Chapter Thirty #2
“There,” I say, voice hushed as I point them out. “Our exit.”
We’ve scarcely made it three strides when Melité speaks again, halting our progression. “Oh, no. We won’t be leaving so soon.” A sinew of amusement runs through her serpentine tone. As though she is laughing at a joke we are not privy to. “Not until the family reunion is complete.”
On my left, Soren stills. On my right, Vaughn does the same. Even the girl in his arms stops writhing, momentarily silenced by the half-siren’s words.
A chill skitters down my spine.
“What is she talking about?” Alaric tightens his hold on Arwen’s hand and looks at Soren. “What is she—”
“Our stepbrother is on his way, you see,” Melité says sweetly. “And he will want to see you all when he arrives. Efnysien was so very happy when I told him we’d be paying a visit.”
At the word Efnysien, Arwen gasps and goes pale as the blood rushes out of her face. The girl in Vaughn’s arms has a less sedate reaction. She begins to struggle anew, doubling the intensity of her flailing. He grunts under the effort to contain her, his muscles flexing.
“Quit.” He flexes harder. “It.”
The ground beneath the Iron Isle gives an ominous rattle.
Melité laughs then, throwing her head back with abandon.
If you can call what she does a laugh. The sound is grating, almost mechanical.
It tapers off as suddenly as it began when her inky eyes cut to me.
“He would be here to greet you himself, if not for your little trick with the wind. We were not supposed to be here for two more days.” Her gills flare.
“No matter, though. His scouts knew to look for us thanks to me. They’ve had us in their sights since we passed into Dymmerian waters this morning.
Even now, he is hastening here to greet us. He should arrive quite soon.”
Skies above.
“Melité,” Soren hisses, striding for his sister. “What have you done?”
“What have I done?” she spits, black fully overtaking her eyes.
“What have you done? Hmm? Casting out your own kin. And for what? For her?” Her attention moves to Arwen, who is trembling in her thin nightgown, one hand white-knuckled as it grips her husband’s, the other clutching the throwing star as though she’d like to hurl it at her sister’s face.
“Precious, perfect Arwen. Everyone’s favorite. Everyone’s obsession.”
Arwen flinches.
Melité’s next laugh is bitter. “No more. After what I have done for him, I will be his obsession. I will be the one deemed worthy of his affection, his praise. His love.”
Soren’s hand flashes out and he grabs Melité by the throat. “It was you. You who told him how to access the portal network. You who instructed him when to strike during the wedding.” His fingers tighten, compressing her gills. “Why? Why would you betray us? We are your family.”
Her black orbs glare at him, brimming over with hatred. “You have never been my family. Efnysien is my family. And my future. The Shadowfall is coming for you all, and with it the end of everything you hold d—”
Her vile words choke into silence as Soren squeezes her windpipe. He shakes her so hard her head snaps back. I think he will choke the life from her as we watch. The pure wrath suffusing his expression makes my heart fail.
“Soren,” I call, stepping closer to him. “Leave her. She is not worth it.”
“Rhya’s right, brother.” Vaughn’s voice carries back to us as he makes his way toward the stairs. “We need to go. If what she says is true, we don’t have long before company arrives.”
Soren releases her with a disgusted snarl. “You have chosen your side in this war. You will live to regret it.”
“But I will live,” she wheezes, gripping her throat delicately. “Unlike all of you.”
With that, she raises her arm up toward the sky.
A silent signal. For what, I do not know…
until the whoosh of two dozen torches being illuminated at once washes across the flagstones.
In a blink, the entire courtyard is ablaze with light.
We are surrounded by guards on all sides, their mottled skin even more inhuman in the flickering of the torches as they step forward.
There are more of them than I can count.
And, if Melité is to be believed, others are on their way.
Efnysien among them.
“Alaric, get Arwen out of here,” Soren barks. “Follow Vaughn up to the ramparts. Now.”
They do not hesitate, for this is no suggestion. It is as kingly an order as I have ever heard him give. I watch Alaric ushering Arwen toward the stairs, his hand firm on hers. Just ahead of them, Vaughn struggles to haul the Earth Remnant across the flagstones, his low oaths booming.
“Keep this up, quakes,” he mutters over a feminine growl, “and I’ll have no choice but to knock you out.”
The answering flash of viridescent eyes is undaunted.
Soren’s focus never shifts from Melité, even as he speaks. “Rhya…”
“Right here,” I say, stepping up beside him. Our shoulders brush as I jerk the whip free from my belt, feeling steadier with its golden handle cupped in my palm.
“I’ll take the left half,” he mutters. “You take the right.”
We are plainly outnumbered.
But when has that ever stopped us before?
I feel the surge of Soren’s maegic—thinner than usual, but still strong enough to summon a globe of water capable of bowling over three men at once.
Electricity sparks down my arm as I summon my storms to the forefront of my mind.
The gathered charge feels weaker than I’m accustomed to.
Diluted or no, the first crack of my whip sends a whole line of guards scurrying backward like cockroaches in the light. I grin as I watch them fleeing from me.
Soren is at my back, siphoning tendrils of water from the saturated stones, sending them down the throats of everyone who charges into his path.
“Now, now. This won’t do at all.” Melité makes a tsk sound. “We can’t have the party breaking up so soon, can we?”
I look over in time to see her step between two mottled soldiers, each holding a crossbow. Her eyes are on Arwen and Alaric as they reach the bottom of the stairs.
“Him,” she purrs, smiling.
My whip flashes out toward them, but it’s too late.
The soldiers fire. Time shifts into slow motion as the bolts arc through the air.
I see the horror on Arwen’s face as she looks over her shoulder, the split second of realization as she watches the inbound projectiles and can do nothing to stop them.
She cannot push him out of the way, she cannot dodge in front of him. She cannot even cry out in warning.
Two bolts pierce Alaric’s chest.
Straight through the center, where his heart beats.
Where his lungs pump.
A death stroke.
He falls to his knees, hands reaching uselessly for his wife, face a tableau of disbelief. Her wail splits the night as he slumps over, his gorgeous eyes unseeing, his pale hair turning scarlet as the blood pools beneath him.
Arwen’s incoherent laments morph into a word. One word. One name, repeated over and over again, so full of agony I know, as long as I live, I will never forget the sound of it.
“ALARIC!”
Above her screams, the unfathomable cackle of Melité’s sick laughter.
My fury rises, a blinding thing, unfurling inside me like a tornado.
I crack my whip and send a zap of lightning straight for her.
One of the mottled soldiers sees it coming and dives to shield her.
He writhes as he is electrocuted, then collapses before her in a steaming, twitching heap of black-veined limbs.
Melité has the gall to mock me as she slinks behind the protective line of soldiers. “And here I thought we were becoming friends, Rhya.”
I advance on them, whip cracking out again and again. Behind me, Arwen’s continuous screams rip through my heart.
“Go to her,” I tell Soren through the bond. “Go to your sister.”
I can feel his solemnity, his endless grief, a milder echo of hers. This loss is one he shares. He and Alaric were close friends for decades, long before marriage made them brothers. He wants to race to her, but he is holding back. Hesitant to leave me to this battle alone.
“Go,” I urge. “I’ve got this.”
There is a brief pause. Then, “I know you do, skylark.”
And I do.
I do have it.
I have never felt so in control, even with the iron’s lecherous influence. I take out half a dozen soldiers in the time it takes Soren to cross the courtyard, covering him as he runs. They are husks by the time they hit the ground.
The second Soren’s arms close around her, Arwen’s screams taper off into violent sobs that tear from her throat.
“I’m going to kill her!” she shrieks, voice cracking. “I’m going to kill that sea-bitch with my bare hands!”
“I should like to see you try,” Melité calls back, sounding bored.
With a roar, Arwen tears out of Soren’s grip and barrels across the courtyard.
She does not seem to realize she is barefoot and covered in blood, without even a dagger to fight with as she runs headlong toward a line of enemies.
She is blind with grief. And with retribution.
The need for it burns through her, searing in her veins.
I can feel it lashing across the courtyard from here.
“Soren!” I call, alarmed. “She’s going to get herself killed!”
“I’ve got her.” His inner voice is labored as he sprints after her.
“Get her out of here, now. Go with Vaughn. Get to the ship. I will meet you there soon.”
“I will not leave you here alone.”
“I am not alone.”
And I am not. I can sense Penn closing in on us, drawn by the surge of maegic and the sound of screams. Even now, he is running across the ramparts on the opposite side of the courtyard, coming down the switchback set of steps that mirror those Vaughn has just ascended.
“Skylark—”