9. Esme
ESME
The chill of the western corridor bites at my bare feet, a sharp contrast to the fevered heat radiating from the master of Vhoig just moments ago.
I pull the study doors shut, sealing the dying lord inside his dark sanctum.
The metal latch clicks, a small, insignificant barrier against the reality closing in on this estate.
My protection is rotting from the inside out. The invisible shield keeping Zatori’s executioners away from my son is held together by failing magic and a stubborn, putrid poison.
I navigate the labyrinth of shadows back to the nursery, my mind turning over the brutal arithmetic of survival.
Bribe a smuggler. Find a ship heading for the neutral ports of Kaynvu.
Steal the collar resting on the vanity, pry the ruby loose, and purchase our passage before Zuirvih’s heart stops beating.
I slip through the nursery doors. The room is quiet. Too quiet.
Kalan slumbers in the grand, silk-draped crib, his small chest rising and falling in an untroubled rhythm. Near the foot of the crib, a mountain of bristling black fur shifts. Vesper.
No alarms ring out across the estate. No shouts echo from Commander Jarek’s patrols in the lower courtyards. The magical wards guarding the high-tier windows hum with their usual, undisturbed static.
Yet, the Batlaz rises.
Vesper does not stretch or whine. The beast locks into a rigid, statuesque crouch.
The thick fur along his back spikes into sharp, aggressive ridges.
A low, vibrating rumble starts deep in his chest, a sound that vibrates through the floorboards and rattles the delicate crystal water glass resting on the nightstand.
Crimson eyes fixate on the sweeping glass balcony doors overlooking the black harbor.
The ambient moonlight filtering through the glass begins to warp. The shadows pooled at the base of the doors do not behave like the absence of light. They stretch. They slither. Like spilled ink defying gravity, the darkness creeps up the glass panes, suffocating the starlight.
A sharp, metallic click snarls through the silence. The balcony locks disengage.
They are already inside.
Adrenaline floods my system, a violent, metallic jolt that banishes the lingering exhaustion of the night. I do not scream. A street survivor does not waste oxygen on noise.
My bare feet slide across the rug. I lunge for the obsidian side table. A solid silver candelabra rests next to a stack of parchment, five ornate prongs stretching upward like a metallic claw. My fingers wrap around the thick, cold stem. The object grounds me, offering a lethal, bludgeoning weight.
I pivot, throwing myself between the crib and the balcony. I widen my stance, planting my feet firmly into the woven rug, raising the silver weapon across my chest.
The glass doors swing open.
The storm winds from the harbor rush into the nursery, extinguishing the meager candles and sending the silk draperies thrashing wildly.
Three figures step over the threshold. They move with that same sickening, liquid grace from the Lowtown alleys.
Ash-grey skin. Iron-dark armor etched with the coiled, venomous iconography of The Serpent.
Emerald scales gleam along their bracers.
Zatori’s assassins. They bypassed the alarms. They bypassed the Miou.
They raise their twin daggers. The curved blades drip with a glowing, bilious green liquid that hisses as it hits the floorboards.
Vesper unleashes a roar that shakes the plaster from the ceiling.
The Batlaz launches across the room, a blur of muscle and feral fury.
He slams into the lead assassin with the force of a falling boulder.
The dark elf goes down, his armor crunching under the impact.
Vesper’s jaws snap shut over the assassin's shoulder, tearing through the emerald scales and ash-grey flesh in a spray of dark, steaming blood.
The intruder screams, thrashing against the beast, his venomed daggers clattering uselessly against the stone.
With a sickening crunch, Vesper shakes the male violently, snapping his neck before tossing his limp, lifeless body over the open balcony railing into the dark harbor drop below.
The remaining two assassins do not flinch. They do not turn to aid their comrade. Their eyes lock onto the crib.
The second assassin lunges.
He covers the distance in two impossibly long strides, bypassing the snarling Batlaz entirely. The green-tipped dagger arcs downward, aimed directly at the bundle of blankets sheltering my sleeping boy.
"No!"
I throw myself forward, intercepting the strike. I swing the silver candelabra in a desperate, upward arc, aiming for the assassin’s face, but his reflexes are unnatural. He twists, bringing his off-hand blade down in a vicious slash.
The steel bites into the flesh of my left forearm.
The pain is instant and catastrophic. The venom acts like boiling acid injected straight into the vein.
My muscles seize, the candelabra nearly slipping from my grip as the green poison sears through my bloodstream, aiming straight for my heart.
I stumble backward, crashing hard against the wooden slats of Kalan’s crib.
The assassin smirks, stepping closer to finish the job.
A sudden, blinding heat erupts from the marrow of my bones.
The pain vanishes. The boiling acid is consumed by a rushing, freezing tide of ancient power.
Radiant, blinding silver light bursts from my skin. The faint, iridescent veins spiderwebbing up my forearms ignite, glowing with the brilliance of a captured star. The Wildspont root. The dormant, raw magic I swallowed as a starving child awakens in the presence of the lethal toxin.
The silver light surges outward, tracing the path of the venom and obliterating it. The green liquid sizzles against my open wound, turning to harmless gray ash before it can reach my heart.
The sudden burst of pure, unadulterated magic floods the nursery, casting sharp, brilliant shadows against the walls.
The assassin freezes. The smirk drops from his aristocratic face, replaced by wide-eyed, paralyzing shock. He stares at the glowing human, his brain failing to process the impossible display of raw magic emanating from an ownerless laborer.
I do not waste the hesitation.
I grip the stem of the candelabra with both hands, my knuckles turning white. Using the momentum of my stance, I drive the five solid silver prongs forward with every ounce of strength I possess.
The blunt metal punches through the narrow gap between the assassin’s high collar and his breastplate.
The impact jars up my arms, jarring my teeth. The silver prongs bury themselves deep into the soft, unprotected flesh of his throat. He chokes, a wet, gurgling sound tearing from his ruined windpipe.
I rip the weapon backward.
Dark, hot blood erupts from the wound, spraying in a violent arc.
The thick liquid splatters across my cheeks, dripping down my chin and soaking into the collar of my nightgown.
The metallic scent of a fresh kill fills the air.
The assassin collapses to his knees, his hands frantically clutching his throat, before pitching forward onto the rug.
My breath tears through my lungs in ragged, burning gasps. My left arm continues to pulse with fading silver light, the deep gash clotting almost instantly under the influence of the Wildspont magic.
The third assassin steps over the twitching body of his comrade.
His eyes are narrowed, the initial shock replaced by cold, calculating fury.
He raises his venomed dagger, adjusting his grip, preparing to strike me down before moving to the child.
I raise the blood-soaked candelabra, squaring my shoulders, ready to fight until the very last drop of blood leaves my body.
The grand double doors of the nursery explode inward.
Solid oak and iron hinges splinter into a thousand lethal projectiles, showering the room in debris. The concussive blast of the impact throws the third assassin off balance, his boots sliding against the blood-slicked rug.
A towering silhouette fills the ruined doorway.
The nursery instantly becomes a suffocating vacuum. Purple static crackles across the ceiling, illuminating the dust and wood splinters hanging suspended in the air.
Zuirvih stands in the threshold.
His midnight blue tunic remains torn, his hair a chaotic tangle around his face. The ghostly pallor of his skin and the black, necrotic veins pulsing up his neck are fully exposed, stripped of all glamour. He looks like a dying god dragged straight from the depths of Glacies.
Violent eyes lock onto the remaining assassin, there is no mockery, only death.
Zuirvih raises a single, trembling hand. He closes his fingers into a fist.
The shadows in the room detach from the walls.
They swarm the third assassin like a hive of starving locusts, wrapping around his armored limbs, his throat, his chest. The dark elf shrieks, a high, piercing sound of pure agony as the chaotic magic twists the physical matter of his body.
Bones snap in rapid succession, a sickening staccato echoing over the storm winds.
The shadows pull tighter, warping reality itself, until the assassin is crushed into a screaming, unrecognizable knot of darkness, and finally, into a shower of harmless grey ash.