Chapter Thirty-Nine Witch, Ghost, Villainess #2
“I told the whole court I don’t enjoy fighting,” said Lord Fabianus, son of Commander General Nemeth, a man who had risen from the lowest rank of nobility to one of the highest positions in the land on sheer battle prowess alone. “Nobody ever asked if I was any good at it.”
Rae supposed they never had.
Fabianus produced another throwing-knife from his belt. “Not to be a braggart. But I am rather good.”
He threw another blade, which Conn only just managed to duck, then threw himself at the guard.
The clashing weapons attracted attention.
Above, from the tunnels and the palace beyond, Rae heard steps that fell too perfectly in synchronization, many dead feet answering to a single will. The Emperor’s army was coming.
Over his shoulder Fabianus shouted, “Vasilisa, go! My sisters wait for you with a ship. Lady Rahela! Get my love out of the city and away from the Emperor.”
Rae nodded with determination, seizing Vasilisa’s hand and pulling her bodily through the dark tunnel, the sounds of battle echoing after them as they fled.
Her head whirled and throbbed, still seeing Glacia’s dead face, picturing the same fate befalling Vasilisa.
Shadows slithered through the tunnel, darkening her vision.
“My lady, tell me something.” The Emperor’s face emerged from the darkness ahead, calm as a death mask.
“I held trials, knowing you lied about why you wanted them. I lit pyres and flew monsters for your entertainment. You desired pleasure, I pleased you. You wished for power, I gave you a throne. You wanted your enemies crushed, I crushed them to ash. How did I fail to live up to your expectations? Why are you not pleased?”
His last question sliced the air like a knife. She knew the truth of her heart now. She was terrified.
Rae screamed and pushed him to one side, pulling Vasilisa with her and running down the tunnel as fast as she could. Even though her rational mind knew it was useless. She could not run fast enough.
A rush in her ears swallowed the sound of blood pounding in her temples. Her wrist was seized in a vice-like grip.
“Caught you, my lady. Do you wish to play hide and seek all night?”
This time Rae didn’t scream. She gave Vasilisa a hard shove, down the tunnel and away from her.
“You may go, Princess,” said the Emperor, casually. “I’ll catch up. Let me have a moment alone with my bride.”
Vasilisa stumbled at Rae’s shove and ran, her footsteps sliding and splashing into the distance. Rae hoped she got away, even though she knew it was unlikely.
Held fast, Rae knew there was no chance for her.
All the playfulness, all the sweetness, had drained away from last night, turning what had been gold as grey as death.
She felt her pulse, beating furious defiance against his claws.
Down here in the tunnels, deep in the ground beneath the palace, it was cold as the grave. She was all alone with her death.
She saw the Emperor was furious. She was furious too.
“You killed her!”
“Yes, I killed her,” the Emperor roared, the cut-throat harshness of his voice tearing as if the wound would bleed afresh.
It sounded like the abyss itself spoke. “I am not sorry for it. I am not sorry for any of my sins. I am not sorry for any of your sins. You didn’t care when I was whipped for you, you didn’t care when I died for you.
And why should you, my lady? You told me you were selfish and power-hungry and grasping, you told me you would use people.
I could understand that. We were evildoers together.
But suddenly you show tender care for so many.
Why has my evil queen’s black heart grown gentle?
Why does every death matter to you except mine? ”
Yours taught me all the rest mattered. I learned this world was real and I have been trying to help those in it, help you become a hero, but I am a villain and everything I touch collapses to ruin!
Rae gasped out, “You understand nothing.”
“You tell me nothing, Rachel,” the Emperor spat, and grinned like a skull when she flinched.
“Do you think I’m a fool? I read what you wrote on the night sky.
What are you, if not Lady Rahela? Are you a ghost preying on the living?
Are you a witch who cursed me? If not power or pleasure, what is it you want? ”
“I didn’t want Glacia to die!”
“Would you rather I died?” the Emperor asked idly. “Of course, you would. Is it that you find me so disgusting, my lady Rae? Is that what makes you tell lies to escape me?”
He talked of her cursing him. Her real name, given as a joyful secret between them, came out a curse thrown bitterly in her face.
She remembered reading once that all stories were about point of view.
If you were the person stepping through a door into a land of enchantment, then it was a story of wonder.
But if you were living your life, only to see a door open in the fabric of the universe and some strange thing creep in from another world, then it was a horror story.
Maybe she was the monster. Maybe it was his duty as the hero to kill her.
“Will you hate me forever,” asked the Emperor, “because I killed the king?”
Shock ripped a wild laugh from Rae’s lips. “I don’t care you that you killed him. I hated the king.”
“The first day we met, you swore to me you loved him. Nobody else could hear. You didn’t have any reason to lie. I believed you meant it. I still do.”
The first day they met, the day Rae entered this world. When she was so excited to approach the throne, because she thought she would see the Emperor.
“I did mean it,” Rae screamed at him. “I still do. I thought he was you. I read about your life as if it was a wonderful story. I loved you for being my only comfort. I loved you because I felt you were the only one who would ever understand me. I loved you before I ever met you. I love you with all my heart.”
He had to believe Rae, with her true heart revealed.
Whether he kissed her or killed her, she expected a reaction.
“Oh, my lady.” The Emperor didn’t hesitate for the space of a single heartbeat. “If only I believed you. But I don’t.”
It was so dark, Rae realised. The luminous glow of truth at her throat had faded away. She hadn’t even noticed when the light died.
Despair silenced Rae.
His grip on her tightened. “Stop lying. Tell me where it is that you came from, and what it is that you want!”
Rae fought against his grasp. “I’m from another world. I want to go home!”
She stood still and cold in the shadowy tunnel. He traced her throat with his gauntlets, the back of her neck in a steel trap, lifting her chin with the tip of an iron claw. It felt as if her heart were beating in her throat. So in a way, her heart was held in his claws.
If the Emperor of prophecy ever did crawl out of the ravine as the unforgiving ruler of the hungry dead, what a warped corpse-god he would be, Key had said once.
Yes, Rae told her lost Key silently. He would.
The Emperor held her fast. In years to come, the Emperor would learn how to travel on the wings of the storms he raised. He shouldn’t be able to do that now.
Wind rushed in Rae’s face, and the tunnel sped by as they hurtled suddenly through the air.
She gasped for a ragged breath as her blurred vision cleared, seeing the horrified faces of Vasilisa, and Fabianus’s sisters.
Key had transported them directly to the escaped prisoner.
Hortensia’s face was the first to come into focus, skin still lit by a faint bluish glow, as if she’d swallowed a candle-flame.
Even Hortensia, changed as she was, gave a shriek at the monster appearing abruptly in their midst.
The women scrambled to flee. The Emperor had made his point. He could catch up with them anytime he wished. His claw slid cool along Rae’s jawline, leisurely tracing.
“You can’t leave. This is your home now. If you will not try to be happy here, there is another way,” the Emperor told Rae thoughtfully, “My dead are always glad to be with me. My dead want whatever I want. Is that the only way to make you happy, my lady?”
Helpless shivers ran through her, as if his words pushed cold poison through her veins. She was so afraid, and so entirely furious. Did he think she would surrender to death? She who had fought death alone for years, she who had escaped from death to another world. She wouldn’t die for anybody.
“The dead aren’t happy. The dead are only dead. You can’t make people be happy to stay with you. Is that why you killed Glacia, because she didn’t want to stay with you? Because you’re scared nobody ever will?”
The Emperor’s eyes changed, not ash-grey or fire-red but black holes as though everything that was Key had burned away. Behind him, a sword swung through the shadows. With a sound like the scream at a heart of a star, the Emperor whirled, lashing out with his claws curled.
At Fabianus Nemeth, who must have fought off the guard and come after them.
Fabianus should have run after his princess and his sisters. He should have left Rae to die. Instead, he swung a blade against his monarch, trying to save Rae. He was brave and true, and he failed completely. His blow never landed.
Fabianus toppled slowly backwards. His expression, always faintly surprised, did not change. There was a hole carved in his violet silk shirt, a gaping cavern where his heart should be.
The Emperor withdrew a dark and dripping prize held in iron.
That was the problem with a villain who would kill anybody, Rae thought with terrible clarity.
You could pretend this was a video game, with every victim a faceless nonentity, but a villain who would kill anybody would eventually kill somebody you cared about.
Someone brave and beloved, and that death would cast a light on all the other deaths and show their horror.
“Fab!”