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Inez feels Perl’s hands on her waist. He says, “I will only be able to do this for a short while.”

“They are several miles south,” Inez says.

Perl does not speak again. He bends and scoops her into his arms. She makes a squeak of surprise. Perl does not look strong enough a man to lift her as easily as he does, seemingly with no effort. But, she reminds herself as she grips him around the neck, Perl is not a man at all. She saw him carry Kerik, who must be twice her weight.

There is a noise like a delicate tinkle of bells, a rushing of wind. Inez squeezes her eyes shut. They rise as Perl’s feet leave the vegetation covered roof. And they fly.

Inez opens her eyes but once on the flight. Looking down she can see the tops of the trees. Perl’s hands grip her tightly.

She glimpses the camp. Row after row of green and gold tents pitched in a valley where the trees are more sparse. But she can bear no more. She closes her eyes tight until she feels the ground beneath her feet once again.

46

DAMON

Damon is in bed alone. Ferra ushered everyone out, after they recounted eager news of the battle won and lost, demanding he sleep. Even Lyr has gone, reluctantly demurring to Ferra’s new found ferocity.

Damon likes this new Ferra. He feels like he is seeing her true self for the first time. His spiky sister. It is as if the anger that must have been building inside her over so many years of being married to Vindar, sidelined and ignored, is finding a place at last, and that place appears to be stern protection of Damon.

She is more like him than Damon ever knew.

Ferra has left him now, giving him a small tonic of sofi and bidding him rest. And he has tried. But mostly he lies, staring at the ceiling, wondering what he can do now to capture Atticul so they can perform the ritual to slay the demon. They have an army. But if Atticul returns to Attar, to the Palace, that would mean a revolution.

And all the time Atticul would be growing stronger.

Sarelik Darek did it. He started here, in the Amber Forest, with a small army and marched through Azuria, drawing more to his cause before he took the Hevelikar in Ceruleum. But he had the demon on his side.

When he hears a knock on the door, Damon expects to see Lyr. He is certain Lyr would simply be waiting nearby for Ferra to leave him alone so he could sneak back.

But it is not Lyr.

It is the very last person who he would ever have expected.

It is Atticul. Grinning as Damon sits up hurriedly in his bed, ignoring the pain that screams through his shoulder as he does so. Atticul looks like his usual self. Wearing a richly-embroidered dark-red jacket over breeches of a fine linen and a red velvet cloak lined with black fur. He does not appear battle weary in the least.

“How did you get in here?” Damon says, as Inez, pale-faced, slips in through the doorway behind her husband.

“It was me,” Inez says. “I brought him here.”

Damon swallows. “Inez?”

“She loves me, bastard,” says Atticul. “What can I say?” He stops in the middle of the room and draws Inez to him, sliding a hand around her waist.

“I tricked Perl. I told him I could persuade Atticul to give himself up to us. He flew me to the Azurian camp and I walked Atticul back into Urynwud covered in a cloak. He’s my husband, Damon. You snatched me from the Sarelik Temple right after my wedding.” Her voice cracks with emotion. “You know all I ever wanted was to be Empress of Azuria.”

Damon stares at Inez. He knows being married to Atticul was her greatest fear. What she is saying cannot be true. But she does have reason to hate Damon. He signed the papers Atticul brought to Sanvicta, handing her over to him. Is this her revenge?

Atticul, beside Inez, is smug. “Your wife is loyal to me, bastard. Perhaps she always was.”

“There are guards everywhere, in Urynwud. They will not be far away,” Damon says weakly. “If I were to call out they would come rushing to this room.”

But he isn’t sure how loud he could even call. And most of the guards will be down in the Sacred Hall, feasting, celebrating. He is alone. Weakened. And Atticul has the savage power of Ur-Durik inside him. He is in the only state where he could possibly face Atticul and lose.

Atticul walks casually towards the bed. He plucks the Amber Blade from where it lies on the sheets. Damon’s reactions are too slow to stop him. He knows if he was his usual self, if he was the One Man Army, if he wasn’t dosed with sofi, he would have snatched up that blade the moment Atticul stepped into the room.

Atticul weighs the blade in his hands. “Could they get here before I sank this into your guts?”

Damon says, “You know you have a demon inside you, don’t you? Ur-Durik. He is controlling you.”