Free Assassin's Gambit: The Hearts and Thrones Series by Amy Raby

something,” he begged. “Are you a prisoner here too?”
    She remained silent and motionless beneath him.
    He smiled sadly and twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. “I don’t understand. You offer yourself to me, but you won’t talk. Have they cut out your tongue?”
    “Vitala, what’s wrong?” Lucien asked, waking her from the unwanted memory. He stilled. “Pox. I hear it. I hear it!” He rolled off her.
    Vitala sat up, blinking back to full awareness. She heard it too. Shouts and the clashing of steel. Nearby.
    “Septian!” cried Lucien.
    There was no answer. By the sound, Vitala placed the action at roughly the entrance to Lucien’s tent.
    Lucien flung himself off the bed and hopped to a bedside table.
    Vitala sat up in bed, trembling and confused. What in the Soldier’s hell was going on? Had Lucien’s enemies chosen this moment to move against him? And if so, what should she do? Fight? Do nothing?
    Lucien fished a pistol and a wicked-looking knife from a drawer. He caught her eye and said, “Get my crutch.”
    His words ended her paralysis. She flung herself out of bed, grabbed the crutch, and shoved it at Lucien. Gods, they were stark naked, both of them. He would need the peg leg too, so she snatched it up, but Lucien was already in motion.
    He scrambled across the bed on all fours, then, half hopping and half supporting himself with the crutch, made his way to the back of the tent. “Bring that here,” he said. Vitala joined him as he knelt on the floor and jabbed the knife into the tent wall. He began to haul it downward, opening a gap. The leather was thick. He strained with the effort, gripping the knife with both hands, his muscles trembling. Without his war magic, he probably couldn’t have done it at all.
    He’d opened an arm’s length of leather when a sword point stabbed through the opening. Vitala shrieked, and Lucien jumped back with a shout of surprise. He looked around helplessly. They were trapped. “Get under the bed.” He yelled again, “Septian!”
    Vitala heard someone unhooking the door panel—the intruders were close. She dove to the floor, still holding Lucien’s wooden leg, and scrambled beneath the bed. She still had no idea what to do. Her job was to kill Lucien. These men probably intended the same. Should she just leave the task to them? But what were they going to do with her? Kill her, probably, since she would be a witness.
    Should she fight? Naked as she was, she couldn’t do much, not against men with guns and swords. With crippled Lucien as her only ally, the odds were impossibly long, especially if they’d already dispatched Septian, and she suspected they had. Or worse, Septian was among the traitors.
    She heard the door panel open. She peered out from under the bed, and several pairs of boots crowded into the room. A gunshot rang out, and a man in a Legaciatti uniform hit the floor. Blood welled from his forehead. More pairs of boots entered. Lucien’s pistol clattered to the ground, useless now that its single shot had been fired. He had only the knife left. She counted six pairs of boots, and there might be more outside.
    The boots shuffled forward. Steel clashed. Lucien moved with surprising agility despite having only his crutch. A man shouted in pain. There was more clashing, and Lucien fell with an anguished cry, clutching his right leg. From her vantage point, she saw his taut, ashen face, but he did not make eye contact or even glance in her direction. She realized with a twinge of shame that he was protecting her.
    “Worthless cull,” said one of the men. She recognized the voice as that of Remus, and her anger rose to the boiling point.
    Lucien lunged with the knife and stabbed it into the leg of the man nearest him.
    Chaos erupted. “Gods curse it, get that away from him!” roared Remus. One man stomped on Lucien’s wrist, trapping his knife hand, and someone else kicked the weapon away. Then Remus was on top of Lucien, punching