Chapter 8 The Blade at Dawn

I didn't wake to the light. I woke to a weight that was too heavy, too solid, and far too intoxicating for my own survival.

My vision was a hazy blur of silver hair against a black silk pillowcase. For a confused second, I thought the fever had finally melted my brain, but the scent was too real-the sharp, biting aroma of cedarwood and the underlying, perennial frost of the Tower.

Then, I realized what my body was doing.

I was draped over Linus Kerr like a drowning woman clinging to a spar. My leg was hooked unceremoniously over his waist, and my hand-the same hand that had spent years delicately grinding herbs-had strayed beneath the silk lapel of his robe. My palm was pressed flat against the bare, chilling skin of his chest, directly over the rhythmic, mechanical click-tick of his heart.

I felt him go rigid beneath me. A sharp, hissed breath escaped his teeth, sounding like steam venting from a high-pressure pipe. Every muscle in his body turned to granite in a single heartbeat.

I looked up, my eyes crashing into a pair of stormy indigo irises that looked ready to incinerate me.

The silence was a deafening void. I realized exactly where my leg was resting, and against what. The hard, demanding reality of his body was a physical shock that sent a jolt of electricity straight to my gut.

"AH!"

I shrieked, scrambling backward in a blind, undignified panic.

CLINK-

The Cold-Iron chain snapped taut.

"Oof!"

The tension yanked me back before I could roll off the mattress. I tumbled forward, my momentum betrayed by the very leash he'd put on me. My lips grazed the rough, cold stubble of his jaw in an accidental, breathless caress. For a heartbeat, my face was so close to his that I could see the dark, jagged pupils of his eyes.

My face burned with a heat that had nothing to do with magic. I went as stiff as a board, my heart hammering against my ribs. "I... the... the chain caught..."

Linus didn't pull away. He reached out and clamped a hand around my waist, pinning me down to the bed with a force that ended all friction.

"Don't move," he rasped.

His voice was a haunted, lethal warning. It sounded like a growl from a predator holding back its own hunger by a thread. "Unless you want me to exercise my 'Owner's rights' right here and now."

He didn't wait for me to breathe. He rolled out of bed with the frantic efficiency of a man escaping a crime scene. He stood with his back to me, his broad shoulders blocking the morning light. He cinched his silk robe so tight it looked like a suit of armor.

"Ten minutes," he said, his voice returning to that clinical, distant cold. "Get yourself together. What happened last night... will not happen again."

The breakfast that followed was a masterclass in suffocating silence.

I sat at his right hand, the silver fork in my hand feeling like a lead weight. The silence was finally broken by Adjutant Silas.

"Sir," Silas reported, his boots snapping together. "An envoy from General Malles is here. There is a public execution in the square at noon-a suspected cell of 'Cinder-Walkers.' The General has requested Miss Wylde's presence... as a guest of honor."

CLANG.

My fork clattered against the porcelain plate. The color drained from my face. "Guest of honor." I knew what that meant. Malles wanted to watch the "Nightingale" break as she watched her own kind turn to ash.

"I'm not going," I whispered, my fingers clawing at the white linen tablecloth.

"Tell the envoy she will be there," Linus said. He didn't even look up from his black coffee. His voice was as cold and flat as a tombstone.

"Silas, clear the subterranean training hall," Linus said, ignoring my protest entirely. "We leave in two hours."

Linus's private training hall reeked of stale sweat and cold stone. He had shed his vest and coat, standing in the center of the room in only a white shirt, sleeves rolled up.

"Take it." He tossed a wooden training dagger at me.

I caught it, but my hand was trembling. I was still wearing that emerald velvet dress-a heavy, suffocating cage of a garment with a hem that dragged like a ball and chain.

"The fire is coming, Lillian. It doesn't care about your tears. It only cares about how fast you burn," Linus said, stepping into my space. "If you go to that square as a victim, you'll be ash before they even light the match. I'm going to teach you to be the one holding the torch."

Without warning, he struck.

He didn't pull his punch. A lightning-fast sweep of his leg caught me across the shins. I tried to skip back, but the floor-length velvet skirt was too heavy, too wide. It tangled around my ankles like a wet shroud.

I went down hard. My face slammed into the padded mat, and the emerald fabric, now damp with my own frantic sweat, felt like it weighed fifty pounds. It was a beautiful, emerald-colored trap.

"Get up," Linus barked, looming over me.

"I can't... this dress..." I hissed, struggling to find my footing, only to trip on the thick velvet again. I tried to rip the fabric with my bare hands, but the high-grade silk and reinforced lining held firm, only bruising my fingertips.

Linus let out a dark, mocking scoff. He walked toward me, the heavy heels of his boots thudding on the mat. "A lady's finery is a convenient excuse for a coward."

He reached down, his hand wrapping around the hilt of the Cold-Iron sword at his hip. I froze. He didn't draw the blade. Instead, he used the sharp, reinforced edge of the metal sheath.

"Stay still," he commanded.

He stepped between my tangled legs, the heat of him clashing with the drafty air of the hall. He hooked the edge of the sheath into the hem of my skirt and gave a sudden, violent upward jerk.

RIIIIIP.

The sound of the high-grade velvet tearing was a visceral, jagged scream. He didn't stop until the slit reached my mid-thigh, exposing my bruised skin and the white lace of my petticoat. He did the same to the other side with a clinical, terrifying efficiency.

"There," he whispered, his indigo eyes darkening as he looked at my exposed legs. "No more excuses."

Anger-hot, raw, and desperate-finally snapped in my chest. I didn't wait for him to move. I lunged, snatching the wooden dagger and aiming for the space between his ribs.

Linus didn't flinch. He caught my wrist mid-air, pinning me against the stone wall. He slammed his body into mine, caging me. One hand clamped around my throat-firm enough to let me feel the frantic, terrified pulse in my own neck-while the other pinned my wrist over my head.

"Listen to me, Lillian." He hovered over me, his sweat dripping onto my lip. "When the fire starts, the crowd will scream. The heat will try to melt your brain. Don't look at the pyre."

He seized my hand, forcing the tip of the wooden dagger against his own chest, right over the spot where his mechanical heart was thrumming like a starving beast.

"Think of me. Think of how much you want to kill me for what I've done. Turn all that terror into a blade. Stare at me. Only at me."

His voice was a low, hypnotic rumble that made the iron in my blood vibrate. "As long as you're trying to figure out how to cut my throat, you won't feel the flames. Am I the most terrifying thing in your world, Lillian? Answer me."

"Yes," I rasped, my voice sounding more like his than my own.

"Good." He released me and stood back, his gaze hungry. "Again. Throw yourself at me until you forget you're a victim."