Timothy's POV
"Hold the line!"
My voice was a ragged bark, tearing through my raw throat. I leaned heavily against the heavy oak frame of the antechamber doors, my side screaming in protest. The wound from the ambush was fresh, seeping hot blood into my tunic, but pain was a luxury I couldn't afford.
Behind me lay the heavy iron door leading down to the Ice Crystal Chamber. Down to the King and his sleeping Queen.
In front of me was a sea of traitors.
"They're pushing again!" Wade shouted from my left. His shield arm was trembling, but his eyes burned with a warrior's fury. "Their numbers are too great, Timothy! We can't hold them forever!"
He was right. The hallway was choked with bodies—men wearing the crest of the old regime, loyalists to a dead tyrant, bolstered by foreign mercenaries. The smell of copper and unwashed bodies was suffocating.
"We hold until we die," I snarled, pushing off the doorframe.
