Chapter 42
Yes, that’s them. The Villente family. One where being an Anomaly is hereditary. I’ve been itching to study them for years. Apparently it’s not ‘ethical’. I can’t thank you enough for offering your stepdaughter for my experiments!
— LETTER FROM DISGRACED MENTOR, SIR MACKLEBY, TO KING ROMERO IV
‘So we’re adding kidnapping princesses to your never-ending list of crimes, Asmar,’ Romero said.
I narrowed my blurry gaze. His usually neat hair billowed in the sea breeze, the sky darkening like a bruise behind him.
Bile rose up my throat. His smug smile briefly slithered into focus. Enfys struggled as the long black cloak of her father swelled over his dark suit. Romero’s guards peered over the dunes.
Matthias, sword still gripped in his hands, turned in a slow circle.
‘Yes, Asmar. As you can see, you’re surrounded.’
Romero flicked his hand up, and Enfys was dragged back. Pablo snarled. Romero ran his hand over his beard, a wide grin on his face.
‘But, I intend to be benevolent, so those of you who throw down your weapons and join us will be rewarded once the sun rises on the new Empire of Great Drufaera. But not you, Asmar. I’ll slaughter you in a moment, and all those who fail to kneel to your new emperor.’
The rising sun struck the side of his face, and Romero closed his eyes, tilting towards the gilded rays.
‘See?’ He spread his arms out, the wind whipping up his coat, and my legs buckled. ‘Even Evella blesses me. Blesses my new dawn. So who refuses to stand with the traitor and his bastard wife? Who will step into the new light, stand as one and destroy the empress?’
Matthias lowered his sword as the dull thud of weapons hitting the sand was followed by the tread of boots. With my heart racing, I watched as a few guards, heads low, strode past us to join Drufaera. One slipped on the sand dune, falling and letting out a sob.
‘I understand,’ Matthias shouted, his voice breaking as the wind stole his words. ‘Evella bless your wife and child.’
The guard halted, his shoulders rising and falling, before he climbed up the dune, sand spraying in his wake.
The remaining guards closed in as ice grasped my chest and I looked up to the man who should have taken the place of my dead father. The gulls swooped low. I placed my hand over my eyes, gasping as I squinted into a sky almost black not with clouds, but birds. Hundreds and hundreds of sea birds.
‘Is it worth my while asking you all to leave?’ Matthias swallowed deeply, his eyes burning into Romero’s. ‘As unhappy as I am to die here, I’ll go to Evella content knowing you all live.’
We remained silent, drawing closer to our king. My heart stuttered. Matthias had always been impulsive, self-sacrificing. Would he hand himself to Romero in order to save us?
‘Thought not. I’d best make my last words slightly more impressive than the ouch it’s highly likely to be.
’ He raised his chin. ‘It is a true honour to lead this final fight with you. If we die, if the sand runs with our blood, then let’s make sure for each of us that falls, ten Drufaeran souls end with ours. ’
‘Or,’ Glesni shuffled forward, sparks igniting at the ends of her fingers, ‘we could try killing him and not fucking dying.’
Romero laughed, before disappearing behind the dunes, leaving the slaughter to others.
At the sight of their emperor leaving, a piercing cry came from the guards, and they tore down the dunes, a blur of yellow and black.
‘Ready!’ Asher cried, his sword raised, guards forming a circle around their king.
Matthias’s fingers brushed mine. My chest heaved as I turned to him.
‘I’ll meet you once more on the other side,’ he said, before shoving through his guards to reach the front.
Pablo barked and padded after him. He looked back and, whimpering, returned to my side.
‘Go,’ I begged him. ‘Fuck off and go.’
He turned his amber eyes to mine, and I fought back a sob. ‘Why do you never do as I ask?’
As they tore towards us, screaming, swords raised, some tumbled, crashing into others. My heart pounded. Pablo paced before me, snarling and snapping as they came into focus, when a wall of flames exploded.
They were running too hard, too fast down the sandy slope. Some tried to fall to the ground to avoid the flames towering over us, a fortress of fire, but those behind kicked them, tripped over them and, screaming, they fell to the flames.
The wind buffeted the smoke towards us and we stood, coughing, shielding arms and faces. Agony tore through Glesni’s face as she forced oil into her fire, the one thing keeping us safe. Skye bent over, tugging her top over her mouth, eyes watering; it could kill us too.
The flames stuttered and flickered. A guard broke through, quickly hacked down by Matthias.
‘I’m weak,’ Glesni cried, falling to one knee. ‘I can’t hold it—’
Thunder crackled above. A grey cloud rumbled over with horrifying speed.
Rain burst through, forcing us to our knees as the torrent soaked us, extinguishing Glesni’s flames.
Asher screamed Skye’s name as I swept the hair from my face.
The sand sank beneath me as I stood against the first crashing of steel upon steel. Grunts and death cries rent the air.
I spun around, blinking water from my eyes.
I shivered, a mix of cold and terror as my hazy gaze swept across the figures slicing into us.
Then I spotted her. The rain-bearing Anomaly who’d smothered our fire.
Featureless through my hazy gaze, her pale face turned to the sky, hands twisting as another heavy cloud darkened above.
I called them. The dark mass, swooping and swirling. I couldn’t see her expression as the birds fell from the sky, their beaks piercing her eyes, her throat, but I did smile at the sound of her gurgling screams.
‘Defend the queen,’ Asher cried, and a circle of guards surrounded me.
Closing my eyes, I reached inside and the sky exploded with the screeching of birds.
They wrenched the sky apart, slicing into the guards spinning in wild circles, their swords cleaving blindly.
Blood splattered and, with my heart lurching, I watched a sleek cormorant split in two.
I sent my rage into the birds, warning them to defend each other. Eyes, I told them. Attack their eyes.
I wiped a trickle of dark blood as it oozed down my chin, felt the familiar curling slither as my other gift awakened.
I gasped. I couldn’t let it free yet. I’d no idea how to control it and couldn’t risk carving a path through our own guards.
Heaving in a great breath, I tamped it down, sensing the urgency to devour, to possess.
The metallic stench of spilled blood and death rattles overpowered my senses.
My body juddered as the two gifts fought against each other, each demanding dominance, neither prepared to share, to balance.
I fell, my knees sinking into the still-soaked sand, gripping my head, to force my skull to stay whole.
Hands, warm hands, gripped mine; a voice called my name. The pain abated and, opening my eyes, Glesni was there, her dark eyes glittering.
‘You command the gift, Sorrow, not the other way. Control it.’
I shook my head, suddenly aware the confused birds had returned to the skies.
‘You do not flinch before Death, Sorrow. Not when you command her.’
Tears poured a track down my sandy face, the sounds of battle deafening. The image of my mother, glassy eyes rolling, mouth hanging open, claws scraping down Enfys’s terrified face flashed before me.
‘No,’ I whimpered.
Glesni’s lips thinned.
‘Save him,’ she cried, hauling me up, dragging me forward.
Two guards battled Matthias. He parried, smashing the side of his sword into the back of a guard’s knee. The fallen guard stabbed out blindly, in the last throes of desperation, before Matthias sliced through his comrade and the pair tumbled away.
Violet threads coiled, ready to spring as they watched Matthias duck another sword aimed at his head. I tamped them down, calling my other gift, and a flock of sand sparrows darted out.
Matthias’s attacker fell, quickly replaced by another desperate for the honour of taking the traitor king’s head.
Glesni raised her quivering hand, lifting the guards from the ground.
She groaned, the muscles in her face trembling as she raised them in the air, higher, higher.
We gasped as Glesni cried out and still the guards, limbs flailing, rose higher till they were no more than blurs against the stony sky.
‘Best. Deviant. Ever,’ she grunted before sweeping her hand down, the guards plummeting into the sand with a force so great, the whole beach shook.
Figures twitched as limbs stuck out at unnatural angles, and I swallowed down the gift thrashing within.
My name rent the air and I stared up, through the falling Drufaeran guard.
‘Enfys!’
Lifting up my skirts, I tore over the dunes, Pablo and Matthias at my side.