Chapter 9 · The Rebel King's First Order

The stone blade came for my throat, and Dorian stepped between us.

It punched through his coat with a wet crack.

“Dorian!”

He grunted, caught the attacker’s wrist, and drove his elbow into the stone soldier’s jaw. The soldier’s head snapped sideways. No blood came out. Only black dust spilled from the crack in its face.

Dorian staggered back with one hand clamped over his ribs.

“Get behind me,” he said.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I noticed.”

The buried army kept closing in.

Forty stone soldiers filled the old chamber, each one taller than a man and wrapped in cracked iron. Their helmets had no eyes, but they tracked every move. Spears scraped over the floor. Their blades were made from the same dark stone as the walls, sharp enough to cut through armor.

And every spear pointed at Dorian.

He had his back to the war banner now. The torn black cloth hung from a metal hook above his head, its old crown stitched in silver thread. The banner had been dead for centuries.