Chapter 15 Ransom
Gold eyes met gold eyes as Ransom stared down his former best friend.
Footsteps echoed on the stairwell as the Rose-bearers he’d killed on his way up returned sluggishly to their feet.
Yanking a sconce off the wall, Seraphine fought off their corpses.
With Saintkiller in his fist, Ransom went straight for the source. Shadows encircled them, forcing Nadia and Lisette back against the wall until Lark stood alone in the eye of Ransom’s hurricane, looking thoroughly unruffled.
He reached into his jacket pocket and with a flick of his wrist hurled a silver vial.
It smashed at Ransom’s feet, pluming into a grey cloud.
Ransom staggered backwards, gasping.
Lark struck like a viper, shoving him into the wall. The next vial flickered in the splintered moonlight as he tipped its contents directly into Ransom’s mouth.
Ransom retched, choking it down.
Fumes engulfed him, as thick and cold as frost. They seeped into his blood. His head.
Sera screamed as the world tilted.
Ransom fell to his knees and Saintkiller clattered to the floor.
When Ransom lifted his head, Lark had returned to the edge of the tower. Only now, Sera was with him, the Necromancer’s knife glinting at her throat.
Behind him, shadows gathered in the storm-swept night. Ransom swore he heard a shriek in the clouds.
Dread gathered in the pit of his soul.
Sera’s eyes were wide behind her mask.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, calmly.
Hell no.
He reached for his shadows.
Magic evaded him.
The mist in his head thickened.
‘You’re probably wondering why you can’t think straight,’ crooned Lark.
‘That fog in your head is thanks to an Urnican substance called mistbane. Made from the leaves of the widow’s poppy.
They use it over the border after their wars.
A little something to take the edge off. Wash away all the gruesome memories.’
Ransom kept his eyes on Seraphine. On the point of Lark’s knife biting into her skin.
I will rip out your fucking entrails.
There came another shriek.
Closer now.
Black wings breaking through the clouds.
‘He’s here!’ Lisette cried.
‘Be careful with her,’ said Nadia.
Lark smirked. ‘When am I ever reckless, darling?’
Sera slammed her heel down on his foot. Lark cursed, backhanding her across the face. She jerked, losing her balance. He grabbed her by the neck and swung her until she dangled over the quad like a doll.
A feral rage swept through Ransom.
His head spun, or perhaps it was the world that shifted as he staggered towards Lark.
His wide laughing mouth loomed over him. ‘Feeling addled, brother?’
Ransom couldn’t make his mouth work. The fumes were snatching at his thoughts, his tongue.
He stumbled to his knees, and still he crawled, breath hissing, heart thundering, clawing desperately at the stone. Lisette stood over him, his blade of steelfire now glinting in her hand.
She pressed her boot against his back. ‘See how the mighty have fallen.’
‘Be still, Ransom,’ Nadia hissed.
It was like telling the sun not to burn. He would sooner rip out his own heart than be still.
When Lisette sank the dagger between his ribs, he barely felt it.
Blood pooled, slickening his hands as he crawled. A terrible heat whispered through his bones as the steelfire went to work.
His magic dimmed.
The world darkened.
‘Take it out.’ Seraphine was screaming now. ‘Lisette, take it out!’
A shriek reverberated through the tower, as a monstrous shape emerged from the clouds and dipped towards them.
A Strix.
Ransom was powerless to stop it. On his knees in a lake of his own blood, he could barely lift his own head.
Sera’s cry sent a fissure through his weakening heart.
The Strix drew closer, rubied eyes marking its shape in the night. Somehow, Ransom dragged himself to his feet. The effort was colossal, like climbing the tallest Silvercrest with half a lung, but there was no blade, no wound, that could keep him from her.
He took a lumbering step. Pulled a breath through his teeth.
Without taking his eyes off Ransom, Lark held Seraphine out like an offering.
The Strix dived, filling the world with its dark reaching shadow. On its back rode a Stargrazer crowned with the royal war helmet of Urnica.
Prince Darius Mondragon.
A soundless roar ripped through Ransom’s soul.
He watched, half dead, as the Urnican general snatched Seraphine out of the air and hauled her up by the bloodied feathers around her neck.
As quickly as it had come, the Strix banked away, taking Ransom’s heart with it.