Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
Briony
I race to where I left the others, sprinting along the pathways, swerving around one corner, then veering around the next, before coming to a sudden, abrupt halt.
Someone has jumped out from among the shadows of the tower, grabbing me by the shoulder and jamming a sharp dagger at my throat. They’re behind me, and I can’t see their face, but I know as soon as they speak who it is.
“Got you. You little bitch,” Stanley sneers right by my ear, pressing the sharp point of the dagger beneath my chin, jabbing it so that it scrapes and stings at my skin.
“What the hell are you doing, Stanley?” I mutter through gritted teeth, unable to talk properly, because if I move my jaw, the knife will pierce straight through it.
“What do you think I’m doing?” he says. “I’m handing you in to the Empress. I’m going to collect whatever reward there is and I’m going to see you locked away forever, you little traitor.” He laughs. “You really think I’m going to stick around here and fight for you and those assholes?”
“And you think I’m just going to come with you? How do you think you’d even get me there, Stanley? Honestly, I used to think you were clever. When did you lose all your brain cells?”
I notice the hand that grips my shoulder is struggling to hold me still. It’s the hand I saw bandaged several days ago, one I suspect is permanently injured.
“I’ll take you the back way. I’ll find a way.”
His voice drips with a hatred I can’t understand. Why? When once we were so close. Or were we?
Now I look back and think about it, he was just a boy using a vulnerable girl. He never cared for me. Not in the way the Princes do, or the Professor does, or even Fly does, or Clare did. Even my dragon cares for me more than this boy ever did.
But I’m curious, nonetheless. I want to know. I want to understand what I did to make him this way.
“Why do you hate me so much, Stanley?” I whisper.
“Because you belong in Slate. That’s where you’ve always belonged. Those assholes with their expensive clothes and pretty jewels have put ideas in your head. Made you believe you are worth more than you are. When you aren’t. You’re worth nothing, nothing at all.”
It isn’t about that at all, of course. It’s about power. Once, he had some over me. Now he’s lost it and it’s made him angry, jealous, and cruel.
“And where do you belong, Stanley?”
“Somewhere better,” he says. “Somewhere better than you. Iron.”
“Maybe we all deserve somewhere better.”
“Stupid dreams,” he says. “Stupid words. You think I’m dumb, Briony Storm, but I’m not.
I know how this ends. If you’re lucky enough to survive this, if you’re lucky enough to defeat the Empress – and let’s face it,” he digs that knife a little further into my throat, his fingers squeezing as hard as they can against the bones of my shoulder, “that’s looking mighty unlikely right now – all you’ll do is put your little boyfriend on the throne, and nothing – nothing at all – will change. Not for people like me.”
I nearly snort. All of his words are ridiculous. Describing Beaufort as little when he’s anything but is probably the most ridiculous of all. Has he met the man?
“That’s not what’s going to happen, Stanley. I won’t let that happen. I am going to change things.”
“Meaningless words. Because I’m handing you over.”
“You know you can’t. You know all I have to do is send my magic soaring through my veins and melt you alive. I can fry your skin on your bones. I can kill you in an instant, Stanley Chandlers.”
“But not before I’ve thrust this knife through your neck and killed you first.”
“And I’ll heal it. I’ll heal the wound. I won’t die, Stanley.”
I can feel his body hesitate. He didn’t know that. He didn’t think of it.
“You’re lying,” he says.
“Do you really want to find out?” I say, venom on my tongue.
This boy tortured me so many times, just like my stepmom did. He doesn’t get to decide my destiny. He doesn’t get to hold any power over me ever again.
“Do you want to find out what I’m capable of?” I whisper.
He growls.
And I don’t give him a moment longer. He’s had too much of my time and my attention to last a lifetime.
I zap him with my magic.
It’s not enough to do all those things I threatened. It is enough to have his body spasming on the ground, and I jump away from the knife, reaching up to touch my throat. Red droplets of blood stain my fingertips. I peer down at him, writhing on the ground in agony, as I heal my throat.
I could waste a lot of time torturing him, but I have better things to do.
So I send my magic into his brain and turn it off like a lamp.
He’s not dead – just unconscious – but he won’t be causing any trouble.
I roll his body to one side and run to find the others.
I find them standing in a row, peering out toward the marshland.
“What was that noise?” I cry as I come to a skidding halt between Beaufort and Fox.
“Look,” Beaufort says in amazement, his gaze fixated straight ahead.
I follow his gaze and see a band of shimmering light encircling the grounds of the academy.
“What is that?” I gasp, watching as the shadow weaver army fires its shadows toward the light, and the light repels it straight back at them.
“The academy’s ancient magic,” Fox says. “It’s protecting us.”
My heart soars with hope. Maybe we have a chance. With the academy on our side, helping us, maybe we can keep them at bay – at least long enough to weaken their powers considerably and give us the chance we need to beat them.
“Yeah,” Dray says from the other side, “but for how long?”
And as he says those words, I watch as a small figure in the distance, dressed all in silver that glints even in this gloomy, foggy light, sends a torrent of swirling dark shadow magic straight at the shield of light.
I hear the light groan as if it’s a living being when this magic strikes it.
And although it holds, it flickers for a moment.
And I know.
It won’t hold forever. Not nearly long enough.
“Who is that?” I say.
“The Empress,” Beaufort tells me.
Now I understand what they’ve all been telling me for so long. Her magic is powerful. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Far stronger than the Madame’s, or Beaufort’s, or even Thorne’s. There’s something about it. Truly dark. Truly violent. Truly strong.
Do we really have the ability to defeat her?
The rest of the army is no longer firing their magic. It’s just her now, firing more and more at the light shield. It groans. It flickers. It holds strong.
“Not even my mother is strong enough to break through,” Beaufort says with a little bit of a smirk.
“How about your mom and Veronica together?” Fox asks. His eyesight is far superior to ours but soon we understand what he means. Another figure has joined the Empress’s side, this one wearing a long black cloak that flutters in the breeze.
“The Madame!” I gasp. I assumed she was still out there somewhere in the demon wastelands, banished from the realm, but here she is standing right next to the Empress. Not in a million years would I have expected that.
She tosses her chaotic magic towards the light and this time the groan is much louder and the ground beneath our feet shudders.
“Shit,” Dray mumbles.
And yeah, shit because the light flickers, groans, splutters, and then it snuffs out altogether.
“I thought that would be more effective,” I say, severely disappointed. “I thought it would give us more time.”
“It would have worked against normal shadow weavers,” Fox says. “You saw how it deflected their magic easily. But the Empress is strong. And combined with Veronica …”
The army surges forward at once, yelling triumphantly, racing across the boggy marshland, mud splattering around them.
It halts before the great barricade we’ve created.
We’re only a few feet apart now. I can hear them chattering among themselves with excitement.
I can hear their boots in the mud. I think I might even be able to smell them.
We watch as the Empress’s army fires shadow magic at our makeshift barricade.
There’s explosion after explosion. The great vines and bracken that the botany professor has erected, fortified with equipment the Titan twins have moved from the obstacle course and gym, explode and shatter and burst into flame.
But it holds.
The five of us work together, along with the shadow weavers and teachers that remain at the academy, to deflect as much of their magic as we can, meeting their firepower with our own. But Fox advises us cautiously to preserve as much of our energy and our resources as we can.
“They’ll break through eventually,” he says, “and we want to be as powerful as we can be when we meet them.”
Other students come to watch us too, and some are even brave enough to venture forward and add tables, desks, and chairs to our makeshift barricade.
We’ve been fighting for forty-five minutes, at least, when Professor Cornelius comes hobbling over to join us, raising his hands as if he too is about to fire his magic.
“You don’t need to be here, Professor,” I tell him. “There’s enough of us for the time being, and our barricade is holding.”
“I may be old, Miss Storm,” he says, “but I can still fight, and you need all the fighters you can get.”
“We have enough,” I tell him. “There’s no need for you to put yourself in danger.”
He frowns at me. “I’m eighty-nine years old, Miss Storm, and I’m telling you now that I would rather die fighting for something I believe is right than wither away in my chair. So please, I’d rather not hear anything more of it.”
“Then you know the plan?” I concede.
“Retreat to the towers as soon as they break through.”
I shut my mouth and watch as the old man sends his shadows soaring over the barricade and colliding with an oncoming fire-bolt.
I’ve never seen his magic before, and I’m surprised to see that it isn’t weak like the man is physically.
It’s pretty damn strong. Deep down, I’m grateful to have another person fighting alongside us.
No sooner has Professor Cornelius begun firing his magic toward the Empress’s army than someone else comes running toward me. Actually, three people, hauling some makeshift contraption along behind them. Fly, Damien, and some other boy I recognize from Granite Quarter.
At first, I think it’s just another object to add to the barricade, but then Fly stops beside us, swings his arms wide, and declares, “We’ve made a catapult.”
I stare at it. It takes me a few minutes, but then I see he’s right. It has a long arm, held back by a taut string, and if that’s released, I can see it will come flying forward. It’s well built, well-constructed, and it looks like it might actually work. There’s just one problem.
“It’s great,” I say. Fly grins proudly at me. “But what exactly were you planning to catapult?”
“Catapult?” I hear someone say several yards away, and then the potions professor comes bustling toward us. She examines the contraption for several moments, then tells the three boys, “Bring that this way. I can use it.”
Fly sticks his tongue out at me, and then they wheel it off as I shake my head.
My attention is drawn back to the barricade as another section of it explodes up into sparks. It won’t hold for much longer, and then our plan will really begin.