Chapter 53
We arrived back to complete pandemonium in the city square.
Commander Loyal no longer stood atop his stage, rallying people to our cause—the truth.
I didn’t know where he was. On the stage now were three Bluescale goblins pelting shit at a massive Greenheart man, muscles stacked upon muscles in his arms. He reached for the smallest Bluescale, a woman with short, spiky hair and a terrified expression, but the other two intervened.
More smoke columns climbed into the sky, but there were no flames, and no sign of the fire creature Cleodora had created, inspired by the Haar.
“Shit,” Xiona breathed beside me, her expression tight, face sallow at the sight that awaited us ahead. “Look, those men are burned.”
“Cleodora’s pet fire was here,” I sighed, tired down to my bones but still holding onto a burning coal of rage and hate.
Jyrard was here somewhere, slinking like a snake among the innocent people of the Bluescale Court and Cleodora’s goons imported from Greenheart.
“Find Hames, he must be here. He can help heal whoever needs it.”
Xiona nodded sharply and peeled off, vanishing into the crowd. I gave Kier a wide-eyed look. “Did she just do as I asked?”
“No, mate,” he replied, glueing himself to my side. “She did as you commanded.” A corner of his mouth turned up. “Cleodora’s gone, and Jyrard will be soon. That makes me the king of Bluescale goblins.”
“Oh god, don’t say it,” I groaned.
“And you, my darling wife, will be the queen.”
I peered around Kier’s broad shoulder to where his mother stood, her wound as patched up as we could make it.
It wasn’t as deep as I feared, just a shallow slice that had bled like crazy.
She locked eyes with me, summoning a tired smile.
I’d be dead without this woman, there was no doubt about it.
“I don’t suppose you fancy ruling the Bluescale Court, do you? ”
Her laugh was little more than a breath, inaudible over the rising clamour in the square below. “Not a chance.”
I grumbled wordlessly. Great. It looked like I was queen. I leaned up onto my tiptoes and put my lips to Kier’s ear. “I expect a whole kingdom’s worth of orgasms in repayment for being your queen.”
“Oh, is that all?” he asked, more life entering his gaze as he looked down at me. “Not another armoury of weapons? A library? A litter of puppies?”
“Well, yes, obviously.”
He laughed, rusty and quiet, but victorious. Cleodora was dead. She could never hurt me again. He kissed my forehead, and I melted into his warmth, his presence, the solid feeling of him against me.
He might have got to the killing-Cleodora-party late, but he was here.
Safe and whole, not threatened at all. I feared he’d confronted Jyrard alone, up at the castle, but it turned out he and Xiona had been arguing, and she penned him into a dead-end street, refusing to let him get himself killed down at Speaker’s Corner or by confronting his brother.
He no doubt owed her his life. I owed her, too.
The moment was ruined by someone growling a warning, the sound rising over everything else, and then a woman screamed in pain. “Are you going to jail me for holding a sign?” a teenager yelled, as a Greenheart man in his fifties tried to drag her away, presumably to cuff her with magic.
“This is getting ugly,” I muttered, forcing myself away from Kier’s warmth. “Do you think you can get me over there?” I pointed at the stage. “Without us being attacked or arrested?”
Kier tugged my hood over my head, tucking it close around my face. “Climb on my back.”
“Kinky.”
He smiled, but it fell when the shouts rose closer to us, Greenheart guards going in heavy handed. Shit. A Bluescale woman was thrown to the ground. The Greenheart man who tried to help her up took a bat to the face for it. I climbed on Kier’s back without further comment.
He kept his head down, moving like a tornado through the edge of the crowd, and I held on tightly, glancing back to make sure Syl was still with us and startling at the space that opened up around her, some shouts softening to murmurs.
“So, uh, we’re not exactly inconspicuous,” I said against Kier’s head, ignoring the crack of pain that went through my leg when someone whacked into my knee.
I’d honestly lost track of all the places Cleodora hurt me during the fight.
I’d ended up on my knees more times than I’d like; they’d be bruised for weeks.
Kier upped his pace, and my heart thumped as Greenheart goblins aimed towards us, but my panic was replaced by a soft awe when people—Kier’s people, our people—formed a wall between us and the soldiers.
We reached the stage without Greenheart interference, and any Bluescale who decided to pick a fight with Kier found themselves somehow on the other side of the goblin wall.
Okay, so maybe being the queen of these people wouldn’t be so bad. But gods, all that paperwork…
Kier slid me down his back, clasped my hips in his broad hands, and then lifted me onto the stage. “I suppose you’ll be wanting this,” he guessed, taking the fabric-wrapped lump from the bag we might have borrowed from one of the shops on the castle road.
“Thank you, darling husband,” I said, accepting the bundle and kissing him quickly.
For luck. For strength. In the blind hope that the crowd didn’t turn on us like they did in Lazankh when they realised Kier created the Haar.
Commander Loyal’s speech seemed to have worked wonders though, because only a third of the stares aimed my way were hostile.
“I suggest,” I said, locking eyes with the Greenheart goon across the stage now manhandling a woman towards the edge of the stage, “you release that woman. Unless you’d like to end up like your queen. Dead.”
Whatever amplifier Loyal used earlier was still in effect, because not only did the Greenheart soldier freeze, the crowd seemed to pause for a moment.
I tried to glimpse Loyal’s people as I looked out over the square, but all I saw was a thrashing sea of people, their faces blurry except for the first few rows in front of me.
The soldier released the Bluescale woman and shot a frantic stare at me, at the crowd, at the bundle I held in my arms. Yup, the tide had turned, and Greenheart no longer had a tactical advantage here.
“The Bluescale Court is no place for a tyrant,” I shouted, not having to reach far to summon my anger.
I unwrapped the bundle and gripped Cleodora’s severed head by her pretty hair, letting her crowd tumble into the crowd, not particularly caring where it went.
“The Greenheart queen is dead. Let this be a lesson to anyone who would try to harm, kill, or subjugate a Bluescale goblin. The only dictator in this court is a dead dictator.”
I made sure to hold the head up high where everyone could catch a glimpse. A real hush fell over the gathered people now, a blend of shock and a little sprinkle of horror. Yeah, a severed head wasn’t ever a pretty sight, but it was a powerful one, and it spoke louder than my voice.
“The Haar is gone.” Ish. “Everyone who was taken from our lands will be returned.” If they wanted to come back.
“The would-be queen has been deposed. And the snivelling, traitor king Jyrard is now a wanted man. I’ll personally make sure he suffers for endangering the very people he was sworn to protect, and for his role in the Bluescale King’s death.
” And for abusing my husband, leaving him with lifelong nightmares. Mostly the latter.
I wasn’t prepared for a cheer to come from the Bluescale woman at the edge of the stage, for her voice to carry across the crowd via Loyal’s magic, or for the veritable roar of approval that came from the crowd.
Okay, maybe I could get on board with this queen shit, as long as they knew I was a thief, an assassin, and a human, and they could sooner kill me than get me in a frilly confection of a dress. (Maybe a badass dress with slits and straps and somewhere to hide a knife.)
“But don’t even think about picking fights with the Greenheart soldiers,” I warned, spotting a muscular man winding up to drive his fist into a guard’s face.
I raised an eyebrow, he lowered his fist. “I now speak directly to those who came here under Cleodora’s commands.
Your queen is dead. You have the choice of returning to your court, or if you harbour no hatred for Bluescale, or you were compelled by the queen, you may remain. ”
Loud protests rose.
“Shush. Some of them had no choice in their actions here. The Greenheart queen was a master manipulator with magic that could reach into someone’s head and scramble everything that makes them the person they are.
If those people want to stay and get medical help, you can all grit your teeth and endure it.
” I stared out over them, a shiver of power moving through me when I saw all their focus on me.
“But if any Greenheart goblins get ideas about staying under the guise of peace, only to cause trouble or violence later, just bear in mind that I’ll hunt you down myself and rip your head off your neck until you match your queen. So choose wisely.”
I stepped back from the edge of the stage the moment I was done speaking, not wanting them to get the wrong idea and think I was taking a starring role in leading the court. That was Kier’s job; I was just his murderous assistant.
I caught a glimpse of my hands as I stepped down from the stage, and I flinched, my foot skipping on the steps. It was Cleodora’s blood, but the vivid red filled my mind with images of Aerona bleeding out on the ground.
“Zaba,” Kier breathed, catching my hips, lifting me to the floor and pulling me into a tight hug. “You are miraculous.”
“Good talk, huh?”
“Good doesn’t cover it.” He kissed my temple, his lips lingering. “A little more bloodthirsty than I would have done it, but you were perfect. You are perfect.”
I blinked, and the tear that clung to my lashes fell down my cheek. How was I supposed to tell my troupe that we’d lost her? That she died saving me? That she took a death that should have been mine?
I rested my head on his shoulder, my eyes blurry, and I began to let them fall shut but a blue glow smeared across my vision. I had a split second to recognise the shape and size of that glowing smear, to push Kier behind me and draw Gaia’s sword from my back.
Old, furious steel met the gleaming turquoise tip of the wand Jyrard had aimed at my husband, and my grief was overshadowed by violent, feral rage.
“Big fucking mistake,” I spat at Jyrard, blinking my vision clear, snarling even as tears fell down my cheeks.
He came at me with the wand again, swinging it in a vicious arc like he would a sword, and I jumped back into Kier when magic burst from the tip. I was still pissed off that the bastard built the wand from my own damn knife. I’d loved that knife, and look at how he sullied it.
My rage at him attempting to kill Kier had magic erupting down the sword in my hand, blinding as it lit up the sapphire, scrolling down the fuller to set the inscription ablaze.
“You won’t survive this,” I said in a cold voice that surprised me.
My anger was freezing over, crystallising into ice. “I hope you realise that.”
“Zaba,” Kier murmured behind me.
“I’ve got this,” I promised him, adjusting my grip on the sword. “I ended a powerful queen today. This little rat is nothing compared to her.”
Jyrard laughed, his head thrown back in scorn and condescension. He probably expected that to trigger my temper. Instead I lunged, Gaia’s heavy sword cutting a downward path through the air, sinking into his shoulder hard enough to drive through flesh and muscle before it met bone.
The smug bastard’s laugh turned to rage. I glanced from his face to the shadow that appeared behind him—Rook. He knocked Jyrard’s legs from under him with a sound kick, his cold, burning rage matching mine.
I met Jyrard’s spiteful stare as I pinned him with the sword to his chest, Rook’s hand on his shoulder keeping him on the ground. “Kier. Do you want to do it?”
“No. I want my wife to exact vengeance for me.”
I wanted to turn and kiss him, to squeeze his hand and tell him I knew what he wasn’t saying, that Jyrard had already stolen enough of his peace of mind without adding his death to Kier’s conscience. Instead, I smirked at Jyrard and said, “This is what happens to those who harm what’s mine.”
He made a last, sad attempt to jab his wand towards me, but I knocked it aside and heard it clatter to the cobbles somewhere to his right. Then, I drove Gaia’s sword through his chest, and held his foul stare until the light left his eyes.
I hoped people heard what I said, hoped they spread those words. A warning and prophecy of what would happen to anyone who hurt my friends and family.
I had no interest in being queen of the entire goblin lands—Bluescale Court was more than enough for me, thank you very much—but this prophecy? Violence upon those who sought to harm the people I loved? This prophecy I could get behind.
“The king is dead,” someone yelled in a voice fit for a town crier. I jumped, throwing my other hand over my ringing ear. “Long live King Kier Kollastus.”
I turned to look at my husband as the shout settled, hitting his chest, his bruised soul.
I watched the weight of responsibility settle on him, where I knew it would be carried with care and heart, like he’d carried the responsibility for the people of Lazankh.
But the sigh that left his chest as the full impact of the word king pushed on his shoulders, his chest, anxiety spilling through the bond.
So I rested my bloody hand on his chest and peered up at him. “Husband. Darling mate. King Kier Kollastus. That’s far too many fucking K’s.”
His laughter was abrupt and loud. A sound of hope so stubborn it refused to die.
Grief waited to crush me the moment I was out of sight of the crowd, but for now I let that stubborn hope echo through me, let it fuel me.
We were safe. It was over.
And for some insane fucking reason, the Bluescale Court had named us their king and queen.
I hoped they knew what they were doing, because I sure and shit didn’t. But I was alive, and that was more than I’d expected an hour ago.
And how hard could being a queen be, really?