Chapter 39 #2
“I’ll explain later,” I muttered, wiping away my tears and glancing back at the Daemons. Several were already showing signs of recovery from their ritual-induced illness. “We have to get out of here. Can you walk?”
He nodded, though his face went white as I lifted him to his feet. “I’m too weak to use glamours,” he rasped.
“It’s fine,” I said, breathless. “You don’t need magic. I can protect us.”
He nodded, his eyes dropping to the obsidian fisted in my palm. “What about Gwen?”
My stomach twisted, but I reassured him as well as myself that Veronika had promised to get her out.
Casimir still made no move toward the door. “And what about August? And Neha?”
My heart fractured in my chest. “Neha is dead,” I whispered. My throat felt tight. I tried to breathe. “I don’t know—”
“Your blood,” he murmured. “Give me your blood.”
My eyes automatically darted to his bloodstained lips. “What?”
“Your blood healed me from the venom. It might help me regain enough strength to use magic.”
I didn’t know if it was my blood or Evren’s antidote that had healed him, but there was no time to argue.
I pushed down my revulsion and offered him my bleeding palm.
Our eyes met as he drank from me, and there was something intense and almost erotic about the act. It meant he trusted me, and I him.
Casimir pulled away abruptly, his maw wet with my blood, his eyes narrowed on something—or—someone behind me. Seizing the silver blade from my hand, he stood and plunged it into the throat of an unknown Daemon who had appeared directly behind me.
“No love lost where I’m concerned, Lazarus.” He spat onto the floor where the Daemon choked on his own blood.
“Come on,” I urged him. “We need to help August and get out of here.”
He nodded. We hurried past the recovering Daemons, avoiding their grasping fingers as we made our way toward the dais.
Gwen was nowhere to be seen, and neither, as it happened, were Veronika, Evren, or Devereaux.
I felt a pang of regret as I noticed that the Book of Erebos was missing from the table.
Obviously, Devereaux had grabbed the Book before fleeing.
Had Veronika ushered Gwen to safety as she’d promised, or had they run into trouble?
Casimir’s mouth was tight as he surveyed the bloody scene on the dais. Neha’s large brown eyes were wide and unseeing, her lips parted in a silent gasp. He knelt in front of August to inspect his wound, his large body obscuring the blood and gore. I was grateful for it.
“Hurry,” I said. “We need to get help, we need—!”
Casimir’s voice was strangely devoid of emotion. “He’s dead, Farrow.”
A surreal numbness settled over me. August couldn’t be dead, not after everything we’d done these past few weeks to save him from this fate.
I’d interrupted the blood ritual. I’d stolen, lied, and plotted with a sprite—I’d even killed a Daemon—all in the hopes that August and I would walk away from the Grotto tonight—if not unscathed, then at least alive.
The loss of him cleaved through me like a blade.
“No.” I shook my head. “He can’t be dead. He just needs—”
Casimir seized my hand, dragging my fingers to press against August’s pulse point. No heartbeat behind his flesh, which had gone cold. I jerked my hand away resentfully.
“I’m sorry, Arden. We were too late.”
“No.” It was childish to argue about something as irrevocable as death, but I argued all the same. “We can’t leave him here.”
“Farrow,” Casimir snapped. “We need to go. Now.”
In a daze, I let him drag me down the stairs and into the frigid night air. We made it as far as the campus grounds before a voice broke through the darkness.
“Arden? Arden, please help me.” Cold dread trickled down my spine. I spun around to see—
Gwen?
Her beautiful burgundy dress was torn at the waist, her eyes wide and terrified.
“Gwen!” I exclaimed. “Thank the gods! Are you okay?” I moved to rush to her side, but Casimir held me back with his free arm.
“Stop,” he ground out. “That’s not Gwen Riordan.”
I froze. And indeed, the familiar taste of metal grazed along my lips and coated my tongue as I watched Gwen approach in the clearing. Not Gwen. Then it must be—
“Zhara,” I corrected myself. The Morpher. “What’ve you done with Gwen?” My voice trembled from terror and white-hot fury.
“Kindly get the fuck out of our way,” Casimir growled.
She snickered. “Or what?” Zhara’s eyes flashed, a feline smile spreading over her full lips. “You have something that belongs to me.”
My heart sank. Of course. She wanted the Umbra Noctis, the obsidian dagger currently strapped to my thigh.
She watched the pair of us with a predatory gaze as she paced about the lawn, edging ever closer.
“We don’t have it,” Casimir said automatically.
But Zhara ignored him. “Did poor Augustus bleed out already? A shame, I’m going to miss having someone to play with.” She smiled like a Cheshire cat, her sharp teeth gleaming.
My vision went red. The desire to hurt Zhara for whatever she’d done to Gwen to morph into her body, for mocking August’s death, filled me like flames in the hollow of my grief. I wanted to gut her right here in this clearing and leave her body for the crows.
“Shut up about August,” I snarled, drawing the obsidian dagger from beneath my dress, “or I’ll cut out your tongue.”
The threat earned a gleeful snicker from Zhara. “So,” she said with a hiss, “Slyfoot’s baby snake has fangs after all. But is she willing to bite?” she taunted. “Or will she just waggle her tongue with empty words all night?” I bristled at the reference to the Book’s prophetic words.
Casimir gave a warning noise beside me, but I ignored him. Let Zhara know that I had her dagger and wasn’t afraid to use it. Maybe my temper would be the thing that doomed us after all.
Casimir’s lips were set in an expression of grim resolve.
Zhara abruptly ceased her pacing, drawing up short and staring at me with an expression of bewildered fury.
I wondered if she’d already attempted to draw the Umbra Noctis to her using her prowess with Metallurgy.
The obsidian blade wasn’t forged in steel, but its hilt was adorned with Ethervalean runes.
If she had, her attempts had been silently thwarted by my necklace’s protections.
Casimir caught my eye, giving an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “Let me handle her.”
Hearing this, Zhara gave a wicked cackle of delight. “Are you going to punish me, Darkseer?”
But Casimir’s eyes were gleaming with something dangerous, like smoke unfurling. He stepped in front of me, blocking me from Zhara’s line of sight.
“She won’t get close enough to touch you,” he promised.
Casimir’s face was pale, and his movements slower, drained as he was from the venom.
I stepped back to avoid getting in the middle of their skirmish.
It was unnerving, watching Casimir fight Zhara while she was morphed into Gwen’s body.
I recalled Casimir’s warning from our first combat training session.
“Above all else, maintain distance. A stab wound is the least of your concerns… If you allow a Daemon to get close enough to touch you, it’s over.”
All he needed to do was get close enough to Zhara to glamour her into unconsciousness, but she was a skilled combatant.
Zhara strategically kept herself just out of Casimir’s reach, instead, electing to fling small, vicious-looking knives that he fluidly dodged.
This was the first time I’d truly seen Casimir fight.
He maintained a predatory focus on Zhara, dodging her attacks with a feline grace punctuated by sharp kicks aimed at her legs.
She stumbled with a furious hiss when he managed to make contact with her ankle, but it wasn’t enough to deter her.
Even as she hurled another dagger at Casimir’s head, she unsheathed a nasty-looking, curved ivory blade that looked horribly as though it were carved from bone.
The edges of the knife were serrated, each tooth promising a drawn-out, agonizing death.
He held out his palm to me, silently demanding I hand over the knife.
I hesitated only for a moment before relinquishing it to him.
Casimir’s eyes were trained on Zhara’s face, never wavering to glance at me or at the unusual weapon in her hand.
At once, they began to circle one another, eyes locked onto each other in a graceful but lethal dance. One that must end in bloodshed.
“Bit of a deviation for you, isn’t it, Zhara? Wielding bone instead of metal?” he goaded. “Not very clever for a metallurgist.”
Zhara snarled at him, taking the bait.
In the few seconds she was distracted, Casimir whispered to me, “Run. Now.”
I stiffened at the command, but didn’t move. I couldn’t leave him to fight Zhara alone.
“Have you been exiled so long that you’ve forgotten that bone-forged blades have their own magic?
” Zhara’s tone was mocking, but her expression held little humor.
“The Umbra Noctis may absorb poisons and venom, it is true, but this?” She twirled the serrated blade deftly between her fingers.
“This boneblade is the sister to one you might be familiar with. She is famous for wielding centuries of pain...”
My eyes darted to the serrated boneblade in her hand. Centuries of pain?
Casimir quirked a brow. “You may be a decent Morpher, Zhara, but even you cannot pretend that yours is anything like the one Nymara wields—”
Her dark eyes flashed. “Oh?” she interrupted, teeth bared. “If you’re so sure, why don’t you come closer and have a taste?”
Abruptly, she lunged forward, the boneblade slicing through the air, but Casimir was ready for her.
He gracefully sidestepped the attack, pivoting away and striking at her ribs.
She managed to dodge his dagger just before it made contact with her skin, hissing and twisting away in anger. But the Morpher was not deterred.