Chapter 35
Sidney
Emmeline must’ve been in wait, as she appeared in the hallway before me in a blur of vampiric speed. With a metallic ring, she unsheathed her sword and pointed it at my heart. Her three remaining devotees followed a pace behind her.
“Coming here with the sunset, immune to its burning rays. I can still smell its heat on your clothes,” she tsked. “You have been the slayer this whole time, here to murder us in our beds.”
There was no need to respond or lie. I’d been caught, and she’d clearly made up her mind for what to do next.
But these walls had eyes, even in this quiet corridor.
Human servants, who would scurry off to inform their superiors of a fight.
I spoke loudly, only for their sake. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m not to blame for—”
“Liar!” It was a furious lash.
A tickle brushed the back of my mind. I nearly swatted it away like a buzzing fly. Noir’s voice invaded my head. “Flower, there you are. I’ve been reaching out every five minutes. Fetch me a banana on your way in?”
“Noir!” My thoughts latched on to his foreign presence like the lifeline it was.
“Didn’t think I’d get you to scream like that outside of the—”
“Not now. I need help.”
Emmeline’s devotees reached for their weapons as well. I wasn’t about to engage them in a fight, four against one. Especially not while I was still sore and stiff from my visit to Terrigana’s hell. I needed Ash—and my men. If I could just stall for a while, they’d arrive to save me.
I turned and rushed back outside, the sky too darkened with dusk for the sun to dissuade them from following me. Gritting my teeth, I plunged back into my grandmother’s rose garden and wove into the manicured hedges of blood red blooms. Pounding footfalls echoed behind me.
I plunged down a narrow path between rose bushes, zigzagging further into the garden. Once I was far enough into the makeshift maze the bloated hedges made, I slowed, putting my feet down carefully. It was more important than ever to put every moment to use thinking of a plan.
The scent of this place invaded my nostrils. It was death’s skeletal hand wrapped around a floral bouquet.
I delivered my instructions to Noir in quick snippets. “Tell Zane and Finn that I need them. Armed. The queen’s old rose garden. Finn will know where it is.”
“What about me?” He sounded like he was pouting. For fuck’s sake, how old was he again?
“Oh, Ilyana!” Emmeline called. Her voice echoed strangely as the rosebushes shivered from a stiff breeze. I shuddered as well. “You didn’t really think you could run away, did you? Even now, my father is reporting our suspicions of your duplicity to the regent.”
Fuck. Someone must’ve given them my stake. I shook my head sharply. It doesn’t matter now. Focus and observe. Analyze and adapt.
Lord Clement was prepared for this ambush. I hadn’t fooled him or his daughter for a moment, it seemed. I needed a miracle to intervene on my behalf. I needed…Noir.
“Listen. I need you to kill someone for me.”
“Oh, fun. I’m listening!”
Footsteps sounded just past the hedge where I was hiding. I lengthened my own stride to round a bend in the path. Time was of the essence, and I had so little of it.
“His name is Clement Rodgerson. Do you know what he looks like?”
“Hmm…no.”
I nearly ran straight into the stone barrier at the end of this section of the garden.
I glanced over my shoulder, where Emmeline or one of her devotees was still so close.
Past this section was a patch of grass, the unfinished grass plots prepared for future victims before Nemea’s death.
I would lose my cover to cross the grass to another part of the garden, but I had to do it.
“I’ll remind you that I’m retired. How am I supposed to keep track of every stupid vampire in the House of the Sanguine?” Noir added.
“He’s the inquisitor. What kind of assassin—” I arrested that thought before it became an insult.
I shimmied through the gap where hedge and wall met.
Thorns and branches scratched my arms and back and snagged in my hair.
Exhaling tensely, I looked across the grass just in time as one of the devotees spotted me and pointed.
I ducked as a rock the size of my fist smashed into the wall.
It struck with such force that it exploded in a shower of brown dust.
I took off running again, crossing the grass toward a different section of the garden. A male voice rose. “She’s over here!”
“Oh, wait, does he look like this?” Noir somehow pushed an image over my sight. I nearly careened straight into a wall of thorns, blinded by the sight of Lord Clement from behind. He was descending the staircase in the guest wing.
Shaking my head, I dismissed the intrusive sight. “Fuck me.” It was a pretty eloquent summation of my evening so far.
“Gladly! But I thought you wanted a murder, not—”
“Yes, that’s him!”
At least two of Emmeline’s devotees were right behind me now. I could practically feel them breathing down my neck. The ground trembled underfoot, cracks appearing in the neatly paved path. I stumbled, catching myself on a wall of thorns and coming away bleeding.
“Make him have an accident. Now. Please,” I practically begged.
“Deadly accidents are my specialty!”
His voice faded from my head and not a moment too soon. I reached the central courtyard, where Emmeline stood waiting beside the marble fountain. Bloody clots of colored water slapped the basin from the goddess posing in victory, Aetherius’s heart squeezed in her palm.
Emmeline turned my way, her lips already twisted in a victorious smile. “There’s nowhere else to go. Come claim the fate you’ve been courting.”
From the shadows, her devotees emerged. Together, they blocked every direction I could flee. I’d fought with this group in the first trial. Bled and watched one of their number die so Emmeline and these three males could live.
“You’ll die a liar, Ilyana,” the vampiress purred. “And a coward as well. That will be your only legacy when I am queen.”
“Coward? No. I’m just not stupid.” I still needed time, especially with my back against a wall of thorns. “And if survival makes me a coward, what do you call needing three others to fight me?”
Her lean devotee, who I’d taken to calling Spear, glanced over at Emmeline and jerked his chin in a silent question.
He had a fast, needling fighting style with his namesake weapon.
His magic created brutal explosions. Devastating but draining, and his palm would glow as silver as the moon before setting off the blast.
Emmeline shook her head and gestured to her other devotees. My attention veered to them, narrowing in calculation. Telekinetic and Earth, who usually worked in tandem. Earth would break apart stone and ground to make chunks that Telekinetic would launch with the power of his mind.
Three pieces of cobblestone were balanced over Telekinetic’s head, bobbing like ships at sea. She was going to have him launch those at me first, hoping she didn’t have to get her hands dirty.
“Hey, Emmeline.” I met her golden gaze and offered her what she wanted, a bit of truth. “I didn’t kill Genevieve.”
She wasn’t using her truth-seeking magic on me. That smile turned into a smirk. It didn’t matter anymore, not when there could only be one queen. I was a competitor to be eliminated, and she had every advantage.
“Only the guilty run,” she replied evenly.
“Aren’t we all guilty of something?” I pointed toward Earth. “I slept with him,” I lied.
Emmeline’s eyes blazed. Her head snapped toward him so fast I heard her neck crack. “Is that true?”
Earth went perfectly still, and his face drained of color. He put his hands up, and he barely got out, “What—no!” before I threw my head back and shrieked, “Ash! I need you!”
Spear was the one who cursed first. “Shit! That’s what they called the tytoursus.”
With a sneer, she addressed her devotees. “Kill her.”
I slammed Telekinetic with my null at the same moment he pointed at me. His prepared projectiles crashed to the ground, one of them clipping his shoulder. He fell to his knees with a grunt of pain.
Silver magic erupted from Spear’s palm. There was no time to redirect my null, so I dove straight at Emmeline.
It put the fountain between me and him. Silver light struck marble in a deafening explosion.
I skidded and threw myself to the ground, curled into a shivering ball, and covered my neck as chunks of stone rained to the ground.
The ringing in my ears warped the smashing sound. The marble head of Eona shattered nearby, studding my side with sharp fragments. That’s got to be some kind of blasphemy.
Emmeline, who’d also ducked, rose to her feet. She lunged at me, and I rolled away clumsily, only dodging her swing by sheer luck. Her sword struck the base of the fountain hard enough that it rang.
I only had my daggers and stake to fight her directly, which gave me a huge disadvantage in reach.
I drew my weapons, crossing their blades to catch the edge of her sword as it descended toward me.
Pieces of the former fountain whizzed by us, courtesy of Telekinetic.
Most pelted my back and legs, sure to bruise, but a few clipped Emmeline before we disengaged.
The sharp end of a spear stabbed into my right armpit while my attention was split.
I was thinking of Emmeline’s next strike, hand extended toward Telekinetic to direct another blast of null.
Blood splashed, and the nerves in my arm deadened.
I dropped the dagger from my right hand as my fingers spasmed.
Emmeline and Spear pushed me backward with the tips of their weapons until I felt the prick of thorns at my back.
I clenched the dagger in my left hand. I could let it fly and take one of them down.
But they had me cornered—a sword at my neck, a spear at my heart, and another heavy chunk of rock floating, pointed toward my head.