I struggle to take my next breath as a hand half again as big as my body chokes the life out of me. “Who told you about Shevinshome!” a furious voice bellows at me. My ability to hear is fading, but still the sound of the minotaur emperor’s question pushes its way into my ears. My vision is already gone, faded to stars as soon as my torso was crushed. I feel the snap as yet another rib breaks.

“Glrck!” I reply.

“Let go, Brecklin! I need to hear the response.”

The pressure around me releases. I heave in a breath and hate myself for it, knowing it will only delay my torment. I am left to lie broken on the ground while two cow-faced men stare down at me. Truly, when the gods crafted the minotaurs it must have been as a curse to us lower races. Even were I capable of standing, they would still tower above me. Humans are as children to them. Emperor Klotak is the smaller of the two, the gold piercings he has in his ears and nose the only wealth to mark him as a leader. His much larger bodyguard, Brecklin the Breaker, was the one doing the crushing. His hand is large enough to wrap around my waist and still touch thumb-to-middle-finger.

“Not moving,” Brecklin says dumbly, poking me with an enormous finger. His voice is low enough to rattle what remains of my chest.

“No, look at the chest. It’s still breathing.” Emperor Klotak leans down and sniffs at me with his rectangular snout of a nose. “I can still smell the life in you. Tell me how you learned of Shevinshome or this drags on.”

“K-k-kill me,” I manage to sputter out.

“What’s that?” the minotaur asks. He tilts his head so one of his big floppy ears faces me.

I suck in enough air to speak, though it’s a struggle. “Only t-tell you, if you k-kill me.”

He huffs out a hot breath that stinks of chewed cud. “Deal. I was going to do that anyway.”

I don’t mind giving the emperor the information he’s after. I don’t mind him killing me, either. Mostly I’m just annoyed I didn’t hear that monster Brecklin sneak up on me from behind. For a hoofed beast he sure can move quietly when he wants to. “Your sp-spymaster,” I say. “Venick. He told. Me what. You did.”

Emperor Klotak pulls away, confusion causing the thick folds of his face to wrinkle. “Venick told you? Why would he betray me?”

“K-k-killed him.” I try my best to smile. “Slow. H-h-he sang like a c-canary before the end.”

Klotak turns and pounds a closed fist on his bodyguard’s shoulder. “Go! Find Venick! Now!”

“Yes, sir!” the much larger minotaur replies before running to obey.

“S-said you’d k-kill me,” I remind Klotak. It’s going to be really bothersome for me if he leaves me here to bleed out.

He turns back to frown down at me. “Very well. But you must tell me if you’ve told anyone else what you learned from my spymaster.”

“C-caught me in your c-castle, didn’t you? N-no time to tell.”

Normally Emperor Klotak waffles between two primary emotions: anger and confusion—the latter when he’s trying to figure out why he should be mad about something—but when I confirm that his dirty secret will die with me, he shows me a rare, third emotion: pleasure. His mouth splits to show off his flat, stubby teeth. As blunt an instrument as he himself is.

“Excellent,” he says as he pulls back one of his hooves to aim at my head. “I have to say, for the so-called ‘Bloody Left Hand’ you were quite disappointing.” I laugh as his hoof comes down and crushes my skull like a grape. If only he knew…

I wake up.

My body aches like nothing else: my back, my limbs, even my hands! They’re clenched so tight I think the bones ought to be cracking. But the headache is worst of all. I’ve never gotten used to the headaches. It starts at the base of my skull, and I know if I don’t treat it soon it will climb to the crown of my head with each new pulse of my heart until it collapses me down into a whimpering pile of misery. I squint open bleary eyes and am appalled to find my king standing over me. I blink just to be sure, but he’s still there. Then I notice two blue-liveried royal guards posted at the entrance to my chamber: they wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t really him. After the vision I just came back from, I do not feel ready to face my king just yet.

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“Juice,” I croak. It’s all I can say, all I can even think of when I wake from my visions. In truth, it’s the only thing keeping me alive. My handmaiden, Giselle, steps forward with a ceramic cup but King Leonid pushes her aside and seizes it from her. In her place he takes a knee on the floor, where I lie on a pile of pillows, and presses the cup to my lips. He means well, so I don’t complain when the crooked angle causes a few precious drops of the healing elixir to dribble sideways down my cheek. Giselle would know to tilt my chin upright with her free hand. I hate the evident concern painting every inch of his features as he feeds me. It reminds me what’s at stake here. Worse yet, it reminds me that this is a problem I have yet to solve for him.

After I’ve sucked down a few gulps of the salty elixir I so affectionately refer to as “juice” a fire lights in my chest and burns away the pain in my aching muscles. It reduces my explosive headache down to the dull throb I’ve learned to live with. As my hands finally unclench, I take the cup from my king’s hand and finish the last sips on my own.

“You didn’t have to come all the way down here, your majesty,” I tell him. “Your messengers are more than capable of—”

“Nonsense,” my king says. I let him cut me off. “With tomorrow’s Summit, I had to see you myself.”

He takes my cup from me, and I savor the feeling of his warm hand on mine. Everything about him is soft, from his pale skin to his round face—that softness is even more pronounced now, considering his comfortable attire. He’s dressed for bed, in a loose-fitting plain white shirt and pants. Gone is the costume of gold and jewels he wears by day to project the strength he doesn’t have. I realize this is the first time I’ve seen his raven-black hair hang loose around his ears instead of pulled back. It makes the stress lines on his forehead and around his mouth stand out. He tries to give me a smile, but it doesn’t fool either of us. The dark circles under his eyes speak volumes about his mental state. Why this world seems to want so desperately to break such a gentle and caring man is something I will never understand. As long as I draw breath, I will do anything to protect him.

“I need to know what you saw, Wren,” he tells me. “I won’t be able to sleep until I know what I must do tomorrow.”

“And I will have an answer for you, your majesty…” I look down and fidget with the tassel on one of my pillows. In a small voice I belatedly add, “When you wake up.” I peek up at him with only one eye, as though that will somehow make the disappointment I see wrinkle his face half as intense. It doesn’t.

“Still they declare war?” he asks. I can see his guilt in the way he purses his lips. He thinks this war is his fault.

“It is not you, your highness,” I tell him. “It is the minotaurs. They are the primary aggressor in the negotiations. Emperor Klotak has his heart set on expanding his territory. There are no concessions that will sate him. We must convince the other nations to join us if we want to stop him from seeking revenge.”

“Revenge?” King Leonid cocks his head away from me and shakes it slowly. “Surely they do not actually believe we had anything to do with Shevins—”

I hold up a hand to stop his words. I already know what he’s going to say. “It is worse than we thought, your majesty,” I say. “Since we spoke last week, I tried everything to see if you’d be able to convince Klotak of our innocence. I just got back from… convincing his spymaster to tell me what’s really going on.” I bow my head. “My liege. Emperor Klotak already knows we had nothing to do with the massacre at Shevinshome.”

“If he already knows, why hasn’t he—”

“Because he did it, your majesty!”

My gentle king actually covers his mouth in shock. “His own people?” He can’t imagine it. He’s too kind-hearted. Too gentle. I don’t even tell him the methods I resorted to when forcing that spymaster to spill his emperor’s secrets. That’s what a Left Hand is for. I do the dirty work, so he doesn’t have to even think about it.

“His spymaster had a fancy name for it. I think he might have called it a ‘casibell’ or something like that.”

“Casus belli,” my king corrects me in a breathless voice. He looks away, his amber eyes going distant as he thinks of concerns I can’t even imagine. I see the worry lines in his forehead get just a tiny bit deeper. “He’s killed his own people just so he can invade…” His mouth works haltingly. He turns back to me. “Then why did he agree to attend our Peace Summit?”

“He’s hasn’t come to make peace, your majesty. He has come to demand humanity’s surrender. It is the only thing he will tolerate in tomorrow’s talk. I have tried everything. He is like a dog with his favorite bone. I think he now believes he must invade us to give meaning to the deaths of that village.”

King Leonid’s eyes skewer me with a sudden intensity. “We cannot allow this to happen,” he says firmly. “We can’t let a monster like that take over our nation, Wren.”

“I will try more, your majesty. There are still things I can do to put pressure on the owlings. They no longer produce enough food to support their population. If we get them on our side, the dwarves—”

King Leonid shakes his head. “No,” he says. “The owlings might be the only nation on this continent with less military power than us. I’ve read your reports, Wren. It is clear diplomacy is not working.” He takes a breath, and I can see he is ready to give the order I’ve been dreading for weeks. “The Summit starts in the morning. It is time you employed more… drastic measures.”

I nod solemnly. A small part of me feels excitement at finally being allowed to do what I know must be done but I push it down. It’s important that my king not perceive me as wanting this. “Are you giving me permission…?”

“Yes, Wren. There is no time left for subtlety. You must become the Bloody Left Hand tomorrow.”