Chapter 80
Eighty
James
The very second I arrived on scene, my worst fears were confirmed.
I was too late.
Even at a run, it was clear what had happened.
Many were dead, the bodies strewn about the portal like the discarded sacrifices they were.
I saw both nationalities, Ascorians mixed in with my own people.
Five hundred dead, at least, which meant—shit, did they have enough blood magic in order to undo the already failing wards?
Priest Edes had said three thousand was necessary, but there were still a couple hundred possessed milling about.
Did it really take so little blood magic?
Fuck.
A mage stood near the portal, hands raised, chanting like his life depended on it.
He was not one of mine, and I knew he was trying to take the ward fully down before someone could stop him.
I could see no clearer target. Titan still charged, and I let him run without direction, lifting my bow once more.
I fired at the mage, desperately needing to stop him.
In a blur, Valentina intercepted the arrow, knocking it aside, a taunting sneer on her lips.
Oh, she’d pay for that.
“Your Majesty, troops are beginning to catch up!” Sir Collins reported.
I was glad to hear it, and surprised, considering most of them had been bogged down trying to undo the possessed. But if they were catching up, all the better, because the situation in front of me had seconds before it went pear shaped.
My failed attempt to take down the mage was my only attempt, sadly.
The ward failed completely and the despair swamping me couldn’t be expressed in words.
I took five seconds to just absorb the situation.
The wards—both the new ward I’d ordered erected and the older ward—were down, leaving only the seal on the portal active.
Two things worried me now. One, Valentina was clearly stationed to stop me, as she was covering the portal to prevent me from running in.
She didn’t look like someone who had been pincushioned with three arrows, either, so she was fully using her demonic powers to heal and likely borrowing power from the sacrificed to stay that way. Damn her.
The second thing worrying me was Victor. As suspected, Valentina had him, but he was clearly not here willingly. He knelt at her feet, bound, tears of terror coating his cheeks. Two possessed servants held him down.
“J-James,” Victor pleaded. “James, please, you have to help me!”
Could I? I had a dark suspicion why Victor was here. I wasn’t sure I could get to him in time.
“James, I don’t deserve this! I’m still a prince of the kingdom.
It’s your duty to help me! You have to rescue me!
You have to! I didn’t know, all right? I didn’t know she was a demon.
She just showed up at my house and offered to take me with her, and I didn’t see the harm, and so I went, but I didn’t know she’d do this to me! James!”
“King James.” Valentina’s mouth lifted in a sneer, pure hatred pouring out of her.
“You are quick on the uptake, and honestly, I hate you for it. You’ve made a mess of my plans both times, and I’m heartily sick of maneuvering around you.
” She casually slapped Victor upside the head, shutting him up.
“But I do believe I have the upper hand here.”
Right now, I was not in a good position.
My priests were still catching up, my troops scattered, and I needed time.
I used one hand to gesture for my people who were here to move out, because this was the worst-case scenario, and we had a plan for this in place.
Mages and priests immediately fanned out to either side of me and started chanting, either prayers or spells.
My soldiers flanked them—protection just in case Valentina had more people hidden.
It was a well-known demon tactic to ambush the priests. Effective, too.
All right, let’s make with a distraction. “Rexword, target that mage!”
“On it, Your Majesty!”
I fired three quick arrows at Valentina. I had to pin her down if my mages and knights were to have a prayer of taking down the demonic mage, or at the very least, distract her. It failed, her minions leaping to be human meat shields and effectively taking the arrows for her.
They didn’t, however, go down. Dammit. Had their possession progressed to the point they no longer felt pain? Or were they even past that?
Either way, this wasn’t good. I had too much distance between me and her—most of the city square—which wasn’t a good thing. I encouraged Titan to keep going, as we needed to close the gap.
“Valentina!” I barked. “You’re speaking like you remember our past life!”
She threw her head back on a hearty laugh. “I remember everything, dumbass!”
This meant I might be able to get closure on the one thing that still haunted me. “Why kill Edwin? It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Because that damn know-it-all was a thorn in my side,” she snarled. “I couldn’t even possess you because you were obsessed with him!”
Several things spun into place and brought into question something I really should have thought of before. If Valentina could possess anyone, control people at will, why had she never done it with me?
Because she couldn’t.
Because even then, in his own way, Edwin had protected me.
She really had killed him in order to get to me. The horror ricocheted through me. I knew I’d be properly sick over it later, everything in me rebelling at the idea.
“I didn’t expect you to remember.” Her lips were still curled back in a feral snarl, rage chasing its way around her face. “It’s why you recoiled from me immediately in this life, isn’t it!”
“Bitch, if I could have skewered you on sight, I would have. I should have, in fact, and damned the consequences!” I lifted my bow and fired twice, but again her meat shields were quick to act.
She wasn’t healing as fast as she could be or she wouldn’t be using any shields. Either that or she was trying to conserve all her power to raise the Demon King.
Zinos take me, it was probably the latter, wasn’t it?
“How are you even in a princess’s body?!” I demanded of her.
She pulled an arrow out of her chest like she was removing some errant hair, gloating a little.
“You thought the ward would fail all at once, didn’t you?
But it wasn’t built right the first time, so after about eighty years, the ward started to crack.
We were able to weasel a little energy through, a drip at a time, and then just enough to get me through.
I chose a young princess to inhabit so I would have the right position to open the portal fully for my King. ”
Fuck, she was right, I had assumed the ward would collapse all at once. Not fall apart bit by bit. No wonder, then, she had been able to come out and find a host. That poor baby princess hadn’t stood a chance against a being as evil as her.
But that also meant more demons could come through that failing ward. I couldn’t assume that just because the ward still stood, it would do its job. Clearly, it couldn’t. Not fully.
Urgency pushed me forward. I really had to stop her. I had to get past those human puppets, otherwise I’d have to fight the Demon King again, and no part of me wanted to do that.
Sir Collins squeaked in alarm. “Your Majesty, if you go too far ahead—”
“If I don’t stop this now, it’ll be too late!”
Shit. Just that delay was one second too long.
A dark, inky energy flew from the cracks of the portal and descended like a wave into Victor. Shidteus’s balls, we’d been right. He was here to give a demon corporeal form.
All right, if I could just defeat these two and keep the portal from fully opening, I could prevent the Demon King rising again. Anything was easier than fighting him.
I turned my head and barked, “Seal the energy of the portal before she can call anyone else! We can’t afford the seal to break!”
Victor’s head snapped up and he let out a long breath. When he blinked, it was clear he wasn’t Victor anymore. His sclera and lips turned black, his mannerisms and facial expressions changing as well. The terrified, debauched prince was no more. A demon was fully in his stead.
Tilting its head back, the demon hissed at Valentina in rebuke, “This body is horrible. This was the best you could do?”
“Sorry, yes.” She apologized with a low bow.
Uh-oh. She’d brought in someone higher ranking. Demons never bowed except to someone much stronger than them. Just who…?
“I hate it here.” The demon looked at the ropes still binding Victor and made a face. “This isn’t even kinky.”
With a casual flex, the ropes split and he stood.
Wait. Wait a damn minute. I knew this voice.
Dread filled me as I realized she had managed to do the one thing I didn’t want to happen.
I actually started praying I was mistaken.
There was no part of me that wanted to fight him again.
I’d survived this nightmare once, survived years of pain, of war, of losing comrade after comrade, had somehow even survived dying at this demon’s hands.
My body twinged with a sharp physical pain, a reminder of those mortal wounds, and I winced.
Part of me wanted to run, because who would want to live their worst nightmare all over again?
But if I didn’t stand firm here, it would get so much worse. And that was something I could not allow to happen.
Vuheia, help me. Strengthen me.
In the next second, I felt her grip my shoulder, knew she was with me, and her comfort made all the difference in the world.
With a stretch of his arms over his head, the demon inside Victor’s body gave me a nasty grin. “James. Rematch?”
I slowed Titan, partially out of instinct, partially because charging him would do no good. In fact, quite the opposite.
Fucking hell, she had called Zag’druren out. “Demon King. Don’t tell me you remember as well?”
“I do, yes. Time for humans is linear, but not for me. I’m surprised you remember.”