Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
His voice held the echoing, hissing quality of Centipede. A shiver started in the base of my spine, and I felt too slow as I turned on him, reaching back to free my two throwing blades from Inor’s body. One wouldn’t come loose, the blade embedded in Inor’s spine.
I didn’t take my eyes off Maki as he stalked around the dais.
Slowly, the light in the room began to increase, the black stones brightening from a pale illumination to a glaring orange and yellow.
After so long in the dark, punctuated by only the dim blue fluorescence of the tunnel walls, I wanted to flinch back from the light, but I didn’t dare look away from Maki.
He walked with purpose, each step distinct, and he smirked as I had to turn my body to follow him.
“Does Tallu know who he married? He must. How could he not?” Maki asked, sounding so much like himself that for one horrified moment, I wondered if I had been wrong and the voices were in my head. If there was no Centipede straight from the stories, just a mad imperial general.
“You are good. I didn’t even hear you coming.
” He clicked his tongue against his teeth, and I saw the head of a centipede poking out from one of his eye sockets.
It moved back and forth before climbing back under, leaving Maki’s eye clear of insect.
“How did you do that, northern prince? You are a tricky little thing, aren’t you?
I’m going to enjoy watching you squirm and scream. ”
I didn’t hesitate, pulling back my arm and throwing my blade in one swift motion.
Maki hissed, moving to the side so quickly I might as well have been wading through the water.
He grabbed the blade out of the air and threw it back at me, but I was already gone.
It clattered to the floor behind the throne.
I was within arm’s reach of him, my wolf’s claw swinging out, when something dropped from the ceiling. It rose up in front of me, and my blade sliced halfway through Krustavian armor before it got stuck on bone.
I yanked hard, but it wouldn’t come free, and I could feel a buzzing vibration building in my blade.
I danced backward, realizing what it was a second too late.
I just barely had time to raise my arm and guard my face before the body exploded, the electricity Maki used to keep the corpse moving at odds with my blade’s shape.
A wolf’s claw was designed to direct electricity, and when it was inside a corpse running on electricity, it sent it in a spiral, a feedback loop that caused a messy outcome for everyone.
Mostly the corpse, but now, I was also covered in bone shards and blood, the blood unnaturally cool against my skin, the prick of sharp splinters of bone pricking me.
My sword was flung loose by the blast and it slid across the smooth stone ground.
I sprinted across the ground, grabbing hold of it and turning to face Maki.
Only he wasn’t alone anymore. Ten men surrounded him, all Krustavians wearing the milky blank eyes of death.
He cackled, the sound rising up in his throat, until he was coughing, spitting out baby centipedes from split lips.
“House Atobe thinks that killing the One Dragon was power. They think they understand what it is to be stronger than the animalia. They are wrong. This is stronger than the animalia. Becoming an animalia is stronger than any human power.”
“Are you sure about that?” I asked, low and rough, more in my chest than my throat.
I lifted my sword into a defensive stance, raising my elbow to nearly eye-level.
“I can hear Centipede’s voice, too, and I can tell you that it is not letting you control it.
Centipede has hold of you, and it will drive you mad just as it drove King Inor mad.
Just as it drove Prince Hallu mad. And all the rest. How many of these corpses were born from Centipede’s lust for chaos? ”
The ten men that Maki had called down didn’t move, didn’t breathe. They stayed on their feet, balanced and ready to attack.
I risked a glance upward and found four more dead men suspended from the ceiling. When I refocused on the battlefield, the ten had arrayed themselves to their advantage. Two men on either side of me, two in front, and three prowling around the edges of the field, trying to get behind me.
“Too afraid to fight me on your own?” I demanded of Maki.
Maki smirked, his expression turning sour when I feinted at one of the men, bringing my blade up and swinging it across his neck, decapitating him in one movement.
I heard the crack as my blade severed the man’s spine, felt it vibrate up my arm. When the wolf’s claw had exploded out of the Krustavian earlier, it had done damage to the blade. The bone underneath the plating was fracturing. By my judgment, I had one good hit left.
“We don’t need to fight you.” Maki turned and headed up the dais, grabbing Inor’s body by his tunic and tossing the dead king free of the throne with one hand. “You’ll fight Maki’s little creations, and then, when you’re defeated, little assassin, you’ll become one of mine.”
The words slurred on Maki’s tongue, as though he was fighting to say different ones. He cleared his throat, blinking and glaring, and then he said, “Ours.”
I couldn’t let the three men circle behind me, so I backed up a few steps and met the first one with my blade.
He blocked it with his arm, and I wasn’t surprised that my blade finally shattered when it sliced through his flesh, hitting Krustavian bone.
I was left with half of a sword, the other half still embedded in his arm.
He swung his arm at me, brutally fast, and I just had time to sidestep, slamming the hilt of my blade into his temple. It should have shocked him, but he only stumbled back at the blow, immediately drawing himself back up and grabbing at me.
I ducked low, and his hand grabbed hold of my hair, the damp braids catching on his rough skin. I dropped to the ground, and my sudden increase in weight overbalanced him. Rolling us both, I used my feet to flip him over me in one swift motion.
But one of Maki’s men crashed on top of me as I was still on the ground. I jammed my shattered blade up, into his throat. On a living man, it would have left me covered in his blood. Instead, a sickly black liquid dripped down.
Disgusted, I pushed him off me and decapitated him with what was left of my shattered blade. Leaping up, I was just in time to dance away from another attacker. He had a sword, the first of Maki’s dead men to wield one.
I tossed aside my wolf’s claw and drew a dagger. This didn’t have any of the weakness of the wolf’s claw. It was made from pure metal, a gift from Yor?mu from her time in Dragon’s Rest Mountains.
Circling the man with the sword, I watched as his feet moved delicately, his sword perfectly balanced.
If his own death inhibited him at all, I couldn’t see it.
Finally, he darted forward, and I sidestepped, plunging my blade into his body, just above the hip where there was a gap in his armor for lacing.
I hit something, some tendon or vein, but he didn’t hesitate, bringing his sword back around. I ducked low, then slammed my shoulder into his as he passed me, forcing him off balance and down to the ground.
Before I could drop on top of him and deliver a killing blow, there was another man behind me, grabbing me around the chest.
This had always been a flaw in my mother’s plan. This was why my sister had been necessary. I could fight a great many men. I could fight the Emperor’s Dogs. I could not fight the Emperor’s Dogs all at the same time and still kill the emperor.
It was why we had planned to rely on secrecy and quiet. On sneaking in and finding a time when the emperor was alone.
If Maki turned and climbed off the throne, walked away from me right now, I might never find him again.
Yes, you could lose your battle right here. Give in and I will show you power Maki only dreams of. I will give you a throne to rule the entire continent. Would you not like to see the Imperium on bended knee for you?
I could give you that and more. I could save Tallu’s life. Would it not be worth it for him to live?
For a second, I faltered, the tight grip around my chest making it almost impossible to breathe. My vision went spotty.
I slammed my head back, cracking the man’s face, but he didn’t react at all. I went limp, dropping my weight hard, and he was pulled forward, just enough that his grip loosened. I twisted free, grabbing my blade from the ground and shoving it into his ear.
There was a high-pitched whining noise as Maki’s electricity met the steel I had embedded in the man’s skull. It smoked, the man’s face bubbling and distorting. He fell, but I couldn’t afford to wait to see his death.
Pulling my blade free, I spun to meet my next attacker.
Centipede’s voice was a drumbeat in my ear, but his promises grew even more like ice over a lake: I could see the cracks in them.
He was powerful, yes. He had given Maki power, yes.
But the curse the blood mages placed on the heirs of House Atobe was not his domain.
Even he could get tangled in the threads of Spider’s web.
Something hit me from behind, and I fell hard, the impact shivering up my arms, the pain throbbing in my wrists.
I gritted my teeth and pressed on, trying to roll, but Maki’s man had an arm around my throat, pulling my head back.
He was heavy, and the weight alone told me he was Krustavian.
I could feel the electricity running and popping through his body, and the strangest part was the complete lack of sound, no panting breaths, growls, or grunts.
He was a corpse trying to turn me into one.