54. Shara
SHARA
The most wondrous part of the death knell was Rosalind’s inability to tell from where the blow had come.
I slammed power into her and her three Blood at the same time. Her breath expelled in a heavy groan, her eyes rolling back in her head, her body twitching. Her three Blood fell to the floor, senseless and unable to move.
For a moment, everyone stared, frozen and shocked. Marne’s mouth hung open with surprise.
The rest of Rosalind’s Blood rushed toward their queen, which alarmed Marne’s Blood. Chaos reigned as the two sets of opposing Blood jostled and threatened each other, not quite coming to blows but tensions were strained.
In that chaos, the thrall attacked. Not me. Not yet.
He went after my mother’s Blood.
Of course Marne hadn’t allowed them to arm themselves either. That bitch knew she’d brought them to slaughter in Paris.
Guillaume flowed forward, a light, thin blade shining in one hand, the heavy kukri in the other. He caught the thrall’s épeé and twisted his blow aside. The Isador Blood was still wounded by the ridiculously sharp blade but it wasn’t fatal.
Staggering to her feet, Rosalind glared at me.
Leonie. Back to me. The death knell hadn’t stunned her completely.
Likely because I’d split it against so many targets.
Guillaume certainly didn’t move like the elderly knight, though he still wore Barrau’s face.
He forced the other swordsman back, the clang of swords impossibly fast.
A heavy guttural “Guh….” hung in the air, and the thrall crumpled to the marble.
Guillaume lifted the kukri in his left hand. “The greatest weakness of a fencing master is his inability to defend against dual blades.”
Then he chopped off the thrall’s head with one heavy blow that rang in the silence.
“Show yourself!” Rosalind screamed. “I will not be disrespected in my own court!”
:Now,: I said as I allowed the Eleusinian Mysteries to slip away, revealing my true face. :But don’t take the blood circle down, Sekh. You won’t need to in a few minutes.:
Rik immediately surged toward me, shoving through the pool and up out of the fountain outside this house with the rest of my Blood.
“You have something of mine, Rosalind,” I said in a light, teasing voice. “I want them back.”
“You can’t have them!” She looked to the rest of her Blood who’d rushed to her defense. “Tuez-les! Tuez-les tous!”
I opened myself fully to my power, letting magic pulse in the air, building with intensity.
“Jeanne Viennois’ blood is mine. Every drop. I call her blood to me now.”
I focused on Rosalind first, willing her blood to respond to me. I owned her house, because I owned her grandmother’s.
Viennois spawned Valois, so you’re fucking mine. Every fucking drop.
Blood dripped from Rosalind’s eyes and nose.
Startled, she reached up to touch her cheeks and stared at the blood on her fingertips.
Droplets became rivulets became raging streams of blood, not just from her but her Blood.
They’d fed on her. Now that blood abandoned them, dripping onto the pristine floor.
Her blood shining in a circle around this house. Mine to command. Mine to call.
Mine to drop.
The circle hung for a moment, shimmering with heat, and then the magic dissipated into the air like morning fog.
Magic pulsed through me. The scent of blood thick all around, stirring my own hunger. Stoking my rage. So much blood. Such a fucking waste.
Unless I put it to use to right the wrongs committed by Jeanne, as I swore to Basilia and Medusa. As the Dauphine’s heir, Rosalind had at least been complicit in her grandmother’s crimes, and in the case of my mother’s Blood, absolutely guilty.
With so much blood waiting to be used, I could end the suffering of every single trapped queen. Now.
Eyes closed, I spread my arms out and allowed my head to tip back, filling myself to capacity. I touched Leonie’s bond. :May I use your power over the dead?:
:Yes,: she said without hesitation. :Everything I have I give to you, my queen. Gladly.:
I pulled her power into the maelstrom pulsing around me. The gray, silent twilight. A creaking iron gate swinging open. Cold empty graves of the dead.
“Rise, victims of Jeanne Viennois!”
Tiles cracked open, marble crumbling as skeletal hands shoved up from below.
Breaking free of the traps and prisons Jeanne had used to control them, the dead queens crawled up out of their prisons, pulled through the blood to appear before me.
Other Blood she’d tainted with leeches. Mindless zombies.
Answering my call. Using the last of Jeanne’s blood to come to me.
All over the world, I felt the captured queens’ blood circles resonating with power, responding to my command. Because Jeanne’s blood tainted them too. Those circles fell, melting into the growing puddles of blood around me.
Basilia’s nest. Her blood circle. Gone. All her suffering. All her rage. Flowing into me.
I pulled harder, using the spilled blood to lift Illa from her prison at the bottom of a glacial lake. The other living queens who’d been tortured.
Freed at last.
“The Gates of the Dead are open,” I told them. “The Mother of the Nine ushers you across the river into Gaia’s eternal embrace.”
Power raged like a torrent through me. I pulled their spirits free of their damaged bodies and ended their suffering.
With a thought, I burned their remains. Even the cabinet in New Orleans, the bits of flesh and bone turning into ash.
Shuddering with revulsion, I pulled Isabelle’s hand and tongue out of my pocket and added them to the fire.
Opening my eyes as invisible wings fluttered across the Veil, I stared at the carnage around me.
It was a bloodbath. Literally. Every drop of Valois and Viennois blood in the entire world had responded to my call.
The marble was covered in thick, congealing blood, dripping from the columns and staining the frescos as if the blood had fountained all around the ballroom.
Still alive but drained, Rosalind sprawled awkwardly on the floor, leaning against her chair as if she tried to crawl into it but couldn’t muster the strength. The blue velvet was wet with her blood.
“Don’t kill me,” she gasped out. “I’ll swear to Isador.”
“It’s too late for that, Rosalind.”
“Despoina will avenge me! Save me! Please!”
Whirling winds swept my hair around me like a tornado. My heart thundered to the beat of war drums, and the cries of crows echoed in the distance. The sound of scales gliding over marble made a cruel smile spread over my face.
Maybe it made me a monster.
But she fucking deserved it.
“I think you’ll be surprised at the goddesses waiting for you on the other side, Rosalind. May you receive exactly what you deserve.”
My Triskeles Executioner dispatched her with the same kukri he’d used on the thrall.
Leonie stepped closer and I took her hand as my Blood reached me. Rik’s rock troll bulged with granite fists of fury, glowering at the gathered assembly. But there was no need.
House Valois had fallen. Their queen was dead. Her surviving siblings knelt around the ballroom, some weeping. Terrified. Watching their blood pour onto the marble and flow to me.
I stood in a lake of blood to my knees. Rising to my hips. Waist. Neck. But I didn’t want Jeanne’s blood. I wanted no trace of her inside of me, a lingering shadow to remind me of what she’d done to my mother’s Blood and so many queens.
Closing my eyes, I waited for the goddesses to pull me into judgment. After all, I’d killed another Despoina daughter, and She’d certainly been eager to strip me of a gift when I killed the Dauphine.
The creaking iron gate began to swing closed again. :THERE IS NO FURTHER JUDGMENT, DAUGHTER OF THE GREAT ONE. NOT WITH SO MANY OF THE MOTHER’S DAUGHTERS STANDING IN LINE TO DELIVER RETRIBUTION. THE MYSTERIOUS ONE’S PRICE WAS ALREADY PAID.:
Relieved, I opened my eyes. “I release this blood back to the Mother. Let it water Her earth and bring forth new life to honor all that we’ve lost.”
Rippling in a slow swirl around me, the blood began to drain into the earth below the house, flowing through the cracked marble back to the Mother. Magic smoothed the damaged floor and cracked tiles, wiping away the smudges of smoke and soot from the burned remains.
Though dead Valois still littered the floor, and Rosalind’s velvet chair was still stained with her blood.
Releasing Leonie’s hand, I approached the dais. Rik plastered to my back. Ezra and Daire picked up the stained chair and moved it aside, while Sekh and Lew brought out a replacement. Just as ugly, I noted, making Leonie’s lips quirk with amusement.
As I sat down beside her, Marne Ceresa stared at me, quivering, pale and sweating. Xin gave me a disgusted huff in the bond. :She never once reached for her power, my queen, much to my disappointment.:
Silence weighed heavier, broken only by the soft weeping of some of the siblings who were sure they would be next.
I waited for Gina and Kevin to make their way to me, which meant Byrnes came to stand by his queen as well.
Julie and Regina followed with Carys. Julie was pale but from the reserved lines of her face, I could tell she’d seen queen-level shit before.
I’d thought about asking Gina to order Regina to stay at the Isador house. To spare the young human from seeing the carnage.
But she needed to see exactly what kind of queen I was—before she decided to stay.
Clammy and a little green, she gulped and tried not to look at all the blood.
But she kept her mouth shut and stood with my people.
Even when the rest of my Blood made quick work of the remaining Valois Blood, and my flesh eaters began cleaning up the space in front of the dais.
The crunches and tearing were a little much, even for me, but I waited, letting the court hear every swallow.
While the queen beside me quivered in her chair.