Chapter 24
Good Boy, My Ass; It’ll Be Bloody, Really Fucking Bloody
Mauldrene’s shadows guided us swiftly to the opposite side of the castle from Baz’s chambers, though guided was barely the correct term.
Her string trio strummed out a fast-paced tune that had my nerves strung as tight as the instruments.
The music would have been the perfect accompaniment to a pack of hungry wolves chasing a lone deer through a forest. Like the imagined deer, my instincts told me to flee for my life.
Since the shadows herded us by actually snapping their teeth at us, we loped to keep ahead of their invisible maws.
Not once did I actually spot teeth emerging from the shadows, but I knew exactly what gnashing teeth sounded like; there was no mistaking it.
We traversed twenty different passageways, climbed three spiral staircases that were so cramped that Mauldrene could have all too easily trapped us inside them, squeezing and crushing our bones.
It took perhaps ten minutes before the six of us ground to a stop outside a closed door that had to be the empress’.
The music suddenly slowed and quieted, receding once more to its usual haunting background; the shadows ceased their lunging.
The pair of lumoons that had appeared for me when I was trapped with Baz in the castle’s depths had vanished.
However, each of the others had at least one of the glowing orbs keeping pace with them.
Their lumoonlight was plenty to gleam across the blood dripping down the front of the door, which was a solid piece of iron.
The blood was dark, though not quite black, as if Mauldrene’s shadows might be what was oozing through the fluid.
Whatever bad act Baz had feared from Terencia had almost certainly already occurred.
As far as I knew, and as person-like as Mauldrene often behaved, she didn’t bleed.
“Mothertitfucker,” Night said in a deep rumble.
“She’d better not have…” Ed said but didn’t finish.
Baz tugged on the Rillis rope, pulling me closer, then inhaled deeply, releasing the exhale just as slowly. As s?nglures, we didn’t need to breathe, that much was true. But for those of us who’d been rebirthed, who had once needed to breathe to survive, I doubted the habit ever fully left us.
As if one steeling breath weren’t enough, again Baz breathed slowly in, then out.
From Baz’s other side, Félix brought his mouth to his friend’s ear so the s?nglures opposite the door shouldn’t be able to hear: “You can’t kill her.”
Baz’s muscles, largely bared in his vest, clenched into distinct cords. He wore a wide, copper band, etched in faint engravings I wanted to examine, circling his bicep. The band squeezed, indenting the skin surrounding it.
“No matter what she’s done,” Félix said, “you cannot.”
Baz’s jaw only clenched harder.
“Brother, calm yourself first.”
“No.”
Night, Ed, and Zi looked on. Their faces, which had been placid enough while we’d sprinted across the castle, tightened now with alarm.
Félix placed a hand, meant to be calming, on Baz’s shoulder, and with a sharp shrug Baz tossed it off. The broadswords that crossed against his back squeaked in their leather harness.
Aziza circled in front of him and smacked a palm flat to his chest. He pointed a hard warning glare down at her.
I forced myself to step aside and tried not to, but still proceeded to, glower at Aziza’s hand against Baz’s chest with enough fury to sizzle her flesh to a crisp.
As if she felt the heat of my gaze, she squeezed her fingers.
It only caused them to glide against his vested chest, further igniting my ire.
Aziza tipped her head up to meet Baz’s eyes. “By the Ethers and all the Fuerin…” she whispered throatily—the cunt. “…I want to kill the bitch as much as you do. But no matter what we encounter on the other side of this door, you can’t do it.”
Baz just growled.
She pushed on his chest. “You can’t.”
“She’s right,” Night said.
“Your father will exact the price of his mate’s death from as many as will hurt you,” Félix said, both hands at his sides, though even he seemed to be struggling against the instinct to draw his bow. “Despite how much you try to hide it from him, he knows you care about the beings of the Opalese.”
“It’ll be bloody,” Night said. “Really fucking bloody.”
More somber than I’d seen her yet, Ed nodded.
When Baz finally spoke, his words were cutting as glass shards. “My father is possibly dead.”
He had better not be. He was my way out of here.
Félix said, “But he also may still live.”
Baz stood there until his bulging muscles calmed by a fraction. “Fine.”
Aziza patted his chest, as if to say, That’s a good boy. Without my permission, my feet slid my body between them.
Aziza harrumphed. This time, I remained where I was. Good boy, my ass.
Around me, and with a bitter scowl, Aziza said to Baz, “‘Fine’ like you were fine before you mowed down those soldiers in Montressón?”
Montressón was my birthplace. What had he done?
Baz only grunted. “Get out of my way. I’m going in now.”
Aziza hesitated but stepped aside. I shuffled to stand beside him, all too willing to see this empress, who’d joined her husband in pilfering the Opalese, die a final death.
“Stay back,” he told me while already guiding me behind him.
For fuck’s sake, I can take care of myself, nearly burst from my lips. But a fresh reminder that I was at least as competent as any of the Bazrians wouldn’t encourage him to let his guard down around me.
An empress probably should have had guards stationed outside her chambers in a foreign castle, but this one didn’t, and Baz opened the door without knocking.
I glanced at the others, but none of them seemed particularly surprised that he wouldn’t announce himself first. Blood from the handle rubbed off onto his palm.
I waited to watch him lick it—he was a s?nglure, after all—but he wiped it off on a wall.
Thanks to the Rillis rope, I was second inside the room, and I soon met with Baz’s broad back.
Once again, he tried to shield me, but his efforts were half-hearted, and he dropped his hand to his weapons belt, where it fidgeted.
With how little I yet understood Baz’s motivations, it was evident he was considering murdering the empress, no matter what his friends had cautioned.
I didn’t know the woman, and her death wouldn’t particularly benefit me. But at the sight before us, even I was wishing I could drain all her blood, rip her head from her shoulders, and kill her for good.
Ed, Night, Félix, and Zi piled up around us.
“By scorches,” Ed murmured.
“Why would…?” Aziza began but trailed off, probably because the empress had noticed our entrance.
She wore no crown or diadem atop her long, unbound hair. Every one of the multiple windows was shuttered behind deep shadows. Lumoonlight dispelled only some of the glumness, and in that dimness, the empress’ curly strands were the color of caked blood.
Fully nude—unless a dusty-rose tinted coating counted as covering—she sprawled atop a chaise lounge.
I was still a bit too far away to be completely sure, but by scent I deduced she was drenched in blood, the seed of several men, and—bizarrely—a bit of sneakle-milk pudding.
Her head was propped on cushions, one arm draped over the side of the chaise while one foot rested on the floor, providing an unobstructed view of her thighs, spread wide.
Olvidian was a drug that often proved stronger than its users, and the stolen title of empress wouldn’t magically make her any less susceptible to its overpowering effects.
Extracted from the olandry flower and distilled into a resin, olvidian was later heated into a thin, clear, ingestible liquid.
On the small table beside the chaise lay five tiny vials just like all the other vials signaled for olvidian use that I’d seen over the decades.
All of them were empty and toppled over, which explained why the supposed empress of most of our world lay limp and glassy-eyed—but not why she was drenched in sneakle pudding.
The blood and male seed, well, those were self-explanatory.
Of the many men in the room with her, none were moving.
Of the females, there were only two others in addition to the empress, and their plain dress marked them as servants.
The two young women sat rigidly on a settee as far away from her as they could get while still avoiding the shadows swirling agitatedly along the walls.
“Alobaz, darling,” Terencia trilled after lifting her drooping head. “Why did you delay so long in coming to me? I’ve been waiting and waiting for you. It’s been days.”
When Baz didn’t answer, she dragged herself up the cushions, smearing dark pink along the brocade. She didn’t pull her legs together. I couldn’t decide if the move was intentional provocation or if she was too drugged to care about propriety.
“You will answer your empress mother.” Her words slurred a touch.
Rafaela had failed spectacularly at being a good mother. But in comparison to this mother, Rafaela the Ruthless was downright proper.