Chapter 77
Chapter
Seventy-Seven
EVIE
P rotect.
My blue tendrils shot out of me, weaving into a shield right as Zandyr yanked me into his arms, twirling us around–like he did on the first day we met–so the fire would hit him instead of me.
Despite my power, a few of the flames seeped through.
Zandyr arched his spine, hissing. Without the bond dampened, I felt the sting against my own flesh.
“Are you okay?” he asked, even as more pain erupted in him. The oath and the burn seared through him.
“You’re the one who’s hurt. Take cover–”
“We both know I won’t.” His sword slashed through the air. “I’ve experienced worse training with Adara.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not leaving.” He heaved a breath and turned to the flames. “We didn’t expect this.”
“We should have.” I focused on the shield, trying my best to keep it raised even as wave after wave of fire shot straight at it. “This is bad.”
It was terrifying.
The silence had been replaced with horrified cries and the clanks of metal against metal.
The civilians were running away.
The warriors were fighting with the guards.
Worst of all, Banu and Valuta stood there hand in hand, a blazing sphere surrounding them. It shot out rivulets of flames that chased and struck everyone and everything in their wake.
“Eldryan!” Zavoya’s alarmed voice rang out.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Eldryan being hit square in the chest by one of the fiery streams. .
“Dad!” Zandyr’s desperate, horrified yell splintered my heart.
“Go!” I pushed him toward his parents. “Save him, I’ll stave the fire.”
It took one more shove for him to leave my side, but he finally raced toward his parents. Zavoya cradled Eldryan’s body in her arms, sobbing. I felt the rush of Zandyr’s power pouring out of him even before he fell to his knees next to his father.
I turned my attention back to Banu and Valuta. They smiled as one of the blazing tendrils snaked around the carriage and turned it to ash, revealing Kaya and Vexa, who had taken cover behind it.
I flung the shield toward them just as another burst threatened to scorch their own daughter to ashes.
Mad.
They were truly mad.
“You don’t have to do this,” I yelled. “We won’t kill you.”
“Let me guess,” Valuta said. Her words sounded laboured. The symbol on the pavement pulsed, as if it was a beating heart, asking for a sacrifice. “You’ll give us a fair trial.”
“You know we will. We’re not like you.”
Valuta laughed. Banu swayed on the spot. He was beyond talking. Whatever sacrifice that spell demanded, it was swallowing their life essence.
Magic always has a price.
“Yes, you will. So righteous.” She managed to sound arrogant even now. “But we both know we’re guilty.”
“We won’t kill you. I promised Kaya.”
“Poison from my own womb. I wanted to make her queen and she struck me like a viper in return.” Valuta spit on the ground as the sphere of fire blazed wider. If I didn’t stop it, it would engulf Phoenix Peak whole. “I will not live the rest of my days in prison. I will die as I have lived–exactly how I wanted to.”
She was beyond reason. Next to her, Banu rocked from side to side, face turning ashy.
Behind me, I felt Zandyr’s panic rise, even as his power searched through his father’s aching body.
“Then let these people go!” My hands shook from the force banging against my shield. “They’re your people!”
“Girl, we come from the North. Any people we considered ours are long dead.” A revolting grin distorted her face. “But not all. And they’re coming for you.”
“Who?” I heard the desperation in my own voice. Who in Xamor’s name cared so fucking much whether the Veghearas lived or died?
“I’d rather face the gods, with all my sins, than tell you–or face your enemy.” Her grin faltered, as something very close to remorse crossed her face. A shred of humanity in a sea of lunacy. “I really should have killed you when I had the chance.”
The sphere of fire grew. I took a shaky step back, arms shaking from the strain and my own power ravaging me.
“You’ll face worse now, at least,” she went on, voice trembling and far away. “You and all your cousins. If I had drowned you from the beginning, you wouldn’t have messed up everything.”
The shield shook with my shock. “Drowned?”
That eerie grin contorted her face once more, even as she bent at the waist.
“Remember your grandfather’s pool?” She cackled.
The drowning.
Feeling like I couldn’t breach the water’s surface.
The memory that haunted me to this day.
“Why do you think your parents whisked you away? I promised them I’d truly kill you if you didn’t vanish. I should have done the deed then and there, but I was worried your idiot parents or any of their kin would pop another child out and I’d have to go through all that effort once more. Breaking into a Protectorate estate at just the right time is not easy,” she said. “But with you vanished, Constantine became too paranoid to ever trust another contract with a Clan and we didn’t have as much influence as we would have liked yet.”
“You,” I whispered, horrified.
She was the reason for everything.
“Obviously me. Who else would have had the foresight to plan such a future? I wanted my daughter on the throne, the Kovetmore name in history.” She took a shaky breath. She was nearing the end. “But if my blood won’t sit on the Blood Brotherhood throne, nobody will.”
The sphere of fire swelled and spit out more fire. Just as Valuta and Banu collapsed within it, the sphere blew up.
My power rushed out to meet it, consuming me whole.
Gods, protect us, was the last thought I had before darkness swallowed me.
Someone was holding me.
No, someone was rocking my tired body.
I hadn’t known Xamor was so affectionate. He did smell good, though.
No, wait.
He smelled like Zandyr–and that relieved sigh was definitely his.
“She’s waking!” he called out, tightening his hold on me.
“You cannot scare me like this!” Zandyr’s voice lulled me back to reality.
“Promise–” I croaked and swallowed. Everything in me was parched. “Promise I won’t.”
He kissed my forehead tenderly. “I got you. We’re safe now.”
I lay on the ground, with Zandyr on his knees next to me, holding my limp form to his chest. The pavement around us was scorched. In the distance, the civilians who had survived began reappearing from behind the trees still left standing.
Zandyr’s warriors towered on the sides as the guards marched in a straight line with their heads bowed, none of them armed any longer.
I held on tighter to Zandyr’s neck. “Your father–”
“Will live.” He smiled. “He’s never come as close to death as today. I heard my mother already trying to persuade him to retire earlier than planned.”
Sobs wracked the square. My gaze wandered toward Valuta and Banu’s bodies, slumped against each other. Everything around them was charred, but their bodies were untouched, even in death.
Next to them, Kaya was on her knees, a river of tears flowing down her face.
“She will come to terms with this loss,” Zandyr muttered and nodded at Vexa.
She picked up Kaya tenderly and guided her away from prying eyes. Even when they were out of sight, her sobs still haunted me.
I’d convinced her to testify.
It had needed to be done and I didn’t understand her remorse for those heinous people, but that didn’t mean her misery didn’t strike me deep.
“That’s the weight of a ruler,” Zandyr said. “You have to strive for the greater good, but suffering is inevitable. Usually your own.”
“I’ll have the rest of my life to curse that fate.”
Because we had won.
We’d defeated Banu and Valuta.
The Blood Brotherhood Clan had a chance at true salvation.
Kylian and Myron approached, both limping.
Zandyr nodded at Banu and Valuta’s corpses. “Throw their bodies in the ocean, far away from our borders. Xamor’s hounds will never find their souls. They will never know peace.”
“Wait.” I pulled myself up by his shoulders.
These people had wrecked too many lives to count and were willing to destroy even more as their final cruel act.
They were the ones who’d changed the course of my life and the Protectorate Clan.
They had tried to kill their own daughter.
“Stuff them in Kaya’s chest first.” I didn’t recognize the ice in my voice. “Let them sink to the bottom of the ocean and rot in their biggest sin for eternity.”