Vengeance Throne (The Callistra Chronicles #2)

TWENTY-ONE

Chapter Twenty-One

"We really don't have to be slinking in like a pair of criminals, you know," Seth whispered. The early morning sun was hanging along the horizon, slashing diagonal rays of golden light across the quiet lawn. "I'm the heir of this country: the knights will let me in."

Pasiphae turned to face him with the dullest expression. Her eyes seemed to say, Are you kidding me? without her mouth opening at all. 

"And what do we do," she hissed, "when the knights start wondering why Sesostris Basillerius is taking out a huge haul from the weaponry hall?"

Seth couldn't deny there was a problem with that.

"Fine, fine," he muttered. "Now move away an inch, I can't concentrate with you smelling like flowers next to me."

Pasiphae hid her flush under a murderous glare as she shifted on her crouch. Since that night, he had been doing this a lot: making passing remarks that he shouldn't be saying, but said anyway.

At least it was better than being awkward.

"Anytime now," Pasiphae muttered, resting her palm against the beige wall they were hidden behind. On the other side of the weaponry hall, Psyche and Charlize were waiting too, ready to rush in as soon as Seth could get rid of the knights who stood guard outside.

They were trying to leave the knights alive, since there was no real purpose to needless murder on a weapons heist, but it was risky business. If any of the knights reported back with suspicions that their attackers eerily resembled the prince and his bodyguards, it would be a whole other can of worms.

"I'm trying not to leave my magic all over the place," Seth whispered.

"They're going to hear us at this rate!"

Seth gave up on his painstaking precision. He pushed out with his hand roughly, and the two knights at the doorway dropped, faster than if they had simply been knocked over the head. When the other two knights who had been circling the perimeter looked back in caution at the sound of bodies dropping to the floor, they too fell to the ground, unconscious.

"Alright, come on."

Pasiphae and Seth leapt out from their hiding place, sneaking around to the front of the building and sidestepping the sleeping guards. As Seth launched his shoulder against the heavy doors of the weaponry hall, Psyche and Charlize appeared from around the other corner, both pulling down masks over their faces as they neared.

Pasiphae had been wearing her makeshift mask—which resembled a sock for the head with holes at the eyes—since they snuck into this section of the Court, but Seth, who lived life on the edge, had yet to pull his past his forehead. Hissing a curse, she reached her arms around his head and tugged it down for him roughly just as the door opened. Knowing that Pasiphae had his mask handled, Seth simply raised his arms, blowing back the first few knights inside with a burst of magic.

Pasiphae gritted her teeth, though she remained standing. Her torso would be bruised after this, mottled black and blue and needing healing cream, but she was becoming accustomed to faery magic again. She was starting to adjust to its assault.

They hadn't known for certain how many guards would be inside the weaponry hall, but Seth had guessed ten. With one quick perusal down the vast length of the hall—a building that stretched several times the size of Eo's town hall—she counted more than thirty.

Deaths.

"No cameras in here, gem," Seth said, preparing his magic warily as he took in the numerous numbers too. "Go crazy."