Chapter 50
50
EVANGELINE
T he staircase spiraled upward like an endless coil of shadows; every black stone step worn smooth over the centuries, my pulse rattling looser with every creak.
Upstairs, Hemlocke House was filled with the cloying scent of incense and something sweeter, like a body rotting in the sun, and that thick, oily smell clung to me like a second skin while I followed Riordan, head held high like a bloodhound testing the air.
"Do you know where she is?" I whispered, my voice barely louder than the hum of my nerves. God, I must be insane to follow this version of Riordan up here alone, hunting for different monster in the dark.
“She’ll have laid more traps,” Riordan murmured without looking back, crimson magic glowing at his fingertips. His cautious tone reminded me of the old Riordan, and hope flickered to life. Maybe he could kick Ravok to the curb and wrestle back control.
“Morvessa is at the end of this hall, but there is a barrier between us, I cannot see.”
“Great. Just great,” I muttered. The edge of my blade caught a greenish glint from the wall sconces, a sickly shade in the oppressive gloom.
I wasn’t as frightened as I should have been .
Charging down the corridor with Riordan leading the way, all fury and focus, his power lashing the walls around us, tearing gouges from the walls. I kept ten paces behind, and even then, the crackling energy licked my face like an invisible storm.
When we reached the end of the hall, the final door stood ajar. Soft, green light spilled into the corridor, its earthy glow at odds with Riordan’s red, devouring magic.
Riordan gestured for me to stay back, but I stepped closer.
“What in the hell?”
The room beyond the doorway wasn’t a room at all—I stared at a lush, verdant garden, but not the kind that invited peace.
No, this was evil masquerading as beauty. Thick vines twisted across the walls and up over the moss-covered ceiling, dark leaves and blooms in otherworldly colors glistened with drops of dew…or something more sinister, given the spoiled air was clogged with so much of that ripe, cloying scent, my stomach churned from the overload.
“Thank God this isn’t creepy at all,” I muttered as I stepped inside the door, fetid humidity washing over me, the toes of my boots brushing the blue-green grass, which seemed to be…moving?
I swallowed.
My knife felt pitifully small against the sheer magnitude of danger oozing from this place. And what could a knife do, anyway? This room was crafted from magic, everything inside meant to charm—I nudged the soft grass with my boot and the grass crystalized, became a bed of sharp needles— to kill .
“Careful,” Riordan cautioned, “everything is poisonous.”
“Yeah, no shit.” No sooner than I spoke, a vine shot out, fast as a whip. I dodged back, the needle-sharp tip narrowly missing my shin. Another lashed toward me, and reflexively, I slashed my knife downwards, the blade slicing through the woody, gelatinous creeper with a wet, sickening hiss.
The writhing, twitching piece landed beside us, black, gooey liquid seeping from the end, the sap slowly eating a hole in the floor.
“She’s back there, in the furthest corner,” Riordan pointed. “We’ll have to get through all of this to reach her.” His finger was fixed on a spot I couldn’t see, deep inside the writhing vines and thick vegetation.
Fucking hell . The edge of my knife was already pitted and corroded. That sap was still eating through the floorboards like acid. I’d be dead if I had to hack my way through all of that.
A feminine laugh echoed from the undergrowth. “You’ve come to the perfect place to die, Riordan,” a woman’s voice called. “How Malachi will thank me when I bring him your head.”
A ripple of power went through the room, then every leaf, flower and blade of grass pivoted until they were pointed straight at us, that dewy wetness dripping off every surface, the saccharine scent overpowering.
“And as a bonus, you’ve brought your little pet.”
The words stung more than I cared to admit. Shining a too-bright light on how the rest of the world— this world, in particular—viewed me. I was sick of being treated like some powerful male’s pretty accessory.
I was my own fucking person.
I’d trained and bled and suffered to become what I was. I’d walked through fire and I’d never given up and this bitch was not trivializing the pain I’d endured .
“We should make her suffer.” I gripped my woefully insufficient knife.
Riordan bared his fangs in a bloodthirsty grin, and a ripple of forbidden pleasure went through me. “Those, Silver, are the exact words I was hoping to hear.”
One sweep of his elegant hand and a wave of crimson fire tore through the garden. The plants shrieked like banshees, the thunder of dying magic reverberating off the walls as the garden withered and burned, leaf and vine and bud reduced to crumbling ash.
When the smoke cleared, when the far corner of the room was an exposed, blackened ruin—Lady Morvessa bared her teeth like a trapped animal.
“My turn.”
Draped in darkness, that smile was more poisonous than the vines she’d conjured. With a flick of her wrist, she summoned her own magic—a sticky, black glob of living energy that grew ever larger as it surged toward us.
“ Move. ” Riordan shoved me aside, countering the oncoming spell with a shield of crimson shadow. The impact of the two magics colliding rocked the entire building, Morvessa’s gooey magic splattering into a thousand pieces, dripping down the walls, the floor, the ceiling.
As we watched, those glossy puddles grew, like some fast-growing, alien spawn, consuming everything in their path with an unending, voracious appetite.
Morvessa’s smile widened, revealing not only elongated fangs, but rows of sharpened teeth and I finally registered the source of her glee.
Riordan’s shove had propelled me from one danger into another. I stood well inside the room, surrounded by poisonous ashy leaves and twitching vines ready to devour.
I barely had time to register the danger before the charred remnants of the enchanted garden turned on me. Thorny vines clawed gouges out of my arms and legs, their broken, serrated edges drawing blood. I slashed wildly, the sap from their severed ends splattering across my boots, eating through the leather in seconds.
“Fuck. Fuck .” I swung my knife, breath coming in ragged bursts, my muscles screaming with every swing. My boots were coated with ash and sharp, stabbing slivers of that grass, there was an angry red blister on the top of my foot from the acidic sap.
I glanced to the door, but the vines had already grown over that opening, trapping us.
“ Morvessa .” Riordan roared, hurling a sharpened spear of crimson magic. She dodged, every movement as smooth and practiced as her attacks were ruthless. They clashed, their power tearing through the room in bursts of raw energy that ripped holes in the walls, blew out windows.
Morvessa's eyes blazed with hate as she summoned a dense wall of thorned vines, the air thickening with the pungent scent of those toxic blooms. I plunged my face into the crook of my elbow, eyes watering as I was backed into a corner, hacking at the attacking vines, my blistered hand slick with sweat.
The blade on my knife was almost dissolved, I was covered in cuts and gashes, all of them stinging. But the burns were worse, like someone laid a red-hot poker on my skin.
I had to get out of here. I was too weak to fight this much magic, too much of a liability—Riordan kept stopping to wrap a protective layer of his magic around me—giving Morvessa more openings to attack.
I was going to get us both killed.
Riordan’s crimson shadows writhed like living serpents and with a flick of his wrist, his shadows surged forward, chewing through charred vines and thorns as though they were paper. Morvessa gritted her teeth and screamed, deadly blossoms erupting beneath our feet, tipping me backwards, the knife flying from my hand when I landed flat on my back.
I tried to stand, but that quick, the vines overtook me, digging deep into my arms, my legs, across my stomach. “Help me, Riordan.” I clawed for my other knife, but another vine lashed toward me, thorns sinking deep into my shoulder. I cried out, twisting to free myself before Riordan bent over and ripped them out of my skin with his bare hands.
The plants recoiled, but the reprieve didn’t last. More took their place until Riordan’s magic crushed them in a wave of devouring shadow, leaving everything around me smoking piles of ash.
“I’ll kill you slow,” she screamed, but Riordan threw his head back and laughed, his shadows forming a massive crimson claw in midair. They closed around her and crushed , trapping her in place while she screamed and cursed.
Black had leached into her eyes so there was no white left, her mouth agape, showing those rows of sharpened teeth. She was wrong in every way, and I swayed on my feet, pain turning my thoughts to sludge.
With one last surge, Riordan slammed Morvessa in the chest, the sound of the blow echoing in my own heart like a death knell. She staggered back, the sticky black web dissolving into nothing. I stumbled to his side, dripping with black sap, my body covered in burns and gashes.
“Well, that sucked ass,” I muttered, breath ragged as I yanked off my acid-logged boots .
Riordan didn’t respond. His gaze was locked on the Lady of Ebonshade House, pinned against the wall, her glare dark and defiant.
“This is over,” Riordan hissed, before his red-tinted gaze flickered over me, a faint curl of disappointment curling his upper lip.
“You are a mess, little slayer.” A failed attempt at a joke, but still, the unspoken truth hung between us—I’d barely survived this fight. Without magic, I was a liability.
“If I don’t figure something out,” I murmured, more to myself than to him, “I won’t survive this world, will I?”
Riordan’s gaze softened, a flash of the real him bleeding through Ravok’s cruel mask, if only for a moment. “No,” he said simply. “You won’t.” Somehow, I appreciated the honesty, as raw and shredding as those words were to my pride.
A new resolve took hold, even though it meant going back on a promise I made a long time ago. I took a good long look at Riordan. I was still thinking like a human, still clinging to my lost mortality like it was a life raft in a churning sea.
But I was a vampire, and I didn’t have the luxury of such weaknesses.
“Now you see, Evangeline, what you have to do.” Ravok stared out of Riordan’s eyes, the epitome of dark violence and I shivered.
Then we turned to our enemy. A traitor cornered.
And a king with no mercy to give.