Chapter 36
Caene ducks out of the path of the axe’s blade just in time.
He turns on Osper and kicks out, his boot connecting with Osper’s gut.
Caught off guard, he drops the weapon. Caene rounds on it, slicing his restraints against the glowing blade before scooping it up.
Elex deserts me and goes for his brother, knife in hand.
Caene’s faster. He grasps Elex’s wrist and bends it at a gruesome angle.
A loud snap fills the room. Elex’s hand goes limp, releasing the knife while he screams. Caene scoops it up, slices it through my bindings, and hands the weapon to me.
I briefly debate shoving it in his eye socket just to hear him scream, but it wouldn’t do any good right now.
Survival now. Vengeance later.
Turning on his brothers, he swings his axe with all his strength.
My traitorous heart sinks as I watch Elex vanish from view and Osper pull another sword from nothing, though this one isn’t glowing.
Caene’s axe collides with Osper’s sword.
Purple sparks sizzle off the axe. Caene breaks the connection and spins the axe in a wide arc, causing Osper to fumble his sword.
Clumsy, clumsy.
Caene picks it up while Osper creates an angry, spiked mace.
Elex appears behind Caene, knife raised to strike.
I stop breathing. I shouldn’t care what happens to Caene, not after everything that’s been exposed.
But my heart and my head are on opposing teams. I watch for a moment as Caene battles both his brothers, the large space making it much easier than the confined hallway in the bordello.
He kicks out behind him, hitting Elex in the chest, stunning him and bringing him to his knees.
Caene turns his focus on Osper and the mace while Elex whines on the floor.
Deciding he can handle himself, I turn my wrath on Maziar.
He has vanished along with Isi.
“Fuck!”
I start running around the massive room, looking in all the alcoves, praying to the gods and goddesses I won’t be too late.
The chorus of grunting and metal and sizzling is only causing my heart rate to kick higher.
I don’t know if Caene can fight his brothers for long, and if Osper creates another glowing weapon, my vision will come to pass.
Movement above me catches my eye. Maziar has dragged Isirae up to the second-floor balcony that wraps around the entire atrium.
I tear off toward the stairs. My heart is screaming at me, being torn in two different directions.
Half to Caene and half to Isi. They both lied to me and deceived me.
How my heart has any love left for either of them I’ll never understand.
But it does and I listen. Caene can keep fighting a while longer, but Isi is injured and terrified; she’s who needs me most right now.
Rounding the banister at the top of the stairs, I catch a glimpse of Isi’s shoe as she’s dragged backward into another room.
My feet can’t move fast enough. Something tells me if I let that door close, I’ll never see her again.
I reach it just before the latch catches and ram through.
Maziar is on the other side of another smaller chamber.
Gilded framed paintings hang on all four walls.
He’s fighting with a set of keys, trying to open another door.
“Maziar,” I snarl. “Let her go. She has nothing to do with this.” I flip my knife around, gripping the blade between my thumb and forefinger, ready to throw it at the first opportunity.
It won’t do any lasting damage to him, but it might disarm him enough for Isi to run.
Maziar shoves Isi in front of him, using her as a shield.
A coward to his core. He’s frantic. I can see it in his eyes.
His hand is shaking as he continues to fumble with his keys. “What are you so afraid of, Maziar?” I approach slowly, trying to get close enough to grab Isi.
“I’m not afraid!” The sweat dripping down his face says otherwise. He knows something.
“You’ve seen how this ends, haven’t you?
” My eyes narrow as I take another step.
He freezes. “What happens, Maziar? Do you get what you deserve in the end?” His eyes collide with mine.
“Who does it? Me? Or the son you so easily threw away perhaps?” I take another step to the side.
Maziar mirrors it, keeping as much distance between us as he can, completely abandoning the keys.
“Or is it possible one of your other sons decide they’re tired of your tyranny?
” Another step, another counter-step. He’s not taking his eyes off me.
A howl from the main floor in the atrium briefly draws his attention.
It’s enough. I let my knife loose. I aim for his head, but he jerks his body and the dagger sticks in the soft tissue in his shoulder.
He screeches in pain, blood soaking his shirt.
Isirae runs to me and we take off through the door we had entered through, around the balcony, and back toward the stairs.
Maziar roars, not sounding entirely human as he pursues us.
He’s faster than he should be, proving his frail little old man act was, at least on some level, a lie.
Isirae’s legs falter, too weak from the mental and physical abuse she’s suffered.
A feeling I know well. I wrap my arm around her waist and place hers over my shoulder, taking on as much of her weight as I can.
Though she weighs hardly anything and she's small, I'm still weaker than normal from the last few months and the maneuver slows us too much.
We reach the top of the stairs as Maziar catches up behind us.
His hand is cold through my tunic as he shoves us.
We both go tumbling down. My head smashes into the railing, my knee connecting with the edge of a step.
I hear a sickening snap as my forearm collides with the floor.
The pain registers a moment later. I come to a stop at the base of the staircase dizzy and disoriented, pain screaming through my body.
I hear Caene yell something and suddenly he’s there, leaning over me, his hands running over my body.
I roll away from him, my body crying out in protest. Isirae lies just a few feet from me, facing away.
I get up and crawl for her, clutching my undeniably broken arm to my chest, then roll her over slowly.
She’s unconscious but she’s breathing. I sigh in momentary relief.
Maziar’s footsteps behind me draw my attention as he lazily makes his way down the stairs, looking like a cat that has finally caught the mouse.
I look to Caene, who’s bloody and sliced, with gashes that should have healed by now, glowing axe on the ground beside him.
Osper approaches him from behind, a normal steel sword drawn.
Elex is nowhere to be seen, but I’m sure he’s close.
Caene abandoned them mid-fight. He saw me falling and ran to me. I shove down the swelling of my heart.
I scramble for the glowing axe. I’m ending this here and now. Elex is faster. He materializes in front of me, taking me to the ground, straddling my middle, a knife pressed into the hollow at the base of my throat. Osper grabs a hold of Caene.
Maziar descends the final few steps, tutting in beat with his footsteps.
“You foolish Condemned bitch.” He slowly makes his way over to Isirae, grabbing her hair and dragging her to her knees.
She’s still regaining consciousness. From the dazed look in her eyes, she’s not completely aware of what’s happening yet.
“You know you cannot kill me. You cannot defeat me. Now, let’s put all of this behind us.
” Isirae’s eyes connect with mine as she comes around.
She glances down at the glowing axe on the ground, then back at me.
I know what she’s thinking, and it may be our only chance.
I join my hands in one large fist, fingers laced, ignoring the agony of my broken arm, and bring it down on Elex’s groin, causing him to cry out and topple off me, clutching his crotch, cursing.
I scramble to the axe and slide it to Isirae at the same time her elbow collides with Maziar’s gut.
He releases her on a puff and she bends over, swipes up the axe, and pivots on the balls of her feet as Feron taught her.
The axe slices through muscle and tissue, blood soaking Isirae.
She wrenches the axe from his chest and steps back.
Maziar looks down at the gaping wound in his body, then at Isi.
He takes one step toward her before collapsing face-first on the floor, blood pooling around him rapidly. He doesn’t move again.
The room falls into silence. Every ragged breath echoes around us.
I blink a few times to confirm what I’m seeing, too stunned to speak.
Isirae just killed the most powerful patriarch in Lyclaven.
Pride swells in my chest. I look up at her, but she’s staring at something in the heap that was once Maziar.
She bends over and rips the chain from his neck, looking at the talismans with awe.
She slowly reaches up her hand to cup the medallions.
“Whore!” Osper shouts. “Give them to me!” He abandons Caene and sprints for Isi.
I snatch the dagger Elex was using and throw it.
Osper hits the floor, the dagger buried to the hilt in his throat.
He gasps and chokes in his own blood for a few heartbeats before succumbing, death washing over him, claiming him. A smile ghosts over my lips.
Cockhead.
Elex howls, pulling yet another knife from a holster on his calf.
He vanishes. I know he’s coming for me, but I don’t know where from.
Caene’s back touches mine, ready to fight from as many angles as we can.
Eyes wide, I look for any hint of movement.
A shimmer or disturbed dust. That faint purple glow.
Nothing.