GIDEON
GIDEON STUMBLED ONTO THE empty track, shoved there by the witch at his back. Behind them lay the station’s platform.
The train was gone.
Rune was gone.
He tried not to think about that. Tried instead to think about why this witch was taking him into the rail yard instead of putting him on a horse and sending him straight to Cressida.
Perhaps he should be grateful.
“Cressida sends her regards, Captain Sharpe.” “Cressida can go fuck herself.”
“I’ll pass on the message when I hand her your bleeding heart.” She pressed the barrel of Gideon’s loaded gun harder between his shoulder blades.
He had no idea how strong she was, or what spells she had up her sleeve. But one thing he was sure of: if he tried anything, she would shoot to kill.
“It’s a little sad, don’t you think?” He was trying to stall. Trying to concoct an escape as he stepped over the iron rails. But all he had on him was a box of bullets in his pocket. She had his gun. “Cressida couldn’t keep my heart with her winning personality, so she sent you to cut it out of my corpse. Will she put it in a box, I wonder? Keep it beneath her pillow?”
She dug the gun harder into his back. “Keep blaspheming the queen, and I’ll tie you to these tracks so you can watch your death coming a mile away.”
She could, if she wanted to. There would be other trains still running. Supply trains bringing food, coal, and other necessities to the capital. Cressida would need them if she wanted to win this war.
Defiance burned through him. “Cressida Roseblood will never be my queen.”
“You’ll choke on those words.”
“So be it. Kill me. A hundred others will rise up to replace me.” “And they’ll be slaughtered, too,” she growled. “Get on your knees.” In the distance, a train whistled.
Gideon glanced toward the sound as he dropped to the ground. But there was no train in sight.
He expected her to step back, preferring to put a bullet in his head. But she drew her casting knife and pressed its sharp edge to his throat.
The steel was cold. He shivered, waiting for death.
“Too bad you won’t live to see your precious Republic crushed into the dirt,” she whispered at his ear. “Sweet dreams, dear—”
BANG!
Gideon flinched, his ears ringing with the gunshot.
But no pain exploded through him. No bullet pierced him.
The witch dropped her knife. A second later, she toppled, hitting the ground beside him with a thump.
BANG!
Still on his knees, Gideon spun, falling back onto his hands.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Someone stood behind him, pointing her gun at the dead witch. She fired until the chamber clicked, clicked, clicked. Out of bullets.
Her gaze lifted to Gideon.
Rune’s illusion was gone. In the light of the setting sun, the wind whipped her red-gold hair free of its braid, and her eyes were thunderous as she lowered the smoking pistol. Her cheeks were red, her skin shone with sweat, and her chest heaved, as if she’d run hard, all the way here. Desperate to get to him in time.
He’d never seen a more beautiful sight. Or a more furious one.
“What the hell, Gideon?”
