Chapter 42 #2
This night is only going to get gorier.
I remind myself of the cause as I limp to the Countess’s quarters.
I imagine a hundred freed Sol, making the trek to the Banyan beneath an unhindered sun.
I imagine their wrists to be chainless and their faces bright, and by the time I make it to the door and push my way inside, I’ve rekindled my fight.
I’m running on pure adrenaline, but it will do the job.
I slam the door shut behind me, propping myself up against it as I drag in a deep breath.
The Countess’s rooms are perhaps the grandest thing I’ve ever seen. Tall windows, a massive four-poster bed, furniture that looks like it cost a fortune.
If I had to guess, this would have been Sable’s room, and the thought squeezes something in my chest, but the sentimental feeling is rudely interrupted by the sound of vomit hitting the floor.
“That won’t work,” I hear Salem sigh, having just folded Vance’s body into the fireplace. He wipes his hands on his pants before crouching in front of the Countess, who is still…alive?!?
“What the fuck?” I surge forward.
Her wrists and ankles are bound, and she looks as close to death as she can be, but she’s still trying to hurl up the poison. Eyes drooping lower by the second, she still attempts to look up at me.
“It’s fine,” Salem assures me, double-checking her restraints, and then he pauses to give me a once-over. There’s amusement in his gaze as he gets to his feet, turning to face me fully. “What kind of side quest did you go on?”
I glare at him, gesturing a wide arm to the door behind me. “You didn’t hear me fighting for my life out there?”
“No,” he says plainly, waving his hand around the room, “it must have blended in with the sound of explosions and—.”
“You’re a hunter,” I spit back at him. “So, you have supernatural scent but shitty hearing?”
The Hound smirks, and it only serves to piss me off more. “I can’t be great at everything, Lucina. It wouldn’t be fair.”
The Countess dry heaves over the ground, pulling both of our attentions.
“Why isn’t she dead?” I ask, crossing the room to get started on the fire.
“Beats me,” Salem says.
Another explosion sounds outside, rattling the Estate walls, and though my body protests the idea of more fire, I don’t have a choice.
“Well, figure it out,” I hiss through gritted teeth, pushing past the discomfort and dredging up enough Sol magic to produce the white-hot flames needed for such a task.
Fire bursts from my open palms, surging into the hearth, catching Vance’s clothes before consuming his entire body.
I brace myself for the stench, knowing no amount of preparation will prepare me for it, but this is the last bit of gruesome in our plan—if it all works out as it should.
Right now it’s more than just dropping a ward. It’s avenging an entire people.
A mother, a daughter, a sun-drenched city now barren and tarnished. The orphans that grew up parentless in Pirn, the Captures, the bodies hanging from the gates. The fire outside and how eerily familiar I bet it is to my coven.
To Callan.
He’s probably already made it outside the Estate walls and is waiting for the ward to drop. He’s probably looking up at a sky painted red and remembering the last time it looked that way.
“Any last words, Gwendolyn?” Salem’s toying with her now. A lion playing with his food, and honestly, I’m not surprised.
A few moments pass, eerily silent save for the roar of flames before me and the crack of explosions outside. I’m about to tell him to just get it over with when the Countess croaks out, “You’ll get…your…day.”
“Awh,” Salem mocks. “Did you hear that, Killer?”
I roll my eyes at the stupid name, increasing the temperature of the fire until the white flames tint blue.
When I don’t reply, I hear him respond on my behalf, voice so low it’s hardly more than a rumble, “I am the Keeper of Hell, Gwen, and I can promise you her day will look a lot different than yours.”
My face falls, and despite the heat churning within me, there’s an icy chill in the wake of his response.
“Please,” his accent has never been so thick, “send Pyra my love.”
No sound of struggle follows, no crack of breaking bones, no bitter smell of blood.
How Salem killed her is a mystery, but the Countess is good and dead when he steps into view, her body hanging limp over his shoulder. He tosses her carelessly onto the fire, like she’s nothing more than a sack of grain.
The Hound steps back as the flames consume her, moving to stand beside me. “Hotter,” he urges.
Pain lances through me, searing my insides. “I’m. Trying,” I grit out, the temperature in the room climbing.
Outside the window, my coven is still holding their distraction, the explosions bursting erratically, splintering across the sky and flashing bright red through the windows.
By now, everyone who fled the Estate should be charging through the woods, searching for the source of the attack.
We need them as far north as possible for as long as possible.
We need these bodies to burn faster.
I’ve never felt a fire so hot, even with my strenuous effort to keep the heat contained, and I have the sinking feeling that I’ll have to surrender myself to it—let it take what it needs for it to do what I want.
The last time I relinquished full control of my magic was in a lesson with Delia, when I murdered an entire field of wildflowers. Mass destruction isn’t what I need, but letting the monster go did come with massive power.
And massive power is the only way we’ll make it to the dungeons on time.
The only way.
Without giving myself time to second-guess it, I let go.
One second I’m loosening my grip, and in the next I’m being absorbed by the power I’d been controlling.
Heat and pain strain on my body, stretching my muscles into something new, blotting out my vision and stealing every square inch of my insides.
The next thing I’m aware of is being lifted in the air and yanked forward so fast that my head slams into a hard shoulder.
I hear an explosion different than the ones erupting outside. This is a crack and a crumbling of stone. The heavy thud of beams falling and the snap of wooden furniture.
I manage to lift my head, and squinting through thick black smoke, I see singe marks on the wall above the fireplace, stretching all the way to the broken ceiling.
The room lay in shambles, the chandelier shattered in the center of the floor, and all of that beautiful furniture lay in pieces. And my skin…my skin is burning.
My body jerks again, and my boot-clad feet are set on hard ground. A hand comes up over my mouth and nose, and my first instinct is to panic. But when my vision focuses on familiar blue eyes, alight with that supernatural glow, I have enough awareness to grab onto his arm.
“Hang on,” I hear him say, a deep blue mist blurring through the smoke. I feel a hand between my shoulder blades, holding me upright, and as his cerulean world surrounds us, I pray to every god—including him—that the fire reached bone.
I can’t be sure how long it takes, but by the time my lungs begin to seize with the need to take a breath, my feet hit solid ground again. The mist fades, and slowly but surely, the dungeon comes into view.
My heart begins beating again. Weak, but a pulse nonetheless. My body is thoroughly wrecked, spent on all sides, and each breath I inhale is tight in my ribs.
“No more Sol magic,” Salem instructs, waiting until I’ve pulled my hand away to release me. “Lucina, did you hear what I said?”
I nod, peeling my tongue off the roof of my mouth as I attempt deeper breaths.
“Rogue from here on out.”
“I got it,” I force out, becoming more lucid by the second. Reason and awareness seep back into me, just in time for a crowbar to be tossed at my face.
I manage to catch it, barely, glaring daggers back at Salem as he turns with a crowbar of his own. “Get started on those cages, and I’ll work on this side,” he says.
The long stares of the Sol waiting at their bars widen impossibly further as the Hound approaches. Chains rattle as they scramble away from the locks on the doors, and I eye my crowbar, still in firm disagreement that this is the best way to go about it.