After I killed Dante, my uncontrollable illusions caused Enzo’s death. After I killed the Night King, I saw my father in Merroutas. And after I killed the Inquisitor that night in Estenzia … this. I shiver uncontrollably.
“I’m fine,” I say over and over again. I glare at Magiano, daring him to question me.
He steps closer, then reaches down to touch my cheek. “Adelina,” he murmurs, then hesitates. I think he’s going to tell me to be more careful, that I shouldn’t stay on this path. Instead, he sighs. As always, I find myself drawn to his warmth. He is truly alive, and this moment feels real. I’m still trembling. Why can’t I stop my illusions anymore? Behind him, the others emerge from the room and look on.
Finally, he nods back toward the window. “You said you know a way for us to save those malfettos,” he says. “Well, what? What’s your plan?”
I squeeze my eye shut and take a deep breath. Calm yourself, I command. Magiano’s presence steadies me. I look up at him. “Teren is down there right now, in the malfetto camps,” I say. “We can trick him to work in our favor.”
“In our favor?”
“Yes.” I look from Magiano to the others. “If Teren is at odds with the queen, he’ll want retaliation. He’s doing it right now. He can be our way into the palace, and to the throne.”
Enzo approaches and a surge of anger travels through the tether that links us. “And what makes you think you can bend Teren to your will?” he says. “His disobedience to my sister will not make him our ally.”
“Enzo,” I reply, “I think I know why Teren has been banished. I think I know who came between them.”
At that, Enzo’s expression changes instantly. His anger becomes confusion, then realization, all in the blink of an eye. “Raffaele,” he says.
I nod. “I think Raffaele is in the palace. I don’t know what he has done, but if the Daggers are working to break the two of them apart … then we might be able to find the Daggers by going to the palace. In order to do that, we’ll need to trick Teren into working with us. He will be able to get us in faster than we can do it ourselves.” I hold up my hands. “I can only disguise so many of us, and only for so long.”
“We don’t have much time,” Magiano adds, looking in the direction of the burning camps.
Enzo considers my words. The thought of reuniting with the Daggers and with Raffaele has given him some spark of life, and I can feel it burning within him. Someday, he will figure out what I did to Raffaele at the arena. What will happen then?
The whispers surface. Then you must exert your control over him.
After a moment, Enzo straightens and walks past us. “Let’s hurry, then.”
Teren Santoro
I’m not supposed to be here.
Still, Teren marches down the rows of the malfetto camps. “There,” he says, pointing, leading a squadron of Inquisitors behind him. Giulietta may have stripped him of his Lead Inquisitor title, but he still has patrols at his command. Now he motions for his men to head to each of the longhouses where the malfettos are. “Get them all inside.”
Inquisitors push frightened malfettos back into their assigned quarters. Their shouts ring out across the camps. Teren waits until each longhouse is filled, and then he nods again at his men. “Lock the doors.”
As Teren marches down the row of longhouses, the Inquisitors lock each door behind him, metal scraping against metal as the doors are bolted shut.
Giulietta’s words ring in Teren’s head over and over again, becoming a cacophony of betrayal. You are no longer my Lead Inquisitor. He pledged his entire life to her, but she no longer wants it.
He remembers the way he used to make her smile, how she would let him unpin her hair and it would tumble down past her shoulders. He imagines kissing her again, wrapping her in his arms, waking up in her bed.
How could she push him aside in favor of the Daggers? Teren shakes his head. No, this is not the princess he grew up knowing. This is not the queen he pledged to serve. He had made a promise before the gods that he would cleanse this land of abominations, and he’d thought that the queen wanted the same thing.
And now she wants to free the malfettos, after all the hard work he has done?
“Light the torches,” Teren commands, and his men rush to do his bidding.
No, he cannot allow the Daggers to win like this. If he has to leave the city, he is going to take the malfettos down first.
He pauses at the end of the row, then turns to face the longhouses again. He takes a torch from one of his men, walks up to the first longhouse, and holds it up to the thatched roof. It catches fire.
As the smoke builds, and the people trapped inside begin to panic, Teren walks to the next longhouse, shouting a command over his shoulder. “Burn them all.”
It is better to have an enemy who will fight you in an open field than a lover who will kill you in your sleep.
—Kenettra and Beldain: An Ancient Rivalry, various authors
Adelina Amouteru
I sense what’s happened in the malfetto camps before we even arrive there. An aura of terror and pain hovers over the entire area, blanketing the land as surely as the smoke fills the air. I shiver at the feeling.
Violetta rides with me. Behind us, Enzo flanks our left, his face masked behind a cloth veil in case Teren sees us, and Sergio flanks our right, one hand on his horse’s reins and the other on the hilt of his sword. Somewhere nearby, Magiano watches us. I imagine his eyes narrowed, focused on me as we go.
By the time we reach the edge of the camps, the smoke is thick. Screams fill the air. The longhouses used to house the malfettos are on fire, the flames licking at the roofs, crackling and roaring, red splinters floating through the air. Malfettos are trapped inside. Their terror feeds my darkness so much that I can barely see. I lean over in my saddle, struggling to keep my own fear at bay. The screams coming from the longhouses are familiar to me. They remind me of my own. Where are the Inquisitors? The paths are empty, the soldiers having long since passed through and moved on to the other camps in the area.