Chapter 9 #3
Yemi tasted blood, but her eyes still worked, and she could see Dahlia scrambling to draw her hand cannon from its shoulder holster.
Yemi was able to reach it and squeeze its trigger so that it blasted its one shot into a pillar behind them, then yanked it free and tossed it across the room.
The second gun had come loose in the first scuffle and lay nearby.
Yemi collected it and turned back in time to see Dahlia’s rapier drawn but at a distance that could do her no harm.
Rage and panic flickered across Dahlia’s face as Yemi got victoriously to her feet, hand cannon ready for the second Dahlia opened her mouth to say anything.
She looked worried now, almost terrified, her breath ragged and eyes again their glittering green.
“Enough!” Dorian bellowed. He appeared over Dahlia’s shoulder from the back room with a dozen or so rebels flanking him. He held a bloodied Orie against him with a gun to her head.
“Drop your weapon,” he commanded. Yemi, never having once received a command, was disinclined to oblige.
“Truly, a Blackgate with a pistol?” Dahlia chuckled grimly, dabbing at her lip. “It really must be the end-times.”
The itch to pull the trigger was suddenly more pronounced, but Yemi took note of Cerro emerging calmly behind Dorian, an imperious, tutting sneer poorly masked on his long face. Of course he had something to do with this.
“Cerro. This is quite a tantrum,” she remarked, though her pride faltered as Orie was forced to her knees.
“An unfortunate last resort,” said Cerro. “Put the gun down. Preserve this woman’s life and what remains of your dignity.”
“Dignity? Your partner here groveled loudly at my mother’s feet to beg forgiveness for his daughter’s treachery just the other day,” Yemi said.
“A means to an end. If you think that was my first little performance, you’re as foolish as you are failed,” Dorian spat.
“And so they’ve chosen to follow con men over a queen.” Yemi laughed bitterly. “My mother gave you people so much credit.”
“Con men?” Dorian bristled. “I am a patriot. I am followed because these men know I will do whatever it takes—”
“Father,” Dahlia snapped.
Heavy footsteps approached from behind. “Everything alright in here?” Nova said, likely so Yemi would know it was a friend and not because it wasn’t evident that nothing was alright in here.
Cutter sidled up full of menace, his cracked spearhead sparking as it singed the fresh enemy blood staining it.
“Whatever this is, we don’t have time for it,” he said in a low voice.
Dahlia fixed her posture and wiped blood from her nose. “You’re spirited, in a word. It’s admirable. Wouldn’t have pegged you for a brawler. I wish you’d taken our conversation more seriously, though. I have the throne. I have your crown—”
“The throne is a chair, and the crown is a fucking hat. I am your queen with or without them.” Here, Yemi smiled, took a moment to spit the blood collecting in her mouth onto the polished hall floors. “And I promise you will kneel before me at the very end of your life.”
Dahlia nodded, something solemn but resigned on her face. She walked slowly to where Orie knelt and plied her chin with the tip of her blade. “I need the ring. If you die here or try to leave with it, every remaining member of your household dies violently. Tonight.”
“A more credible threat, had your men not been sloppy and murdered most of them anyway.”
“Still.” She tilted Orie’s head up, exposing her trembling swallows. “It will be hard to stabilize without someone here who knows the ins and outs of this place, but I will persevere if you force me to.”
Yemi looked from the panicked Orie to the smug Drakes and the nervous, impatient line of nameless rabble with their smattering of clumsy weapons.
This helplessness in the face of an enemy was a new and entirely unwelcome sensation.
She imagined herself a dragon with a roar that would collapse the palace on top of them all before she gave up her ring.
But Orie was depending on her. And Enna’s time was just as limited, if it hadn’t run out already.
She twisted the ring off her finger, and the militia relaxed. She would give them this day. She would trust Nova and Cutter to get her out of this alive, and she would return to carve the map of her empire into Dahlia Drake’s flesh.
“When I return,” she said calmly, eyes boring into Dahlia’s, “and you are all begging your villain for mercy, remember which one of us gave up her birthright to protect her people, and which one of us was just standing in this room for dramatic effect while your mates were being slaughtered in the hallway.”
She tossed the ring onto the ground before her, the joyful tinkling sound it made as it bounced and rolled against the marble making light of the deed. If Dahlia killed Orie now, Yemi swore she would have every head in the room before she died.
Dahlia scoffed and gestured to the armed men around her. “Return from where?”
Cutter snapped the fingers of his battle-gloved hand, showering a fistful of cherry bombs in sparks that lit their fuses.
He tossed them at the line of rebels, sending them scattering behind the pillars.
In an instant and unfazed, Dorian Drake stepped in front of his daughter and raised his pistol.
He fired just as Nova stepped in front of Yemi and slammed her shield together, the bullet glancing off its surface just inches from her eyes.
“Go. Now,” Nova shouted over the din of explosions. Yemi hesitated, giving Orie a final, meaningful look that she hoped was read as a promise to come back for her, and took off behind Cutter with Nova covering her.
There was little fighting on the way back through the grand hall, but they cut quickly to the east wing ahead of a second menacing rebel mob stalking toward them from the front entrance.
They ducked into the corridor to the crypts far ahead of anyone who would follow.
Cutter pushed aside a heavy section of the stone mural to reveal a narrow sliver of passageway behind it.
“Do they know this is here?” Yemi asked as she and Nova stepped inside.
“There are six panels here, and six tunnels. A dozen more behind paintings and statues in the palace. They’d have to make more than one lucky guess.
” Cutter groaned as he slid the panel back into place, leaving them in complete darkness until Nova found a torch on the wall.
She struck it lit with a long match from a box in a cubby carved into the rock, revealing nothing but a narrow dirt path and more dark. “This one lets out on the coast.”
“And then what?” said Nova as Cutter took the torch from her and led the way.
“Can we make it to Muris?” Yemi asked, her mind still reeling from how she’d left behind Orie and Enna to uncertain fates, how she’d lost her mother, her throne, her home in a week. How something was almost certainly wrong with Dahlia. How natural it felt to slay people.
“Not quickly. But it’s our best shot. You’re not safe anywhere in Ixia now.”
“Oh, that’s temporary,” Yemi replied. “I promise you.”