The Crown of Gilded Bones (Blood and..

smiled as she drew a thumb across the red-painted mask.
“And that is killing.”
The Revenant’s strange eyes remained open, fixed on
some point beyond us.
“Any mortal can become skilled at killing, can they not?”
Queen Ileana asked. “But a Revenant isn’t really mortal.
They are something else entirely.”
Queen Ileana nodded at a nearby knight. He strode
forward, unsheathing a long-bladed knife. I stiffened as a
sudden rush of desperation burned through me, leaving
behind the choking smoke of hopelessness. It came from
her—the Revenant—even as she stood there,
expressionless, her gaze vacant. She didn’t want—
Malik jerked as if he were about to take a step forward
but stopped himself a second before the knight thrust the
knife into the female’s chest—into her heart.
Tawny cried out, smacking her hand over her mouth as I
stepped back out of shock, bumping into Casteel. His eyes
were wide as he watched the knight yank the knife free. Ian
had turned his head away as the knight stepped aside. The
lace of the Handmaiden’s tunic quickly became wet as she
stumbled to the side and then went down on one knee.
Blood trickled out of her mouth as she stretched her
neck back. “Ouch,” she rasped and then toppled to her side.
“She’s a fighter, too,” the Queen commented as a pool
of red rapidly spread out from under her prone body. She
looked up at Vonetta. “You. Check to see if she lives for
me?”
Vonetta glanced at us and then started forward. She
knelt and pressed her fingers against the side of the young
woman’s neck. Swallowing, she shook her head as she
pulled her hand back. “There’s no pulse, and I…I can smell
it. Death.”
I had a feeling they weren’t talking about the same kind
of scent they picked up from me.