Chapter 39 · Sovereign Blood

"Put the knife down, Sera."

Garrick said it nicely. Like he was talking a kid off a ledge. His blade sat against Vane's throat, and a thin red line was already beading under it.

I didn't put it down.

My own dagger was pressed to the inside of my wrist, right on the vein. The steel was cold. The wind was colder. Snow tore sideways across the Severed Ridge, and the altar stones under Vane were slick with his blood.

Four silver spikes. Two through his shoulder blades, one low in his spine, one through the meat of his thigh. Garrick had hammered them in like tent stakes. Vane lay face down across the old granite, pinned, claws gouging white grooves in the stone.

He wasn't Vane anymore. The sound coming out of him was wet and rattling and not human at all.

"Twelve guards," Garrick said, nodding at the ring of black coats behind me. "One of you. Do the math."

"I did the math." My voice shook. I hated that. "You still need him alive to carry the throne. That's why he's breathing."

"I need him *tame*." Garrick smiled.