“Senjay!” Queen Asella shrieked. He paid her no mind. He turned his face from the nearest window and jabbed at the glass with his elbow, shattering it.

“Hurry,” he said, just loud enough for Garrin to hear across the room. Lliane went first, clearing off the broken shards along the bottom of the window before she hitched up her dress and scrambled through. Arya followed, pausing just long enough to send an unreadable look toward Garrin as she went.

“My son,” Asella called desperately. “You cannot go with them. You’ll be killed!”

Senjay hesitated with his hands on either side of the window, his back to the room. Garrin could read the tension in his shoulders, but the Thiyaan prince stayed still only long enough to draw in a deep breath. Then he vaulted through the window and was gone.

“After them,” Renton snapped, and a handful of men detached from the main group and hurried down the hallway.

“You should go, sire,” Elonie muttered, shifting her weight while the score of soldiers advanced.

Garrin forced an even breath through his nostrils. “We just have to give the others time to get away. Then we’ll both join them.”

She didn’t argue. Instead, she wordlessly handed over her sword and stepped away so he couldn’t give it back. He resisted the urge to try anyway. He needed a weapon, and she had the training and the skills to get her own. It was better this way.

“One last chance,” Garrin called to Renton, who watched the proceedings with a gleeful expression. “Call them off, and we’ll talk this over together. No one needs to get hurt.”

Renton shook his head. “You cannot suggest peace while holding a sword. Your intentions are clear, and I will not hurt the king further by allowing you to poison the minds of his subjects. Men, attack!”

The soldiers surged forward. Elonie lunged to meet the first one, twisting as he swung his sword at her and grabbing for his wrist. Another two men stepped around her and came at Garrin, and he lost track of what she was doing. He parried the first blow, a half-hearted stab that Senjay would have criticized as being slow, and threw out his own cautious counterattack. The soldier avoided it easily and advanced again, forcing Garrin a step back. Away from Elonie. Of course—they wanted to separate the two of them, surround them and take them... or kill them.

Garrin pivoted to stay near Elonie, hoping he wasn’t getting so close that he would be in her way. He waved his sword again. The other soldiers were pressing closer, forming a half circle around him and Elonie. How long had it been? Long enough for Senjay to get the others into the grounds? How much longer did they need?

Another soldier lunged at him, and Garrin met the attack the way his first tutor had taught him. The motion was automatic, the result of hours of drilling on his own after the practices ended, but it did little except turn the blade away. Another sword was there in seconds, and as soon as Garrin parried it, another took its place. He stumbled back, but before he could lose any more ground, Elonie was there. She’d gotten a sword away from one of the soldiers, and now turned to put herself between the rest of the onslaught and Garrin.

“Just a few minutes,” Garrin said, squaring his shoulders against hers. “That’s all we need.”

“Yes, sire.”

He batted away a strike aimed at his chest. “Have I mentioned that I owe you a promotion?”

She huffed a laugh that turned into a grunt as she kicked a soldier away. “Yes, sire.”

“Forget captaincy. I’ll have to make you a duchess when this is over.”

“As long as I can still fight, sire.”

“Captain and duchess then.”

“I believe that would be a first.”

Garrin opened his mouth to respond, but Queen Asella’s shout cut him off. “They’re getting away! Go after them!”

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“Arrest the prince first,” Renton snapped.

Asella let out a sound somewhere between a scream and a growl. “That’s my son! We must bring him back before—”

“I have sent men after them,” Renton interrupted. “They will retrieve him.”

“Not enough! You do not need twenty men to arrest two. More must go after Senjay!”

“They are not yours to command,” Renton thundered.

That was enough of a distraction, and Garrin wasn’t about to let the opportunity go by. “Toward the window,” he muttered, stepping backwards.

Elonie followed. “I can hold them,” she insisted. “You need to get away, but my father can protect me.”

He didn’t believe that for a second. Even if her father stood up to Renton on her behalf, the marshal would find a way around it. Escape was their only option, and it had to be both of them. “I need you with me,” he said, blocking another blade that would have gone through his shoulder. “I need you to help protect—”

A sword snaked in past his guard and ripped across his upper arm. He cursed, turning with the blow and punching out with his hilt, but the damage was done. A scarlet stain spread across his sleeve, dripping down his elbow and wrist. The pain came a heartbeat later. It burned across his skin and burrowed deep, prying into his nerves, his spine, his neck. Every second brought a new wave stabbing into him, and it was all he could do to keep from crying out.

“Sire?” Elonie asked as he stumbled.

“Time to go,” he choked out. He swung his injured arm—his sword arm—but nearly dropped the weapon as the movement sent new agony searing into his shoulder.

Elonie shoved the soldier before her, throwing him back into his companions and slashing her sword across the air before their noses. It was enough to make them hesitate, and that was all they needed. With a grunt, she spun and sprinted for the window and planted her feet before it.

“After you,” she said firmly.

Look back, Garrin thought, placing both hands on the windowsill. Look back at him. It might be his last view of his father, and he knew he should look. But the image of the king’s blank, confused face was all he could see in his mind, and when Elonie hissed at him to hurry, he went without turning his head.

The drop from the window was farther than he’d expected. It was enough to disorient him, enough that when his feet hit the ground, his knees buckled and sent him sprawling into the snow. Elonie leaped down a moment later, nearly missing his legs, and stooped to help him up. “They’re coming through,” she said urgently. “Can you run?”

It was his arm that hurt, not his legs—though when Elonie hauled him to his feet, he felt the pain down his whole body. “To the stables,” he said. If Senjay had any sense, that’s where he would have gone. With luck, they’d make it there before the soldiers did.

Not that he had an abundance of luck lately. “We have to get out of the castle,” he grunted.

“Gillesport,” Elonie said. “Dellon is there—he’ll help us.”

One more person Garrin didn’t want to involve in this mess, but he had little choice. They needed all the help they could get. “Good,” he said, swallowing his reservations. “We can get supplies there, maybe rest until...”

Until what? He couldn’t go back to the castle, not with Renton still claiming he’d attempted regicide. As long as Renton was there, Garrin was as good as exiled. Could he lure him away somehow? Double back to the castle while Renton was out? No—even with Renton gone, his influence extended to the whole council. They would follow whatever he’d told them, regardless of the truth.

Without more allies, Garrin was outnumbered. He’d never stand a chance.

His only option was to leave.

“There,” Elonie said, pulling his attention toward the stables. Senjay, Arya, and Lliane stood beside five saddled horses, waiting anxiously between the stables and the gate.

“Took your time,” Senjay grumbled, eying Garrin’s bleeding arm without comment.

“A few soldiers followed us,” Lliane said. “They’re tied up in the stables.”

“And more followed you out the window,” Arya said, swinging into her saddle. “We have to go.”

“To Gillesport,” Garrin said. He did his best not to wince as he climbed onto his horse, though he doubted anyone’s eyes were on him. He could hear the pounding of booted feet in the yard behind him and felt a prickle of panic starting at the base of his neck.

“I’ll get the gate open,” Elonie said, mounting and spurring her horse past the others. Lliane charged after her, but Senjay and Arya waited until Garrin had turned his horse to follow them.

“We cut the straps on the other saddles,” Arya said. “That should slow them down for a little.”

Senjay kicked his horse into a trot. “Which won’t matter if we let them catch us talking,” he snapped. “Hurry!”

Arya followed, and Garrin gritted his teeth against the jarring in his arm as his horse hurried after. Lliane and Elonie had already reached the gates and were speaking in hushed tones to the two soldiers on guard duty. “It’s treason,” he heard Elonie hiss. “You know what Renton is like. If we don’t get the prince out...”

One soldier looked back at him, paling as he took in the blood running down Garrin’s arm. “Where are you going to go?”

“Don’t answer that,” said the other. “We can’t lie if we don’t know. Get as far as you can—we’ll do our best to hold them off.”

“Thank you,” Garrin said, in as even a voice as he could manage. “I won’t forget this.”

The soldiers saluted and opened the gates. Lliane urged her horse through before they were fully open, followed closely by Senjay. Elonie hesitated until Garrin and Arya were through, and then she threw the guards an answering salute while they rushed to close the gates.

The doors slammed closed. Garrin dug his heels into his horse’s sides and steeled himself for the long, painful ride ahead.