Chapter 4
My first vial struck the ground in front of the shortest of the two princes, although short was a relative term when they were both over six feet tall and packed with muscle, the shorter one even broader than the Kollastus prince who’d leashed Valour.
I reached for a second vial and reared my hand back, sending it flying towards the tall prince at the same time I angled myself in front of Kier.
He wasn’t too happy about it given the low growl he let out, but my dear husband could suck it.
I felt his unease through the bond. No, unease was too small a word.
A low, queasy sickness, accompanied by weakness and doubt.
I wanted to know what his brothers had done to him, and I wanted to make them pay for it.
Baby, I ordered, viciously satisfied when the huge, sharp-fanged cat leapt from my ring and roared at the princes, pressing himself between Kier and I.
“Let the jaguar go, Jyrard,” Kier growled. We paused several metres from his brothers, though Talon and Xiona stalked a few paces ahead, setting up a solid wall of menace and muscle. “We’re not your enemies, so stop harming my wife.”
The sharp smile that crossed the long, azure face of the tall brother—Jyrard, apparently—certainly seemed like the smirk of an enemy. He yanked on the rope around Valour’s throat until she snarled in pain. The impact spiked through my chest, bruising me soul-deep.
I clenched my teeth, suppressing a gasp. My only bit of satisfaction came from the smaller brother, who had to be Corvyr by process of elimination, stumbling back. Good. Looked like the vial had smashed close enough to him after all.
“Assaulting a Bluescale prince is an act of treason,” Corvyr snarled at me, his face remarkably square, his features weak, eyes small.
He looked like someone had stamped a face on a brick, and the vision made me smirk even as a new lance of pain hit my soul.
There was something in his expression, a wildness, a flash of insanity in his eyes, that told me the madflower was taking root. I hoped it devoured him.
“Says the man who assaulted a Bluescale princess first,” I spat, gripping the vial in my hand so tight it threatened to shatter. “Give back my jaguar, and I won’t introduce you to a new life as a eunuch.”
Rook snorted beside me. He now had a potion in one brown hand and a dagger in the other.
Clearly he was on Team Not-Hating Letta.
I was glad to have him and Kier, but I missed my troupe with a fierceness that surprised me.
It felt weird going into a fight without Hames at my back, or Cherish making rapid plans Ryan would argue with, or Aerona dropping threats Jakoda would berate her for.
“This jaguar?” Jyrard asked, his arm bulging, biceps exposed by the sleeveless leather shirt he wore.
The dark blue rope cut into Valour’s throat so tightly, she would have bled if she were made of flesh.
My knees buckled, and I hurled the vial at the smug bastard at the same time I crashed into the ground.
The vial smashed at Jyrard’s feet and I grinned. He grinned back.
That was a high enough dose that he should have gone instantly mad. His brother was foaming at the mouth, staring from one of us to the next like he wasn’t really seeing us, but Jyrard only grinned. And my blood ran cold.
Bite whatever you can reach, I told Valour, another flash of pain in my chest when she tore at the rope enough to rake her teeth over his thigh.
“Enough,” Kier growled, his voice deep and menacing and—oh.
I blinked up at my husband in his towering goblin form as he stood over me, protecting me, so unlike the last time I saw him like this.
The bolt of magic hit him with violent suddenness, dark blue light tearing through his shoulder dangerously close to his heart.
Rage struck the bomb inside me and anger propelled me to my feet when his knees buckled. Alright, enough chit-chat.
“Rook, cover Kier.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Rook warned, supporting Kier as he wavered.
“Sure,” I agreed. Lied. Stupid was my middle name.
I reached for that well of power I uncovered in the battle outside Lazankh’s walls and sucked in a sharp breath as magic blasted through me like a sugarfern high.
Baby’s sapphire glow erupted like a bright sun.
He leapt across the square at the smaller goblin prince with a yowl so deep and rumbling that it gave me goosebumps.
At the same time I tightened my hand around the vial, rearing my hand back to throw the contents at Jyrard—
Unstopper that vial and pour the contents down your own throat.
No.
Cleodora’s voice was a whisper, a stroke of silk through my mind. It should have felt like poison, like a cruel hand, like knives cutting essential matter, but her power was so insidious that the command sunk into me before I could even fight it. And my mind welcomed it.
The sweet, colourless liquid flowed down my throat and my muscles contracted at her will, not my own. I froze in the middle of the square, my heart racing, sweat beading on my upper lip as I waited for insanity to strike.
How would it form? In paranoia that everyone was out to get me?
To be fair, most of them were out to get me.
Or would my own thoughts destroy me until I clawed the skin off my skull?
I didn’t know how the madflower had taken root in Kier’s brother but he foamed at the mouth and that couldn’t be a good sign.
“Letta!” Rook yelled. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I opened my mouth to reply but all that emerged was a croak.
Tell them you betrayed them. Tell your darling husband you lured him here.
Jyrard struck Valour when she snarled and struggled, and the pain combined with the vial I swallowed made my legs collapse under me.
“I betrayed you,” I rasped. I felt the words strike Kier, felt their ripple through the bond, and a sob cracked my chest apart.
Valour screamed as the dark rope bit into her skin and Kier’s brother dragged her across the stones towards us like a common dog.
“Come no further,” Xiona warned, drawing a gleaming blue sword in threat, the sound of metal and crystal ringing through the air.
I mashed my lips together, biting down until I tasted blood and the sweetness of the drug I was forced to take.
“Kier,” I croaked, flinching when Odele stalked towards me, a dark streak of vengeance.
“Why did you take that yourself?” she demanded, her eyes narrowed as she crept close with all the sleek grace that made her a good spy.
We both jumped when Baby roared in fury and threw himself at Corvyr, sinking his teeth into the short, stocky prince’s arm, halting the turquoise streak of magic forming in his hand.
Shit, good call.
I flinched away from the bright light, my eyes watering, sensitive. When I blinked, the world blurred. I blinked again, and Baby had ripped off Corvyr’s hand, crunching down on bones, both he and Valour furious at what Cleodora had done to me.
Hate and fear collided until I felt sick with it. My home, my friends, this haven I’d found as the Bluescale princess, it was dead. They’d throw me back to the human lands for this, if not lock me in a prison and leave me to rot. Or kill me, execution style.
“Zabaletta,” Odele snapped, suddenly in my face. I flinched back, but she grabbed my head with both hands, intense brown eyes meeting mine, probing, scouring.
Kill her, Cleodora’s soft voice commanded.
Baby roared, a raw, throaty sound that told me he knew exactly what would come next. I would fight Odele. The guards would be forced to stop me. Permanently.
My fingers wrapped around cool steel and I whipped up the weapon before I even realised what I’d drawn. Blue gemstones sparkled from the handle, gleaming as my power surged into it, pouring out of me like a waterfall at her command. Kill her, she’d told me, and I had no choice but to obey.
I lurched to my feet, blue magic streaking the air as I drove the dagger at Odele’s chest, aiming for her heart. Metal clashed as she intercepted the blow with a long dagger. Something calm and cold settled on her bronze face. She’d been waiting for me to strike.
Kill her.
I ripped my knife free of the tangle and whipped it up in a lethal arc that would rip her stomach open and spill her guts.
For a moment, I was back in Lazankh outside the gates as the gruesome, monstrous battle spread around me.
I was there as people screamed and roared and died, as the green wave of magic soared and captured me.
The memory of that fight, bigger and grittier than anything I’d known, rattled me long enough for Odele to knock the knife from my hand.
But I was armed with a dozen, and the command was buried deep in my head, so I simply plucked another dagger free.
“Stop!” she yelled, a clear cry that carved through me uselessly. My arms tensed, knife cutting through the air as I came at her with the intention to kill. “No one harms the princess!”
Wait, what…?
I wanted to turn to see what the fuck was happening and why she would say that, but all my focus was on Odele.
Even as blue magic swelled through the square, even as Baby charged through the pool and launched himself at Jyrard before the tallest prince could reach our people, my focus remained on Odele.
She moved first this time, forcing me back a step as I threw up my knife to catch her blow. Valour snarled, itching to come defend me, but Jyrard still had her leashed.
“Long time no see, Kier,” Jyrard said in a smug voice, oily and slick. I flinched at the spike of disgust and fear, the bond rife with it, with… trauma. What the fuck did this bastard do to my husband to make him feel like this?
“Defend Kier,” I spat at Odele, my own eyes flaring at the freedom of my speech. “Surround him.”
“Can’t,” she replied in a low, serious voice, knocking my clumsy blow aside and trying to disarm me. “It would make him appear weak.”