Chapter 25 #2
I trace the sound of the screams to one of the Magesté aerialists held down by a hulking fae with veined gray wings and a face that resembles the mask of a plague doctor.
A needlelike appendage bursts out of its beak and punctures the aerialist in the neck.
She immediately stops screaming, her head lolling back as blood pumps from the wound and into the needle.
The veins of its wings turn from gray to bright red.
“Blood nymphs,” Fern whispers from behind me, her voice barely audible over the screams and stomping feet as nearby audience members scramble away from the bloodsucking fae.
My eyes track to the massive wings of the blood nymph draining the life from the aerialist and an idea strikes.
I rip off my skirt, buttons popping from the movement, and unsheathe my throwing axe.
Two seconds to take aim, and a third to let it fly.
The axe buries itself into the invisible bull’s-eye, pinning the blood nymph’s left wing to the wall.
The needle retracts as the nymph lets out a high-pitched screech.
Silence trickles through the crowd. Heads turn my way, seeking the owner of the axe. I stand before them wearing only a scarlet bodice and matching bloomers, with my dagger and drawstring pouch of supplies still belted low on my hips.
The quiet fractures as the nymph rips its wing from the wall, blood spilling out of its veins like a stacked fountain.
The creature drops the wounded aerialist on the ground and revolves to face me.
A pair of sunken black eyes meet mine. Despite the blood nymph’s lack of pupils or eyebrows or any distinguishing facial feature… I can tell it’s fucking livid.
Leaving the aerialist behind in exchange for something spicier, the creature leaps toward me. Even with half of a wing missing, the nymph is surprisingly quick. I barely have my hand on my dagger when my back slams into the ground and a gush of breath leaves my lungs, refusing to return.
In my periphery, another blood nymph climbs through the hole in the window, immediately spotting the bleeding aerialist and stooping over her. But this time Evodia and two other arborfae swoop toward it, pummeling the creature with a chair.
Magesté’s theater descends into bedlam.
Dancers leap from the stage, thundering to the aerialist’s aid as more winged arborfae swoop down.
Evodia shouts for her orchids and dancers to get to safety, but no one listens.
The crowd is a writhing snakes’ nest, and visitors either dive into the fray or back away slowly.
I move to stand, but the blood nymph pins me before I can.
Its hand is made up of multijointed fingers that curl inward like a moth’s tongue. I might even think it looked comical if it weren’t closing around my throat, cutting off all the air I’ve managed to gulp down.
Blood from its ruined wing drips onto my cheek and slides down my neck, drenching my hair and turning it redder. I claw at its spindly arm, but it grips harder.
My head begins to swim from the lack of oxygen. My lungs ache for air. The needle juts out of its beak just as I jerk to the right to dodge it. It punctures the wooden floor and sticks. The fingers around my neck loosen slightly. But not enough.
While it’s distracted, I stretch my hand down, twisting awkwardly as I struggle to grip the dagger sheathed at my hip.
The edges of my vision darken, narrowing with each passing second.
Fumbling my fingers around the handle, I wrench the dagger free, bringing it around with as much force as I can muster.
The blade sinks into the blood nymph’s side, and it lets out a deafening screech.
Its long-fingered hand leaves my throat and knocks the dagger away as it bends my wrist back. A sizzle of pain radiates up my arm.
But the creature is weaker now, stab wound and wing both gushing blood. A spray of red joins the freckles on my face as the fae opens its beak and coughs. Taking advantage of the distraction, I buck the nymph off me, turning onto my stomach to crawl away. And I almost do.
Curled fingers tangle in my hair, yanking my head violently back so it almost looks like it’s assisting me with an upward dog pose.
There’s nowhere for me to move. It has me pinned, holding me by the back of the head. A scream pierces the air, and my focus is tugged to the doorway, where two dryads have just stepped through. My heart leaps.
Fury burns in the king’s brown eyes like embers eating away redwood logs. They land on me and turn to a bonfire. Blackness covers his hands, veining up his arms and spilling from his palms in waves of smoke. Everything the smoke touches molds and decays in seconds. The chaos explodes into madness.
Dryads scream and scramble to get away. Arborfae take flight into the rafters. Evodia shouts something at Castor. But his eyes are on the blood nymph. A wave of rot rumbles toward us, and I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting to turn to dust as it crashes over me.
The blood nymph’s spindled fingers fall from my hair; its weight leaves my back. I wonder if maybe I’ve died. The screams build to a crescendo.
I knew I’d end up in hell.
“Oleander,” I hear. My eyes fly open to see Evodia’s panic-stricken face before mine. “You have to stop him.”
Her hands slide beneath my armpits, lifting me to my feet. The screams turn deafening. Spinning around, I see why.
Castor stalks toward the other blood nymph, which has flown toward a scrambling group of dryads. Throwing his hands out, the king rots the life from it, skin and muscle turning to ash, leaving behind a crumbling, blackened skeleton.
But then he keeps walking, and the rolling fog follows, inching toward the cornered group of petrified visitors.
Tamarind appears beside Evodia and me, wide-eyed and ashen. “Evodia, I’m—”
“Not now, Tamarind,” Evodia snarls before turning to me. “Stop him, Oleander, before he destroys all of Magesté.”
“Why me?”
“You’re mortal. His power won’t touch you.”
An arborfae crashes between us as they flee from Castor’s wrath, and Evodia pushes me forward. “Go!”
Visitors try to use the curtain as a rope to climb to safety, but the beams snap, tumbling onto the stage with a tumultuous crash. Meanwhile, Castor continues forward, with a wake of fogging decay trailing him like a billowing cloak.
“Castor!” I shout.
He doesn’t seem to hear me.
“What is he doing?” I ask Tamarind. “Why won’t he stop?”
“He…may have consumed a bottle of tieg wine on the way here.”
Evodia curses.
Jesus Christ. My throat aches. My wrist throbs where I’m pretty sure the blood nymph either sprained or fractured it.
My tongue is sandpaper. My brain is fog.
Adrenaline pumps through every inch of me.
And, of course, my mind momentarily flits to my blood sugar. I’m sure it is still outrageously high.
But who has time for high blood sugars when a dryad king is rotting every last thing in this establishment?
I leave Tamarind and Evodia and weave through the fleeing crowd, which has mostly dispersed to the edges of the theater to escape Castor’s plague.
“Castor!” I shout. “Stop!”
He doesn’t. A dryad turns to dust. I hope it wasn’t someone I knew.
“CASTOR!”
Finally, I push through, leaping in front of him and grabbing hold of his wrists, wincing at the pain in my own. He stops, the fire in his eyes flickering as he looks down at me, as if he’s confused.
“Castor,” I say through a breath. “Hey. Can you hear me?”
“Maddox?”
“I need you to stop.”
The blackness undulating around him fades, sucking back toward him, retreating into his hands until they’ve returned to their normal light brown. He says my name again. And again and again.
I press my hand to his cheek. “Hey. It’s okay. Everything is okay. But you need to go home now.”
While I have him distracted, the visitors flee to the exits, giving us a wide berth like we’re the eye of the hurricane. Evodia shepherds them out.
Castor shakes his head like a stubborn child. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“Okay, I’ll…” I seek out Evodia, who’s watching us with a furious expression.
I tilt my head in Castor’s direction, raising my brows and widening my eyes.
She nods once as if to say she can handle the aftermath if I’ll just get this cyclone of a king out of here.
I turn back to Castor. “I will go with you. Happy?”
The king peers down at me. Then his chin drops to his chest, tears spilling from his eyes.
“No, of course I’m not happy, Maddox. I can’t be happy now.
Not now that you…” He breathes in deeply and lets it out in a shaky whoosh.
The alcohol soaking his breath nearly knocks me over.
“There is no happy road anymore. To the left is death and to the right is…probably also death.” He sways dangerously on his feet.
“Are you actually crying?”
“No,” he chokes out.
I slide under his arm and look to Tamarind. His eyes are on Castor, expression alarmed. “Help me with him, will you?”
This isn’t my first time dealing with a belligerently drunk person. But none of the people I’ve helped stumble home could rot an entire forest. “Get his other side,” I snap at Tamarind, taking my frustrations out on the only sober one in this trio. “Where are we taking him?”
“We shouldn’t bring him back to the citadel like this, especially when there are blood nymphs around,” Tamarind says. “He has a house nearby.”
“Lead the way, then.”
The theater has mostly emptied, and any stragglers leap out of our way. Before we leave, I gather my throwing axe and dagger. Tamarind merely watches without comment as I buckle them in their holsters beside my pouch of supplies.
“Ready?” he asks, the slightest arch in his brow. Perhaps he’s realizing it’s not the worst thing for me to be heavily armed in this forest.
The king doesn’t resist our help, and he doesn’t rot anything else, but he does start to tearfully sing a brand-new version of the song I played earlier in the night.
“There was a boy
A very stupid golden boy