Neros’s body laid on the floor of a chamber nearly as extravagant as Kallia’s, though it was a single room with two beds and two wardrobes in addition to tables and chaises. His blood soaked into the intricately woven red and gold rug, a wound to his heart visible though no weapon remained. He wore a blank expression along with the same simple clothes Dante had seen him in that morning.

Dante crouched to prod the body investigatively. It was still warm; the prince had been dead less than a couple of hours. That ruled out everyone who had been in Kallia’s chambers--including Sarasha, whom Dante would have otherwise put at the top of the suspect list. He’d still ask her if she had anything to do with it when he got back to Kallia’s chamber where she remained with Blukke. It could be another mindmolder trick like Sol’s death had been despite her newly-discovered collusive relationship with the prince.

A handful of Wassalian and Lanhami guards stood around the room, but they didn’t crowd Dante as he examined the scene on Kallia’s orders. The princess and her handmaidens had been escorted to the king’s chambers by those dozen guards where they were to meet with the remaining Lanhami royals. Prim had insisted on coming with Dante, but--thankfully--Kallia had denied her. Dante didn’t want Prim seeing another dead body. Helena had left, presumably to go back to her own chamber after providing exactly zero wise and powerful council during their interrogation.

Dante’s sense gifts were of no use in analyzing the murder. There were too many guards around to make out a scent that shouldn’t be here. Instead he took stock of the room, but nothing seemed to be out of place; there didn’t seem to have been a struggle.

He questioned one of the guards to learn the body had been found not half an hour ago by Prince Egan, who had shared the room with his brother, after returning from spending the day in the city proper with his sister. The younger prince said he’d heard angry yelling as he opened the door, but when he came in, only Neros was inside, already unresponsive and bleeding out. The guards in the hallway--two Wassalian and two Lanhami posted throughout the enclosed stone hall but not at the princes’ door--claimed to have neither seen nor heard anyone.

With no ideas, Dante made his way to the king’s chambers only to be turned away by the guards standing at the door who explained the king and queen were explicit in their instructions to not let anyone enter the private meeting of the two royal families in the wake of the tragedy. That was fine with him, he supposed. He’d prefer to be with Prim if there was a murderer running around, but he knew she was capable of handling herself, especially with Kallia being in there. Prim wouldn’t let anything happen to the princess; she would be on high alert.

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So Dante padded toward Kallia’s chambers to wait to give the women his report there.

He smelled the blood before he turned the corner to find the guard at the end of the hall dead from a slash to the neck. The bodies of the two guards usually posted at the door were a few feet away and the guard from the other end of the hall a few feet after that; they had run toward the danger only to be slaughtered themselves.

Blukke.

Dante leapt over the bodies and used his phantom hands to open the doors before he got there so he could continue running at full speed into the princess’s entertaining suite.

A single dark-haired, wingless body slumped in a chaise, his hands folded over his side. Blukke’s eyes were closed, his lips parted, his face colorless.

There was no sign of Sarasha.

Barely discernible over the pounding of his own heart in his ears, Dante heard the weak beat of his friend’s. Thank fucking Solin. Dante dropped to his knees in front of Blukke, patting his face softly. “Blukke?”

The shifter didn’t open his eyes, but he let his hands fall away revealing blood-stained palms and the stab wound they’d been covering. “Bristol,” the shifter breathed.

Dante hadn’t realized Blukke felt more than lust for the handmaiden, but he wasn’t going to waste time getting her. He refused to believe that Blukke needed to say his farewells anyway. “I’ve got you,” he said, applying pressure to the wound.

Blukke shot his arm out, gripping the collar of Dante’s navy uniform shirt. “Bristol.” His hand fell away as soon as the words were out. The change in his breathing revealed the effort just to do that was extraordinary.

Dante debated for only a couple of seconds.

“I love you, brother,” he said, squeezing the shifter’s neck. A moment later he was running through the hallways, using his wings to thrust himself faster toward the king’s chambers to honor his friend’s dying request.