Chapter 18 Gabe
Gabe
Priscilla barged up onto the roof, her eyes going from me, to Marinnia and then narrowing rapidly. “Gabriel, we are being invaded!”
“I’m very aware of what’s happening and in full preparation mode. I’m in the process of evacuating the humans as we speak.”
I spared a glance toward the Briar Queen.
She was the Briar Queen…but she was also someone else too.
She didn’t understand that I’d sensed the connection when she’d come to me as Innia.
Marinnia. I was likely the first to notice, as she was very good at disguising herself.
One plain and sharp-tongued, the other a beauty with a silken mouth… not that it mattered to me.
I was inexplicably drawn to both of them.
It was a very clever ruse that had kept her alive and under the radar for how long?
A huff that bordered on a screech turned me away from Marinnia to face Priscilla, whom I’d all but forgotten was there.
“We are being invaded and you are trying to protect a bunch of…” she paused as my eyes narrowed, “Humans? They are replaceable! Are you not in the least concerned about this army? They want to invade our castle!”
As dire as the circumstances were, I found myself snapping back at her. “The Dael’Torin is going to be invoked, so not really an invasion, Prissy, just a fight to the death. The usual around here, yes?”
Her lips thinned and the veins in her neck throbbed. “He’s brought his favorite wife, the Fire Weaver. He will demand you fight at the side of your intended.”
“I won’t ask you to…”
She cut me off. “You have no choice. He did it on purpose to punish my father for making a deal with a king they view as a traitor. But lucky for you, I am trained to fight and have no small skill with my own magic.”
While I doubted she had any particular skill other than being a pain in my ass, if Vin actually did make the stipulation that my intended fight at my side, then that was that—there was nothing I could do about it.
“Well then, if you would fight beside me…so be it.”
Nostrils flaring and lips tightening, she shot a look at Marinnia and then away. “So be it indeed. I will go prepare myself.”
I didn’t dismiss her, but she left, surprising me. Very rarely did she fuck off without me all but throwing her out of my space.
When the smell of her overpowering perfume finally drifted away, Marinnia spoke as if we hadn’t been interrupted.
“His power is some form of control. I don’t know if it’s mind or body…
perhaps both…but I watched as he forced the men to their knees and cut their heads off, one at a time. None resisted.”
Despite the ominous words, I shrugged. “I am not going to lose my head.” If there was a demon stronger than me in The Spire, surely, I’d have known about him by now.
“I hope you do not…Gabriel.”
Fuck, my name on her lips drew me as nothing else could have. But I had to focus on something other than her and I, alone somewhere more “No more about that, Marinnia. Any luck with the search?”
She sighed in irritation and then shook her head. “One more girl. We are nearly through them all, despite my worries we wouldn’t be able to, now I fear…what if it was Franny?”
Standing this close, I was able to put my hand over hers. Should anyone approach from behind, none would be the wiser with our backs blocking the view.
“It wasn’t. I had Rufus check over her, to see if there were any indications of magic. Nothing.”
What I’d actually had him do was check the body for indications of a wound to the heart where a key would’ve been nestled, but I hadn’t explained that to him and could not explain it to Marinnia either.
Not because I didn’t trust her. But because the more she knew, the more danger she would be in.
She didn’t turn toward me, staring instead after the direction her friends and Doves had fled. There was nothing to do but wait.
That is where we stood, side by side for the next few minutes as the army approached.
Rufus himself was the one to bring me the message, wearing a deep red cloak. Not his usual royal blue.
“You have been summoned, Your Majesty, by Izekiel of the Fallen, all leaders of their families, who demand you fight Lord Vin to prove your worth.”
Letting go of Marinnia’s hand, I turned. “Alright, Rufus, let’s go. Briar Queen, you should—”
“There is more,” Rufus said. “There has been a challenge as well between the wives, or in your case, your intended.”
“I understand. Priscilla is aware and at the ready.”
“I will stay to watch,” Marinnia said. “If it pleases you, Your Majesty.”
If she was right and this asshole was truly that strong, there was a chance I’d lose. I didn’t want her anywhere near him, because she was not wrong about Vin. He hated humans with a burning passion that bordered on obsession. If he’d been in the city, I’d have put the murders at his feet first.
“Watch from the shadows, then,” I said.
I didn’t say it out loud, but I felt it. Just in case he made me bend a knee and cut my head off.
With Marinnia at my back, I followed him down the stairs and out to the front gates of the castle.
Priscilla was already there, waiting…wearing a dress cut for a ball, not a fight. What the hell was she up to? Because the way she smiled at me had me questioning more than a few things she’d said. But there was no time to wonder what the fuck my ‘intended’ was up to.
A massive circle, easily a hundred feet in diameter, had already been drawn across the flat cavern floor, salt laid heavily on the entire outer rim. To keep the magic we used within, and to keep interference out.
Lord Vin stood within the center of the circle, his army and more than half the lords of the Fallen lined up behind him. So much for all my efforts at being kingly.
“I have invoked the Dael’Torin,” Vin tucked his thumbs into his belt. “Unless you submit and hand me the crown, you will die.”
I laughed, “So sure of yourself, eh, Vinny?”
Posturing first, a few shots would be fired and then the fighting would truly begin.
It was pretty much a demonic tradition.
His eyes didn’t narrow but sparkled with humor. He thought this was funny?
“I was surprised at the secondary offer,” he said, still smiling, “it’s not often a woman claims the Dael’Torin.”
It took all my strength not to look at Priscilla.
But I could hear the smile in her voice as she spoke. “I would fight at the side of my fiancé.”
What the fuck was wrong with—
“But seeing as I cannot, I choose a champion in my place, as is my right.”
There was no time to get to Priscilla, to snap her neck to shut her up.
“The Briar Queen will fight in my stead.”