Chapter Fifty-Four #2
So then where was he? And who would have a reason to take him?
Severin shifted closer.
“We’ll find him,” he promised. “The cure isn’t going anywhere.”
Aurelie stared at the drag marks, the gouges in the stone. Her chest constricted, the air suddenly too thin.
“Aurelie.” His voice was a sharp warning, and a second later she understood why.
Footsteps, faint but unmistakable, sounded from the corridor. Several voices rose and fell, knights laughing.
The changing of the guard.
Aurelie sucked in a breath. Her magic sparked to life once more, brushing up her arms like a second skin. Slowly, steadily, she pulled it tighter, reshaping her features and veiling her expression behind the face of someone new. Someone plainer. Unmemorable.
The magic was getting easier to control.
The voices pressed closer, followed by a sharp cry from a voice Aurelie recognized. “There are downed men here! Light, someone fetch a healer!”
Solange.
The scraping of swords unsheathing rang out, followed by boots pounding against stone.
“Sweep the hold,” she commanded. “Ensure all prisoners are secure in their cells!”
Aurelie met Severin’s eyes. There was nowhere for them to go.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but we have no choice.” The shock of his magic pulsed through the bond, immediately met by several cries.
Aurelie cursed, dagger in hand as she lurched from their hiding place.
Severin didn’t wait to spring on one of the knights, and Aurelie did the same to the second.
It was one of Edevane’s knights. He’d fallen to his knees, hands clamped over his ears and eyes squeezed shut against a pressure Aurelie knew dug deeper than any blade.
His nose was bleeding, and he was breathing through clenched teeth.
“It’s a demon!” he snarled, though that was all he managed to get out.
Aurelie didn’t want to hurt the man, but the importance of today went beyond any of them.
She struck him clean across the back of the head with the butt of her dagger, a crack echoing through the corridor as he collapsed forward.
“Behind you!”
Aurelie staggered back just in time to catch the edge of Solange’s blade across her shoulder. Heat ripped across her skin and she cried out, the crystalline dagger slipping from her grip as blood bloomed warm beneath her sleeve.
Solange’s gaze followed it, and recognition flashed across her face.
“You.”
Fear lanced through her. It didn’t matter what disguise Aurelie wore. It didn’t matter that she’d changed her face. In that moment, Solange knew precisely who she was fighting.
“What did you do with Varen?” she snarled, swiping at her again.
“I had nothing to do with this!” Aurelie dodged back, hurrying to grab the other knight’s fallen sword. The twin wings flaring out from the cross guard welcomed her touch like an old friend. She let its weight settle against her for a heartbeat, grounding herself. Then she moved.
Solange raised her sword to meet her, but Aurelie could afford to make no noise. She reached through the bond until she felt Severin’s looming presence waiting for her. It coiled around her like a silken thread, stronger than ever since they’d nearly lain together.
Silence, she commanded the steel. When their blades next met, Solange’s face paled at its soundlessness.
“Your eye,” the knight hissed. “You’re not just helping the beast, you’re bonded to it.”
Aurelie planted her feet, preparing herself as the next strike came, fiercer than the last. She grunted as their blades met again in unnatural silence.
“Whatever you may feel about me, I know you care for Rhovar! If you want this war to end—if you want our people safe—then I need you to trust me. Just for today, Solange.”
“Trust?” She hissed the word like it was an insult. “You want me to trust the one who severed my brother’s hand? The one who flees our kingdom with a demon when we’re at our weakest?” Her laugh was a bitter thing, and in it Aurelie saw no chance for peace. “Rhovar would be better off without you.”
The knight took in her felled company. The wrathborn who loomed at Aurelie’s back.
She wouldn’t be able to best them alone, and they both knew it.
Aurelie recognized Solange’s plan the second she opened her mouth, breath swelling in her chest as she prepared to call for help.
Aurelie acted on instinct, reaching again for the magic thrumming inside her. She focused as it coiled around her, the bond flaring open with more power than she’d ever felt. She heard Solange’s breathing as loudly as a scream, and without a second of hesitation, she cut it off.
“I can’t let you stop this,” Aurelie said, racked with guilt. “There’s too much at stake.”
Solange’s eyes widened. Her hands flew to her throat, and to her terror, Aurelie realized that it wasn’t just sound that she’d severed.
Solange wasn’t breathing.
“You cut off her air,” Severin said, watching with unsettling calm. “Hell’s teeth, you really are magnificent.”
Solange’s knees hit the floor. Her sword fell soundlessly beside her, lips parting to gasp for air that wouldn’t come. Her skin turned a mottled purple.
“I didn’t mean to,” Aurelie choked, dropping beside her. She gripped Solange by the shoulders, and even as she was suffocating, the other knight still tried to shake her off. “I just meant to stop her from calling for help!”
Aurelie scrambled to remember the rhythm. The steady music of Solange’s breathing.
In. Out. In …
She tried to give the sound back, to return her breath, but she hadn’t the faintest idea how.
Solange’s eyes were bloodshot, her body writhing.
“Severin!” Aurelie whirled to him. “Help her!”
The demon stood unmoving, his gaze unreadable. “She’ll gut us the first chance she gets.”
“She’s not the enemy, but you will be, if you do not help me!”
Still, he didn’t move. Solange sagged further, lips tinged blue.
“If you want the humans to trust you, then give them a reason to,” Aurelie pressed, urgent. “Don’t let this day be tainted with death.”
The silence she was met with stretched far too long before he sighed and stepped forward, crouching beside them. “It’s your fault if she stabs you.”
Magic prickled beneath her skin, and suddenly Solange jerked violently, sucking in air so desperately that she began to choke.
She clutched her chest, shoulders heaving. Then slowly, her head rose.
Her eyes locked onto Severin’s.
“I’d recommend being very wise right now, human,” he warned, crouching before her. “I can take your breath away just as easily as I gave it.”
She flinched at the threat, eyeing the sword at her side.
But if she was going to grab it, she never got the chance.
Outside, cheering erupted.
Severin’s head snapped toward the sound. Without warning, he reached for Solange. She twisted in his grip, legs scrambling to brace herself against the floor.
“Let go of me,” she snarled, but in her weakened state Severin overpowered her easily. He hauled her forward, tossing her into the cell and slamming it shut just as horns outside began to blare.
Severin turned toward Aurelie, the warning in his eyes as clear as day.
It was time to get into their places.
The wedding was about to begin.