Chapter Thirty-Three #2
She sneers. “Perhaps it is simply incentive you need. I can just as easily speed up the toxin that will eat away at your father’s organs as I can slow it down,” she says. “Don’t test me.”
I blanch. That’s the only breathing room out of any of this—Anahima has slowed the pace of deterioration, and if I cooperate, my father won’t die. Nor is he in pain. But that can change on her whim.
Our standoff is interrupted by the arrival of the king and his entourage.
Now these faces I know. Aran’s expression immediately goes blank, but both Clem and Hamid, armed to the teeth, stare at me in surprise.
Helena is also there, though my old nemesis looks like she hasn’t slept in weeks.
Her once glossy hair is stringy and dull, and her face is gaunt.
I shouldn’t feel pity for her, but I do.
I’m not interested in her, however. I’m interested in the king who is staring at me with the strangest combination of yearning and hatred.
Dark purple mist swirls like poison in his eyes.
“Starkeeper, you look different,” he rasps in the voice that isn’t his. “Will she open the portal?” he asks Anahima.
She strolls over to Roshan, peering into his irises.
“Hello, Father. How’s the host? Still kicking in there?
Don’t worry, she will open it.” Ani smirks.
“The Starkeeper will do as she’s told. And each time she fails, I will destroy a city, starting with her little desert oasis.
So much innocent blood will be on your hands, Suraya. ”
I feel myself start to shake as magic gathers inside of me.
It would be so easy to kill them all in one fell swoop, to let my simurgh raze this entire palace to the ground—but there’s no guarantee that I can save my father if Anahima is dead.
Although, can I incapacitate her somehow?
Buy some time? Gods! What if I miscalculate and doom my father?
Everyone else? But I can’t just stand here and do nothing!
Conflicted, I rub my chest at the heart chakra as that strange hollow feeling at the center intensifies, right as a massive shadow blots out the light overhead for the space of a prolonged wingbeat.
“Azdaha!” someone bellows from the courtyard.
Anahima’s face darkens with rage as she shoves me onto the upper terrace, a dagger at my throat. The king of Oryndhr follows, surrounded by his guard.
“Brother!” my captor cries.
Indira circles above, and I can feel Darrius’s shock from where he sits. Darkness takes over his form as he disappears into a storm of shadows and smoke to reappear in front of us in a seething whorl. The azdaha lands on top of a turret, stone crumbling beneath her talons as she settles in place.
“Anahima, what have you done?” he shouts, his eyes narrowing in confusion on his sister. “Release my wife.”
I feel the stares of my former friends. “She poisoned my father and spread the rot,” I blurt out. “She’s your traitor. The one they call the oracle.”
“Now you’ve ruined my surprise.” Anahima pouts and peeks at her brother. “I’m going to enjoy sharing her with my army after you’re dead.” She pats my cheek with the edge of the blade. “I’ll strip her magic, and then they’ll tear your precious soul-fated apart. Brutes, the lot of them.”
I know exactly what she’s trying to do. The king of Everlea’s virulent rage is a palpable thing, and I hear the ominous crackle of bones as the curse rises to the surface.
He might have a tenuous truce with his beast, but the precious time he will lose could make all the difference between life and death.
His features become leonine, eyes flashing a vicious gold.
“There he is,” Anahima sings. “Let the beast out, brother. He hates it when anyone plays with his toys, doesn’t he?”
“Mate,” Darrius growls in the manticore’s voice like he already has a mouthful of teeth he can’t speak around.
“Only good mate is a dead mate,” Anahima says brightly, then she attacks.
A blast of her magic crashes into Darrius, who lets out an inhuman roar.
I feel the curse take hold and echo deep in my gut when a second blast hits me straight in the torso and sends me careening across the terrace to smash into the wall.
Fuck. She’s strong. I can feel at least a handful of broken ribs start to mend, but the pain still makes me wheeze.
Darrius starts to shake and shudder at the scent of my blood, his fear for me pushing him to the edge of the shift.
Dare, my love. Please stay calm. His head flicks to me, eyes warring between black and gold, fangs protruding over his lips. She has my father in some floramancy stasis. Don’t kill her. And don’t change, it’s what she wants. I’m not hurt, I promise.
“Finally, some fun,” Anahima says. She whistles, and the griffin we arrived on swoops down low to collect her right as she rips a huge piece of metal edging from the closest turret with her magic and hurls it at her brother.
In a blink she wheels around, she and the griffin heading straight for Indira.
I deflect the flying metal with a thought and it lands with a boom several feet away. I run to Darrius; his face is back to normal, but his eyes are burning with a volatile cocktail of emotions. I kiss him fiercely, quickly. “Get Indira and deal with your sister. I’ll handle the king.”
“Are you sure?” he asks as his azdaha takes to the skies, talons out, narrowly dodging more metal projectiles.
“Yes, go before Indira gets hurt. She needs you.”
He disappears into a swirl of shadows, rising upward to reappear on his azdaha’s back.
Magic explodes in the sky as the siblings collide.
Dare is by far the better warrior, but Anahima is not to be underestimated, and I’m sure this is all part of some distraction .
. . some master plan. She doesn’t do anything without a reason, and though she’d seemed surprised when Darrius had arrived, she’s not the kind of adversary to not meticulously prepare for every possible outcome.
Sensing the weapons pointed at me, I turn in slow motion as silvery runes flare up and down my arms. “I don’t want to hurt you,” I say to the kingsguard, a circle that includes Clem and Hamid. “Your jādū weapons are no match for me.”
“Seize her,” the Oryndhrian king commands.
Eight guards rush me as one, and iridescent ribbons of heat flare from my fingertips, sending them ricocheting backward.
I’d rather not kill anyone, if I can help it.
I snatch two dropped swords and fend off dual attacks at my front and back, spinning to parry one while thrusting toward another.
The clash of steel fills the air, interspersed by the occasional screams from Indira and the griffin—but I can’t look up.
It’s taking every bit of memory of my training with the Aspa?anā raissas to fend off the highly skilled Oryndhrian kingsguard.
“Clem, why are you doing this?” I yell to my former friend when our blades crash.
“Blindly following orders.” I shoot a burst of magic out at the two guards creeping up behind me, sending them sprawling to their knees.
“You know it’s not him,” I say, crashing my blade into hers hard enough to make her cry out.
“If I don’t, someone else will,” she pants. “Someone more ruthless than me.”
I frown and slam into her side. “What do you mean?”
“At least this way I can save some people.” Clem’s eyes burn as she lowers her weapons, completely vulnerable before me. I blink in disbelief as Hamid does the same. “We’re not all powerless and we control the things we can control. You taught me that.”
They stayed to disobey orders?
A pained scream from above finally draws my gaze, and I suck in a breath as the griffin’s claws rake across Indira’s exposed belly and she goes into a wild spiral before catching herself midfall. Incensed, she flies at her enemy, talons outstretched to return the favor.
This needs to end.
I let my simurgh fly. The power that rides my fingertips makes me gasp. Luminescent tendrils fly out of me, latching on to every single person, holding them completely immobile. I pick my way through the magically bound guards, until I reach the king.
Him, I study with intensity. All the rage in the world is in those purple-hued eyes, brimming with hunger and hate. Killing him would be a mercy to the world . . . but if Roshan truly is in there, buried somewhere in the recesses of his own mind . . .
I made a promise that I would try.
The king’s eyes widen when I reach out. “No, what are you doing?! Don’t touch me, girl!”
“Roshan never talked this much.”
I slam my palms over his temples and shove my magic inside of him, targeting each one of his chakras and the rot hiding there. It is the same approach I used with Razulek, only this is the source and it’s going to be much harder.
I’m expelling so much magic, it hurts to breathe, but I focus and push, drilling down to the rotten pulsing core deep in his solar plexus—the chakra of ego, identity, power, and strength.
No wonder Fero has such a strong hold.
He howls as my light continues to burn away the spread, drawing attention from above.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Anahima shriek and dive down on her griffin, a panicked look on her face as she realizes what I’m doing.
Darrius intervenes, cutting his sister off with bolts of magic, and I can hear her enraged roar.
Galvanized into action, I push my magic harder, reaching for every last drop of akasha.
It’s a wild, reckless move, but I don’t stop.
And slowly, inexorably, the king’s gaze begins to clear of the miasma.
His brown eyes—eyes I finally recognize—appear, tired but lucid.
His body droops under my hands as if the god of death has drained the very life from him.
As he falls, Roshan grabs his dagger, and for a breathless moment, I think he’s going to stab me with it. But he places the tip at his ribs, angling it up toward his heart.