attention lifted from his missing – and presumed dead – hawk, he looked directly at Duncan. His smile faltered; the creases around his eyes softened. “One chance, Duncan, you have one chance to do what is right.”

It became so quiet that a pin drop could’ve been heard within the dark forest.

Rafaela’s feet thudded onto the ground, so disturbingly loud, I felt it vibrate through me.

“What are you talking about, Kayne?” Duncan asked.

“You know, deep down,” Kayne answered, eyes brimming with tears. Except they weren’t tears of relief of being reunited with his hawk. Nor were they a sign of sadness, but something else entirely.

It was regret.

“I’m giving you one final chance to do what is right. Stand by me, Duncan.” Kayne reached out his spare hand, fingers outstretched as though he beckoned Duncan toward him. I wished to reach out and grasp the back of Duncan’s cloak to stop him from moving any closer, but he was just out of reach.

I felt the soldiers shift around us, likely sensing the same strange atmosphere that had befallen us, ready to do anything to protect the fey from the Tracker and his hawk.

Duncan didn’t answer Kayne. His silence clearly offended Kayne, whose face pinched suddenly into a furious scowl. When he spoke, he no longer did so calmly. He screamed, spit flying beyond his thin, freckle-lined lips. “Everything we have been through, all the years we have spent together, and you still pickhim.”

Kayne snapped his reddening eyes toward me. I felt his hate like a wave, nearly powerful enough to rock me from my mare’s back.

“Kayne, you are speaking in riddles! What’s going on with you?” The air crackled with lightning as Duncan lost control of his own emotions. I felt his confusion and embarrassment as though the air was laced with it. “Now isn’t the time to finally admit your misplaced jealousy.”

Kayne ran a hand down his hawk’s neck, bristling feathers to her delight. She expelled a sound, a rumbling shriek that I’d heard before. I blinked and saw Berrow under nightfall, Kayne lurking down an alley.

“I heard her…” The words flowed out of me as realisation came to me. Kayne looked to me, although his expression was impassive to my accusation. “Lucari. I thought I heard her in Berrow.”

“Congratulations, Robin Icethorn.”

My eyes narrowed on him, I was no longer bothered to conceal my distrust. “Lucari was never missing, was she?”

The Tracker rolled back his shoulders as he expelled a quivering breath.

“Answerhim,” Duncan growled.

I waited for Kayne to reply and confirm what I’d already decided, but when he spoke again it wasn’t to prove me right or wrong.

Smiling from ear to ear, with ruby-stained eyes and skin paler than it had been moments before, Kayne shouted out words that flayed me open, from neck to naval. “Long may Duwar rule.”

There was a terrifying silence that lasted only a second whilst Kayne’s words fell upon the group like flakes of snow. Then chaos erupted as the soldiers swarmed.

Not toward Kayne.

No. The soldiers attackedus.

CHAPTER 25

Everything happened so quickly.

My mount shrieked, rearing to kick hooves at the soldiers who raced toward me. A hiss cut through the air, a blur of metal shot in my direction, followed swiftly by a wet thud. I became weightless, the force of the mount bucking knocking me backwards. I flew from the saddle, until the stirrup tangled around my ankle. Instinctively I tried to turn my body, eyes scrunched closed as the ground came up suddenly to greet me. But I was stuck, my mount falling down with me.

My lungs emptied upon the harsh impact with the ground, but the jarring pain was nothing compared to the weight of the horse atop me.

For a moment, I felt nothing but the panicked urge to breathe. Then the agony followed. I wanted to reach for my head, but my arms were trapped beneath me. Ringing filled my ears, the tang of blood rupturing in my mouth.

Chaos claimed the forest, a wave of bodies and blades crashing as one. It took a moment for my sight to steady from its constant swimming.

I clawed at the ground, trying to move, but couldn’t shift beneath the force pressing down on me. Looking back, I saw that my mare was splayed across the lower half of my right leg. Its hulking body wasn’t moving, its chest was still and lifeless. Bolts of metal had pierced its muscular torso, each wound oozing dark gore onto the forest bed.

It had saved me, and died for me. But there was no time to grieve the animal or contemplate its final act. I had to get free.

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