Page 148 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

T he library shifted, rumbling from within. The floor lurched, and she teetered sideways. Garin snagged Lilac by the waist, tugging her close and smearing her tears into his shirt. “It’s all right,” he murmured softly. “Tell no one.”

She nodded, too shocked to form words, unable to process fully what they’d just seen.

“Out,” said the Bugul Noz behind them, his sticky wet fingers on Garin, shoving them toward the door. “And tell no one what you saw.”

Garin’s voice cracked louder, like a whip over her shoulder. “What is this? What have you done?”

“Something wakes. Older than memory.” The Bugul Noz looked back, into the further recesses of the archive. “Get out . Hurry, my boy.”

Cracks laced the marble beneath their feet and shelves trembled, loosing several books that clattered to the floor. The statue at the heart of the sanctum began to bleed dust and blood from her eyes.

A lone splinter threaded through her.

Lilac didn’t wait—she ran for the green, glowing tome that pulsed in the hands of the altar. As she reached for it, the ground gave another lurch, slamming her to the ground. She scrambled to her feet, elbows and knees stinging, but Garin pulled her up by the arm and tugged her out .

“I believe you dropped that one earlier, Garin,” the Bugul Noz shouted over the noise, moving to grab the book for them—but he hissed, snapping his smoking hand back. The green book remained upon the crumbling statue.

The creature bounded forward and shoved them toward the passage, trails of bubble and froth already creeping under the door.

“I’ll see you again. Get you the book. Be ready to run,” the Bugul Noz urged. “Or swim.”

Before they could ask, the door opened?—

And the flood followed. A rush of cold, blinding pressure swept them out—a wave that seemed wary of the sacred space of the creature’s sanctum of lost knowledge—and swallowed them whole. They were submerged and tugged violently up like ragdolls.

Lilac broke the surface in the courtyard pond, sputtering against the cold, the water warmer than the frigid night and screaming they emerged to.

Time had resumed. They’d rejoined the current.

There were shouts, and sounds of steel clashing against stone, horses neighing. The courtyard rang with chaos. Lilac coughed hard, spitting up water and still clutching the green tome, the Dawnshard still sheathed but vibrating wildly at her hip.

“Francois,” Garin shouted behind her, kicking and steering them to the slope, shoving her onto the bank and rising to his knees. “They’re already here.”

Soldiers in red, blue, and gold uniforms surged at the outer gate before them, jeering into the bailey between the bars.

Her guards stood against them, blades at the ready, holding the line.

More of them were on the ramparts, firing arrows straight down like harpoons.

Four large cannons were pointed outward from the embrasures, haunting in the moonlight as more ammunition was wheeled out on carts from the armory entrance.

Lo?g had broken free from the stable and was prancing warningly back and forth behind the rows of weapons.

Garin took Lilac’s hand, and they were off toward the entrance. “Don’t look,” he said. “Keep your eyes on me.”

Just inside the foyer, they barreled into someone, sparks of violet flooding their vision .

“Garin—Your Majesty,” Myrddin said hurriedly, picking himself off the floor. “I was coming to get you. Everyone’s ready in the chapel.”

“But the gate,” Lilac said, forced to look back; she had to. Those were her men. Several of Francois’s soldiers had spotted and recognized her, pointing and laughing at her ridiculous soaked frame.

Garin growled and shoved her behind him, and they immediately fell silent at his appearance in the torchlight.

They turned toward the west wing corridor?—

But then the screams started, louder—not from within, but from the field beyond the wall.

Lilac squinted, and her vision swam.

Shapes blurred in the shadows of the early morning. Faster than human. Several figures, four, maybe five—moved like wraiths through the crowd. They tore through the French front line with surgical cruelty, pulling men away into the fog, blood splattering onto the gate and turrets.

Muskets began to crack in the air.

They’d been saving their guns for the Daemons. The vampires.

“No— NO! ” Garin screamed, lunging back at the door, but Lilac and Myrddin snatched him by the back of his vest and held firm. “Stand down! Retreat! Bastion, where are you—pull them back!”

But Myrddin took their arms, pushing them both toward the chapel. “Inside, the both of you. Now .”

Just then, another figure came jogging toward the entrance, right at them. Garin’s head snapped hungrily, and Bastion put his hands up. “Jesus fuck .”

“Where’ve you been?” Garin snapped.

“Having a nice shit in the outhouse—what does it look like I was doing? Grabbing your priest. Who else can marry her?” He was soaked in blood—surely not his own, his mouth was clean—Giles slumped, unconscious, over his shoulder.

The Veiled Garnet glowed in the torchlight on his chest. “They’ll hold the gates, but only until dawn breaks. ”

“The French are using hawthorn bullets,” Garin said, chest heaving.

Several maids’ eyes widened as they parted way for them, scurrying around the queen and her odd party as they turned into the hall.

“They know,” Bastion said. “They know.”

The chapel was dim and trembling with distant artillery.

Half adorned with flowers and finery, a corner of the room strung with banners and garland—as if their decorators had fled the scene mid-pin-up.

Guests sat rigid in the pews, wet from fog and terror, partially dressed, eyes wide and teeming with unanswered questions.

Henri and Marguerite’s former court were among them. Helena and Gertrude.

No Agnes, nor William.

The tea and spice maker, Madame Rillrose, and Madame Toranaga sat near the front, watching solemnly.

Across from them were Adelaide and Lorietta, dressed in black silk and chiffon, sitting next to Rupert and Emma.

In the frontmost row sat Yanna, Isabel, and Piper.

Marguerite and Henri stood near the altar, Henri’s face pale. Marguerite’s, unreadable.

Bastion marched to the front and slumped Giles into the pew, then jogged to the back of the church.

There was a plink, the sound of metal wrenching, then stone splitting; he returned with one of the fonts of Holy Water attached to part of the brick that held it, and splashed it straight into Father Guillaume’s face.

“ Don’t you touch the butter! ” the priest shouted, snorting and jerking awake.

He blinked up at everyone. “Oh. What’s going on?

” He spotted Lilac, shivering in Garin’s arms. Henri and Marguerite, glaring in their direction.

His gaze stilled on Garin. “What happened to him?” he asked. “And where is my Bisousig?”

“It doesn’t matter, priest,” Bastion snapped. “Read from the scripture there.” He nodded his head at the scroll and Bible next to it. “Just do your job and no one gets hurt.”

“They,” Myrddin offered, swirling his hands and producing a square red box, and an enormous crown upon a pillow, “are getting married. And Lilac will be crowned.”

Not bothering to correct him, Garin left her side and took his place at right of the altar, soaked, eyes darkening. Lilac joined him, and gave him a small smile. Her bottom lip wouldn’t stop quivering, not just because of the frigid air soaked into her wet clothes.

But instead of returning it, Garin’s hands shot out and gripped hers, squeezing, as if it were the last thing on earth he needed to feel.

Giles cleared his throat. Garin released her hands and forced his down at his side.

He stood at the altar and began the rites, voice slightly trembling as he began.

“ In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. ” He eyed the crowd.

Bastion’s eyes narrowed threateningly, so he continued.

“We are gathered here under God’s Holy Church to solemnize the marriage between the noble Lady Eleanor Trécesson and His Imperial Majesty, Maximilian, by his most trusted proxy, Sir…

” Father Guillaume glanced sideways at Garin, who was still fuming. “Garin?—”

“Albrecht,” Henri corrected from his seat behind them.

“Sir Albrecht . Let the vows now be spoken, by God's grace and under the seal of Heaven.”

As Father Guillaume spoke, Lilac remained reeling. Those memories she’d witnessed of Garin’s, feeling like an unwelcome intruder into his most private family past—memories woven into his bloodline, as the creature had said, now inextricably wound into the threads of her mind. As hers, with him.

The memory of her ancestor, Katella… The dim apothecary that held centuries of secrets within its perfumed walls.

Lilac glanced down at Garin’s hands balled into fists, unseeing, her thoughts flickering like candlelight back to the library—the strange, hidden sanctum filled with lost archives. The Bugul Noz, a not-so-hideous Daemon who had shown them kindness without demand.

Whatever it had been—the gloam, a Daemon realm, some fraying border of dream and memory—Lilac found herself wondering what it would be like to walk those echoing halls again. With Garin, never alone.

Twice usurper , Kestrel had called her.

A breath caught in her throat, something jagged and strange—a laugh, or perhaps the beginning of a sob. She stifled it, swallowing the noise as a whisper brushed against her senses.

Piper. In the front pew, shoulder to shoulder with Isabel.

Her friends. Her sisters .

Both smiled at her—gently, fiercely—while Yanna smirked, casting the occasional scowl toward Bastion and Garin. Nonetheless, they saw her. Perhaps, that was the duty of a sister. Knowing the grief and heartache one carried, and loving her all the more for it.

Piper leaned ever so slightly toward her, lips barely moving. “Breathe, Your Majesty,” she mouthed. “You look beautiful.”