Sandy Williams - The Sharpest Blade

Elari. More than just a few. They’re strategically placed in the crowd, and they’re inciting the fae around them.

While I’m watching, one of them motions to another, then jabs his fist forward, toward the great doors, which are still open and waiting for our return.

Oh, shit.

“Trev!” I shout, trying to get his attention, trying to warn him. He doesn’t hear me, but I’m not the only one who realizes the risk of those open doors. Kyol is there. His gaze sweeps across the plaza as a dozen swordsmen emerge from the palace behind him, forming a line.

The giant doors slowly start to close, but before they’ve moved more than a foot, someone nearby, undoubtedly an elari , shouts out a call to storm the palace.

“LENA!” KYOL BELLOWS the same instant I do. I grab her arm.

She jerks away with a glare.

“Elari,” I snap. “They’re mixed in with the crowd.”

The glare remains as she scans the fae around us—fae who are much too close now. The south doors won’t shut in time to keep them all out. Dozens of people have heeded the elari ’s call to storm the palace. Kyol’s swordsmen are trying to hold them back. They’re outnumbered, though, and the crowd surges forward.

Mob mentality. The fae were on the verge of getting out of control before Lena appeared. Now, with a few not-so-subtle suggestions from elari , they’ve tipped over the edge, their celebrations turning into mindless violence and destruction.

“We have to get in another way,” I yell into Lena’s ear. Either that, or we have to get out of here. Find some place in the city to hide until the fae disperse.

“We’ll go to the eastern entrance,” Lena says. She grabs my arm like it was her plan to go there from the beginning, then directs me through the crowd. Her sword is still in its scabbard—mine is, too—but the air vibrates with the fae’s chants and shouts and stomping feet. We’re going to have to fight our way back into the palace, I’m sure of it.

The gaps in the crowd around us shrink, then disappear. Lena shoves her shoulder into them, creating a few inches of space at a time, but our progress is slow. Too slow. An elari sees us. A woman. She’s moving through the crowd, dagger in her hand and hate in her eyes.

The weapons belt Trev fastened around my waist only has a sword. The people around me are pressed too close for me to draw it. I try digging my elbow into the nearest fae’s stomach, try shoving him away and turning for more space. I get the sword halfway out, but someone shoves it back into its scabbard.

I look for Trev, then for Kyol, who feels like he’s only a few feet away, but all the faces around me belong to strangers.

All of them.

I whip around, searching for Lena. She was right beside me. How could I have lost her?

I duck beneath a swinging elbow, then shove my way forward half a foot. There’s so little space to move. The familiarity of the situation settles over me, the press of the crowd, the panicked shouts that begin to rise all around me. My chest constricts, remembering how close I came to being crushed to death at the concert in London. Several humans died that night. Fae might die here today.

I won’t, though, and neither will Lena as long as I can find her.

Someone runs into me. I throw my weight back into them then slip through a narrow gap I opened. I’m looking everywhere for Lena, but all I see is a mob that’s becoming increasingly angry.

A hand locks on my shoulder. I grab the fae’s wrist and twist. Or try to. The arm doesn’t budge. I follow the arm to the fae’s shoulder then to his face.

Aren, and beside him, hidden beneath the hood of a dark gray cloak, is Lena.

“Thank, God,” I mutter out loud.

Aren shoves away a fae who slams into me, then he holds up a cloak that’s the same dark gray as Lena’s.

“For you, nalkin-shom ,” he says, his silver eyes practically sparkling.

I want to ask him why the hell he’s happy, but I just grab the cloak and slip into it. Aren tries to pull my hood up, but I stop him, turning and waiting for . . .

Kyol. He and two of his men carve a path through the crowd. Most of the fae scramble out of their way when they see the lord general and his men, or rather, when they see their swinging swords, but a few of them don’t back off. Their swords meet Kyol’s in attacks that are halfhearted. They’re just causing trouble and are caught up in the moment. They’re not elari .

Kyol shoves one last fae away, then grabs my arm.

“Where’s Lena?” he demands. I nod toward my right. Lena’s stony silver eyes meet his unflinchingly.

“Go,” Kyol says, fury riding on his order. Pain pulses behind my eyes. It feels like someone’s taking a jackhammer to my brain. I reach for Kyol’s hand, intending to calm him, but he pulls back. His eyes lock on me, and he grates out, “Move.”

What the hell did I do?

No time to verbalize that question. Aren and Kyol and his men create an opening in the crowd. They’re effective, splitting the masses like a sea, and the farther we get away from the southern doors, the thinner that mass becomes. We don’t escape unnoticed by any means, though. A few fae figure out that only someone who’s important would be hidden beneath a cloak and escorted by a lord general and a sword-master. They trail us, some of them shouting profanities, others begging for help. I scan the faces of the followers, searching for the red-and-black name-cords of the elari or anyone else who looks threatening, but Lena’s guards keep everyone away.

We make it to the eastern entrance relatively easily and, quite surprisingly, unscathed. I think I might have one bruise on my back from an errant elbow, but other than that, there’s just a stitch in my side from running to keep up with Lena and the others’ quick pace.

The guards close the doors behind us, sealing us inside the palace. Inside where it’s safe.

Supposedly safe.

My heart rate doesn’t slow down. With the number of elari I saw in the crowd—at least five of them—I can’t escape the feeling that we made it out of there far too easily.

HALF an hour later, when I’m waiting in the private chamber at the back of the King’s Hall, I’m still uneasy. It looks like I’m the only one, though. Aren’s sitting on the edge of a table against the far wall, grinning and demanding Trev give him details about what Lena said and did, and how the fae on the plaza reacted. He’s positively giddy, high from the energy of the crowd and the scuffles we had to get through to escape it.

Lena’s here, too, but she doesn’t interject any insight. She’s staring at a collage of drawings and writings on the back wall. The drawings are penciled sketches of the high nobles of the Realm’s seventeen provinces, four of which were recently appointed by Lena. They’re split into three groups. I recognize Kelia’s father, Lord Raen, in the smallest group, and I assume he and the other four high nobles there with him are the ones Lena is certain will approve her. The sketches in the second and, by far, the largest group have writing under their names. I can’t read Fae, but my guess is that she’s listed details about the high nobles and possibly ideas for how she might go about persuading them to vote for her.

The last group is a group of one. Lord Ralsech, the high noble who’s declared his support for the false-blood.

I’m not sure if Lena is really looking at the collage, though, or if she’s staring through it to the tunnel on the other side. Her arms are folded across her chest, and her face is hard and smooth. She wants to be visible, on the ramparts of the palace or at least seeing the nobles and merchants and endless number of other fae who want an audience with her, but Kyol insisted we hole up down here. That tunnel, hidden behind a foot-thick slab of rock, is the palace’s only emergency exit. Only a few fae know about it. In fact, aside from Kyol and perhaps Naito, I’m not sure if anyone outside this room knows of its existence.