87. Bastian
Bastian
I should go to the queen. I should ensure her rooms were secure. I should check whether they’d also attacked our side of the palace.
Should. Should. Should.
But I wanted to find Kat. I needed to know she was safe.
“Grab weapons, if you need them.” I nodded as Lysander returned to us. “I’ll be back in a second.”
I slipped into a side room and ensured I was out of sight.
Only Kat, Faolán, my fathers, and a few lovers had known about my ability, and I planned to keep it that way.
Thank the Stars, it was a couple of weeks since one half of me had died fighting Sura’s soldiers, and I’d regained my strength enough to split in two.
We nodded at each other in perfect unison. Unlike my Shadowblade, which was linked to me, these mundane weapons didn’t double when I split in two. We’d need to find another weapon once we left this room.
One of us stayed in the side room, while the other returned to the ballroom and rejoined the others. As Asher and Lysander buckled on belts with scabbards, I noted where a sword remained so my other self could pick it up when he emerged.
“Hmm.” Faolán scowled, turning over a long knife he took from one of the fallen attackers. “Guard issue.”
Eyes narrowing, I scrutinised my sword. The same leather wrapped hilt. The same stamp on the blade. I clenched my jaw and nodded. “Like those the Ascendants took in their raids.”
“And…” Asher pulled the damaged leather cuirass from one of the attackers, revealing an insignia on the shirt beneath.
A three-headed hydra.
Both in the ballroom and in the side room, my blood boiled. I should’ve killed Sura. I’d spent the past fifteen years dealing with that guilt—I might as well feel it for something I’d actually done.
Then she wouldn’t have been able to do this. A dozen wedding guests wouldn’t be lying on a blood-soaked dance floor.
She had to be behind the Solstice attack too.
But there wasn’t time for blame—of her or myself. We had work to do.
I jerked my chin towards the doors, keen to give myself a chance to creep out of the side room without two Bastians being spotted at the same time. “Come on. Let’s find the others.”
From a crack in the door, I could see through my own eyes as I crossed the floor.
With a deep breath, I pushed that side of my awareness away, making it as dim as my peripheral vision. Two awarenesses, we both saw and felt equally, but one of us focused here.
* * *
And one of us focused here.
I watched myself leave before removing my black jacket and replacing it with a blue one I found on the back of a chair.
I pulled my hair into my face. Not a great disguise, but it would have to do—it should be enough to make anyone who caught a glimpse of me leaving assume that I wasn’t Bastian but some other Dusk guest.
As soon as the guard who’d watched me leave turned away, I slipped into the ballroom and hurried out to the corridor.
With one side of me searching for Kat, the other could go after the queen.
Alone, I moved quickly along the corridors, aiming for the nearest lodestone—the shared dining room. Rarely used now, it had once been a space for feasts, back when Dusk and Dawn had been more closely allied.
I passed guards who nodded when they recognised me and came across several skirmishes. Each fight broke up once I joined in and the palace guards got the upper hand, sending Ascendants scattering.
It felt like a distraction.
A distraction to allow Sura to reach the queen? I scowled and increased my pace.
When I reached the lodestone’s corridor, I sucked in a breath and ducked back around the corner. Ascendants guarded the entrance.
“More on their way, ser,” one panted as though he’d run here.
“Good. We’ll be able to hold this position as instructed.” He scoffed, eyeing the messenger. “You do look ridiculous. But, I suppose, needs must.” He raked a hand through his hair, and several of them glanced at each other, chuckling.
What could that mean? I waited but they said nothing more, and I didn’t have time to waste.
I couldn’t fight all of them, especially not in such a wide corridor. If I had Kat or someone else with a bow to cover me, then perhaps.
But she might be lying dead somewhere.
She isn’t . A flash of a corridor from my other side. We haven’t found her yet, but we will. Focus on our task.
I took a deep breath and pushed away my other side’s view and thoughts. We would find Kat safe and well. We would . She had her poison: she could look after herself.
Dagger in one hand, sword in the other, I stretched my neck side to side.
I didn’t need to fight them all—I just needed to get past them.
I sent my shadows creeping ahead—down by their feet where they wouldn’t notice. Then, at the door leading to the lodestone, I let them coalesce into a figure.
One cried out in wordless shock as my shadow form loomed over them. As the alarm spread through their group, they turned.
Steel flashed as they sliced at my shadows, which split apart and reformed. My shadow-self dissolved and slithered between one man’s legs before rising behind him.
Round eyes stared this way and that, unsure where the shadows would appear next.
“What is it?”
“ Who is it?”
“An unseelie demon.”
While they tried to fight darkness itself, their backs to me, I sprinted down the corridor.
One huffed as my dagger drove into her back. The next one was similarly unaware until my sword bit into their side, spilling blood and guts. They managed an agonised groan as they slumped to the floor.
Their companions turned.
I ducked one blade, dodged the next. One man stood gaping between the shadow figure and me. I shouldered into him, blocking another strike with my dagger, filling the corridor with the ring of steel upon steel.
Two left between me and the door. Eight more behind.
I sent slender tendrils of shadow backwards. I couldn’t spare a glance over my shoulder, but I could make the floor treacherous with dark tripwires.
The main bulk of my shadows took form behind one of the attackers ahead.
The other pointed, eyes wide. “Behind you!”
Before he could turn, shadows circled his neck.
Pain seared my shoulder blade, but, grunting, I twisted away from the worst of the strike. At least, I hoped I did.
“Reinforcements are here!”
No time to assess damage. My sword opened up the remaining attacker’s guard as she raised her weapon to catch it, and I lunged, shoulder crying out as I stabbed her in the armpit.
She slumped, and I barrelled into the door as the reinforcements’ arrows struck it.
The world pitched, jolting my injured shoulder as I tumbled into the lodestone. Chest heaving, I lay on the floor and found myself facing a dozen bristling spears.