Chapter 55
Chapter
Fifty-Five
EVIE
A horde of dark hoods and decaying copper masks invaded our courtyard.
The kidnappers. Assassins. Whoever these people were, they’d come after us once more.
Or maybe they’d come just for me.
Their daggers glinted in the floating orbs as they moved as one, heading straight for the right side of the building, where The Dragon and I would have been sleeping.
We looked at each other from the corners of our eyes and shared a nod. Slowly, the mental barriers between us lowered and suddenly he was there . The reckless part of me almost purred at the sensation.
“The guards ratted us out,” I said and felt the echo of my own thoughts in his mind.
“Or someone else was watching,” he said.
The blue tendrils pulsed, waiting to burst. “I don’t know if I can get them all, but at least ten of them will be freed from their miserable existence.”
“Wait until the right moment, the light will reveal our position,” he said. “We need at least a few of them alive in case they try to kill themselves, like your replica did.”
My back convulsed with that heinous memory.
“Five?” I asked.
“Let’s make it an even seven.”
“Adara is going to love–”
My heart fell as the assassins split up into smaller groups, each rushing to a different room. Leesa, Goose, Owyn and Anya, Adara, Kaya and Vexa.
They hadn’t just come after me and The Dragon.
They didn’t want to leave any witnesses.
An assassination attempt on my life was one thing. Threatening the people I cared about was a mistake.
The Dragon and I growled at the same time.
“You take the left side, I’ll take the right,” he said.
I nodded and bared my teeth, ready to attack.
“We’ll finish what we started after we deal with them,” he said and we exchanged one last glance, filled with longing and so many emotions we couldn’t say now.
Then we broke apart, swiftly exiting the alcove.
Our friends were in danger and we would protect them.
I used the shadows and my light feet to creep up on the veranda, right as the assassins neared Kaya’s door. The Dragon used his amazing speed to dash through the courtyard, only the glint of his sword visible.
That same gleam arched through the air and had already turned one of the assassins to dust before I’d neared my own targets, though I could still smell the absolute reek of them.
As their comrade fell, the assassins shrieked as one.
That was new.
The sound was shrill and inhuman and so thundering, I had to cover my ears. What in the–
In the commotion, even The Dragon halted, recoiling from the otherworldly wail. Three of the assassins took advantage and swung their daggers at him. The Dragon cut one down, kicked another into his grim friends, and grappled with the last.
Alerted by the noise, Adara, Owyn, and Vexa had already rushed out of their rooms, armed and teeth bared.
I recovered and shook my head, switchblade and powers at the ready. A shiver of movement caught my eye. My insides froze as I saw an arrow fly through the air, like the ones which had turned my first wedding into a massacre.
A poisoned arrow–and it was heading straight for his head.
“Watch OUT!” I howled down our bond.
He turned at the last second, bending backwards. The arrow whizzed a breath away from him, embedding itself into the wall. The sickly green venom oozed from the wood, burning it.
The Dragon snapped back upright, violence in his eyes.
The same horrified realization reflected between us.
Facing the assassins and their weapons was manageable.
Facing the arrows imbued with a poison nobody knew how to heal was deadly.
“Please be careful,” was all he said before he turned into a hurricane of movements, slashing through the assassins with the force of the howling wind, leaving a trail of ashes behind him.
“You too,” I pleaded and snapped my blue tendrils at the assassins coming at me.
Two of them flinched back at the last second.
One wasn’t as lucky.
My power blasted out, searing like it had on that day I’d incinerated the Serpents. But there was an unnerving tug at the end of it. As if the assassin’s body gulped up every drop of blue light. Instead of scorching his flesh, the power was sucked inside him, burning him from the inside out.
The blue lit up his mask and I saw a flash of fear in his eyes before he too turned into a pile of ashes.
“My power doesn’t work on them,” The Dragon said. “It’s like they’re empty inside.”
I shook my wrists, horrified. But I didn’t have time to dwell on my shock as more and more of them crowded the veranda.
Adara jumped from her floor, her war cry ricocheting off the cliff as she landed on top of two assassins, a dagger to each of their throats. They’d barely ashed out of existence and she was already up and attacking the rest coming her way.
Vexa defended Kaya’s door fiercely, dodging the assassins’ blows with a grace and easiness that defied her usual thunderous movements. When one of them came up from her unprotected side, dagger raised high, a metal poker jutted out from the window straight into his back. Not enough to kill him, but enough to destabilize him. Vexa whirled and embedded her dagger into his eye.
“Don’t you dare touch her!” Kaya screamed. I’d never heard her sound so threatening.
More steps thundered from beyond the gates. These were precise and furious, raining down onto the pavement.
The Blood Brotherhood warriors.
I’d barely heaved a sigh of relief before a rain of arrows fell down upon the courtyard, blocking their access.
“Take cover!” The Dragon roared, flinging one of the assassins a good ten feet away from him. “Advance on the perimeter. Do not stay out in the open!”
The warriors replied as one with a grunt.
I didn’t have time to see them move as more assassins closed in on me, copper masks flashing menacingly. Another three fell in shimmering blue light. But my tendrils couldn’t keep up with the threatening swarm closing in. I crouched and kicked myself out of their way, hands grasping the nearest pillar. Using the momentum, I spun around it, landing behind them. Even with my scarred feet, I was faster.
As my switchblade pierced one of their necks, another arrow embedded in the pillar, right where I had been.
A flash of rage mixed with terror coursed from The Dragon’s end.
“I’m being careful, I promise,” I yelled through the bond.
But there were so fucking many of them. Like roaches, they kept coming at us, wave after wave. They were trying to overwhelm us–just like the advisors.
Owyn had found an axe and swung it at the assassins wildly. Even Goose and Leesa joined in, dropping heavy objects from behind their veranda.
“Get back!” I screamed as Goose’s head poked out too far past the railing. “Avoid the arrows!”
He flinched back underneath the safety of the ceiling just as an arrow whizzed past him.
Where in Xamor’s name were they coming from? The archers must have been on high ground–higher than the dome.
The warriors broke through the wrought iron fence, a sickly metal screech echoing around us. They used the cover of the trees to infiltrate the veranda from the sides, slashing as they went.
I heard them advancing, but still slowed down by the neverending pack of opponents.
I sidestepped deadly blows, one after another, as my crown heated up. It must have been protecting me somehow.
In the chaos, I’d taken down three more assassins. Each time, the pocket of power inside of me trembled from exhaustion. Their foul bodies greedily sucked on my power, leaving me drained.
I trembled each time one of them dissipated into nothing but dust.
“Find cover,” he said.
I blinked the haze away. “I won’t skulk away while you’re all fighting.”
His growl of frustration reverberated down the connection. But I sensed, clear as day, that he was fully aware we needed all hands slicing through our enemies.
Owyn was struggling. The assassins kept coming at him, pushing him away from the door to his room. Goose and Leesa were getting backed up in their bedroom, using every sharp object they found to throw and poke.
They needed help.
I weaved through the assassins, which had turned into a dark and copper blur, my body relying on instinct.
With the warriors behind me attracting more of them, I leaped out of the way of a sharp dagger and landed right next to Adara.
“Do these creatures never rest?” she growled, criss-crossing her daggers to decapitate one of them, turning him to dust. “They don’t even give me the satisfaction of a clean kill.”
“I have it on good authority you’ll get to interrogate the survivors.”
Adara rumbled in delight, reminding me that I stood back to back with a vicious warrior who had been molded by violence–but, damn, could she swing those daggers of hers.
We advanced in a rain of ashes, the copper masks thudding unceremoniously on top of the piles of dust.
But not fast enough.
“Pa-pa!” Anya’s whimper broke through the chaos.
Adara changed.
I felt her muscles tense as a roar rushed out of her. She raced up the stairs to protect Anya, assassins after her.
My back now exposed, I flung myself to the side as a fresh wave charged at me.
Emotions get you killed , Adara had said.
I dodged, crouched, and used every fighting tool she had trained in me to avoid those glinting daggers aimed at my neck and heart. I somersaulted into the air, using the walls as kicking off points and the assassins’ shoulders as anchors. One swipe, that’s all I needed to puncture their jugular.
But I was still human and adrenaline alone couldn’t keep me going.
I landed on the veranda, hunching lower than usual, sucking in desperate breaths.
The Dragon was fighting in a cloud of ash that only kept growing, the warriors were still dozens of assassins away, and all my friends were fighting their own battles.
Above me, I heard Goose’s quick steps, furious and shouting.
“Stay back!” A clang of metal against metal followed his bellow. “You touch her and I’ll send you to Xamor!”
I always knew he had it in him.
Now I needed to find more in me.
The assassins were closing in, their foul shadows falling on me.
I won’t be able to ash them all with my switchblade and my power was almost depleted–but I had another weapon in this frail body of mine.
“You’re already exhausted,” his voice slashed through my mind. “I’m coming.”
“Don’t!” I projected back as hard as I could. “You’ll be exposed to the arrows.”
Before he had time to protest, I grinned deviously up at the assassins looming over me, as if I was a trapped lamb and they were the wolves ready for an easy meal.
I wasn’t prey.
I was the Blue Queen and Dria Vegheara’s stubborn blood ran through my veins.
I yanked my sleeve down and bit my own flesh until I drew blood. As they closed in, daggers at the ready, I jumped once more, twisting in the air so my drops of blood hit them in the eyes and the sliver of exposed skin at their necks.
One by one, they shrieked, just like that kidnapper had so many moons ago.
I landed back down as they burst into a choking cloud of ash.
“You’re insane,” he said through the bond, but I swore I could feel a hint of pride from him.
“You’re just jealous I have my own ash cloud now,” I replied, trying to hide my fatigue as best I could.
The last thing I wanted was him running to my side in a rain of poisoned arrows. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he’d do it.
For me.
And I’d do it for him, too.
I turned to the next wave of assassins. These ones hesitated.
I’d scared them.
Good.
I raised my bloody hand at them and curled my fingers, playing to their fears. “Who’s next?”
My little bout of victory was shattered by a loud thump above me, followed by Leesa’s whimper and Goose’s scream.
I saw red.
I forgot about the exhaustion, the blood dripping from me, the poisoned arrows, and the daggered assassins.
I pushed my body and used the pillar again, this time propelling myself to the next floor. Three more arrows embedded themselves in my wake as I skittered up like a spider. The poison sizzled the wood behind me
As I plopped my feet onto the upstairs veranda, the sight chilled my blood.
Leesa was on the floor, struggling to rise, a deep gash on her forehead. Her weak fingers struggled to grasp the fire poker lying next to her, as Goose jumped onto an assassin’s back.
“Watch out!” I slid down to the floor, kicking the assassin’s legs right from under him.
He lost his balance and concentration enough for Goose to impale a letter opener straight into his eye. I rose above Leesa, baring my teeth at the waiting assassins.
I flicked my hand, but the drops of blood didn’t hit true this time, splashing onto their dark clothes. I shook my head and blinked.
Everything was turning hazy.
As I raised my switchblade, I was yanked back.
Hard.