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Chapter Thirty-Nine

A scream tears from my lips, so loud and agonized that my vision flashes white.

I throw myself down next to Anton. He is pinned on his back, legs protruding at odd angles, shards staking his ribs, the soft flesh of his stomach. A large one pierces his right arm. Blood wells, running in rivulets into the carpet, soaking its weft. It’s everywhere. Everywhere.

Anton sputters, struggling to breathe. If I can just lift one side of the chandelier—but if I do, he will bleed out. “Anton,” I hear myself sob. I feel so far from my body. This is a nightmare, sent from the Fate of Morta—worse than any time in any cell, worse than broken bones and stolen time.

“It’s all right,” he manages, his green eyes capturing mine. But I can’t accept this, can’t—

“Vas,” he wheezes, eyes widening. “ Vas —”

A hand grabs my hair, ripping me away. I crash into a wall, and then Illian looms over me, his arms caging me in like the bars of a cell. “ Never will another man’s name be on your lips,” he growls.

Angry heat surges through my veins, and something inside me snaps.

Shatters.

Chars.

I am a wildfire, and I intend to burn.

He tears at my bodice, but he doesn’t see my hands. I find the small sack attached to my side. He did always love my millen; he’d been anticipating a private performance when he built this gown.

I open it and fling millen into his face. It blinds him in an ash-gray cloud. As he cries out, I yank off a ribbon holding the sash around my waist, throw it around his neck, squeeze —

In a blink, the guards are upon me, Aemon included. They tear my hands away as Illian sputters and chokes, angry, red swathes patching his face. His gaze slices toward mine, aflame with fury.

Then his features warp into something unrecognizable.

And I know, then, that I will not survive this night.

Sana jerks me back, throwing my wrists into shackles. To my surprise, her hands are trembling as much as mine. She, too, had seen what he did. She has been witness to all of this.

“Sana, please,” I breathe, knowing it’s useless, but I have to try. And then she does something I don’t expect. Her eyes latch on to mine, deliberately, as she leaves the manacles unlocked.

“You will spend every day back in that decrepit cell,” Illian hurls my way.

“And every day, Aemon will visit you with his sword and his fists. And he will keep visiting until you are so thoroughly broken you no longer remember who you are or where you came from. Then, and only then, will I come for you!”

“The p-problem with that, b-brother,” says a weak voice from the floor, “is that you haven’t yet won.”

I whirl.

A pained grin slides across Anton’s face.

Then, perhaps by a strike of fate, something vibrates the walls—something that sounds an awful lot like an otherworldly growl.

The doors are thrown wide, and a roar like thunder bellows into the room. All the guards, Aemon and Sana included, whip around, swords out, but they are woefully outmatched against a massive jaw stacked with dagger-sharp teeth.

Ishu rips into the two guarding the entrance, Basile behind her. Shouts erupt. Blood bathes the walls, even the ceiling. Several guards race around Illian, barricading him, while the others fight a flurry of claws and steel. I stand frozen, slack, until Copelan’s face appears in the doorway.

“Vasalie,” he shouts, and behind him runs Gustav. Gustav. And others I recognize from Anton’s court. They’re free.

I fling the manacles from my wrists, dropping to Anton’s side. His eyes are open. I call his name, then scream it, because he isn’t looking at me, even though I’m right in front of him.

Blood snakes down his lips, leaking in trails.

No— no. I grab his cheeks, willing him to blink, to say my name. Everything swarms around me in a blur, but all I can see are his eyes, blank and unseeing. “Anton, please,” I sob. “Look at me.”

The man who woke me up. Who saw me. Who armed me. Who made me feel strong, empowered, worthy—because I am worthy. I am not less, even as I am. Even when my body fails me. I am not less . . .

“He’s gone,” Copelan says, grabbing my shoulder. I don’t believe him. I can’t believe him.

“Vasalie,” he says urgently. “We have to flee. The palace is full of Brisendali soldiers. Any moment now, they will hear what’s happening in here.” He pulls me up with strong arms.

Tears clog my vision, but finally I look at Copelan. Copelan, who abandoned me in the Dome Hall. “How are you here?”

He pulls me along, but I can’t seem to control my limbs.

“Vas—Souls. I’m sorry,” he says. “I saw what happened during the last performance, and then that wedding . . .” He mutters a curse, and I gulp a painful swallow.

The disgust I saw wasn’t at me, then. “I managed to sneak Laurent a key, and he escaped. He told me everything. We freed as many as we could, and now, we have to hurry.” He urges me onward.

But Aemon barrels into him. Copelan staggers back and unsheathes his sword, clumsily throwing it up against an attack, but it’s clear that he barely knows how to use it. Aemon swings his halberd—

I kick the back of his knees, breaking his balance. When he falters, Copelan plunges his sword deep into Aemon’s gut.

More of Illian’s men swarm into the room. The fury of Ishu’s growling shakes my bones.

Panting, Copelan says, “Run, Vas! The balcony. Laurent is below.”

Frantic, I nod, lurching toward the open terrace. Laurent’s voice comes on the wind. “Vasalie!”

He’s on an adjacent balcony several feet below ours. It’s too far for him to jump up, but he holds a rope over his head. “Catch,” he calls. “We can use it to esc—”

A hand wraps around my throat.

“This only ends one way,” Illian says against my jaw.

I feel the cold, sharp press of steel against my clavicle.

“Or I will send you to Morta’s Lair myself.

” He angles my chin toward Laurent’s frantic eyes.

“Tell him to throw the rope. Catch it, secure it, and together, we will escape down to the courtyard.”

“The rope isn’t long enough for that,” I say, hoping to buy time.

But no one’s coming. Cold sea wind thrashes against the palace walls, a squall on its tail.

Thunder snarls in the distance, echoing Ishu’s fury and the clash of steel behind us.

Everyone is locked in battle, even Basile, who stands swinging before the corpse of his king—a sight I know I’ll never forget.

“Then rip off your sash and lengthen the rope.” Illian removes the dagger from my neck, slicing at the fabric.

He expects me to be a lamb, to lay down for slaughter, but I’ve grown claws. Teeth. Scales.

I slam into him, wrestling him down, nails carving into the flesh of his arms. The dagger falls from his hands, clattering against stone and sliding a few inches away. I scramble toward it. Laurent is yelling my name.

A sharp pain pierces my thigh, and a cry dries my lungs.

Rough hands flip me onto my back. Illian hovers over me, my dagger in hand. The very one I used to slice his flag. “Thanks to you, I had a backup on hand.” He kicks the other dagger off the balcony.

“You will die for this,” Laurent bellows from below.

“Throw me the rope,” Illian says simply, “or I will finish her off while you watch.”

Lights wink through my peripheral vision; I fight to remain conscious. My stomach empties onto the stone. When I glance up, I find Illian banding the rope around the railing.

He knows I will not get far with the wound he inflicted.

The pain is blinding, burning, as if the dagger had been made of molten rock.

But my body is familiar with pain.

I drag myself up, using the balustrade for support. A strange sort of trepidation settles thickly in my lungs—an ominous feeling I’ve felt only once before, when Emilia died. It’s like a shadow, cold and hollow, sickly sweet.

Breathing through the anguish of the hole in my leg, I say a silent prayer, knowing that, this time, the Fate of Morta is close enough to hear. End this. Take us both.

Enough blood has been spilled today; the floor is marbled in it. Surely she is satisfied—especially now that I offer her my life.

Illian whips toward me, his face stained pewter, a remnant of the millen I threw at him. He grazes my bustier with the glass dagger, then pockets it, knowing I’m too weak to run. “I am going to tie us together.”

“I want you to know that someday, somehow, I will find a way to kill you,” I tell him. “My life may be in your hands, but one day, I will break free. And I will drag you to the depths of Morta’s hell myself.”

He doesn’t even flinch. “You fail to frighten me, Vastianna.”

“I’m going to call your bluff, brother.”

Brother?

I freeze, everything tunneling to that voice.

That voice.

It is both familiar and altogether impossible. I must be hallucinating. Losing blood.

The rope falls from Illian’s hands.

And when I manage to lift my head, I see him.

He looks the way he did when I left him alone before an audience the first night of the Gathering—radiant, limned in the gold of a glowing, storm-wreathed moon.

Only, he isn’t quite himself. There’s something different, something ethereal, about him—almost as if he’s absorbing the shadows around him.

His name falls from my lips in a whisper, maybe even a prayer.

And beside him is Basile, looking thoroughly put out.

“How?” Illian rasps, pale as a wraith. His eyes whip toward the chandelier. I follow his gaze, but the chandelier is there, unmoved. Except there is no corpse pinned beneath its spikes. “You are a ghost. An aberration. You must be . . .”

Anton’s smirk is devilish. Devastating. “Come and find out. Though if Mount Carapet wasn’t enough to convince you, nothing will be.”

Mount Carapet. He had told me he hadn’t died. Hadn’t he? But then . . .

I woke on a jut of rocks along the mountainside.

He had woken.

Not from being rendered unconscious, but from death. He hadn’t lied.

The rumors are true.

He came back to life.

He walked away, because . . . because he cannot die.

Whatever Illian says, he’s lying. He cannot hurt me.

He can’t hurt me.

“How?” Illian yells again. He yanks me against his chest, the sharp tip of his dagger digging into my sternum. “Tell me!”

“You want to know?” Anton says, edging closer, his gaze carefully tracking his brother. “Release her first.”

“You think me a fool?”

“Look behind me,” Anton says. Past him, the battle has died down, Anton’s men barricading the doors against a barrage of soldiers trying to force their way inside.

“The palace is yours. In minutes, your men will break through. Well done, Illian. But I stand between your victory and escape, and believe me when I tell you that you will not leave here alive if you do not let her go. Everyone in this room will make sure of it.”

Basile lifts his sword in emphasis, veins of red running down its length.

Beside them, Copelan skids to a halt. Gustav joins, too. He pats Anton on the shoulder, seemingly unsurprised at the return of his king. “Good to have you back. Took you long enough, though.”

I feel the vicious beat of Illian’s heart against my back as he says, “All those times. What, did you seduce the Fate of Morta into letting you live?” He laughs, but it’s dry. “I can’t kill you, can I? So what makes you think I’ll give her up only for you to strike me down?”

Anton eases forward, but the sharp tip of glass splits the skin above my heart.

Stars spiral through me, rousing a flood of nausea that warps my vision.

I don’t hear myself cry out, but I feel it in my throat.

A strange scent fills my nostrils. I try to open my mouth, to warn Anton about the rope—that Illian has an escape—but cannot.

“Illian!” Anton thunders. For the first time, his eyes catch mine, but I’m too hazy to latch on to them. “Bargain with me, if nothing else. Trade me for her. Lock me up. Leave me in a dungeon to rot. Whatever you want.”

No.

“ Illian, ” I wheeze. It takes everything in me to push it out.

“Understand this.” My throat burns. My mouth feels as if it holds a bucket of steam.

Still, I force my voice through. “Your jewels are not enough. Your power is not enough. You are rich in diamonds but poor in spirit. You are lacking. ” Another tight breath, and then, “He does not envy you. I do not want you. You are but dust in the wind, here and gone again.”

I feel the spike of his pulse. I made my mark. The strange scent grows heavier, filling every pore on my skin like a coat of millen. He shifts the dagger lower, his hand trembling, the tip edging just under my ribs. Pain splices through me in a dizzying rush.

And I see it there, the want in his gaze. The outrage. He shakes with it—shakes with the need to push that dagger up and underneath my ribs, even as he refuses to do it. For all he would hurt me, I am a belonging he will never release.

And he will stall until his men arrive or use me to escape. That, I cannot allow.

There’s a whistling in the wind, a howling. A soughing that I feel in my soul. The sky is dark as dried blood, ready to devour.

I spin and hook my arms around Illian’s neck like a noose.

Today, I claim him.

Today, I take his hand.

I am no longer his victim.

I will be the Fate of Morta and I will bring him death.

Anton’s shouts come on the wind. “Vasalie, no—”

I tip us both over the balustrade.

Let my weight plummet backward.

And pull him over with me.