Page 87 of Witchshadow
No, no, no. This cannot be happening. All of Safi’s and Iseult’s plans are collapsing, for if Henrick willnevertake Safi to his bed…
That is the end of everything. This pocket at her chest and the golden item within are useless.
And there is nothing Safi can do to argue. If she presses the point, it will seem suspicious. Beyond suspicious—downright traitorous. Henrick knows she had no desire to marry him. She ran halfway across a continent to avoid it. If she suddenly insists on sharing his bed, those sharp, taro-playing eyes will understand in an instant that she is up to something.
All Safi can do is nod and push to her feet as Henrick pushes to his own.I am relieved,she tries to say with her posture. With her face.I have just been offered freedom and it is all I have ever wanted.
Yet each step off the dais feels a thousand years long. Each sweep of her skirts across the floor like slogging through mud. She has no time to come up with a plan, and no way to effectively communicate with Iseult. One hand is rested on Henrick’s arm, and the other waves while she smiles. Always the smiling.
Ten paces become twenty become sixty, and the arched doorway from the room swallows her. In the hall beyond, Hell-Bards instantly arrange around them with Caden at the fore. Newly promoted and gleaming in his dress regalia.
Safi feels him try to connect eyes with her, but she dares not look. She must think, think, think like Iseult. If Henrick is going into Praga, he will likely take acarriage. That means he will go right at the gardens while Safi goes left to reach her quarters.
She has perhaps two hundred paces to make a plan.
Or to make her move.
And there is no other choice, is there? It’s now or it’s never. She can bide her time and hope for another opportunity—another moment of half solitude as they’d shared in the marble room filled with golden chains. But what if such a moment never comes?
Gods below, why can’t Iseult be beside her right now? Safi is going to ruin this. She knows she’s going to ruin this, and yet she sees no other course before her. Uncle Eron’s life depends on her. Iseult’s too, and little Owl’s tucked away in the servants’ wing.
All the Hell-Bards as well. She is Empress now, and she is the only one who can make a difference for so many people.
She will have to act fast. She will have to use every tool in her arsenal. The garden path will be dark, lit only by atmospheric lanterns, and presumably Henrick will pause briefly to take his leave of Safi. That will have to be her moment. She will have to make it count.
They reach the door that leads to the gardens. Footmen heave it wide, silent and unseen. Cold air billows in—welcome against all the sweat gathering on Safi’s skin. Her heart thuds against her eardrums. The world is fast sharpening, as it always does during a heist. Ten steps and they are in the covered walkway. Evergreen ivy glistens in Firewitched light. Beyond, snow trickles down. So gentle, so at odds with what Safi is about to do.
Henrick slows to a stop to release her, and Safi slows beside him. “I will expect you at court tomorrow,” he begins. “We begin at the tenth chimes—”
Safi kisses him. Directly on the lips and before he can pull away. Her free hand is already in her bodice, already in the secret pocket. She has the fingers of a thief, a nimbleness honed for almost a decade.
Before Henrick can react to her lips, she has the noose from her pocket. Then she snakes her arms around his neck and tries to deepen the kiss. Distantly, she is aware of how thick his lips are—and wet too. And distantly, she’s aware of surprising muscles under his shoulders and along his back.
Then her hands are behind his neck and the noose is fastening into place.
Except that it’s not.
Nothing happens when she tries to press the chain closed. It remains open, unattached, a useless piece of gold.
And now Henrick is shoving her off of him. His eyes bug, his mouth sputters. He grabs her arms and forces her back. “What the hell-gates,” he begins… untilhe realizes what is clasped in Safi’s fingers. She is too slow to drop the chain, and now he is watching it slip from her grasp.
It lands on his chest, then slinks down his stomach, a golden snake across muddy velvet.
For several seconds, neither Safi nor Henrick moves. The Hell-Bards all have their backs turned discreetly away; they have not seen.I should kill him,she thinks.Before he kills me.But she is, again, too slow.
Or perhaps Henrick is too fast. With shocking ease and skill, he swoops beneath her outstretched arms and tackles her to the ground. He is viciously strong, and Safi stands no chance.
Her skull cracks on flagstones. Her vision shadows, and everything suddenly moves a thousand miles away. The Hell-Bard armor clanks her way, and Caden’s voice barks, “Protect the Emperor!”
And the Emperor himself bears down on Safi with snaggletooth and spitting tongue. “What a disappointment,” he snarls, forearm digging into her throat. “You could have been a great leader, but now there is only one path for you.”
He rolls off of her as two Hell-Bards lurch in. Her hearing is muffled, her eyesight uneven. She knows, in a far-off sort of way, that she has made a very dangerous mistake. That she has ruined not only her own life but the lives of all those people depending on her.
“Tell Paskella I will not be coming tonight,” Henrick commands once Safi is on her feet. He will not even look at her. “And then take my Empress to the Hell-Bard chamber. It is time she learned what true obedience feels like.”
THIRTY
There was no time inside the Well. There was only now. There was only all eternity, stretched and unknowable.
