Page 1 of The Princesses of Ruin (The Princesses of Ruin #5)
Chapter one
Scarlett
T he bitch is burning the city in our name.
Soldiers dressed in Spider garb set torch to the more delicate wood buildings in the early hours of the morning before the sun, and now the kingdom lights up the smoky sky with orange.
I was taking my watch when I saw the flames rip across the warehouses in the port and spill into the mansions of the Upper Kingdom, and it’s been chaos ever since.
“Where’s Rivera!” I shout as I push past a Spider on watch.
“Here,” Rivera calls above the clamor, and I run to his side across the wide rampart of the Wall.
“I need the lords, and yours, Sols’s, and Aleks’s teams here immediately to mitigate this shitshow. Have Sols signal when you’re ready at the gate.”
“Yes, my queen,” Rivera says, then turns for the Underbelly side of the wall. He clips into the quick-descent pulley and leaps from the edge.
I whirl back to the fiery sight. “What the fuck is she doing? ”
I open the leather pouch on my hip and find a vial of Zane’s magic. I’d already collected enough this morning, but it can’t hurt to freshen up. I uncork the container and take a sip of the silver liquid.
Zane surges through my veins anew and I groan, closing my eyes at the delicious, invigorating sense of his power rushing through me.
I return the half-empty vial to the pouch and slide the other containers around, looking at the magics in my roster.
The wolf, shadows, Alyse’s mind powers, and Lily’s transfiguration.
I wish I had something to affect the flames—like Kazimir’s wind.
Selfish fuck won’t donate his power to me. A trust problem for another time.
Zane vaults over the edge of the wall, landing beside me.
His hands come up to my face, and I look at him through my two very different eyes.
One shows me his features starkly lit by firelight: dark hair, strong jaw, and concerned, glowing eyes.
The other swirls in teal pulses, showing me how much magic is flowing through him, the beat of his heart, and the thrum of his power.
He searches my face for a moment, then looks out over the city. “She’s set fire to the kingdom.”
“And made it look like it was us,” I say.
A powerful whoomp of air and a thud of heavy feet land behind me.
“What the fuck is this?” Lily asks.
I turn toward her and her monstrously huge demon of a guard, Alastair. “She’s burning the kingdom. I don’t know why, but if there’s going to be anything of it left, we’ll need to move in there fast.”
Fire blazes up from the Underbelly side and Reina lands on the ramparts, Jasper clinging to her side.
A softer whoosh of air ruffles Lily’s bed head, and Kazimir lands between us, Alyse secure in his grasp.
I hiss, not realizing Rivera would’ve called for her too.
She’s too delicate and important to risk on something like this.
Alyse shoots me an annoyed glare. “She’s drawing in all the most powerful magi to consume them, using us to scare them into leaving their homes rather than fighting for them. I can hear the guards calling out to the people, guiding them to the palace.”
“We have to get these fires out,” Reina says.
“No, we must stop the queen from growing her power first and foremost,” Alastair says, his deep, demonic voice raising the hair on my arm.
“Well, I’m going to save the people she’s about to destroy,” Alyse says, reaching for a wall clip for her harness.
Kazimir pulls her back into his arms and they jump before I can even get a word in edgewise.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mumble. “Alastair and Lily, run protection on them. There’s no way the queen isn’t prepared for us to try and stop her.”
Lily gives me a playful salute and hops onto Alastair’s back between his wings. They dive off the side and pull up hard into the air, following Kazimir and Alyse.
I look at Reina. “We’ll focus on these fires and getting people out.”
“What if she’s trying to lure us into the city as well?” Zane asks.
“If we do nothing, the people will never trust us,” Jasper says.
“Fuck trust, they’re dying out there. We need to help them.” Reina jumps over the wall into the Upper Kingdom, her magical flames blinding me as I watch her descent.
“Fuck’s sake,” I sigh again.
Strings of golden magic dance from the sky toward the main eastern road to the palace. Alyse must’ve found the first batch of victims. I wonder what she’s saying to turn them back, or if she’s not wasting any time with persuasion, just taking control of them.
A wall harness clips, and my attention snaps to Jasper. “Is your ink flammable?”
“No,” he says, scowling.
“How much can you produce?”
He looks out at the burning city. “Not enough.”
Fuck. It’s inevitable. More of the city is going to burn, but we can at least get the people out who aren’t a priority for the queen. The brothels and gambling halls, the little shops on the outskirts, the taverns, all places she would’ve deemed too lowly to worry about collecting from.
A bright flare of light bounces off the houses on the kingdom side of the wall in three quick bursts: Sols’s signal.
“We’ll figure it out. Let’s go,” I say, stepping up to the edge.
Jasper leaps over the side, but Zane grabs my arm, holding me back. His gaze bores into me and he grabs my chin. “We can do this.”
“I know,” I say.
He falls into me and we kiss with rough urgency. He wraps his arm around my back and tilts us over the side of the wall. My stomach flips as we invert, plummeting toward the ground. My fingers tingle as I tug on his hair, holding myself closer to him.
Teal magic lights my closed eyelids, and I hear his magic scrape against stone, digging a deep furrow in the wall. We flip upright and I produce my spindles, reaching for the wall. I latch onto the bricks and separate from him with a grin on my lips.
My spindles find the cracks between the stones easily, and I finish the descent to the bottom like a nimble spider.
I land beside the others as Zane takes charge of the group.
“First priority is rescuing citizens. Rivera will take the red-light district, Sols’s team is to go to the docks, and Aleks’s team will come with us to the east side. ”
Aleks’s face lights up with excitement, but he simply chants along with the others as they say, “Yes, sir,” in unison.
We take to the streets with speed. It doesn’t take long to locate a patch of burning buildings among the merchant stalls that served as the starting point for this particular fire. One of the three-story buildings is full of flame; no chance of recovering anyone trapped inside.
I pull a vial of Alyse’s magic from my pouch and drink down the liquid, which smells of violets and rain.
I have less practice with her power, so the thoughts of my team come to me quickly and without filter, but the screams are louder.
There are no words in the paralyzing terror and pain.
Their fear rushes through my body like a broken dam subsuming a village. My heart thunders and my body trembles.
I take a deep breath and pull up my mask to shield my lungs from the smoke. Calm, Scarlett. You are not burning. You are not afraid.
My eyes dart around the square until I find the source of the mental screams: a half-collapsed café.
“Two with me,” I say as I point to the building.
Two Spiders peel off from Aleks’s group and follow me across the market. The front door is blocked by a fallen beam that I move easily with my spindles.
Adrenaline spears through me as I charge into the flames. Heat rolls off the ceiling, singing my hair and the back of my neck. The wood groans under the weight of the remaining upper floor as I shove my way past flaming furniture to the back of the café.
I vault over the counter to avoid a burning pile of rubble and get into the back, the Spiders hot on my heels.
A wailing scream greets my ears, and my eyes track to a woman lying on the ground, her gaze locked on mine with terror.
Thoughts of “monster” and “evil” shimmer through her awareness into me.
She’s trapped in a burning building, and she fears me …
I round the corner to the side of the building where the second floor has collapsed to see her pinned under a man from the waist down.
The stairs and all the rest of the building lies on top of him, keeping them both in place.
The vision in my left eye tells me his heart has stopped, so I don’t spare any delicacy for him as I wrench his body off the woman with my spindles.
“Grab her,” I command.
She cries hoarsely, reaching for the man as the Spiders pull her out from under him. They carry her under the arms and I take up the rear, projecting my spindles above them like a magical umbrella to deflect the licking flames.
We emerge in the cobblestone square and deposit the woman next to the growing mass of refugees. “Stay here. We’ll help you,” one of the Spiders says to the woman.
The kingdomites huddle together, crying and cradling one another. Their fear and devastation threaten to unmake my mind. I shake my head and burn Alyse’s power through the runes in my arms. Cries swarm through me and I close my eyes, seeking their locations in the map of my mind.
But instead of finding the victims of the queen’s cruelty, a burst of dark thought surges through me instead. Anger goes to war with terror in my mind as I realize we’ve blundered in exactly the way Zane had feared.
It was a trap for us, too.